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T-50 versus F-22 & F35


Juno Beach

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t1larg.russia.jet.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8486812.stm

When the new Russian T-50 goes into production in 2015 and they are able to sell potentially 1,000's to China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, etc. it could affect NATO's ability to have air dominance in the future. As I recall the USA will stop building the F-22 after only 183 have been completed. :mad:

Cordially,

JB :(

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When the new Russian T-50 goes into production in 2015 and they are able to sell potentially 1,000's to China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, etc. it could affect NATO's ability to have air dominance in the future.

That's - in a single sentence - two conditionals (bolded) depending on an event in the future (also bolded), and the future event depends on Russian officials keeping their word.

My opinion, this plane getting off the ground is not exactly the end of the Free World as we know it.

Looks kinda cool though.

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As I recall the USA will stop building the F-22 after only 183 have been completed.

We will see, US can start new production, especially because production line is still intact.

Besides this T-50 is still early prototype... upss sorry, there are two flying prototypes. :-)

So US/NATO can be calm up to 2015-2020.

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Now would be a good time to buy Lockheed, BAE etc. stocks - no doubt their lobbyers will kindly remind politicians that there is a stealth fighter gap forming here, oh and we could bring a few thousand new jobs to your electoral district...

As to exporting them, I think Russians will keep them strictly to themselves for the time being. Selling the absolutely best military technology you've got to unstable dictatorships is not very smart - you might as well send the blueprints directly to CIA, MI6, Mossad etc. - and also something that Russians, nor the US, have never done. More likely there will be a less advanced peasant model made for export.

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Perhaps the U.S. should instead invest a little more in its diplomatic services now that its hegemonic days are over. What's that old saying, if your only tool is a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail. Pretty soon and our ability to bomb other countries with impunity will be over... if it isn't already.

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It'll be interesting to see if this T-50 actually lives up to the "hype". If I remember correctly, Russia has no real experience in developing and using stealth aircraft. They also mentioned it as "cost effective" and cheap doesn't tend to mix well with super high tech aircraft, you tend to get what you pay for. Will it probably be better than what Russia/India currently field... sure, but I don't think a single fighter will destroy the US's ability to project power, air superiority involves a lot more factors than just one good model of fighter and I'm not too sure Russia can build a true, cheap, rival to the F-22 without much experience in this kind of aircraft.

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...that US soon be the only nation with large and in the same time modern military

Which is beside the point. We're currently exhausting ourselves fighting two grotesquely expensive wars against village locals wearing Adidas sneakers and exploding fertilizer bombs. We occupied Iraq and guaranteed the security of the Kurds, but Turkey still bombs them from the air and repeatedly sends its army over the border without a second thought to our presence. That's just humilitating. Our world hegemony appears to be somewhat porous.

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Taken from MPN forums, author is Figurant

some aviation related troll humor:

russiastrong.forums.ru: T-50 vs F-22 victories : 1 to 100 or 1 to 1000?

USAstrong.forums.ru: Why FAK PA s..cks compared to F-15C

lockheed.martin.forums.com: The Russkies stole it again

yf23fans.sad.forums.com: Memoriiiiies. Why Sukhoi is better than LM

russian-military-experts.com /.ru: PAK FA: a great hoax that doesn't work

cnn.com/forum: Cash-strapped Russia finally test its 5th generation fighter

bbc.co.uk/forum: Cash-strapped Russia finally flies an outdated Raptor copy

bharat.india.strong.com/forum: Should India continue to build the PAK FA in Russia or go on on its own?

beijing.greater-china.cn/forum: How China surpasses both the US and Russia (photoshop only thread)

stealth-machines.f22.com/forum: Why the PAK FA is not stealthy

paralay.ru/forum: 3D and graphic designers badly needed!

banderaaviation.nation.ua/forum: Why everything Russian s..cks, especially PAK FA

french-touchdown.aviation.fr/forum: Russia joins US and France in the 5th generation club

georgia.fight-for-freedom.com/forum: PAK FA: another barbarious crime

poland-not-yet-dead.freedom.com/forum: Why doesn't the US give us 1000 PAC-3 against PAK FA?

starwars.jedi.com/forum: They promised a Death Star and we got bantha dung

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If I remember correctly, Russia has no real experience in developing and using stealth aircraft.

