#Vector Spectacle

[tribow]

you've read a lot of touhou derivatives so I assume you must've seen a lot of stories just suddenly stop do you think vector spectacle will ever continue?

Vector Spectacle is on hiatus due to hokuto (Scichil) getting sick I think. They have been focused on their health so they haven't continued the series. It may return one day, I can only hope.

I know they did some art for Touhou Cannonball a year ago so they aren't completely inactive.

[maxknightley]

was reading an old unfinished touhou doujin earlier and my main takeaway was "wow this is way hornier than I remembered." but also it has this panel which delights me every time I look at it

[gashicalmy]

Index - aka more animals

He´s my silly looking bear!

2 version of colors because i liked more the purple one, but in the zoo they were like "bears ain't purple, they're black" and then they had a solid black spot when printed :v

They didn't understood the pourpose and liberties of using an illustration instead of a photo.

They didn't understood the pourpose and liberties of using an illustration at the side of the photo.

Also, i liked the combination of the shape of shadows and the lines of color transition to make him look kind of fluffy and soft.

[ardentperfidy]

.

[the-clay-quarters]

Woe, 1000 blorbo refs upon ye

I've been making these reference boards for all the ocs I've been drawing! Everyone I've shown them to so far thought they were neat, so I figured I'd share them here too :3 They're fun to make and also really useful for me personally, otherwise I'd just keep swapping between tumblr tabs </3

I put these together in pureref, which is made for stuff like this and works wonderfully imo! It does all the resizing and aligning easily, so the only "work" is grabbing the images and rearranging them. It also saves the actual files as vector images I think, so you can zoom in super close in the program and not lose any details. ..okay I'm done, # not sponsored

Anyway, if anyone's interested, I have both the pngs and the pureref files in a gdrive! I already have most of my pc backing up there, so I might as well share this folder :3 Since this is literally a live backup of my main folder, it'll also update whenever I change these or make new ones yippee

Pings for everyone under the cut again!

@thedeafprophet 's Aurora

@gmalaart 's Cavendish

@capn-twitchery 's Grace

@waterlogged-detective 's Doe

@viric-dreams 's Ockham

@house-of-mirrors 's Orsino

@violant-apologia 's Apologist

@the-masterless-press 's Mathilde

@anomaly-beans 's Merry

@msbeanfl 's Ms Bean

@lord-emerson 's Oswald

@pacmanthepeach 's Raz

@peliginspeaks 's Hallowrove

@cosmogone-spectacles 's Oversol

@zeebreezin 's Shaw

@neathyingenue 's Silvia

@dualclock 's Scrimshander

[annabelle-creart]

The 13 Prime Au

It´s so funny how bots see the Primes at these days, like, powerful beings with great knowledge and energy, like, dude, they´re not, they doesn´t even were as you think on the old days, like

Prima was a paranoid bitch, I mean it, that man and his angsty and anxious look made everyone thought he was The Thirteenth and not Prima, he created Ghost-stories,

Megatronus was a depressive bear who depended on Solus to have at least 1% of self-esteem on himself,

Solus as the only female was who supported the whole team when Prima couldn´t, but that doesn´t mean she didn´t did stupid gadgets because she was bored and let everyone to use them,

Vector was the one who tested her gadgets because he didn´t fear death, he was so fucking hyperactive and uncontrollable, the most infantile of the team, a man kid, to be wise didn´t mean he didn´t wanted to have fun,

and the there was Quintus and his autistic ass going one way to another in the galaxy, studying the planets and life itself and then coming back home to sit because he got energy-drained,

Micronus trying to deal with all the thoughts of the team and also being A FUCKING GOSSIP MESSENGER, everyone knew about Solus and Megatronus relationship because of his anti-silence mouth,

Onyx was both the grandpa and the pet of the team, when he´s not relaxing with a cup of hot energon and drawing he is in an astral travel with Quintus, he´s Quintus' special info dumping guest, probably they´re the favorite brother of the other,

Liege, as we know is an asshole and everyone knew that, but what not everyone knew and just his siblings was how a CHICKEN he was, he was the tinnest of the team just after Micronus and was always distracting everyone when they were angry, he´s like Starscream but 10 times worst,

Alchemist was an alcoholic but no one pay attention to it till he almost fall from the planet, how? Primus is still trying to figured out that,

Alpha Trion was a book worm, put a book in front on him and in one hour he will know everything about it and the author, and he was a book worm because his social skills were pure shit, the anxiety didn´t let him live out of his magic library,

Amalgamous is still a mystery because no one on the house could comprehend why with all that power he just made spectacles for the rest and the new cybertonians, even liege called him once a buffon,

Nexus was constantly treated like a crazy bot because he was always talking to himself, well, he wasn´t, he was a whole system of various bots, it was actually one of the bots talking to another with the same voice, but the rest didn´t get how it felt, so, they tried not to talk much with them, that´s actually why Nexus system is so angry at their siblings now,

Thirteenth is dead...

