REVIEW Ping G4. 00 DriverDoes PING think were stupidI might be paraphrasing, but the sentiment comes from a reader who didnt like what he saw in our First Look Piece on the G4. To be sure, its not unusual for a golf equipment company to release a next big thing thats nearly no different than the last big thing. The demands of the one year cycle mean we often get products that dont do what the manufacturer claims. Sometimes we get a fresh coat of paint intended to disguise a step backward. In the absence of actual innovation, you can always rely on a good story. When that fails, trade on your reputation, and hope nobody notices the little man behind the giant curtain. Thats how it works, and so yeah, you bet there are some golf companies who think youre stupid. Their business thrives on your ignorance their success depends on it. But PING Cmon. Were talking about a company that rarely promises more than modest distance increases, and when it does, its generally quick to point out that not everyone will see gains. Sure PINGs been known to do some outside the box thinking, and theres plenty of that with the G4. PING is matter of fact engineering and science, lots of charts, and plenty of discussion about trade offs and compromises. Without fail, I always walk away with a larger vocabulary. The PING business is driven by knowledge and the founding principle of helping golfers play their best. This particular case in point is the new G4. Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get. Driver. Want to win aFlightscope MEVOEnter My. Golf. Spys Giveaway Evolution That Matters. Every golf company wants to evolve its products, but in the golf industry, evolution is often bound to the annual cycle. Whatever innovation that exists is calendar driven, which means that it happens in baby steps sometimes minimal, occasionally incremental but appreciable, and sometimes not at all. But every now and again, everything comes together, and the latest and greatest really is significantly better. Callaway will tell you Epic is just such a product. Im here to tell you that the G4. Consider this the week the G4. USGA conforming list, 1. PING staffers put it into play. A U S T R A L I A S. G O L F. N E W S. The basics. L E A D E R. Driver stance and ball position. Mid iron stance and ball position. Alignment. palms facing away. Shop from the worlds largest selection and best deals for Putter Golf Clubs. Shop with confidence on eBayDid I mention that it was the week of the US Open Now Im not one who much concerns himself with Tour usage, but 1. PGA Tour professionals putting a new driver in the bag for the first time at a major. That doesnt happen. It just doesnt. So why the exception to the rule PING Innovation. Before we get into whats different and exciting with G4. I think its important to define innovation within the PING universe. Consult your dictionary if you like, but most of us have an idea what innovation is. It usually describes something new often exciting that hasnt been done before. In the golf equipment world, the definition is often expanded to include something that may have been done before but has been repackaged with a new story. For its part, PING thinks about innovation a bit differently. Consider the relationships between things like aerodynamics which have a strong correlation to head size and MOI, strong vs. These are situations where improvement on one side of the equation creates and almost inherent degradation on the other. Its what PING calls the trade off curve, and only when the companys engineers find a way to sever those inverse relationships does PING say it has innovated. With that out of the way, lets get to it. Keep Weighting. Its a terrible pun, made worse by the fact that if youve been waiting for PING to offer movable weights in its drivers, youre going to have to keep waiting. PING believes it provides a better fitting experience with three distinct models than it could be by offering you things that slide, flip, or otherwise migrate about the clubhead. To that end, the G4. With that out of the way, lets discuss the five areas where PING has improved its G series. Cosmetics. Although its the most trivial of the enhancements, the cosmetics of the G4. Im starting. Other than those of you who are opposed to Turbulators for aesthetic reasons, and I suppose allowing for some of you who might be put off by the Dragonfly Crown too, theres nothing particularly off putting about PINGs G Series and G3. They look perfectly ok. Not sexy, not bad, just ok. With the G4. 00, PING felt it was important to elevate the design. And while thats true for every aspect of the new model, its most readily apparent in the cosmetics. For the G4. 00, PING wanted to achieve an aesthetic that would stand out in the marketplace and wouldnt look outdated months or even years down the road. Taking inspiration from the auto and consumer electronics industries, PING believes the G4. PING brand and its products. While it isnt any surprise that PINGs now signature Turbulator tradition carries on, some will be surprised to learn that theyre more prominent than ever. The idea is that bolder Turbulators will heighten focus and provide better alignment. The Dragonfly feature which debuted with the G Driver has been extended the full length of the crown what PING calls the infinity edge. PING has also added a textured detail to the back region of the crown. The new aerodynamically neutral feature softens up the lines a bit while drawing attention back towards the face and Turbulators. While I dont have anything specific to say about it, I should also mention that the Vortec cavity continues as well. Mass Properties. Its time for the obligatory weight savings portion of our story. I could argue that this one is a bit more impressive when you consider that PING is among last still using all titanium construction. Its not that PING cant use composite. It could, but the company believes it can still make a better driver using all Titanium construction. Theres likely some validity to that argument considering that, even with composite crowns, few of its competitors have come close to matching PINGs forgiveness. G4. 