David Hingtgen

I was going to post a link to pics of Titanium Magnus, but completely forgot where I saw them. If there was only a way to reduce the shoulders, he'd be perfect. (But I think the shoulders form the upper level of the trailer, like the G1 toy, so there's not much you could do, unless you want a super-short trailer) Though you have to assume he's mis-transformed a bit, as the missile launchers REALLY should be able to be put on the sides of the shoulder armor, not the tip pointing up. That'll help the appearance a lot. And I don't think it's so much a "don't have to remove the armor" thing as "the armor isn't separate". Think about it---if you take out the cab from the G1 toy in robot mode, you still have 99% of Ultra Magnus. The cab serves only to hold the head on, nothing more. It'd be very easy to make a new toy that is intended to have the cab integrated into the design. It's a cube with wheels, just tuck it away somewhere while transforming, and have the head flip out of it. I think it could use a bit more red paint though.

Hey Graham--shouldn't your sig be "guess what I GOT YESTERDAY" or something by now? Then we'll want "guess what I got 2 days ago," etc.

First post of this thread edited, YF-19 and Sylph are back. Hopefully more to come.

Quick note to JB0--I considered he was going for bare metal, but bare F-15's aren't silvery for the most part. I think he just thought it looked cool. There was a fairly recent F-15 painted silver for testing though, and it'll match that pretty well. Now for F-15E vs C: Late-build E's have MUCH more engine power than the C, even more than a Super Tomcat. The power increase is about 4 times that of the weight increase. Also the airframe itself is stronger, and can cope with more G's for longer periods. If the E's conformal tanks are removed that day, drag-wise it'd be about 99% the same as the C. (Slightly slightly more drag on the E due to minor airframe changes). A late-build E should certainly out-climb and out-accelerate the C, period. Now, a standard E would be decidedly poor compared to the C, having the same engines but more weight. I really don't know/can't comment on drag effects of the CFT's. It's there, but I really don't know how it'd compare to a C/D's conformals, or "E with just conformal vs C/D with 3 externals, for the same fuel load". A "plain" conformal tank has far less drag than the same amount of fuel in drop tanks, but all F-15 conformals have external pylons, but the E has the most. (I've still never been able to tell for sure if there was ever an utterly plain conformal for the F-15, even in testing--one pic of the first set looks like it, but others seem to indicate more like a mini-pyloned version of the C/D's) Top speed: AFAIK no F-15C can actually do Mach 2.5 like early F-15A's could. Especially now. Long story short, but you can assume most fighter jets cannot acheive their "top" speed, even stripped down to airshow demo standards. Engine power vs reliability---they're tuned for reliability most of the time. A late-build E has more drag, but a lot more thrust, but the engine is more optimized for cruising and low-level, than high-speed dashing like the C's engine. But the raw power increase may be more than enough. (Engine specs are never published for all conditions/speeds). F-14B/D top speed is controversial for the same reason. I would actually vote the F-15K for being the fastest nowadays, especially if they ever get the -132 engine in it. The GE nozzles have a lot less drag than unfeathered PW ones. And with most A's having had engines retrofitted, I doubt any A can hit 2.5 either. (Most F-15's now would top out around Mach 2.3 AFAIK) And there's always pylons! The only way you'll have a drag-free F-15 is if you plan to fight with guns only. In which case the C model has an advantage, for it carries more ammo than the E. Missiles and wing pylons affect drag even more than engine power or airframe drag.

Was playing up until Valk Profile 2 came out, will resume when I finish that.