Well, the maths came out of Russia in the early 1970's and was picked up by the Skunkworks crew (the Russians missed the significance). Development of the materials is another thing, but most of them are known and in use for other stuff (radar absorbent coatings and suchlike).

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Which is beside the point. We're currently exhausting ourselves fighting two grotesquely expensive wars against village locals wearing Adidas sneakers and exploding fertilizer bombs. We occupied Iraq and guaranteed the security of the Kurds, but Turkey still bombs them from the air and repeatedly sends its army over the border without a second thought to our presence. That's just humilitating. Our world hegemony appears to be somewhat porous.

You are overestimating this...

Wars will end, besides this US economy will be ok, I must say that US seems to use Chinese trick with money, but with more logical way, they don't made $ course so low, so if they realese it course some day theyr economy will be ok, if China realese course of Juan, Chinese economy will collapse. So everything will be ok. :-)

As for pure military, US military is in good shape, I think that we see only change of priorities in Pentagon policy on military spendings.

US.Army and U.S.M.C. are priority, not USAF or US.Navy.

As for T-50 Stealth capabilieties, don't compare it to F-22A or F-35A/B/C, US fighters are designed to be Stealth from the front, sides and rear, top and down sides.

T-50 is Russia's first step, it doesen't mean to be so ambitious, and this is good for Russia, they don't need they own "F-22A", but a modern fighter that can fight against other modern fighters, and as we see it is more realistic than Chinese super duper propaganda BS. :-)

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I have a good friend at Langley that flys the F-22. In "Red Flag" against F-15's, F-16's, and F-18's he says it isnt even fair unless its 8 to 1 against the F-22.

I am not too worried about this new Russian plane. Avionics & stealth have never been their strong point. That is the name of the game brother.

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To me, the T-50 bears a more than passing resemblance to Rockwell's entry in the ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter) program. There are some drawings and a tiny artist's rendering in the links at the top of the thread here.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread201832/pg1

3 view drawing here

http://bagera3005.deviantart.com/art/Rockwell-ATF-YF-25-130143615

Animation of initial Rockwell ATF design

Regards,

John Kettler

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Nice dot connect John. If the Russians incorporated the Rockwell design into the T-50, it wouldn't be the first time they did something like that, the Su-25 also is an airplane whose developement owes alot to a US design that eventually lost out to another aircraft (in this case, the A-10.)

Of course, the Su-25 isn't a crappy plane, as I understand it.

As for for the T-50's purpose, I think Damian is onto something, the Russians don't need a super-stealth aircraft that can penetrate any air defence, they need something that can threaten F-22.

As a general point, I would be careful about denigrating the Russians' ability to design effective equipment. Besides the classic arguements - the AK and the T-34 - on the aerospace front the Su-27/30 is apparently roughly on the level of F-15, maybe even a little better.

Here's why I think so: In 2008 the US Red Flag training center hosted a squadron of Indian Air Force Su-27/30, which are according to the Russians a generation 4.5 aircraft. The Indians naturally had a pretty unpleasant time fighting against the OPFOR, and there was a moderate stink in the Indian media when it came out that no, India's top airplane did not kick butt and take names, but in fact turned out to be meat for the OPFOR much more often than the Indian Air Force was comfortable with.

But if you go through the news reports and comments, there is this great YouTube out there of an US Air Force colonel from Red Flag making fun of the Indians, it's clear the Indians' main problems were in organization, pilot skill, and ability to interface with the blue force ground control. Not the airplane per se. In computer terms, you might say the Indians' problem wasn't really the hardware (the Su-27/30 plane) but the software (people and support systems).

