Here is my composite image of Revell's 1/72 scale Starfury Omega from Babylon 5 crossing the Earth's terminator. Images of the model can be seen here.


In 1931, Heinkel recruited the talented aircraft designers, Walter and Siegfried Günter, and their first major design for Heinkel was the Heinkel He 49. While this was officially an advanced trainer, in fact it was a fighter. The first prototype, the He 49a, flew in November 1932, and was followed by two further prototypes, the He 49b, with a longer fuselage, and the He 49c, with a revised engine.
The type was ordered into production for the still secret Luftwaffe as the He 51, the first pre-production aircraft flying in May 1933. Deliveries started in July of the next year.
The He 51 was a conventional single-bay biplane, with all-metal construction and fabric covering. It was powered by a glycol-cooled BMW VI engine, with an armament of two 7.92 mm (.312 in) machine guns mounted above the engine.
The He 51 was intended to replace the earlier Arado Ar 65, but served side-by-side with the slightly later Ar 68. The He 51 was outdated the day it entered service, and after an initial run of 150 production fighters, the design was switched into the modified He 51B, with approximately 450 built, including about 46 He 51B-2 floatplanes, and then finally a further 100 He 51C light ground-attack plane.
On 6 August 1936, six of the He 51s were delivered to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War along with the fraction of the army in revolt. Initial operations were successful, with the Heinkels meeting and defeating a number of older biplane of the Spanish Republican Air Force, with two Nieuport Ni-52 fighters, a Breguet 19 and a Potez 54 destroyed on 18 August 1936, the first day of operations by Spanish-flown He 51s. Deliveries continued as the hostilities increased, with two Nationalist squadrons equipped by November, and the Legion Kondor forming three squadrons of 12 aircraft each manned by German "volunteers".
This time of superiority was short lived, with the arrival of large numbers of modern aircraft from the Soviet Union, including the Polikarpov I-15 biplane and new Polikarpov I-16 monoplane, together with the Tupolev SB bomber, which was 110 km/h (70 mph) faster. The He 51 proved unable to protect the Legion Kondor's bombers, forcing it to switch to night operations, while also unable to intercept the much faster SB. The He 51 was therefore withdrawn from fighter duty and relegated to the ground-attack role by both the Legion Kondor and the Spanish rebels, It was replaced in the fighter role by the Fiat CR.32 in the rebel Nationalist Air Force, with the Legion Kondor receiving Messerschmitt Bf 109s from April 1937 to allow it to operate successfully in fighter operations.
While a failure as a fighter, the Heinkel proved successful as a ground-attack aircraft, being used by Wolfram von Richthofen to develop the close support tactics which were used by the Luftwaffe in World War II. It continued in use as a ground attack aircraft for the remainder of the Civil War, although losses were heavy. After the war the 46 surviving aircraft would be joined by another 15 new builds, and serve in the utility role in Spain until 1952.
The experiences in Spain would prove once and for all that the days of the biplane fighter were over. Although the later model Fiat biplanes were superior to the He 51 and continued to soldier on in Nationalist service, the I-16s were basically untouchable because of their speed. If the conditions were right, they could use their heavy armament in a quick pass and then leave; if things weren't so favorable, they simply flew away. The lesson learned by all of the participants was that speed was far more important in combat than maneuverability.
The He 51 continued in front-line service with the Luftwaffe until 1938, with it remaining in service as an advanced trainer for the first few years of World War II.




