Valkyrie Driver

From What I've seen for reviews, it's the same old gripes; No landing gear, bad proportions, bad gerwalk on the 19, no place to put the gunpod on the vf19... etc. I love my 1/60 yamatos, but they're just too damn expensive, and they take up a ton of shelf space, something that is at a premium for me. I just bought a VF19 hi-metal, and I'll reserve judgment until I receive it. I'm also bound by grooming standards, which prevent me from growing the required fingernails to manipulate the small doors. Anyway, I've heard gripes about parts swapping, but nothing can be as bad as the VFhundred vf-25 I had, even my 1/60 VF-25 has some parts swapping. I just wanted a nice looking VF19 that wasn't going to cost me two kidneys and a testicle to own. Also, the proportions on the VF-1 look a ton better than the toynami, of which I own 2. Just saying, the gripes people have are pretty minor for a 1/100 scale toy.

It's been a while but here goes. I've got a Yamato VF-0A that had the right arm fall to pieces on me. I've since repaired it twice with super glue, but I'd like a full replacement. Can anybody help me? I really don't want to buy a whole new toy, as I'm on a pretty tight budget these days. I actually can't even find new ones for sale anywhere. I really hope y'all can help me out.

I haven't been to this corner of the net in a while but whenever I take a little trip to the wider world of the internets, I always come back to fantastic news. HOORAY VF-17! I've always loved that bird, and will purchase one when they become available. It's been quite some time since I bought a new toy, and Now I've got one n mind. Thanks Graham for bringing us such joyous news!

I gotta say this about smartphones, I have one of the latest, the iPhone 4, it's great I love it. It has settled many an argument over silly random facts, it has alerted me to impending appointments, and kept me entertained on long trips, not to mention saved my bacon when the squadron does a recall. What I don't like is the way it makes people. When technology gets to the point it is now, it makes people stupid. I have a use for a smartphone, My commander, and first sergeant both have USAF issued blackberries, and use them on a daily basis, best way to get in touch with the first shirt is call his mobile. One of my fellow airmen is constantly glued to his smartphone, always texting, always on facebook, or whatever. Technology is not bad, nor do I hate any of it, I hate what it does to people. That said, here's my list of tech that people get dumb over: 1. Smartphones, when it feeds an addiction to the inane, (texting and social networking) 2. Social networking, used properly it doesn't bother me, but when I'm helping a co-worker out and he's checking facebook or whatever, while I'm working on his crap, it torques me off. 3. video games, I know GAH! He hates video games! No, I hate the tyrannical 10yr old F***tards on xbox live who are ridiculously good at Call of Duty or Halo, which would never have been in my games collection when I was 10. It's bad parenting. Then there are the 25yr old unemployed guys who live with their parents and do nothing but play video games, get a life and a job and stop being a drain on society. 4. Bluetooth headsets, I have one, I have to because I use it when I need two hands, tell you what though, when I done with it, it goes into my pocket. If you are interacting with people, take the F***ing thing out of your ear, and hang up the phone, it's rude. Well there you have it, My list of dislikes, as you can see I don't hate the tech, I hate what it does to people's social skills. Will tell you this, I hope they never go all Ghost in the Shell on us and start blurring the line between man and machine, then I'll never be able to tell when someone's not paying attention to what I'm saying. Also, take this away from my post, when things are being used properly and in moderation it's almost never bad. FYI, the smartphone is quite versatile, the army has been looking into using them for all kinds of tactical applications: calling in airstrikes, ranging targets, shot counters, ballistics calculators, detainee processing, intel gathering, you name a tactical application, you might just see an app for that.

I have a bunch of nerf guns, I know one of my NCOs has quite a few as well. Nerf tends to be more indoor friendly than paintball and airsoft (I my self have played both indoors, and let me tell you, close quarters with a paintball gun is not as enjoyable as it is outside. also airsoft will punch through drywall with the right guns). Also, for anyone who has ever played the assassin game on a college campus. Nerf guns are not likely to draw the attention of the campus cops. Also eye protection is not as vital with nerf. Fun times in the Dorms on base though.

Cool, thanks for the answers.