Drifand--that's a pretty inaccurate drawing of TF-15A #2, 71-0291. Probably most famous as the "bicentennial" F-15 in gloss white/red/blue. If you want to see what it really looked like, try here: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0889876/L/ I can scan/post plenty of pics where F-15E's look blueish or even greenish---doesn't mean they're green, just that photographs can be really off. I have yet to see an F-15/16/B-1/2/52 mis-painted green instead of dark grey, but plenty of pics where they kinda look like that. Photos of grey rant: Grey will drive photo-developers (and cameras) nuts, they always try to color-correct one way or the other, especially when the sky is visible--they'll tend to try to make the sky "look right"---which will often tint the whole exposure bluish or greenish. Early F-15 pics suffer from that tremendously, as they try to take out the blue, because they think the planes are supposed to be grey in a blue sky--but everything looks too blue. Except that, early F-15's WERE blue, and they flew in California in the summer, in incredibly super-blue skies. So a lot of early F-15 pics look they're in "normal" blue skies with grey paint, instead of the super-rich blue skies with blue paint they actually were. They "corrected" the exposure, but actually made it wrong. Same thing happens with ship photos all the time---taking "neutral" pics and trying to match the greenish Atlantic, or taking blue out from Caribbean pics----which will really mess with the grey color of the ship. IMHO Takara took one of those greenish pics and used it as a reference, rather than the 98% of GOOD pics where they show up as the correct dark grey. Or 9even better) looking up what color they're supposed to be, then buying that color to see what it is. I know they sell F-15E grey in Japan at every hobby shop. And that there are plenty of F-16's in Japan painted the right color. Why reference bad pics when the real thing, or correct color paint, is readily available? That'd be like trying to match Corvette yellow from a scan of a magazine, when your local dealer or Autozone has the exact touchup paint just sitting there on the shelf for sale.

Just wait for the Titanium Magnus. He's exactly what you're asking for. A new, G1-style Magnus with armor.

XLAA's generally suck. If they actually HIT you can take out an entire squadron. But I've had a full volley hit like twice, in Ace Combat 4/5/0 combined.

Try searching places that cater to model railroaders. They light everything, and in 1/160(N) and 1/220(Z) scale. www.walthers.com is probably the largest retailer in the world---but beware, their catalog is literally thousands of pages.

RFT---that is actually a rare (but totally possible) configuration for a Strike Eagle--pure air-to-air. 6 AMRAAMs, 2 Sidewinders. Also, the wing pylons can carry any mix of AMRAAMs and Sidewinders. Sparrows are conformal tank-only. (Or on the fuselage itself if the conformal tanks are off) The way the Type 4 and 5 conformal tanks are designed (the types used on real F-15E's, not what MP SS has) the forward 2 positions on the lower pylon are swappable---there's actually always 5 hard points---3 bombracks and 2 missile launchers--but due to spacing/arrangements you can only actually have the following combinations working, from fore to aft: 1. Missile/Missile (actual configuration is M/B/B/M/B) 2. Bomb/Bomb/Bomb (actual config is B/M/B/M/B) 3. Bomb/Missile (actual config is B/M/B/M/B)--have to drop the bomb first before the missile can fire in that configuration---so no point in "fighting your way in" to bomb stuff---only real use would be "fighting your way out" after dropping bombs---but the F-15E would excel at that---with the bombs and drop tanks gone, and the improved power of late F-15E's, in that instance they should actually be able to out-fight the F-15C. While pure air-to-air is pretty rare, a mixed load (left/right) of missiles and bombs is decently common. Here's one with AMRAAMs and Paveway bombs: PS--I saw that repainted MP SS earlier, when it was only like 80% done. I'd love to see one in grey, not silver---he matched the G1 red and blue shades perfectly it seems, but wonder why silver. Either way I like it a lot more than the Takara scheme.

KingNor---Strike Eagles aren't green. That's the worst F-15E pic I've ever seen, color-wise. You can find F-15's looking from blue to purple to green if you look around enough and the lighting's off enough. F-15E's are THIS color: Pure grey. (based on the many F-15E pics I have on my PC, and having seen 36118 in real life on many planes, that pic is about the best-lit best-color one I have) Ever seen an F-16? The dark grey on their upper half? Exact same color as the Strike Eagle--and F-16's are NOT green at all. And the B-1B, and B-2, and B-52--same color. Stealth bombers aren't green. At the moment all USAF bombers (which the F-15E basically is) are painted the same color. Could you imagine a B-2 stealth in the color of MP Starscream?

