David Hingtgen

Real F-15E grey is quite dark, and often called "sinister" by pilots etc. Much better for an evil character than green, IMHO.

It has "overboost". How do you expect a conventional afterburner to work in space? Sure you may get a big blue glow, but it's not "raw kerosene-based fuel being burned with oxygen". The visual effect/comparison is obvious, but IMHO it can't actually be an afterburner.

Plus the fact that HLJ doesn't seem to use the 'first come, first served' rule at all. You can sit there clicking on refresh until pre-orders are open, be the first person to pre-order, and then not get one until the second or third shipment.

Since it seems the gunpod is an issue with EVERY YF-19 out there, that's not a QC problem, that's a design problem, and there's no way they could have missed it if they'd actually played with a final production example for 30 secs. Probably would have noticed the gear didn't angle out right either. A QC problem is random mis-aligned tampos or missing parts. The gunpod and gear issue is inherent to the YF-19, chance has nothing to do with how yours will be. My guess is they only tested the gear and gunpod on near-final samples or something, and didn't check it again for the final ones, assuming they were the same.

Graham's probably already playing with the next valk prototype... I was going to cancel my BBTS order and order from Los, but he sold out between me deciding to do it, and actually doing it. At this point I might as well wait.

Prime had sad music for his death. And no one cried on-screen for SS.

The issue is, they paint 100x better than they panel line. Also, even the least-skilled of us can Gundam-marker a valk in 5 mins as well as (if not better) than Yamato can------but it's darn near impossible to UN-panel-line something.

I posted this over at TFW2005, but here's a nice belly shot of an F-22 for comparison, etc: It's also wallpaper size and quality, so if you want a neat fighter jet desktop, there you go. It also shows how similar it is to an F-15 underneath---compare to either the real thing, or even MP-03. Could transform exactly the same. IDW certainly figured out how. (And as I and others said at TFW--if you want the bot modes to be in scale, then don't pick the largest-by-far jet the US has)

"Hell no". It'll end up looking like this: (yes, that is factory-applied) (secondary rant--99% of all panel lining even by modelers is overdone)

I didn't feel any need to talk about Movie SS bot mode or jet kibble, we can all see/agree. But the fact that jet mode is fictional is a interesting point. Every other movie toy vehicle mode has been as accurate to the real thing as an Alternator. But SS is a jumble of parts---why? It wouldn't affect the transformation or robot mode appearance to have been either 100% YF-22 or F/A-22. It'd be like if the toy Bumblebee had a '97 Camaro RS's spoiler tacked on, or the toy Prime had an '88 Kenworth T600 grill.

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=119001 Movie SS's toy seems to be some weird YF-22, F/A-22 hybrid. With the v.stabs from the XFA-27. What happened there? The original design sketch was a YF-22, but I think the movie final design is a proper F/A-22. (Still waiting on my broadband connection, so I haven't seen the trailer yet)

Rmajet's a fictional (and fairly fantastical) modification of an F-15, just like the original. If you're asking if the changes themselves are based on anything---nothing that I can think of. You can find some similarities to real plane parts for any of the 1986 seekers, but I think it'd be chance, not "inspired by". If you really want an answer, I'd call Ramjet an F-15XL, same as Mylene's VF-11MAXL--both from the F-16XL.

I've got several possibilities planned out, but I need my -19 to actually get here before I can try. My goal is an "invisible" fix.

The orange comes out to simply "Gloss orange+gloss yellow"----you'll rarely find a match for the "basic" colors across brands. The tan is radome tan+white. I found a 95% complete Gunze list here: http://www.apc.net/mechworks/colorguide.html Very useful, as it has the entire Gunze line, not just paints. (Sometimes instructions will call out for something that you have no clue what they mean--sometimes a special glue or putty, or tool, etc---this lists them all)

IMHO if you have one 1/48, you have them all. Pick the one you think looks best, and if it's a hard to find one--save up and wait. Far better to have a 1/48, a VF-0, and a YF-19, than 3 VF-1's with different color stripes.

