David Hingtgen

A few days ago Wal-Mart restocked. Ultimate BB, Dreadwing, that's all I saw.

Even if the YF-21's foot thrust was somehow enough to hover in GERWALK---it'd still have a massive disadvantage compared to the -19. It sure couldn't climb as fast etc. So, even if "only to match the -19's abilities" a -21 needs a good chunk of lifting thrust from the main engines, via the louvers. It may be able to hover as well as a VF-1 on foot thrust alone, but it's trying to win a cutting-edge competition against a plane with far more foot thrust, so it's going to need something else. As for the intake duct---simple, they curve upwards immediately after the intake lip. The engines are mounted higher than the intake lip. Similar to the YF-23. Lots of planes have the engines higher than the intake lip, with the intake curving up to the engine---A-7, F-8, F-16, F-18. I think a good bit of the nacelle is actually just ducting on the upper fuselage, with the engine themselves being quite short and only occupying the extreme rear of the nacelle. There's of course anime magic, but Kawamori didn't completely eliminate the air path.

Ok, if nothing else, the -21's foot thrusters (if there are any) certainly aren't anywhere near as powerful as a YF-19's, so to have even comparable speed/power/agility in GERWALK mode, it'd need another set of engines or something to help it hover. If may have foot thrusters, but that alone isn't enough to hover with. Thus vectoring the main engines' thrust out through the slats in the fuselage. (since we've seen every other valk requires basically full power of the main engines to hover in GERWALK mode)

Tampo printing is simply a method of application, as opposed to spraying or brushing. It works exactly like ink pads and stamps. You dip the tampo pad into the paint, then stamp it on the toy. Doing multi-color things (like a UN kite) requires multiple pads and multiple applications---and applied carefully so all the colors line up. PS---one more political post and there would have been some major pruning of the thread.

Vic--the opening louvers are for GERWALK mode---it's so it can hover---the main engine nozzles still point aft in that mode, and the feet have no thrusters (unlike all other valks)---so it needs some way to stay up in the air, thus it has thrust vectored from the underside of the fuselage. The louvers may be a cascade, but I'm not sure that term applies to the "large and slatted" variety of vectoring vanes. It's *very* similar to the F-15S/MTD's thrust reverser assembly.

I'm still just waiting for confirmation/final pics of Nora's scheme. Magenta and yellow, not purple and gold...

Yup, he's about the only comic relief I've ever liked. HK-47 rocks. Blue Dragon has everything I hate about NPC's (or movie characters, like say, Jar-Jar) all rolled into one of them.

Going a bit OT, but I recently read a book that had a part where in the early 80's an American guy had a chance to meet some of China's top aviation scientists while visiting there. During a brief time where the guard/political overseer left, they quickly asked if it was true that Americans had landed a man on the moon, and asked when it'd happened. They'd been kept that isolated over the years, and all their references were carefully edited---but one little mention in a bibliography about the "American Apollo moon landing mission" had made it through. Sad---the top aerodynamicists and engineers in the nation, unaware that rockets even existed that could travel such a distance, etc.

Ah. Interesting, never noticed that. Center rear fuselage goes under center mid fuselage, nacelles slide over/above. The trailing parts of the wing just outboard of the nacelles stay fixed. The forward movement of the undersides of the rear nacelles/nozzle area closes up most of the gap left by the removal of the forearms. It basically looks the same before and after---very nice touch by Kawamori. You don't really notice anything's moved because everything arranges so well there's no big gaps or missing pieces.

Sumdumgai--it's not actually the nacelles sliding up. The entire back half of the plane moves. The nacelles stay attached to the rear fuselage. The split line is complicated---it goes along the front half the nacelles, but then goes straight over between them to incorporate the "flattened tailcone" area (called the beaver tail on the F-14, I'd call it a duck tail if anything) Everything aft of that moves up and over, basically sitting on top of the wings. See here: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/toys/_...yamato_yf21.htm Third row are instruction book scans. Specifically, look at the center picture of this one: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/toys/y...ionsinside2.jpg The nacelles/rear fuselage are moved into the "forward" position for both GERWALK and battroid.

I've seen the rotating shoulder pads but still haven't figured that part of the diagram out. The D'stance is sorta like that, but not quite. The D'stance has another sliding joint----if you had the original Yamato YF-21, the forearm/tailfin could slide along the "inner" forearm. The D'stance has an additional part just like that--the shoulder pad can slide along the "inner" upper arm. Plus it rotates. And folds! And has a folding hinged part on its side. I don't know if the shoulder pad actually covers the "part with a triangle on it". (Sorry, I can't think of any aircraft term to use for there). I always figured that part somehow flipped or twisted its way inside to make room for the shoulder, ending up right behind the air intake. Look at step 6 (they're numbered out of order, it's the bottom pic of the sequence)---you can see under the shoulder pad, and it looks like the shoulder attaches directly to the side of the intake--so where's the part with the triangle on it? I think it moves somewhere. And also, look at the bottom-center pic of the entire page. The arm's removed, showing the shoulder joint.

Ironically, the best way to hide the arms, and actually make the YF-21 look sleeker, is to fatten up the wing root. The problem with a lot of -21's is having basically no wingroot/blend, just skinny wings stuck right on to the upper fuselage. If you fatten up the inner wing, everything looks better, and there's somewhere to hide the arm. That really was the original Yamato's biggest problem. No wing root---it was 1mm thick. That's also where the landing gear go, so it needs to be fat anyways. It all goes together--having a fat wingroot makes the belly look better, gives room for the arms to hide, and room for correctly-placed landing gear.