So, the real question the people that might wind up fighting the Su-27/30; and now maybe the Su-35, has to ask is, not how good the Su-35 will be, how effective would a real-life air force be operating the Su-35, with that RL air force's support systems.

The moment you ask that question, the threat of Su-35/T-50 to the US Air Force or NATO by third states, you know, Venezuela or Iran or Syria, is just laughable. Even if countries like that actually obtained a couple of dozen of those planes, they are so short of the people, ground control, training, and everything else that goes into effective air ops, that their ability to threaten the US/NATO air forces is a joke. You could equip Venezuela with Tie Fighters and the Millenium Falcon, they'd still get whomped in a war against the US.

Against a second-tier opponent with a decent air defence network and people with some training and organization skil for operating it, for instance India or Pakistan or or Taiwan or Belarus, then the US/NATO would have to work harder, but to me it's pretty obvious the presence or absence of Su-35 wouldn't really influence the end result.

A fight like that, it would come down more to whether the air defence network could or could not make stealth and stand off strikes too painful for the US/NATO to continue. That's a function much less of numbers of air superiority aircraft, but things like air defence missile quantities, passive detection networks, and how clever the US/NATO opponents get at early warning; this is things like the Serbian spies watching B-2s take off at Aviano, etc.

Against Russia, well yes, Russian pilots have a pretty good tradition of combat flying, their organization is much more impervious to losses than US/NATO. Russian weapons historically are rarely absolutely inferior to US/NATO, usually roughly comparable, and every once in a while superior. The same goes for Chine, the Red Chinese have perhaps less of an air combat tradition than the Russians, but they certainly have more money, and possibly they are more efficient than the Russians at spending it.

So given money for training of the entire air defence network, and the presence within that Chinese/Russian-operated air defence network of sufficient numbers of Su-35/T-50, yes indeed, I can see how all that put together could certainly deny Chinese/Russian air space to F-22, or at the very minimum inflict F-22 losses so that the US/NATO command would have to pull F-22 out. One of the problems with F-22 is it doesn't take many losses to make the plane too expensive to operate, when the damn plane costs 130 million dollars a copy.

So yes, if the US/NATO expects a major war against Russia or Red China, and that war necessitates F-22 deep penetration into Russian or Chinese air space, and assuming the Su-35/T-50 actually gets fielded in quantities sufficient to scare F-22, i.e. as of present counts 500 or so Su-35/T-50 in either the Russian or Chinese air force, then - and only then - does NATO/US have a problem.

Then - and only then - would it be possible to say, yep, hindsight shows us the US should have spent another 20 - 30 billion dollars to field another 150 or so F-22.

I think the scenario of a full-on US/NATO war against China or Russia, even in the distant future, is a joke, a fantasy, and any one even preparing for that particular war is a fool not to be trusted with taxpayer money.

And that's before you consider the fact: money spent on more F-22, is money not spent on infantry, bribes, and spies - which I think any reasonable person can see is what the NATO/US need more of, if they intend someday to win the war in Afghanistan.

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I would be careful about denigrating the Russians' ability to design effective equipment. Besides the classic arguements - the AK and the T-34

I would be carefull to call T-34/76 and T-34/85 series a good tank, this is still hard standing myth in west about that tank. It got so many design flaws that I still can't believe why they started to manufacter this piece of crap... eh probably costs, needs and capabilieties were main factors.

But to Your information, the best Soviet divisions by some period of war prefered to use that western piece of **** called M4 Sherman not the socialists super construction T-34! :cool: :rolleyes:

And we get back to T-50, well it is still a prototype, for sure the tail part in production model will be different.

Well it is even hard to speculate at this stage of design works, best way should be just wait one or two years and then see what designers change.

BTW today T-50-1 should start tests in flight. :-)

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As long as Russia's enemies such as Georgia don't have F-22's, that is not an issue.

Very true, the T-50 could be good enough to strike at will within a less well equipped country, but a stealth bomber like the F-117/B-2 would be better suited to that role. However as long as the T-50 can drop some kind of guided bomb it would work. Not to mention what it could do to Georgia's air force.