The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a multirole jet fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as a lightweight day fighter, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,400 aircraft have been built since production was approved in 1976. Though no longer being purchased by the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are still being built for export customers. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation, which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.
The Fighting Falcon is a dogfighter with numerous innovations including a frameless bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, a seat reclined 30 degrees to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot, and the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire flight control system that makes it a highly nimble aircraft. The F-16 has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and has 11 hardpoints for mounting weapons, and other mission equipment. Although the F-16's official name is "Fighting Falcon", it is known to its pilots as the "Viper", due to it resembling a viper snake and after the Battlestar Galactica Colonial Viper starfighter.
In addition to USAF active, reserve, and air national guard units, the aircraft is used by the USAF aerial demonstration team, the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, and as an adversary/aggressor aircraft by the United States Navy. The F-16 has also been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations.
The U.S. Air Force initially ordered 15 "Full-Scale Development" (FSD) aircraft (11 single-seat and four two-seat models) for its flight test program, but this was reduced to eight (six F-16A single-seaters and two F-16B two-seaters). The YF-16 design was altered for the production F-16. The fuselage was lengthened by 10.6 in (0.269 m), a larger nose radome was fitted to house the AN/APG-66 radar, wing area was increased from 280 sq ft (26 m2) to 300 sq ft (28 m2), the tailfin height was decreased slightly, the ventral fins were enlarged, two more stores stations were added, and a single side-hinged nosewheel door replaced the original double doors. These modifications increased the F-16's weight approximately 25% over that of the YF-16 prototypes.
Manufacture of the FSD F-16s got underway at General Dynamics' Fort Worth, Texas plant in late 1975, with the first example, an F-16A, being rolled out on 20 October 1976, followed by its first flight on 8 December. The initial two-seat model achieved its first flight on 8 August 1977. The initial production-standard F-16A flew for the first time on 7 August 1978 and its delivery was accepted by the USAF on 6 January 1979. The F-16 was given its formal nickname of “Fighting Falcon” on 21 July 1980, entering USAF operational service with the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB on 1 October 1980.
On 7 June 1975, the four European partners, now known as the European Participation Group, signed up for 348 aircraft at the Paris Air Show. This was split among the European Participation Air Forces (EPAF) as 116 for Belgium, 58 for Denmark, 102 for the Netherlands, and 72 for Norway. These would be produced on two European production lines, one in the Netherlands at Fokker's Schiphol-Oost facility and the other at SABCA's Gossellies plant in Belgium; production would be divided among them as 184 and 164 units, respectively. Norway's Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk and Denmark's Terma A/S also manufactured parts and subassemblies for the EPAF aircraft. European co-production was officially launched on 1 July 1977 at the Fokker factory. Beginning in mid-November 1977, Fokker-produced components were shipped to Fort Worth for assembly of fuselages, which were in turn shipped back to Europe (initially to Gossellies starting in January 1978); final assembly of EPAF-bound aircraft began at the Belgian plant on 15 February 1978, with deliveries to the Belgian Air Force beginning in January 1979. The Dutch line started up in April 1978 and delivered its first aircraft to the Royal Netherlands Air Force in June 1979. In 1980 the first aircraft were delivered to the Royal Norwegian Air Force by SABCA and to the Royal Danish Air Force by Fokker.
Since then, a further production line has been established at Ankara, Turkey, where Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has produced 232 Block 30/40/50 F-16s under license for the Turkish Air Force during the late 1980s and 1990s, and has 30 Block 50 Advanced underway for delivery from 2010; TAI also built 46 Block 40s for Egypt in the mid-1990s. Korean Aerospace Industries opened another production line for the KF-16 program, producing 140 Block 52s from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. If India selects the F-16IN for its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft procurement, a sixth F-16 production line will be established in that nation to produce at least 108 fighters.

The Basestar is the Cylon counterpart of the Colonial Battlestar. The Basestar has also been called a Baseship and a Cylon Battlestar in one episode but "Basestar" conforms to the Colonial ship naming system.
The Cylon Basestar is a superior warship to a Colonial Battlestar in a technological respect as it carries stronger weapons in greater quantity and carries a greater fighter complement as well. (Basestars can hold up to 300 Cylon Raiders.) Because of this, the Galactica and her crew prefer to avoid combat with them as much as possible. They are propelled by a reactionless drive that appears to make the ship spin slowly on its axis while engaged.
Basestars are considerably larger than Battlestars.
A basestar's shape is that of two saucers joined to each other at their axis. The saucers are externally identical and some of the functions that they house are redundant of each other. Each saucer contains a hangar deck at its center, accessible from several large hatches distributed across the top of the cone. Unlike a battlestar, a basestar's hangar is closed with a hatch when not in use. All decks are connected by the Core, which allows access to any deck via a ladder. The Control Center or bridge is at the bottom of the core; the Control Center suite also includes the ship's sensor control computers.
Armament



Robert McCall (December 23, 1919 – February 26, 2010) was a conceptual artist, known for his work on the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. He worked as an illustrator for LIFE magazine in the 1960s before working as an artist for NASA, documenting the history of the Space Race. In addition, he was a production illustrator on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. His work can be found on U.S. postage stamps, NASA mission patches, and his murals grace the walls of the National Air and Space Museum, the National Gallery of Art, The Pentagon, EPCOT Center, and Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
Robert McCall died on February 26, 2010 of heart failure in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was survived by his wife Louise, their two daughters, Linda and Catherine, and four grandchildren.