The D'stance had the shoulder pads totally disappear, fairly ingeniously. Don't know what Yamato is going to do. Their previous version flat-out sucked in that regard----with everyone knowing about the D'stance now we can hope the new Yamato does at least as well with the shoulders/arms in fighter mode. Here's the D'stance:

Posting as a mod: I saw enough bitching in the YF-19 thread, I don't want to read the same arguments over again this time around. Some people will love certain features and aspects of the new YF-21, others will hate the exact same thing. Some people will cite the line art, some will cite the animation, and some will cite a design works concept sketch. People do have a right to disagree over anything and anything, but you may not say they are wrong/flame them for their opinion. There is no "one, true way" that the YF-21 looks FYI, it changes depending on Kawamori and the animator's mood. I personally think the YF-21 looks very nice so far, and that Yamato did a better job than they did on the -19. And since the -21 inherently has adjustable anhedral as part of the transformation, there won't be any arguing about that. PS--no complaining about people complaining about complainer's complaints. Or stuff along those lines. This is an important thread (like any new Yamato toy get), and I'm sure I'm not the only mod who reads it frequently. If something really gets out of hand, we'll deal with it. Or if we don't see it, PM us. Don't go off on another member who's bugging you. (Though personally, I am far more lenient than other mods regarding "peacefully defending yourself from a flamer") PPS---the most-commonly-cited, considered-most-canon VF-11 side-view lineart has the tailfins completely and totally wrong compared to every other reference, I'm just pointing that fact out ahead of time. (unless you want to say that view's correct, and everything else is wrong)

It's all about the factory and QC you have, not where it's made. I actually have 2 slightly different versions of the same model train---one was made in the US, one was made after they switched production to China. Know what? The one made in China is better in almost every way. Much better painting, parts more carefully glued together, etc. I hate to admit it, but the Chinese factory "slave workers" did better than the (presumably) well-paid Americans. And that's not the only time I've seen stuff like that happen.

Eternal Sonata---meh. Liked it ok, but not going to pay 60 bucks and play for 50 hours though. Have other stuff coming. Mass Effect twice through will be all the RPG I need for a while. And then there's Lost Odyssey! Blue Dragon--disappointed. I usually like large parties, but everything took forever. Also, the characters seemed even more generic than usual. Remove the hair from DBZ/Chrono Trigger/Blue Dragon and I dare you to tell any of them apart. And I despise "cute comic relief characters" with annoying voices. And the "moving gauge" got really annoying, as you could very easily get totally screwed. Some attacks/spells have the gauge move so rapidly and RANDOMLY you couldn't even "play it safe"---you could "fail" 4 times in a row and have the entire round wasted with .0001% power attacks and healing by completely missing the entire band by .0001 secons. And damage seemed very random/cheap----I checked, and some characters just kept dying, even with stats the same as everyone else's--they just kept getting hit 20 times in a row, every time you revived them. It just was long and slow. Liked the music. But not the boss music. That sure got annoying after the 450th time you've heard the refrain.

A lot of stuff made in China (especially ANY metal) has lead in it. Basically, they don't clean out the vat/cauldron that they heat the metal in to make diecast, and lead impurities get in. This leads to diecast rot. And/or they use lead as "filler" because it's a really cheap metal. Or the cauldron itself has lead as part of its construction. A lot of companies won't have anything to do with Chinese metal, whether it's a metal part itself or merely made in a mold made of Chinese metal, due to lead impurities getting in. Even small amounts of lead can screw up many alloys. Technically, it may not even be "lead-based paint" that's the problem but actually "paint that's been stored in a lead-contaminated metal container". Lead-based paint is actually awesome stuff, superior coverage and color to anything else--and the ONLY way to get a truly good yellow pigment. It's really only a problem if you eat it. But they still ban it totally in the US. I would so buy lead-based white and yellow paint if I could. (since I don't eat the stuff I paint)

Yeesh, I think all of Live is trying to download it. 2 hours and only got 44%. Will try to get the rest later.

Hey, it could slip another year or two, and still be better than the A380's problems.

Gah, and I just put away my ethernet cable. Will download it later. (I found it was easiest to just buy a 50ft cable and hook it up as needed)

I am interested indeed to hear that. PS--the refub I got is a different serial, different case, different drive. I'm pretty sure MS just has a revolving setup---systems come in, are repaired, then placed in the line to be sent out when someone needs a system fixed. You get the first already-repaired one they grab off the shelf. They'll fix yours later, and give it to someone else.

<<<Irish director to make aircraft carrier film Irish director John Moore is to rewrite and direct 'Airborne', an action movie set onboard an aircraft carrier. Variety reports that the makers of the film have obtained the US Navy's permission for the project but no start date has been scheduled. Moore previously directed the Owen Wilson-starring action film 'Behind Enemy Lines'; his other credits include the remakes of 'The Omen' and 'Flight of the Phoenix'. He is also planning to make a new zombie film based on the comic 'Virulents'. <<<

Hey, that COULD be "1-18-08"...

Try to get Transformers-style military cooperation. Too bad all the F-14's are gone, or we could have Skystrikers.

On all the other transforming toys so far, the forearm works much like tugging down a jacket's cuff and sleeve---to go from battroid to fighter you just slide it down over the wrist and hand, thus moving the tailfin out further from the elbow. And with the foream "no longer there" the remaining part of the arm is much skinnier, and fits into the fuselage sides better.