As for for the T-50's purpose, I think Damian is onto something, the Russians don't need a super-stealth aircraft that can penetrate any air defence, they need something that can threaten F-22.

Threaten the F-22 is probably not the best role for it, I doubt it can compete on the avionics/stealth front. Specificly hunting and trying to shoot down the F-22s would seem to be a waste considering the damage it could potentially do to something like the F-15. I'm sure it would get better results in a more traditional air superiority role where it might have an edge against other modern fighters.

As a general point, I would be careful about denigrating the Russians' ability to design effective equipment. Besides the classic arguements - the AK and the T-34 - on the aerospace front the Su-27/30 is apparently roughly on the level of F-15, maybe even a little better.

Well, it seems they've never applied stealth technology to an aircraft and high end avionics haven't been their strong point. Their first attempt might be decent, but I doubt ground breaking. The US on the other hand has been making and operating top end aircraft, including stealth aircraft for a while now and in combat with a huge budget. Russia has some catching up to do. The T-50 is probably just getting their feet wet.

So, the real question the people that might wind up fighting the Su-27/30; and now maybe the Su-35, has to ask is, not how good the Su-35 will be, how effective would a real-life air force be operating the Su-35, with that RL air force's support systems.

[...]

A fight like that, it would come down more to whether the air defence network could or could not make stealth and stand off strikes too painful for the US/NATO to continue. That's a function much less of numbers of air superiority aircraft, but things like air defence missile quantities, passive detection networks, and how clever the US/NATO opponents get at early warning; this is things like the Serbian spies watching B-2s take off at Aviano, etc.

Very true. A lot of combat experience, a big budget for training, and plenty of logistics/support goes a long way. Even if the T-50 was superior to the F-22, it would only be part of the picture.

Against Russia, well yes, Russian pilots have a pretty good tradition of combat flying, their organization is much more impervious to losses than US/NATO. Russian weapons historically are rarely absolutely inferior to US/NATO, usually roughly comparable, and every once in a while superior. The same goes for Chine, the Red Chinese have perhaps less of an air combat tradition than the Russians, but they certainly have more money, and possibly they are more efficient than the Russians at spending it.

So given money for training of the entire air defence network, and the presence within that Chinese/Russian-operated air defence network of sufficient numbers of Su-35/T-50, yes indeed, I can see how all that put together could certainly deny Chinese/Russian air space to F-22, or at the very minimum inflict F-22 losses so that the US/NATO command would have to pull F-22 out. One of the problems with F-22 is it doesn't take many losses to make the plane too expensive to operate, when the damn plane costs 130 million dollars a copy.

So yes, if the US/NATO expects a major war against Russia or Red China, and that war necessitates F-22 deep penetration into Russian or Chinese air space, and assuming the Su-35/T-50 actually gets fielded in quantities sufficient to scare F-22, i.e. as of present counts 500 or so Su-35/T-50 in either the Russian or Chinese air force, then - and only then - does NATO/US have a problem.

In a world war 3 situation I don't think a few downed F-22s would ground the rest of them them. Not to mention this is assuming the T-50 can even find and shoot down the F-22 much better than any other Russian made fighter, this gets into radar technology and avionics. The F-22 may have a harder time finding the T-50, but the T-50 probably won't be finding the F-22 too easily either.

I think the scenario of a full-on US/NATO war against China or Russia, even in the distant future, is a joke, a fantasy, and any one even preparing for that particular war is a fool not to be trusted with taxpayer money.

And that's before you consider the fact: money spent on more F-22, is money not spent on infantry, bribes, and spies - which I think any reasonable person can see is what the NATO/US need more of, if they intend someday to win the war in Afghanistan.

It's also foolish to be preparing for the last war you fought. Maybe not preparing for WW3, but you have to be careful not to become too narrowly focused.

Not buying any more F-22s makes sense, but buying and keeping around the initial inventory of them was a good idea. You get technical experience/training on the aircraft (for when upgrading the F-15 inventory becomes necessary) and you have a few around "just in case".