Airlines nowadays tend to get anything they want as compensation, all agreed to long before the prototype flies. I'd guess it came about from the MD-11's shortcomings. I know United had it set up to be paid thousands of dollars (possibly tens of thousands), per pound, per plane, for every bit the 777 was overweight from design spec. (It ended up like 8 pounds under---which is amazingly "on the money" a basic 500,000lb plane)

There was a blurb that supposedly one of the designers said it was supposed to be an accurate F-15E. Probably from the same magazine Dobber mentioned---but I've still yet to see an actual translation etc.

Front gear is decently close to a real F-15, rear ones are Yamato YF-21-ish--little more than the wheel itself.

Ok, more info, and specifically about the A380 wiring: First, Airbus' CEO's have resigned. Second, Rolls-Royce has suspended engine production for the A380. No new aircraft are being built, so no engines needed. Ironically the 747 had the opposite problem---not enough engines early in the program, with dozen of finished planes sitting around the factory, engineless. Some quotes: "Looming trouble The immediate cause of the disaster was a breakdown in the snap-together final assembly process in Toulouse that has served the company well for over 30 years. Rear fuselages made in Hamburg were supposed to arrive in Toulouse with all their wiring ready to plug into the forward parts coming in from factories in north and west France. But the 500km of wiring in the two halves did not match up, causing huge problems. Failure to use the latest three-dimensional modelling software meant nobody anticipated the effect of using lightweight aluminium wiring rather than copper, which is to make bends in the wiring looms bulkier. Worse, the engineers scrambling to fix the problem did so in different ways. So the early aircraft all have their own one-of-a-kind wiring systems. It will take all of next year to introduce a proper standardised process. None of this would have mattered so much if the airliner's fuselage had all been built in France. But Germany lobbied hard to land a big chunk of the A380, to add to the final assembly of some derivatives of the A320 family. Now the greater complexity of the super-jumbo has shown up the inherent weaknesses in Airbus's production system, just as it faces a revitalised Boeing and a weaker dollar. Most of Airbus's costs are in euros, but sales are in dollars. So Airbus's new boss, Christian Streiff, must slash costs." "It sounds too simple to be true. Airbus' A380 megajet is now a full two years behind schedule—and the reason, CEO Christian Streiff admitted on Oct. 3, is that design software used at different Airbus factories wasn't compatible. Early this year, when pre-assembled bundles containing hundreds of miles of cabin wiring were delivered from a German factory to the assembly line in France, workers discovered that the bundles, called harnesses, didn't fit properly into the plane. Assembly slowed to a near-standstill, as workers tried to pull the bundles apart and re-thread them through the fuselage. Now Airbus will have to go back to the drawing board and redesign the wiring system. It's shaping up to be one of the costliest blunders in the history of commercial aerospace. Airbus' parent, European Aeronautic Defence & Space, expects to take a $6.1 billion profit hit over the next four years. Airlines that have ordered the A380 are fuming, and though none so far has canceled an order, Airbus will have to pay millions in late-delivery penalties." There's a lot more about the software, basically some are using CATIA from the 80's, some are using proprietary stuff from Massachusetts, etc. Dear Airbus: good luck rewiring by hand entire A380's. I bet the unemplyoment rate for electricians (or anyone who can solder) is about 0% in France now.