00s weight savings come from extending and thinning the Dragonfly Crown. Engineers also thinned the sole and skirt areas as well. You want a number Instead of sweating over x thousands of an inch, just understand that were talking about approximately the thickness of three crisp dollar bills. You know how the rest of this story ends. PING took its newly minted discretionary mass, along with a bit of extra they got from bumping up the overall head weight, and positioned it low and back. To be fair, the G4. PING added a fixed tungsten backweight that varies in placement depending on the model. Its way back in the G4. LST, and in the heel of the draw biased SFT. Additional mass is allocated to PINGs custom tuning port. The copper colored 3. The key point is that the new weights are smaller but also denser. That allows for more precise placement of the mass. In the case of the G4. PING was able to position 3. X more mass relative to G in the back one inch of the clubhead. Its the kind of detail thats easy to skim over, but trust me, its kind of a big deal. The sum total of the enhanced design yields a clubhead with combined MOI over 9. PING says makes the G4. The G4. 00 has a heeltoe inertia of 5. Assuming thats true, the G4. CGMOI chart. Well need to expand our x axis to make room. Yeah thats right, killer MOI in a sub 4. Aerodynamics. You know what Turbulators do, but did you know that theyre most effective when the face is square or nearly square Were really talking about the bottom of the downswing leading into impact. While this is the range where the club is moving its fastest, it doesnt spend a substantial amount of time in this zone. So, if PING was going to make a meaningful improvement to aerodynamics, it needed to find a way to reduce drag at points in the downswing where the face isnt square or nearly so. When the face is open, as it is for much of the downswing, the hosel is effectively out in front of the head. From an aerodynamic perspective, PINGs Erik Henrikson compares it to driving down the road with a telephone pole attached to the front of your car. Were talking about the kind of turbulent wake you cant Vortec your way out of. The clubhead is moving more slowly over the portions of the swing where the face is open, but the clubhead is in that face open position for a much longer period, and that presented an opportunity to further improve the aerodynamics. To reduce drag, PING had to reduce the cross sectional area of the driver. Cookie Reviews 2. Kit Review Xact Scale Models 13. Kit No. XS3. 50. 01 T 8. U Soviet Main Battle Tank 4. US6. 9. 9. 9. Advantages most accurate T 8. Disadvantages tracks a bit more flexible than most. Rating Highly Recommended. Recommendation For all Soviet and modern Russian armor fans. Date Reviewed July 1. Full Review Show. This is a revision of my original 6 June 2. In regard to Soviet Minister of Defense Dmitriy Ustinov, he loved new toys and under Brezhnev what Dmitriy wants, Dmitriy gets. He was starry eyed over the T 6. Soviet forces. But the T 6. T 7. 2, soon eclipsed it with the Red Army. But when word leaked out in the early 1. US was considering a turbine engine for their next main battle tank, he had to have one too. Kharkov the T 6. Nizhniy Tagil the T 7. Undaunted, the Leningrad Kirov Factory under Zhosef Kotin volunteered to put a turbine in the T 6. Under chief designer Nikolay Popov, they produced Article 2. T 8. 0. This tank was approved for service in 1. Red Army did not want it. A T 8. 0A model went nowhere, and it was only with the T 8. B the tank went into production in the early 1. This tank added a through the barrel ATGM capability as Article 2. R and in 1. 98. 3 was also fitted with reactive armor protection and became the T 8. BV, which appeared in forward units such as the GSFG in 1. But even this improved T 8. The rest of the Soviet tank fleet could do 5. The generals noted it would need 2 to 2. Mo. D would not purchase them. Back to the drawing board. The T 8. 0U was actually approved for service in 1. GTD 1. 25. 0T engine before it could achieve the 5. This tank used the newer laser beam rider 9. M1. 19 ATGM system, new radios, a Buran PA night sight, and later mounted the newer Kontakt 5 ERA in place of the older Kontakt 1 used on the T 8. BV. It also had a new design turret similar to that used on the diesel powered T 8. UD tank that used modern internal armor arrays and not the matrix of ceramic balls and aluminum the T 8. B borrowed from the T 6. The Russian Army today retains about 4,0. T 8. 0 series tanks, of which 3,0. B and U types. In 1. I was an analyst at the 3rd US Armor Division in Frankfurt, Germany, and after a short discussion with my boss we were able to downgrade photos and plans I drew up of the T 8. B and T 8. 0BV tanks, and using them I later built a model of each one which were used by USAREUR for training and familiarization purposes of the new tanks. As a result I have always had an attachment for the T 8. Russian Army. In the early 1. DML produced kits of the T 8. B, T 8. 0BV, and T 8. UD, but all of them were based on photographs and as such suffered from some severe dimensional issues. In the late 1. 