Primus is an absent father,

they all literally fought against their uncle

so, now, you can imagine how out of control that house was...

[himejoshikomaeda]

IF YOU HAVE ONLY VERY BRIEFLY ENGAGED WITH TOUHOU BEFORE:

read the touhou wiki synopsis of double dealing character, then read the touhou wiki page for seija kijin, then read the touhou wiki page for shinmyoumaru sukuna, then look up and read VECTOR SPECTACLE on dynastyscans.

this will help you read VECTOR SPECTACLE.

[toskarintoast]

Hello I must apologise for the entirely untoasty ask but I have a touhou question: What order did you consume touhou media? I found some guide on reddit that recommends I finish 6 and 7 first then move on to a manga but I wanna know how people who actually know touhou have done it

in my opinion. it depends. on what you want to get out of touhou. at least at first. if you want to play. the mainline games. (they are fun.) then i would recommend. starting with 8. because. it is very forgiving. and. introduces you to many characters well-loved by fans. 6 is pretty antiquated. and 7 is honestly not much better. in that regard. they are still good games. but. 8 doesn’t feel quite as aged.

however. there are a great many ways. to get into touhou. that do not involve playing 20 year old shoot em ups. if that is not something you want to do. for example. while it is good. to have a basic understanding. of what happens in at least the first few games. you could. literally just start reading any of the manga. if you wanted to. the problem is that you really can start anywhere. that’s why everyone has a different answer. personally. i played the games in an arbitrary order. not paying attention to release date. i just played whichever one i wanted to play next. that was the most fun for me. i think my 1cc order ended up being. 8, 10, 7, 13, 16, 6, 18, 15, 17, 14, 12, 19, 11, 4. so far. i plan to play 5 next.

however. if you would like to know. what i consider to be. one of the best introductions to gensokyo. and its residents. i would recommend mystia's izakaya. it is incredibly effective at introducing you. to a large number of characters. locations. and ideologies. over the course of the game. especially if you shell out the $5 or whatever it is. to buy all of the DLCs. also. it's fun. and addictive. there are other fan games. that can serve as decent introductions. depending on the kind of games you like. touhou puppet dance performance shard of dreams extended. is pretty good. if you like pokemon gen 3. and. i know that i will earn the scorn. of certain fans. by saying this. but touhou lostword is really good actually. it is not at all difficult to see all of the (genuinely very good) story and (cute seasonal) events. without spending any money at all. in fact. when it first got released. i was worried that it would shut down. because i thought. there is no way they are going to get anyone to pay money for this. because there aren't any of the obnoxious arbitrary difficulty spikes. that you find in other gacha games. and. getting all of my favorite characters. was honestly really easy. though. if you are prone to spending money on gachas. for no reason. then you should probably stay away from it.

you could even just. go to youtube. and watch every IOSYS flash. with english subtitles. and you'd be a touhou fan by the end of it. there's really no wrong way. to get into it. hell. just go read some yuri doujins. check out vector spectacle. it whips.

hope i could help. remember to toast bread and then eat it. ^_^

[the-consortium]

There was laughter on the wind here, out on the fringes of the Opphon plain, as the veil began to break down. Warpfire, re-entry heat and the cataclysmic death of titans had burned back the snow as far as the northern foothills, where the Iron Fists had died. The path of their retreat was marked by a trail of broken bodies and smoldering tanks, a fresh road stretching out from the wreck of the Cestus Relictor, to the ugly looking barbican that guarded the mountain pass. The broken ship squatted darkly amidst a forest of smoke columns; the first wave landing craft downed by its colossal guns, but even now, lesser warbands were no doubt crawling through its halls in search of prizes, plunder and prisoners. The sons of Fulgrim had watched the battle from afar, like vultures waiting to see which duelling beast became carrion. There had been a pleasance to the ebb and flow of it, the way the line of grey bloomed and sparkled with muzzle flashes and detonations each time the infernal tide rolled in upon them. Each murder of a titan was a slow, graceful affair, punctuated by energy discharge that dazzled and slashed their way through the smoking air. The dreadnought was not hard to find. They'd watched as the gunship was gutted as it tried to hasten survivors back to the safety of the mountains. The bodies had scattered like dark pollen from the riven craft, but the single fruit, the larger shape, had fallen faster, throwing up dust and soil as it bounced and rolled and ploughed its way across the plain. There was not much left of it at the end of the furrow such fall had carved, but there was still a sparking, guttering sense of life within the crumpled wreck. The golden gauntlet sigil of the Iron Fists chapter had been torn off along with its arms, but the name, 'Syrak', was still legible on the sarcophagus lid, in spite of the dark, viscous fluid that marred the lettering it as it trickled from the vision-slit down into the dark earth. As the figures approached, there was a whine of broken servos and a series of unpleasant clunks from within the wreck. Slowly, falteringly, the mangled vox-modulator churned out a stuttering sequence of words, carrying neither emotion nor any sense of recognition of the figures that surveyed it. "Cousi-i-i-ns. Do not. Lea-ea-ea-ea-eave me hhhhhere."