Here's an old question. Are there any replacement parts available for the VF-0A, like say a right shoulder? Are they available in the states through third party sellers? Can the Original Release of the VF-0A take the stand alone ghost fighter, or am I stuck with plain old fighter?

Did we ever come to a consensus about what ship would win a competition?

The SV-51 and the VF-0 are evenly matched in terms of specs. The SV-51 may be better than the VF-0, but not by enough to justify it over the VF-0. Coupled with the VF-0's cost efficiency and "conventional" layout it would seem that the VF-0 is the winner. *NOTE: as with any weapons system the skill of the operator will play a big role in how the machine performs. Comparing the two from the anime is biased, as the main pilots were of desperate skill levels.

Product 9, You bring up some good points, my interest in micro missiles is the ability to carry a lot of them, giving the ship longer time on target. If you can build a smaller missile that is just as powerful as today's missiles, you can pack the bays with the things and take out a large number of enemy aircraft.

That was my own thing, I guess I miscounted, again, my bad. That list would describe it better, than I was attempting to.

Sketchley, I was unaware of a bunch of those VF's you mentioned, as I've only got what I've read, and seen to go by. I thank you for pointing out the flaws in my argument, The Point I was trying to make still stands, there were multiple contributors that culminated in the 5th gen variable fighters seen in Macross Plus/Macross 7. I can only cram so much info into my brain.

Very good points, I was just trying to illustrate the technology is developing, and the laser guided zuni is a bit big for the imagined micro missile, you'd need to cut about a foot off the Hydra 70 and give it something better than laser guidance, not to mention better maneuverability before micro missiles would be viable.

We're also not that far from making the micro missiles. We already have the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System for the Hydra 70 2.75 inch rocket, and a similar system in the works for the old 5.0 inch Zuni, with some tweaking we could easily adapt those systems to use on small high-yield warheads for small missiles. Heck if we can change the software out and make a Sidewinder kill, boats, we can make a javelin kill aircraft.

I stand corrected, however, a missile the size of an AIM-9 or AIM-120 lacks a warhead of proper size to sink a ship, cigarette boat sure, but not a destroyer. That's still interesting about the AIM-9 test though, I wonder how long until we have an AIM/AGM dual regime missile.

It's possible that the Mid range missile you refer to isn't in the same category as the AIM-200A (which seems to be an update of the AIM-120). I took the comparison to mean only Air to Air Missiles. Even in Macross, Missiles had to evolve, So I tend to think that at the Time of Macross Zero, Missiles were regime specific. By regime I mean Air-to-Air, Air-to-Ground, anti-shipping, stand-off cruise, all of those various categories and sub categories. It's hard to build a missile that can target and kill anything you aim it at. The missile would be huge, and expensive. There is a certain amount of artistic license taken with the pilots. Fighter pilots don't actually yell, "TAKE THIS!" when they fire off a missile, instead the call out the brevity code for the missile type, Fox 1 for semi active radar homing, Fox 2 for IR homing, Fox 3 for active radar homing. To make the show more accessible to a wider range of viewers, a lot of the technicality has to be sacrificed so you don't lose the viewers. The missile that struck the ship, was probably an anti ship missile like the Harpoon or Matra Magic.

Radd brings up an interesting point. Well, the VF-11 could be innovative as it is the first VF to incorporate a ballistic shield, and a reloadable weapon. the VF-5000 is the first to incorporate fully internal missile armaments. The VF-17 Incorporates passive stealth features, and the ability to achieve escape velocity without boosters. The VF-4 for integrating heavy beam weaponry as a primary armament. The YF/VF-19 is radically different, the transformation is more complex, the wing is a FSW configuration, it has Internal missile armaments, beam cannon, ability to achieve escape velocity under it's own power, ballistic shield, reloadable weapon. It is a culmination of everything that came before it, plus the PinPoint Barrier and Panoramic cockpit. The YF-21/VF-22 was the most radically different, as it deviated the most from the original layout. the engines became the backpack unit, rather than the legs. The Pilot recieved input from BDI. but essentially all the guts were a culmination of what came before. To me I'd say the most innovative would be the one that made the biggest impact on variable fighters, since the VF-1, Which I'd say is the VF-11. It did the the ballistic Shield first, and it did the reloadable weapon first, which has been standard on all VF's since.

