Oh my gosh! I hope you are better. Jee.

This is an amazing shot. Another very powerful one. I love how the foreground, and the plane are just overpowering. Amazing shot man. Amazing.

holy christmas

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"Judge not, and you shall not be judged; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned; forgive, and you shall be forgiven." Luke 6:37

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**Frowns**

Nice photo, bad plane

--
"The Point of Existence is not to exist but to understand how to exist"
"Functionless art is merely tolerated graffiti"
"I am the most modest man in the world"

Wow.... How much stick time DO you have in an F/A-18?
I reserve judgement of aircraft until I've flown them, or they have a combat record. Fortunately, the Hornet has a fairly respectable combat record.
I used to trash talk planes. I was very anti-F-16 at one point. Calling them lawn darts and what not. Then I realized that what the problem was was in how they are used. The use of F-16s as ground support as a way of phasing out the A-10 Warthog was downright stupid, but we tried it in Kosovo. There were a lot of friendly fire/mistaken ID incidents because of it. Now I know that the A-10 has another 25-30 years left in it because of a new Model, the A-10C.
The F-18 is a hell of a machine, and if you were to offer me a back seat ride in one, I CERTAINLY wouldn't refuse you.
But thanks for the compliment on my photograph.

--
Tom Hurst
Atmos Photography
[link]
and check out my Cafe Press store [link]

Great shot!

Hope you feel better!

I don't have any time behind the stick of one. However I'm basing my opinion on the intelligent opinions of those who have. One such person is the former Admiral in charge of the US Navy's Pacific air fleet. He argued that the F/A-18 was possibly the worst aircraft ever put in service with the US Navy. He believed that the F-14 outperformed it in all the critical areas and he used Kosovo as an example.

According to official data the F/A-18 is supposed to be capable of all-weather missions at any time of the day. However when sending 18's on missions in Kosovo he would often have to send 'outdated' F-14's to use their all-weather or night time equipment to help guide the 18's weapons.

On top of that there has been many scathing reports by political and military commentators throughout the USA and the rest of the world. It is a commonly held belief that the F/A-18 programme was used to fund numerous 'counter-revolutionaries' in they 1970's and 1980's in South America. These missions are no longer the secrets they were back then however the sources of the funding are still not public. The reason the F/A-18 is singled out is because of all the aircraft in service in the USA it had the largest RnD cost and ended up with the most meagre performance characteristics.

--
"The Point of Existence is not to exist but to understand how to exist"
"Functionless art is merely tolerated graffiti"
"I am the most modest man in the world"

Well, having spoken to F-18 pilots directly and candidly, none of them have anything bad to say about the 18, aside from being slightly underpowered, a problem which has been subsequently corrected with the E/F models.

--
Tom Hurst
Atmos Photography
[link]
and check out my Cafe Press store [link]

The E/F models are actually a completely new aircraft. A handful of parts are similar and it looks the same but overall its a new aircraft. On top of that while the engines have more power it weighs that much more that its speed and accelaration are actually lower then the A/B/C and D models.

--
"The Point of Existence is not to exist but to understand how to exist"
"Functionless art is merely tolerated graffiti"
"I am the most modest man in the world"

my current roommate works for the squadron right now
i'm in vmfat-101 =\

--
"Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated " by:Rise Against

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