"Of course it's far from me to pass a verdict here … I'm not someone who needs to pass judgement on others …" A brief silence, then a harsh laugh at his own joke, which continues for quite a while before it dies away with a chortle. Accompanied by quiet words in a language that is more of a hiss than actual syllables. "… but in general, I wonder whether earlier intervention would not make for a much better harvest. Not to mention the fact that we are damaging other people's image here."

The person at whom the words are obviously directed due to sheer physical proximity does not reply. Instead, he continues to work on finding a good approach vector to the dispersing battlefield that won't cause the aggressive gunship to rebel too much if he denies it prey, while remaining inconspicuous.

Instead, an answer comes from further back: "And by better harvest, you don't mean select cruelty and silly new skin garments, do you?" - "Pah! I'm always fighting prejudice here." Waving it off and then ramming the midnight blue helmet with the bat wings onto his head.

"There's a very good reason why the Chief Apothecary didn't send any of our purple friends here. All tactical discipline falls out of their heads as soon as they see the opportunity to interfere in a battle and make a spectacle of themselves. Waiting and striking surgically - that really doesn't suit them anymore." - "Yes, yes, yes. Precision and boredom. When did that happen?" - "You can discuss it with him when we get back. I'll make some popcorn and watch this conversation from a safe distance."

For a while, there is only a busy silence as the three Apothecaries finish equipping themselves and force the angrily protesting gunship to land in a crater left by a Titan's footstep in the churned-up mud of the battlefield.

Everyone not only arms themselves, but also adds several extra canisters for Gene Seed to their belts. Then they open the ramp, taking advantage of a moment of distraction when the ship wouldn't shoot at them out of sheer fury and spite, and run crouched to the nearest remnant of wall. One shadow in scuffed black, one in well-maintained metal with yellow and black accented stripes, and one in midnight blue.

They orientate themselves and then start systematically scanning the battlefield. Their prize is what is always needed in the Eye of Terror. Harvested compassionlessly but not cruelly. The last mercy given without engaging in the maelstrom of mysticism that has spread tumour-like through the galaxy in the time since their rebellion failed so resoundingly.

None of the three believe in anything that could be called fate or predestination. And yet, after about half an hour, the small canisters full of dripping tissue, they find themselves almost simultaneously at what is, in a strange way, a burial site. The second time.

„Cousi-i-i-ns. Do not. Lea-ea-ea-ea-eave me hhhhhere.“

"Huh," Skalagrim mouths in astonishment.

"Look at that, a playmate for Diomat! Can I keep him?" laughs Duco, his rasping laugh once again making him so uncomfortably similar to his Sire.

Tzimiskes sighs.

Finally Skalagrim steps right up to the fallen dreadnought. Tilts his head. Looks to Tzimiskes, "Can you do anything with him?"

The Iron Warrior shrugs his shoulders, but nods. All three look at their Narthetica at the same time, check their readings and begin to stabilise the fallen old man. They don't have to coordinate much. Every move is perfect. After a while, Tzimiskes rises and disappears in the direction of the hollow, where Butcher Bird is bored and probably in an even worse mood than usual.

Duco injects several different sedatives and coagulants and says in a paternalistic manner: "Well, my old friend, now tell Uncle Doctor - where are we from and what year are we living in?"

[branmuffins22]

It says failed game dev in your bio what game(s) were you working on? We're there any stories you wanted to tell?

Not all that much of a story to tell, but here's the gist:

I made a few student games with my twin in highschool (even took one to a trade skills competition, we got 7th place in nationals), went to college to pursue game development as a career, learned the hard way that I wasn't cut out for it (acquired hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and a bunch of stress/overwork-related health complications for my troubles), flunked out in my second year, and haven't made a game since (closest I've come has been almost getting a job as a QA tester for Nintendo of America, brainstorming a handful of game ideas, and helping my twin squash bugs in his own projects sometimes).

As for the specifics, I've only worked on 3 games I'm even somewhat proud of: Run&Gun, Paint the Town, and Custom Fighter. All three were made in highschool, using a proprietary game engine made by the same school my twin and I later flunked out of. As a general rule, my twin handled the art and design, and I handled the programming, but there was some overlap where we dipped our toes into eachother's jobs.

Infodump beyond the readmore:

Run&Gun was a combination First-Person Shooter and Racing Game, with some gravity-bending mechanics, as a treat. In it, you raced on a massive, twisting track against a handful of computer players while shooting them with your trusty SMG, and trying not to get shot yourself. The player could stick to walls, treating everything they raced along as the ground, which let us get a little silly with the track's layout. There was also a really cool section near the end that featured a halfpipe (or maybe more like a three-quarters-pipe) that ended in a ramp and a huge jump, which, due to the nature of the wall-sticking mechanic, had you falling forwards moreso than down for about half of it. It was probably the only bit of spectacle that actually hit the mark.

