can this be done in vb?

I'd like to add a sort option to the dropdown menu at the bottom of forumdisplay in Display Options. I'd like to sort by Thread Start Date which is an option available in search.php but not forumdisplay.php. I've tried myself but haven't come up with the correct query. Does anybody know what code for forumdisplay.php and forumdisplay template would generate the right query? It needs to be able to sort sticky threads as well. Using the code from search.php doesn't seem to work.