The F-22 is good to just have around like nuclear subs, just to carry around the big air superiority stick. I'm sure it's also great against any potential opponent who is nowhere as well equipped as Russia/China. So the current US inventory of F-22s is probably more than enough.

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Bigduke6,

Thanks! It's easier to connect the dots if you've actually worked on the program, which I did: NBC protection and NBC ops concept, aircraft decontam, plus laser threats. As for copies, AA-2 ATOLL (AIM-9C? Sidewinder), SA-7 GRAIL (Redeye), Tu-144 (Concorde), Buran (Space Shuttle), etc. Su-25 definitely appears to be based on Northrop AX-9. The FROGFOOT can't carry the load or fly as far as an A-10 can, but it is a good, tough plane, especially after fixes to prevent one damaged engine from destroying its twin. The Muj hated and feared the Su-25.

The Russians are no slouches when it comes to designing and arming warplanes. We have the F-16 because the West needed a counter to the MiG-21 FISHBED series. The AA-11 ARCHER high off boresight dogfight missile with helmet mounted sight was revolutionary, and it's only recently the West has begun to field anything remotely comparable. Both the MiG-29 FULCRUM and the Su-27 FLANKER are fully capable of radar silent attacks with the AA-11, certain other missiles and a laser aimed 30 mm cannon of terrifying accuracy. Both planes could pull the Cobra maneuver and defeat air-to-air missiles using Doppler shift for guidance. Unless the F-15's radar's been replaced, both of the named aircraft have far superior radar in that they have TWS (Track-While-Scan), rather like a weaker version of the F-14's AWG-9 (can track 24 and engage 6 at once) radar, while the F-15, once it engages, is in STT (Single Target Track). Again, it helps to have worked for a company, Hughes Aircraft Company, that provided three of the four radars on frontline U.S. fighters (AWG-9 on the F-14, APG-63 on the F-15, APG-65 on the F-18), the exception being the truly sad Westinghouse radar originally installed on the F-16. BTW, technical secrets gleaned from wholesale compromise of the APG-65 by spy William Bell of Hughes saved the Russians a fortune and many years in developing radars for the MiG-29 and Su-27. Nor did the AIM-120 Slammer's advantage last long

Even if the Russians were flying F-22s with all the latest bells and whistles, I wouldn't be overly concerned unless and until their pilots started racking up flight hours rivaling those of the U.S. and developed the tactics to exploit that kind of flying mastery. When I left military aerospace in June of '89, the Russians were barely experimenting with a basic fighter concept called "free hunt." Normal mode was to fight in rigid GCI mode, with Il-76M MAINSTAY AWACS w/wo Mig-31M FOXHOUND (sporting AWG-9sky radar and Phoenixsky missiles) miniAWACS being major developments. Mind, this isn't to say that picked cadre of Russian "sniper" pilots couldn't do a lot of damage, but from a force on force perspective, the average Russian pilot is wholly outclassed by his U.S. counterpart, and the situation's even worse if from a Russian client state and flying something less than to a whole lot less than the homeland aircraft version.

And we have had Russia's best against some of America's best--in Korea. http://s188567700.online.de/CMS/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=53&Itemid=47 I don't see a single F-86 Sabre in the list of Korean War kills by Russians covertly flying MiG-15s in MiG Alley.

This, though, paints a radically different picture and provides a Russian perspective on covert air ops there. BTW, Bruce Hinton wound up working at Hughes and was the subject of a wonderful Keith Ferris painting (talked to Bruce about it), and I also got to meet Bud Mahurin at a defense conference. http://www.acepilots.com/russian/rus_aces.html

Here're more accounts of Russian pilots in combat there, together with a fascinating tech intel bon mot. http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/RussianPilots.htm

A brief bibliography on the topic http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.korea/browse_thread/thread/f3feceae805097d3?pli=1

The issues in context, by the man who got his doctorate writing about the secret war

http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/korea/oneill.html

Some points to consider: UN forces were against the cream of the Russian Air Force, not the typical pilot. Until later in the game, the Russian pilots operated from sanctuary and attacked from optimum angles and timing, thanks to wholly unexpected effective, unjammed GCI. The combat environment for the Russian crewed MiGs was target rich, whereas there were relatively few Russians to attack. Early on, Russian combat effectiveness suffered because the pilots were force to muddle along in barely understood Chinese and Korean in order to maintain secrecy. The restriction was first secretly ignored and later removed outright.