The game had a lot of neat ideas, but ultimately failed in execution for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it served as many firsts: our first 3D game, our first first-person game, our first game with computer players, our first racing game, our first game with dynamic physics, our first game we worked on for longer than a month, etc. I actually ended up reinventing several wheels while working on this game, since I didn't know what to look for as far as guidance at the time: linked lists, aim-assist, behavior trees, and some really crude vector math being chief among them. On one hand, I really didn't need to do all that, because the tech already existed (and is downright ubiquitous in the industry), but on the other hand, I felt smart as hell when I made it work, and super vindicated when I learned that people smarter than me had been doing the same shit for decades.

Paint the Town was a 2D Action Platformer which took heavy aesthetic inspiration from Splatoon (or, what little of Splatoon we'd seen over the shoulder of a Wii-U-owning friend of ours, anyways). There was only one level, which also served as a tutorial, and it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, but with such a limited scope, we managed to squeeze out a solid experience. You played as Fuschia (spelled that way because we thought the real spelling of the word was dumb), an excitable teen who wanted to take back her city from the evil... Blobbers? Bloobies? I don't remember what we called 'em, they were an invading force of aliens that kinda just looked like the slimes from Dragon Quest. Anyways, they were painting everything blue, which made everyone there feel blue, so our hero took it upon herself to paint the town a fresh new hue (fuchsia, obviously).

It was a fairly linear experience, with no special movement mechanics or anything: just a short gauntlet of guys to take down as you hopped across rooftops and construction sites, picking up the occasional extra weapon here and there for variety. The three things I'm most proud of are the relative variety of unique enemies and weapons (patrolling guys, turret guys, helicopter guys, and even a bomb-throwing boss guy, as well as four different weapons with unique shot patterns), the visual effects (the city was a fairly-blank canvas, and you and the enemies would paint over it as you fought), and a handy little tool we lovingly called the ~Vector Trajector Projector~, which acted as a reticle to show the path your shots would go (discounting any spread) while you aimed. It was really just an extremely basic projectile simulation equation, but dammit, I was proud! For a project that only took a couple months to make, it was pretty solid, in my opinion.

Custom Fighter was the last of our highschool games, and the one we took to that national trade skills competition. Well, technically we took all three of them to the competition, but Run&Gun only took us as far as state the year prior, and we pivoted from Paint the Town to Custom Fighter between regionals and state of that final year. Anyways, it was a 3D Dueling Game featuring giant robots that could be decorated and customized in a pre-match menu. The only mechanical effects your customization would have was the robot's physical size (for hit/hurtboxes and so on) and its Weight, which depended on its size and determined its speed, knockback, and to a lesser extent, damage, so the rest was just for fun. Every robot had the same moveset: just a punch, an uppercut, a power-punch, a roundhouse kick, a missile barrage, and a meter-draining super move (a weird timestopping dropkick thing that we couldnt animate in time, and thus really just looked like you stopped time and flew face-first at the other guy in midair).

There were a whole lot of little things I was proud of in this game: dynamic knockback animations, light trails and other such visual effects, my largest attempt at menu/UI design to date (for the customization screen), a really satisfying application of calculus to make the dropkick hit the mark every time, and the fact that I managed to fix every last crash bug the night before the competition's showcase.

But my greatest accomplishment wasn't even technically something I did; rather, it was something I couldn't do.

The time-stopping dropkick had a funny bug that seemingly-randomly caused the player who got hit with it to get flung out of the arena at truly ludicrous speeds, instead of the intended knockback velocity of the attack. The night before the competition, I discovered that it was because the players would sometimes collide physically after the attack's hitbox reached the target's hurtbox (which applied the inteneded knockback), but before time would resume its usual flow. Because the attacking player would be going incredibly fast in-simulation (despite going at a pretty moderate pace as far as any viewers were concerned), they would impart an incredible amount of momentum to the other player, which, once time resumed its normal rate, translated to getting launched offscreen faster than you could blink. I couldn't come up with a way to fix the bug entirely in time for the competition, but I did manage to come up with a band-aid patch that made it a lot less likely.

A month or so earlier, in that same year, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out, and unbeknownst to me at the time, it featured the same exact bug. I only discovered it thanks to the Something About video, which came out a couple years later, but if you've ever seen a speedrunner do a shield surf jump toward an enemy's head, pull out a bow to enter arrow-time, and bounce off to launch way up into the sky, that's exactly the same mechanics at play. The enemy's animation when they get bounced on has their head snap into a different position to start, which, while in arrow-time, translates to an absurd amount of movement over extremely little time. Landing on something while shield-surfing usually only applies a certain amount of bounce to the player, but if the player and the enemy are in just the right positions relative to eachother, they collide physically after the initial hit, and the player gets flung hilariously far away.