It's a common question, but there's no "good" answer---I just read and observe a lot. Never in the military, no pilots in the family, nothing like that. A lot of "detail knowledge" comes from building model kits---we inherently notice any difference in paint or configuraton, and always want to know why/how, to insure accuracy. I've learned more about the F-15E from reading reviews about F-15E kits, than F-15E books. And my Macross "history" actually goes back to Transformers---I never saw Robotech, but while "reminiscing" about old toys I remembered that my bother owned a Jetfire, and it was the best TF I never had. Researched a bit, found out Jetfire was really a Macross toy, and soon thereafter found subbed M+ videos. Went from there.

In real life drop tanks are often colored to match a plane/squadron, but there's no really off-colored planes in a real squadron---you can see the CAG and CO planes in a naval squadron with colored tanks but they will still be suitable for the other planes in the squadron. Like the Jolly Rogers---sometimes the commander's plane will get black and yellow tanks. Those tanks would still be appropriate for the low-vis grey planes in the squadron, as those are inherently the squadron's colors. Not that they'd get switched around much, F-14 intake tanks and F-18 center tanks are carried 99% of the time so there's little opportunity/need to change them. As opposed to say custom tanks for Nora, which would look really wrong on any non-pink plane. Also, in wartime, any "custom" tank probably wouldn't be used---when US planes "go to war" and there's a good chance drop tanks actually will be dropped, they switch to cheap, temporary "disposable" tanks, and they wouldn't be custom-painted like a peacetime tank that's expected to remain attached to the same plane for months on end. For a long time nearly every drop tank the US had was 36375 grey (same as missiles, bombs, pylons, and rails) as almost every plane had that color as the belly camo color, but due to the F-15 changing to the Mod Eagle scheme and the F-16 switching to two-tone, there's 3 main colors now. (ironically the Harrier's custom 36495 tanks switched to 36375) When all else fails, go with 36375 grey. It's never the 'wrong' color, on any part of any plane.

I went with all I bought new. Because otherwise, if say a certain 1st ed YF-19 got swapped around between 5 different members here, and they all entered it--that's 5 times as many YF-19's as were actually sold from a dealer (and Yamato made money off of). I would suggest just stuff you bought that was new, whether you now own it or not.

BBTS just updated---Jan 2007.

Don't worry, NB4M does perfect color matching.

Based on current intermixing, I'd say that while Yamato may have rather "bright" colors, the combinations aren't unrealistic. Go look at current US Navy bombs. The seeker/fuse, body, and fins, can all be different colors due to swapping/age, plus live vs dummy. Blue bombs with green fins, blue bombs with gray fins, green bombs with grey fins, grey bombs with green fins and green seeker, grey bombs with grey fins and green seeker, etc. Missiles were the same "mix" of white and grey parts for years until the white was finally used up. IMHO Yamato is pretty close---there's not that many colors, just a lot of combinations. A bit unrealistic, but nothing severe. The only thing I really have an "issue" with is Yamato's use of red--it's almost flourescent. Note: Harrier-exclusive weapons are painted to match Harriers (only weapon I can think of painted to match a particular scheme).

Where have we seen custom-colored ordnance? I can only think of white, and low-vis----which is the same as we have now. (though I think all the white is finally gone, from the US inventory at least--still plenty of green bombs left though) Does the stealth have black missiles or something?

My translation of the translation: A new life form called "Hardy un" (I won't even try) shows up at a time when the human race is at the peak of prosperity. It rapidly grows and attacks humanity. The NIDF was formed to fight Hardy un. The scientist "Flow princess" shows up to investigate the relationship between The Book of the Dead and Hardy un. (And if I get the middle part right, Flow Princess and the hero-boy-pilot will be the main pairing in the relationship category) Of course, I could be totally wrong. Ever see the grammar test that is simply a letter missing all the punctuation? Depending where you put the commas and periods, it's either a love letter or hate mail. And each option is equally grammatically correct. And that's a situation in your own language! (the troubles of translation)

Define "first time collector". Are you looking to make investments, or just want the toys?

Perfect means you don't have to remove/swap large parts to transform it. That toy is Yamato's 1/48 VF-1J Super Valkyrie, Milia Fallyna Jenius. http://www.hlj.com/product/YMT00032 And it is very, very, hard to find now.