I've been doing some research on some very successful real world fighters, and looking at the design aspects of each. The VF-0 and the F-15 seem to have similar design philosophies in mind, a lightly loaded, low aspect, shoulder mounted wing with blended wing roots. The F-14/F-111 swing wing gives it a lot of versatility, and useful speed ranges, it can work well at slow speed at low altitude, or high altitude at high speed. The SV-51 seems to have a lot in common with the F-16/F-18 with higher aspect, lightly loaded (I'm guessing as the structural nature of the wing hasn't been revealed) wing with blended roots/lerx. Both wing designs with blended roots can still produce lift at high angles of attack, the only question is which is more maneuverable. It seems to me that the g-loading on the SV-51 might be lower than the VF-0, which means the VF-0 can maintain higher speed through a turn, which means the VF-0 can out turn the SV-51 at speed. It also means that the SV-51 needs to sacrifice airspeed for a tighter turn. That can be good or bad depending on the situation. The SV-51 seems more stout and robust, due to the nature of the primary manufacturer, Sukhoi. (The Russians have always preferred to build less sophisticated, more robust aircraft capable of launching from primitive airfields.) The SV-51 does evoke the Russian Design paradigm. The VF-0 has the upper hand in versatility and medium-range weaponry. If we carry over current NATO doctrine however, the medium range weaponry is moot, as engagement beyond-visual-range is not allowed under the ROE, to prevent friendly-fire accidents. The Medium range weapons would only allow longer visual range fire, which is still better than trying to have the proverbial knife-fight-in-a-phone booth, with AIM-9's (or Macross equivalent). Now as for which would win a competition, it would be the VF-0. Better fuel consumption, expandability (FAST Packs, CFT's), Excellent performance (maybe not as good as the SV-51, but still excellent), Ease of manufacture, Ease of Maintenance, Parts Supply (I'm betting that the Anti-UN doesn't have as many resources as the UN Spacy), and Relative Simplicity. The SV-51 may be Superior as the YF-21 was many years later, sheer superiority of performance doesn't always guarantee the contract. (I see the results of the lowest bidder every day I work, my tools are not the greatest out there, The computers at work still use Windows XP, and The Radar terminals date back to the Mid -90's almost 20 years old. It's similar with weapons systems, There are literally 10 other weapons that are better than the M4 but that's what can be made the cheapest that meets the specs.)

Oh, I guess I can see, that, it actually might help heighten the pilot's situational awareness then. I thought the two systems were tied together, that was my misunderstanding.

I can do it some how. What I was attempting to do was figure out the aspect ratio of the wings, to determine which had the higher ratio.

while BDI would be innovative, I don't like the idea of my jet being connected to my brain. would make battroid mode less cumbersome to operate though. As illustrated in M+ so much as a passing thought can make the ship do something you don't want. Especially when trying to keep your situational awareness up. A properly trained individual is constantly evaluating maneuvers and never really finishing each maneuver but transitioning to something else, stringing "combos" together like a judo match. As there is no basis for comparison, we can only speculate on the inner workings of the system.

Just need the wingspan tip to tip, if you have a VF-0 could you do that, I don't have a measuring tape. thnx

You bring up a good point about the backpack and hips on the VF-0, I didn't bring up the hips because, well that would be a huge failing for real world construction, but as was mentioned earlier, it's moot. As for the LERX/Chines/intake hood things, look at the F/A-18, the LERX's go right over the intake there as well, the benefit is that it directs airflow. Air is always flowing to the wingtip, and so would still benefit the fighter in the same way. This would negate some of the SV-51's advantage from the canards. As for the Wing loading, yes each design has benefits. I am curious though, as to the aspect ratio of the wings on both designs. The SV-51 appears to have a higher aspect ratio than the VF-0 which would increase the roll rate on the SV-51, making it unable to maneuver at high speed. That's my assessment, and as of right now I have no facts to back up my claim. If someone could do the calculations from a yamato SV-51 that would be cool, I can do them for my VF-0.

I gotta say that the 360 view in the VF-19 cockpit is freaking cool. Nice addition to pilot situational awareness. I think the depictions of the VF-17 cockpit had similar panels. The System was probably adapted into the VF-22S as well. That was pretty cool I must admit.