So what was once a bug that bested me, the bane of my existence, had become something that hundreds and hundreds of smarter people had tried to fix too, each as unsuccessful as the last. I couldn't fix that bug, but neither could the entire team behind one of the biggest and best games to date.

It was extremely vindicating.

[usafphantom2]

No, The F-35B Does Not Use Afterburner In Vertical Landing Mode

Imagery of F-35Bs operating at night make it look like afterburner is used in vertical mode, but the truth is more interesting.

@Aviation_intel via X

Thomas NewdickPUBLISHED Dec 28, 2023 1:31 PM EST

F-35 Lightning fighter jets have conducted their first night flying trials off the United Kingdom’s largest warship, HMS Queen Elizabeth. The aircraft carrier, which first landed F-35 Lightning jets on board last week, is currently conducting flight testing off the east coast of the United States. Pictures show how the night time trials, which up until now have only been tested in simulators or on the ground, were carried out using state-of-the-art night-vision technology, with the pilots and aircraft handlers successfully guiding the supersonic fighter jets onto the flight deck. Some trials were also carried out without night vision technology to ensure the jets’ capability in any eventuality.

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Kyra Helwick

An F-35B stealth fighter conducting vertical or rolling vertical landings on a warship’s deck at night is a sight to behold. Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of this audio-visual spectacle is the vertical ‘pillar of thrust’ upon which the jet perches as it makes its descent onto the deck. But while it looks very much like an afterburner plume, and many on social media think that's what it is, the F-35B doesn’t actually engage this function when operating in vertical mode.

The effect, as seen in the photo at the top of this story — showing an F-35B on the U.K. Royal Navy carrier HMS Prince of Wales — is produced when a highly sensitive low-light camera picks up the very hot gas that’s pumped out of the F-35B’s rear nozzle upon landing at night.

A quick aside on afterburners to get everyone up to speed. Many high-performance military aircraft, the F-35B included, feature them. They inject fuel into a combustor in the jet pipe behind the turbine, for a significant boost in thrust when required, albeit at the cost of drastically increased fuel consumption and infrared signature.

F-35B taking off conventionally in afterburner during a test sortie. Lockheed Martin

We know, of course, that the F-35B’s engine already produces a lot of heat. In the past, the deck coatings and some structural elements of ships have had to be modified to deal with it. Even without the afterburner, the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine generates a staggering amount of thrust for the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) operations that are unique to the F-35B variant of the aircraft.

A video shows a U.S. Marine Corps test pilot performing the first night-time vertical landing by an F-35B aboard the USS Wasp on August 14, 2013:

The War Zone spoke to one experienced former F-35B pilot, who prefers to remain anonymous, to get a better understanding of the technologies — and performance — involved in STOVL operations.

First off, the pilot gave us an idea of the sheer amount of thrust that we are dealing with in STOVL mode.

U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Michael Lippert and Peter Wilson, F-35 test pilots at the Patuxent River Integrated Test Force (ITF), conduct night field carrier landing practices at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, in August 2018, in preparation for trials aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth. U.S. Navy photo by Dane Wiedmann

The variant of the F135 engine used in the F-35B, in dry thrust (without gas-guzzling afterburner engaged), develops around 18,500 pounds of thrust when in STOVL mode. It’s this hot gas that can be seen in the above images and others like it. The vectoring exhaust in the F-35B version is known as the 3 Bearing Swivel Nozzle or 3BSN. While the pilot can select separate stages (zones) of afterburner for a major thrust gain in conventional flight mode, it’s much harder to modulate finely for the more delicate STOVL operations.

F-35B test aircraft BF-4 hovers in the darkness during a night test flight at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, December 13, 2012. Lockheed Martin

At the same time, for STOVL operations, the F-35B is equipped with a Rolls-Royce Lift Fan, a 50-inch, two-stage counter-rotating fan driven via a shaft from the main engine. The Lift Fan produces a similar amount of thrust — so, roughly another 18,500 pounds.

On top of this, add the two roll posts — which stream more hot exhaust gases from the main engine for additional stability — generating between 1,800 pounds and 2,000 pounds of thrust each.

All this makes for a little over 40,000 pounds of total thrust. Without afterburner.

A diagram showing, from left to right, the Lift Fan, two roll posts, and the 3 Bearing Swivel Nozzle or 3BSN in the F-35B. Rolls-Royce

“There’s a reserve to allow the jet to automatically tune it up over the life of the engine to keep it at that level,” the pilot explains. “That said, there are issues with the predicted life/fatigue already. So a new engine update is inbound.” You can read more about those plans here.

When hovering, the F-35B’s maximum weight is limited to 38,850 pounds to ensure there’s some extra thrust to provide flexibility and cushion the landing.

