JarheadEd

Nope, they were from the 70's, and prone to 1970's reliability issues. They worked great right up until when they didn't. They were good enough to get the job done, but technology was advancing and the new Mission computers not only had more performance, but were much more reliable and had more growth to them.

So, it takes a bit longer than that, especially back in 87-88. Usually a full software suite was about a 3 hour affair to do both mission computers and the armament computer. I do remember we were flying Harpoon once we got our first mission computer hardware upgrade in A models. We were all amazed that the cpu was updated to run at 16 MHz, and memory was doubled to the astonishing amount of 512K.

I've driven us into the world of semantics. Of course USN is interested in streamlining the pylons, but no one has a big enough bucket of money to flight test it. The original change was made early on in EMD, before flying qualities and weapons separation were done. I am saying that IF the decision was made to straighten them, the engineering/structure/provisioning is in place to do it. During EMD flight test, the first 7 jets, (E1-E5 and F1-F2) were delivered with straight pylons. They were toed out once USN chose the path Boeing was to to take to mitigate the potential for weapon collision d

Well, You posted that you were told that there would have to be a redesign.

There is no redesign. The engineering is done since it's the same from EMD when we originally toed them out. Could be done during depot rework. But will they ever be made straight? No. Why? USN would have to re-validate every store that hangs off the pylons. i.e: flying qualities, loads, jettison testing, cats and traps, fuel burn validation etc. That is crazy big money and time to fix a not so big performance hit. Yes it is a performance hit, and ugly as sin, but not the end of the world.

Nice!

Wait, WHAT? Echo or Fox? Unofficial lore is you'll only see the 10 X AMRAAM load when the Ticonderoga/Arleigh Burke's are out of SAMS and you feel like the group needs defense. It is an official load out, but you aren't going far or fast with it. It also makes for great photo ops.

I never cycled the battery either, and Betty always answered right away when I went to circuit B. But then again, I always stared at the fire warning lights real hard to see if there was failure.

I think it's interesting that they blurred out the engine-transmission interface on the nacelles. Now I really want to see them.