99. SKIF in the Ukraine came out with kits of the T 8. BV, T 8. 0UDK and other subvariants, but while more accurate suffered from very poor details and some of the worst tracks ever put in a kit. Now Xact, a new company, has released a T 8. U production model with Kontakt 5 ERA and the late production underwater crossing system as its first kit. This kit is a very well done rendition of the original with some unique choices made in its design and layout which will be new to modelers. The test shots were in the very familiar grey styrene used by most companies such as Trumpeter and DML, but the production kits are in a field grey colored green styrene. Some people have complained about kits in this color recently on the Internet, but the only real drawback is that it may required priming with a light color primer before using sand colored paint on the finished model. I think their real gripe is that it reminds them of SKIF kits, about which the less said the better. The model is similar in some respects to the recent Zvezda T 9. The mold quality is generally excellent and for the most part it also will permit Xact to create a T 8. B or T 8. 0UD series of kits from this set of molds. There are some ejection pin marks on some parts, but most are faint and easily removed. The model does an excellent job of replicating the U version and includes the odd third auxiliary fuel tank being found on the engine deck. While accurate it is odd that they kept them, as with the third 2. Unlike other kits T 6. T 7. 2 and T 9. Some may argue this reduces definition, but note that the T 8. U also has a long muddust flap parts E 3. The suspension consists of road wheel arms, separate shock absorbers, separate jounce stops, and three piece road wheels two wheels and a grease cap. The directions show the drivers being cemented to the final drives before assembly, but I think most modelers will attach the final drives to the hull first. As Terry Ashley recently noted, you may want to drill them out and use a styrene rod pin so you can attach them later when mounting the tracks. As for the tracks, runs are one piece black vinyl and a bit more flexible than most modelers would want. They are molded with open guided teeth and look nice but there is no information provided as to whether or not they are glueable ones with styrene cements. Note that if you do not wish them the Russian Army has adopted what it calls the UMSh tracks or universal type based on T 8. T 7. 2T 9. 0 UMSh tracks should fit. I used a set of Miniarm T 9. The mud scrapers are etched brass, and there is a groove in the PE fret for bending them to shape PE1. PE4PE5. The fenders come with the stowage ZIP bins in place and the fuel tanks attached separately. As this is a late U it also represents the GTA 1. APU at the rear of the hull along with the redesigned exhaust defuser. The latter is neatly done in four parts. The front mud guards use PE to represent the thinner rubber cowls and are fitted to a styrene base that attaches to the front of the fenders. Headlight guards are multi part styrene and look good in regard to their prototypes. The turret is quite involved and takes a goodly number of the parts in the box. The Buran viewer comes with a clear styrene lens, a decal for its inner protective lining, and an etched brass backing before installation in the sight head V5. Both commanders and gunners hatches are designed to open. Like the T 9. 0 kit, the model provides the basic faces of both the commanders and gunners sighting equipment inside the shell. The barrel is one piece of styrene, but the one in the kit had no sink marks and was cleanly molded. The barrel end is correct for a 2. A4. 6M 1 and has the flat calibration mount on the top of the muzzle N2. But it is quite shallow and most modelers will probably drill it out for better rendition I did that as well. The turret needs approximately 4. When starting mine I missed about 1. I missed Xact solves the problem with the Kontakt 5 arrays by making each one in four basic parts top, bottom and ends, plus the rubber flaps covering the lower arrays. The Type 9. 02. A Tucha smoke grenade launchers are done in two parts, base and tube, for better rendition as well. Xact even has the control wiring arrays molded in suitable thickness to fit to the grenade launchers. This tank no longer uses the 1. Eh. Ts. 29 remote control mount for the NVST 1. The NVST is a model unto itself, but oddly Xact placed the gun on the inside of its sprue so you will have to drill out the flash hider. The T 8. 0U has an even more impressive snorkel array than the T 8. B, dubbed Brod M brod ford in Russian. The twin tubes are provided in their nested stowed position with the exhaust D1R1. R451. 1 at the other. The trunkcombing for the intake is molded in one major piece V6 and fitted with all of the necessary components before attaching it to the rear of the turret. Note that the proper position for the Brod M is offset about 1. A preformed domed cap for the air intake is provided and is attached to the top of the snorkel base after which a fitting ring from PE is attached to the top of the dome. The last major components to fit to the tank are the side skirts the front pieces H1H2 have a blank strip in them which coincidentally sits opposite the edge of the tracks I looked at one on a Ukranian T 8. UDT 8. 4 tank. Note that while the kit provides for two tow cables the directions are not very clear on when and where to install them. One only shows up in Step 4. Step 1. 2 but its correct position along the right side of the fender bins is not shown until Step 1.
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