An F-35B during night flying trials aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth, as part of flight testing off the east coast of the United States in 2018. U.S. Navy photo by Dane Wiedmann

Less obvious, perhaps, is the work of the flight control system to manage the jet’s transition into vertical mode and then help put it safely on the deck.

“Decelerating into the hover, the aircraft is around 11 degrees nose-up,” the pilot continues. “As the aircraft goes into the jet-borne (JB) regime, the attitude changes progressively down to 1.8 degrees nose-up. So quite a change as you slow down — this is all controlled by the thrust split between the 3 Bearing Swivel Nozzle (3BSN) at the back and the Lift Fan. Then, as the pilot commands a descent from the hover down to the pad, the thrust split increases the attitude from 1.8 to 3.8 degrees nose-up to account for sloping pads or a pitching deck, ensuring the main wheels touch down before the nose wheel.”

F-35Bs conduct night flying operations aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth. U.S. Navy photo by Dane Wiedmann

The opposite then happens when the pilot commands the F-35B to accelerate out of the hover and into the conventional flight mode. “[The jet] starts at 1.8 degrees nose-up and as you go into semi-jet borne flight around 60 KCAS [Knots Calibrated Airspeed], the attitude raises to 11 degrees nose-up to make the wing take some of the lift load and lower the amount of engine thrust required by the Lift Fan and 3BSN combination in the vertical axis. Eventually, the Lift Fan thrust is reduced, and a speed is achieved that allows the aircraft to be converted out of STOVL mode and into CTOL [conventional takeoff and landing] mode as a conventional fixed-wing fighter.”

“It’s astoundingly clever,” the pilot enthuses.

Another view of F-35B night field carrier landing practices by the Patuxent River Integrated Test Force (ITF), at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, in August 2018. U.S. Navy photo by Dane Wiedmann

Cleverer still is a variation of the vertical recovery that’s seen in the photo at the top of this story — the Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL), a concept you can read more about here and here.

A standard F-35B recovery involves the jet being brought alongside the ship in a hover, translating sideways over the deck, before gently lowering to land. The advantage of this maneuver is increased safety, due to the low speeds involved, with no need to decelerate to a stop using the brakes.

In contrast, the SRVL makes use of a combination of powered and wing-borne lift to make a rolling landing, with the F-35B then brought to a stop using its brakes. According to the Royal Navy, “An SRVL uses a different approach, with the jet using a more conventional landing pattern, approaching the ship from the aft end, at speed, using the thrust from the nozzle and lift created by air over the wings to touch down and come to a stop as soon as possible.”

A video from the Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing simulator at the BAE Warton facility in the United Kingdom:

The main advantage of an SRVL is that the F-35B can return to the ship with a heavier load of fuel and/or weapons. Otherwise, expensive stores might have to be ejected into the sea if they are not expended. It’s hoped that the SRVL maneuver will allow the F-35B to land back on the ship with a payload gain of 2,000 pounds, equivalent to four Paveway IV precision-guided bombs.

A fully loaded UK F-35B on the deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth. Stores on the underwing stations include four 500-pound Paveway IV precision-guided bombs. Crown Copyright

The SRVL concept was proven by test pilots aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2018. The photo at the top of this story was taken during trials aboard sister carrier HMS Prince of Wales in October 2023, which were aimed to introduce the SRVL capability to frontline pilots.

Achieving an SRVL requires close cooperation between the pilot and the ship’s landing signal officer (LSO) in the flying control office. The pilot also receives flightpath cues from their helmet-mounted display.

U.K. test pilot Peter Wilson conducts the first-ever SRVL by an F-35B, during trials aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2018. Crown Copyright

Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales features a visual landing aid — known as the Bedford Array — specifically tailored to SRVLs. This comprises an array of lights in the flight deck tramlines, which indicates the glideslope to the pilot.

Currently, the United Kingdom is the only F-35B operator committed to introducing the SRVL to its concept of operations, although the U.S. Marine Corps has shown some interest in the past. Still, this is likely connected with operations from British aircraft carriers rather than U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships. Regardless, the U.S. Marine Corps continues to be involved in the trials with the Royal Navy, as part of the Integrated Test Force. SRVLs may well also be of relevance to Italy and Japan, both of which also operate their F-35Bs from ships, but just how safe it would be on those ships's smaller decks is unclear at this time.

An F-35B from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit performs a vertical landing on the flight deck of the USS America (LHA-6). F-35 Lightning II Joint Program Office

Whether by day or night, returning an F-35B to the deck of a ship showcases some extremely sophisticated technology, some of it more visible than others. While a nighttime recovery may suggest the use of afterburner, the truth is, if anything, more impressive, with the jet being brought back to the ship thanks to roughly 40,000 pounds of non-afterburning thrust.

Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com

[beevean]

I think people usually confuse delving into darker subjects in writing as the same thing as making a story more mature, when there's actually a difference between the two. You can introduce darker elements into a story, or have it shift to a darker tone. But it's not going to be effective if you don't have enough of an understanding of what makes what you're trying to tackle is so fucked up in the first place, or why the introduction of it is significant and carries so much weight. Without tackling it with finesse, it will come off as immature if anything, like a kid who just discovered curse words.

Every time IDW tries to do this it feels more like it's more for shock value. Another thing it seems to be falling into that over half of the pre-reboot run of the Archie comics did. But at least with Archie there was the spectacle of it having some of the most certifiably insane shit happen.

Friendly reminder that when Flynn got sick of the criticism against the way he wrote the moral dilemma in #50, he justified himself with "it's a children's fantasy, if you adult want something deeper go read something else".

Which says a lot about how much he cares about the stuff he wrote.

My man. No one forced you to write everyone getting pissed at Sonic for not killing Mr. Tinker and whether or not it would be justified to murder a man who doesn't remember his own war crimes. No one forced you to write gruesome scenes such as Vector trapping an infected woman TWD-style, or everything happening to Cream. No one forced you to come up with Surge and Kit and their horrifying nature of being brainwashed into being caricatures, with Surge being forced to feel homicidial hatred for someone he doesn't know and Kit being forced to be an extension of Surge herself. No one forced you to "explore" Sonic's supposed "principle" of giving everyone freedom. You want a dark story? Commit. Children cartoons have done it. Just to make one famous example, AtLA's whole backdrop revolves around exploring the consequences of war and imperialism.

Hell what about Sonic himself? The Storybook games? One with an abusive relationship, and the other brushing over the fear of death? They might not go very deep into these topics, but it doesn't come off as haphazard either!

The MV arc simply didn't matter in the long run! The only consequence of it is that Starline decided to show Eggman who's the better evil scientist by creating Surge and Kit, but there was zero need for all that drawn out angst. Cream herself is completely fine and happy after watching her mother die! Surge and Kit will come back in a few months so we'll see what happens with them, but the story barely explored their fucked up nature, and it only highlighted what a piece of shit IDW Sonic is by being so callous towards both of them. And by giving random angst to Surge via Starline hallucinations that, once again, did not matter at all - Stanley simply really wanted to draw Surge scared and crying.

It's amateurish. I have no other word for it.

[maxknightley]

i read vector spectacle and it was real good love how they treat poor shin like a little kid even as she makes her own choices. seija rules as always too

the part in volume... four, IIRC? where she's having a fucking shoulder angel-shoulder devil crisis over having Genuinely Positive Feelings about someone is so fucking good.

[skojukebox]

Snippet from A Spark That Won't Go Out Ch.10

I see a few other people post early previews now and then and I thought I might give it a shot. Enjoy some nermies being cute:

"Y'know, this place isn't bad. For a ratty, spooky, abandoned old building," Tangle said cheerily between crunching spoonfuls of Sugar-Frosted Mobi-Os. Breakfast had always been her favorite, even when it consisted of nothing but sugary cereal and almond milk as it did that chilly winter morning. When she was little, the lemur remembered imagining she was powering herself up somehow with whatever she chowed down on like some kind of superhero.

Well, all right, sometimes she still did that. But it wasn't every day anymore!

"As long as the coffee maker works, I'll live," Lanolin yawned, holding a mug with both hands. Maggie sat beside her on the table, the limp magenta wisp looking almost as tired as her partner. The sheep had been wide awake when Tangle and Whisper had fallen asleep, and judging by the way she kept nearly teetering over, she'd worked well into the night trying to get her wispon bell back in working order.

"Slept in worse places," Whisper said, long blonde hair all a-tumble on her shoulders and down her back. It was all Tangle could do not to stare at it dreamily. She'd asked her in the past about wearing it untied while they were out and about and received a long lecture about how it would interfere with the movement and the sniping optics on her mask. Since then, she'd been content to take it in as an occasional beautiful spectacle.

The three were now on their third day living with Surge and Kit, and while the first evening had felt a little bit like camping in the rough, Tangle already knew she was going to end up loving it. The lemur was sure that no matter where the trio ended up, she could make do and stay happy as long as they were all together. And besides, this was also an opportunity to make new friends!

"Stripes, you suck!" came an angry shout from a room adjacent to the table they were all eating at. New Friend Number 1 emerged from the doorway, looking fairly drowsy but no less angry for her trouble. Surge was clad in a t-shirt that looked more like it had been made for someone the proportions of Vector. It went all the way down to her knees! Tangle had to wonder where she even got it.

"Mornin', Surge. Want some cereal?" the lemur passed right over the top of the tenrec's outburst like a river over a pebble. She'd gotten used to them at this point. In fact, she was pretty sure Surge was in the practice of actively going out and looking for things to enrage herself. It gave her an excuse not to be nice.