The codpiece is already the lowest and most oddly/mis-shaped part of the underbelly in fighter mode---the basic problem is that the codpiece and the underbelly are curved oppositely on each side. It's one heck of a compromise to make it exist in the real world. Kawamori draws it much more flattened in fighter mode so the curvature isn't so obvious--but it's still there, and the backside seems to change from convex to concave when going from battroid to fighter. It's much much better than the original Yamato, but you're not going to get it to "fit" nice and flush with the rest of the belly in fighter mode without totally ruining battroid mode or magically having three times as much space as there is in the plane's gullet--it's already twice as deep as it should be and there's STILL not room for a double-convex codpiece like there'd need to be to be correct in both modes. And since that piece is very visible in battroid mode, but fairly hidden in fighter, it's obviously "optimally sculpted" for battroid mode appearance. As much as it can without scraping the ground in fighter mode. I think a smaller/better hinge could help with the edges, but it's got to be fairly "flattened" to not totally mess up fighter mode. In other words: the codpiece involves about as much anime magic as the YF-21's arms in fighter mode. As for the chest angle--the new Yamato mold already incorporates the Hasegawa's main spine/cockpit transformation method (at least it sure looks like it to me), which makes it better in that aspect than it'd otherwise be, epsecially compared to the original Yamato/SHE. If you had a sliding hinge where the chest attaches to the spine to raise the chest to allow it to angle downwards more, you'd probably start to mess with the overall appearance with regards to torso height and spine height. It'd basically be hunch-backed I think. Also---due to the YF-19's tranformation, the angle of the chest is usually VERY dependent upon "how you transformed it that time". There's easily a 20 maybe even 30 degree difference in the original Yamato between how it should be, how most people manage, and how the mis-transformed prototypes always looked.

That's a pretty good summary. If it was 100% G1 toy colors, it'd please G1-color fans. If it was 100% real F-15 colors, it'd please real F-15 fans. By being neither, it pleases neither. And GREEN is just plain wrong for an F-15. I still 100% believe they ATTEMPTED to match an F-15E's color, but just royally F'd up. And did it so much, that even people who don't know what color an F-15E really should be, notice that it's way too green. It'd be like if Yamato's YF-19 comes out in a dark tan instead of pale tan---they were obviously going for the "right" color, they just screwed up. It's not even half realistic. F-15E grey is simple black+white. How hard is it to mix that? It's not some obscure pigment made from the petals of a Mediterranean flower that only blooms once a decade... And to agree with Shin Densetsu--yup, G1 *toy* colors are pretty universally preferred to G1 *cartoon* colors. Nobody wants powder-blue, neither Starscream's fists nor Thundercracker overall. The toys had much deeper, better colors.

What about wolfheads? That would be a very cool heatshield logo.

I expect/hope for the next episode to be the best yet. 1st ep was establishing. 2nd ep spent the entire first half rehashing the 1st ep!

The only real difference between Boeing and Airbus is customer service, and that's worth a LOT to an airline. Got a 5th hand 27-year-old 737-200 that needs a gear door hinge that hasn't been made since 1983? Boeing will scour the ends of the earth to find one, and get it to you in 12 hours. Airbus tends not to answer your call once the warranty's up. (Airliners tend to have 3 or 4 year warranties like cars, ironically) Canadair/Bombardier has a similar issue. Airlines tend to like the CRJ a lot, and think it's superior in many ways. (not all ways, it's the opposite of STOL). But, parts/service is such an issue many have switched to Embraer's ERJ family. They just can't keep the CRJ's fixed due to raw availability of parts from the manufacturer--and the parts they CAN get are overpriced. Post-purchase support is incredibly important to an airline--if they buy a plane, they tend to operate it for 20 to 30 years--unlike people who buy a new car the moment the old one's paid for. And they expect the plane to still be 99% reliable 25 years after purchase, with no loss of performance. Engine support-wise, PW is the best, followed by GE, then RR. RR costs more, harder to fix, and generally can only be fixed in the few "official" RR repair shops--but they are more reliable to start with.