Returning to the high tech part of the discussion, here is a masterful analysis of current Russian BVR combat philosophy, one of dozens related to air and missile warfare on a simply breathtaking grog site. I think this is absolutely essential reading for those wading into the T-50 fray. http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-BVR-AAM.html Should prove quite a shock to those who think the U.S. has the best weapon technology.

Regards,

John Kettler

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BD, how does the T50 threaten the F22 exactly? If anything having a stealth AC increases your offensive capability, not your defensive. Besides, if the US needs to worry at all it is only about Russia. While Russian AC are quite good, they never seemed to perform well in the hands of their old client nation-states. At the end of the day, it is more about skill and training than about the AC. As to the 8-1 for F22 vs F15/16, I would imagine the F22 is flown by, on average, the best fighter pilots in the USAF, which allows its tech advantage to come into play. The Syrian AF, on the other hand, barely flies any training flights nowadays, what the hell would they do with a sophisticated stealth AC? Have it shot down by the Israelis?

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Bigduke6,

This review of Krivosheev puts Russian air combat losses in Korea at 120 pilots and 335 aircraft and also lists 13 military advisers lost in Vietnam. These don't necessarily have to be pilots, seeing as how we know advisers were present at many North Vietnamese SAM sites early on and that at least some Russians died when part of the Son Tay Raid "landed in the wrong place." Participants in that part of the op were for a long time prohibited from mentioning the Russians and Chinese present who came to bad ends.

http://www.historynet.com/book-review-soviet-casualties-and-combat-losses-in-the-twentieth-century-colonel-general-gf-krisvosheev-editor-mhq.htm

One tidbit on Russians over Vietnam. (Fair use)

http://www.acepilots.com/vietnam/olds_bolo.html

"Additionally, in recent times, the Russian VVS admitted that Soviet advisors in Vietnam were authorized to engage US planes as part of the training process or as temporary replacements for Vietnamese pilots wounded or killed. One of them, Sr. Lt. Vadim Petrovich Shchbakov, was credited with 6 kills during 1966. Despite the lack of accurate info about his victories, it is likely that the December 8 1966 F-105 kill should be credited to him. His victim was the F-105D BuNo 591820, piloted by Donald Asire (KIA)."

Further insight into the Russian war effort in Vietnam from the perspective of the Vietnam War Working Group, which is trying to establish the final fates of U.S. POWs/MIAs by working with Russia and former components thereof.

http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/sovietunion/vietnam_working.htm

A most interesting retrospective on Russians in combat in Vietnam, told on the 30 year anniversary of the end of that war by some of the key participants.

http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/363/15388_vietnam.html

I close with a nice photo series of the T-50's maiden flight.

http://english.pravda.ru/photo/report/fifth_generation-5042

Regards,

John Kettler

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Why in the sam heck does some newbie go around starting two identical threads, three hours apart? I join the first one and get left out when everyone thunders over to the second for some reason known only to the tooth fairy. I feel like the idiot who was never told the party got moved...sheesh. First thread in a while worth a hoot and it's scattered from hell to breakfast.

(Sulks off into the sunset.)

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Why in the sam heck does some newbie go around starting two identical threads, three hours apart? I join the first one and get left out when everyone thunders over to the second for some reason known only to the tooth fairy. I feel like the idiot who was never told the party got moved...sheesh. First thread in a while worth a hoot and it's scattered from hell to breakfast.

(Sulks off into the sunset.)

And people say I'm grumpy!

:D:D:D

Michael

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