"What I want is some sleep," the tenrec growled. All the same, she dawdled over to the table and rudely jammed her hand into the box, yanking out a handful of Mobi-Os and popping them into her mouth like trail mix. She continued through crunches: "I dunno if you guys changed where you sleep last night or something, but you kept waking me up with your snoring!"

"Pffft! I mean, I moved a little bit closer to your door, but I don't snore!" Tangle waved a hand at the tenrec dismissively, looking over at Lanolin and Whisper for approval, only to find the pair looking away from her.

"Guys? I don't snore, right…?"

"You do," Lanolin said sleepily, "Kind of like a cartoon character. If I put a feather on your lips I'm pretty sure you could juggle it with your breath."

"…Always thought it was kind of cute," Whisper said with a blush.

[ganymedesclock]

As an addendum to the previous post, a few characters' powers:

Amy: Power Booster (attunes to others' powers and can amplify them, can also track people if she's worked with their power before)

Cream: Omniglot (if it thinks in some form of language or approximation thereof she can talk to it. this includes animals)

Big: Body Enhancement-Strength (like a non-flying superman. He's capable of moving pretty fast but this costs a lot more stamina than it does a 'speed' tilted character like Sonic. On the other hand though, he's very strong!)

Vanilla: Transmutation (think Full Metal Alchemist- can manipulate the chemical composition of matter around her, but must respect the conservation of mass + energy)

Shadow: john carpenter's Electrokinesis (generates electrical energy and can route currents through his body without harming himself, up to certain comfortable thresholds. Yes he can shoot lightning yes he would rather do literally anything else than be caught doing that in public)

Vector: Hypervoice (type of bodily enhancement. His vocal chords are a terrifying swiss army knife capable of doing all kinds of interesting things)

Espio: False Image (illusionist, classic ninja shit. were you attacking him? oh no it's just a log. He uses it for less cool ninja shit and more 'we don't have the budget for special effects but we want to shoot fireworks harmlessly at our fans because spectacle is what they came for')

Charmy: Sizeshifter (he can make himself bigger or smaller! Sizing up has diminishing returns on how much stronger it makes him though.)

Mighty: Body Enhancement-Resilience (like Big, supernaturally strong; unlike Big the primary facet of the bodily enhancement is nearly indestructible skin.)

Ray: Levitator (As a comfortably established 20something, a lot bolder/surer with it than Tails)

Rouge: Super Sonar (good luck hiding anything from her. Good luck trying to trace her by anything she can signal-scramble by emitting the right frequency. This is speculated to be an offshoot of Hypervoice but powers are so individualistic it's hard to say)

[amemenojaku]

recent post made me curious, what do you consider the most precious doujin thing(s) you own?

Sukunagatari (スクナガタリ), a retelling of DDC & ISC in 5 volumes with a LOT of folklore elements and the artist's interpretation of what ZUN used as inspiration for shinmyoumaru & seija. cool fight scenes, REALLY good emotional moments, interesting thoughts on derivative stories and oral transmission of folktales, there's even an original song written by the artist and the circle Ringing Volcano turned it into a remix of reverse ideology some time later available right here. honestly this is one of the best doujins I've ever read and I absolutely recommend it! or if you can't read it there's also the song which is great!! I have a lot of feelings about these books

Hohuri by Diao Ye Zong, it's still my favorite album from them and it's what really got me into dolls in pseudo paradise :) solid tracklist from beginning to end. not much to add since I've already talked about it a lot over the past few years

Yumekanae, the full-color counterpart to the messed up cat renko book. If You Know You Know, etc. I enjoyed the cat story for its oppressive atmosphere & its excellent twist, but this one with its soft sunset colors & merry's monologue & that gorgeous page where she/yukari swallows The Thing has haunted me since it came out in (checks) 2014! which is funnily enough the same year Hohuri came out... like a good wine year....... anyway this really made me love the idea of merry not being a "person", but a concept or some kind of phenomenon. and the accompanying song is excellent and always makes me wanna cry. "now together we'll become a world".. auugghhh

さよなら花余命 by ykzt, a lovely story about kosuzu realizing her feelings for akyuu. it's tender, the art is beautiful (this artist has drawn some of my favorite akyuusuzu pictures), I love the soft smiles and blushing faces and how kosuzu's thoughts are written. the quiet, bittersweet atmosphere of the whole story is the cherry on the cake for me

Vector Spectacle, which I think most seija/shinmyoumaru fans (or people who read lots of touhou doujinshi in general) already know and like :) it's a great mix of fun scenes, romance, well-written introspection and cool backstory ideas. I'm a bit sad it was never finished ofc, but what's already out there is really good and the art is amazing. I have very fond memories of reading and collecting doujin stuff in 2014-2018 and this series is one of the reasons why!!!

there's a lot of other doujin books or CDs with sentimental value to me because I got them as gifts from friends, joined as an artist, or which I got in person from my favorite creators... but there's so many I'm scared I'd forget to list some of them.. so maybe for another day, when I'll write a doujin rec list!