The accuracy comments mainly are stated (by me at least) because 90% of the pro-conformal-tank people constantly state they were added to "make it a more realistic F-15 now". Adding fake/incorrect parts doesn't make something more realistic. It just adds more parts. And adding correct features from a different kind of F-15 doesn't make it more realistic either. It makes it a fictional F-15 that never existed. Does it hide the arms? Yes. Is it a better F-15? Heck no. They could add massive ground effects to Alternator Tracks to hide his feet in car mode, but it sure wouldn't make it a more realistic Vette--it'd make it some fake ricey Vette. What does whining do? Hasbro at least knows we want G1 colors and may bring it to us. And if we're lucky (though not in a million years) they could even make a mold off the original prototype. (Who knows how far along it really was, or how many parts really are different---the entire nose and chest are the same, as are much of the arms and wings---it wouldn't need to be 100% new molds, a lot could be reused---it'd be more like Classics SS vs Classics Ramjet) And finally---for me at least, a lot of it stems from the fact that it was so EXACTLY what we wanted, more than we ever could have hoped for. And then it all went away. Not just to the point of being "not as neat" but to the point of "I wouldn't buy it in a million years". Completely and utterly ruined. It'd be like if the next batch of YF-19 pics come and show that Yamato "revised" the mold to have a gullet twice as deep, and much smaller wings. It was really really nice, but now it seems to look even worse than the one from years ago. And they decided to go with bright blue feet instead of grey, and magenta stripes instead of red. And paint the whole thing a deep dark tan.

Put the wolfpack stcikers on it! Nobody else has it seems, I still haven't found a pic of how it looks.

Umm, the pic I posted above WAS perfect. It was one step away from existing as a mass-produced item, only (apparently) Kawamori decided to re-do it at the last minute and make it some bastard child of SS and the YF-19.

Doesn't that kind of defeat the point? If you want a realistic overall dark grey F-15 fighter jet on your shelf, there are many companies willing to sell you pre-painted F-15 models for a whole lot less than an MP SS. And they look even BETTER in fighter mode. And are like 90% diecast if you care about materials. And you can get ones even bigger than MP SS. PS--I'm annoyed about this "toy I'm not being forced to buy" because Thundercracker is my all-time fave TF. And there was (to me) an incredibly amazingly perfect, much larger/improved/new version of it coming out---then they utterly ruined it, and there'll never be another. I basically feel "cheated" out of what would have been my favorite transforming jet toy ever. It went from 'awesome' to 'crap'. I desperately wanted to buy it---the original mold, however.

Months ago, lots of people were fan-coloring the original version of the mold. Sigh, what could(should) have been: That IS Starscream. PS--the "wing spikes"---as I said like a page ago, they wings are so articulated they can easily be positioned out of the way, just like on the G1 toy. (ironically that's one of the few articulation points the G1 has) PPS--as I proposed months ago----they could EASILY have had the best of both worlds. MAKE THE CONFORMAL TANKS REMOVABLE. They're one single piece on the real thing, they're one single piece on model kits of the F-15, and they weren't originally sculpted on the mold. All they had to do was make them a separate piece that you attach to fighter mode IF YOU WANT. There's no reason at all to totally redesign the robot mode to accomodate them permanently. If you want the arms hidden in fighter mode, then you attach the conformal tanks. Would take all of 2 seconds. No need at all to redesign the entire toy. Make it like FAST pack armor--attach it IF YOU WANT. Don't make it PERMANENT. Yeesh, you'd think Kawamori would have thought of that option--since the F-15's REMOVABLE FAST packs are the original inspiration for the REMOVABLE FAST packs of the VF-1... Just 2 little pegs/holes for attachment needed. They could have just snagged any F-15E model on the market, cast and re-scaled the conformal tanks to 1/60, and included them along with the Sidewinder missiles. (which they also screwed up BTW, they're mounted sideways, and that's why they're missing a few fins) And even if they WERE permanently mounted--why change the robot mode? Why have hip kibble, why have intake kibble? There's no need for that, you can sculpt on the conformal tanks just fine with the existing design. (The intake kibble exists because of the hip kibble--the wing "points" only interfere with movement if the massive hip kibble is there projecting into the wing "points" area) (The points are the wingroot fairings, and were one of many areas made inaccurate for no reason in the redesign) The conformal tanks taper rapidly as you move aft, there wouldn't be that much new material on the legs themselves, the tanks end prior to the tailbooms and are only 1/2 as deep as under the wings. It'd still have Popeye (and wrongly colored) foreams, but the intake and hip kibble wouldn't have to be there. Or hey--make the conformal tank blue. Might look a bit strange in fighter mode with the grey fuselage, but would give the proper color to the forearms, and more blue accents on the legs and wings to match the arms and feet.