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Aw c'mon, you're not even trying.

Flapping your arms is free, a high-end private jet can be about $50M, so a mid-range personal jet should be about $25M.

According to this list of prices, the Gulfstream G550 has a MSRP of about $46M, and a "mid-range" Cessna Citation is in the $15M-$25M range. How about that. Note, this doesn't imply that a Ford Focus should cost $25M. While the Focus is "transportation," it's lacking wings. You been hanging out with BadAnalogyGuy?

Have you ever flown a plane or even seen what the cockpits look like on military aircraft? When you're flying a plane you generally have PLENTY of time to look around outside or inside. Sure, a fighter pilot wouldn't be looking down at his screens while dogfighting or refueling but there's plenty of time to do so. Here's an example of a cockpit: F-22 Cockpit If they weren't supposed to look down why would they give them all those lovely displays? The HUDs on newer aircraft can show quite a bit but they won't show you everything.

    Ya, I guess I failed to mention the "fast acting" part of that. :) There are lots of details that can be gotten into. Most people glaze over at thrust, drag, lift, and control surfaces. I found talk about directed thrust with piston driven ducted fans doesn't get me anywhere with the ladies either. At least not the ones I've tried it with. :)

    I'd be pretty sure that any roll they'd use them with would be a collision avoidance roll, or a real nasty weather aborted landing. Hopefully none of us ever have to see.

    I suspect they'd be used if someone did something like this. I wouldn't want this to happen on a commercial flight, but if I knew it was going to happen, it'd be fun. :) You can see he lost a good bit of altitude doing it. Usually a maneuver like that doesn't turn out so well, like this B-52 accident (Note, keep your lift going away from gravity, or bad things happen.). At least the capability is there to get the passengers on the ground in one piece. Well, unless you happen to be in an Air France plane over the South Atlantic a few weeks ago.

    It was my understanding that because of the loads handled by commercial aircraft, they were all technically rated for acrobatics, but it was not listed in their service specs, so a high G maneuver would ground it and require a full airframe inspection after.

Yup - see it here:

http://www.aviationexplorer.com/707_roll_video.htm

It looks impressive, but it's 1G (positive) all the way. Has been done in all sorts of big stuff, including a Concorde and a VC10 (with me in it!).

NASA's 'Vomit Comet' is a Boeing 717/KC-135 (707 variant used by Air Force). It is indeed reinforced for cargo and aerial refueler duties. Got to catch it one time and do a turn around, back in '88, up at Fairchild AFB. Also, the 707 platform is very good. Check out the 707 prototype, doing a barrel roll over Seattle.

The lightweight [...] cannon [...] can be controlled from the gunner's helmets.

The last thing I want to try is a barrel roll in a passenger jet..

No worries...

I don't think you are including the passenger area.

A C-5 Galaxy has a cargo area of:

Cargo Compartment: height , 13.5 feet (4.11 meters); width, 19 feet (5.79 meters); length, 143 feet, 9 in (43.8 meters

Giving it 36679.5 cubic feet of space.

http://www.aviationexplorer.com/c-5_facts.htm

You got the shortened version, check this link out for the full version. Does that clarify things a bit? See the dude running to place weapons?

The reason that this wasn't made into a big deal is because the complete tape shows evidence of these guys placing weapons. You better believe that if there was proof of us killing innocent civilians, it would be a huge controversy, and for good reason.

Meh. Let's see 'em do a barrel roll with it like they did with the 707.

http://www.aviationexplorer.com/707_roll_video.htm