David Hingtgen

Either way, I thought the face color change was almost as bad as the rest of the colors. SS has a dull grey face, to clearly contrast with the other 2. (Though the "later" 3 seekers all have grey faces I think) Changing head and face colors is pretty unprecedented--I mean, Prime ALWAYS has a blue head with a silver "mouth plate". If they made it deep grey, people'd sure complain.

When there's 3 physically identical characters, with ONLY color differentiating them, color becomes very important. Especially when Starscream had a dark grey face, but Thundercracker had a silver face---and the toy has a silvery face...

Since *I* like commercial airliners more than anything else, it will always be on topic here. About 80% of my model planes are airliners. I've read the F-22 makes a distinct sound, but have yet to hear it myself. And for jets, it's all about the engines, obviously. F-16C Block 30 and Block 32/42 sound VERY different. And Block 52/re-engined 42's are probably the loudest and most "ripping", vs the "roar" of Block 30/40/50. Super Tomcats, having re-tuned versions of the F-16C Block 30/40/50 engine, are surprisingly quiet, despite having two of them. Late model F-15E's are said to be about the loudest jets there are nowadays, having 2 of the Block 52 engines. (There's now so many F-16 engines, you'll find them in about every other plane too) I've only ever heard F-15C's. Oh, and Super Hornets are incredibly noisy and "ripping", right up there with an F-16 Block 52. Complete opposite of the Legacy Hornet. And that just makes the Super Hornet "whisper" pass even more amazing. Super Hornets have more of a "rip" than any jet I've ever heard. If you want a buzz, listen to a Rolls-Royce.

Copy the D'stance for most of it, but use the original's foot/leg storage, and neck/forward fuselage.

I keep thinking she has two distinct powers: 1. Healing. 2. Feels no pain. Otherwise, she wouldn't be nearly so casual about things, and probably spend half her life just screaming. PS--is it just me, or is she incredibly accident-prone/unlucky? I mean, she'd have already died like 4 times so far, excluding the "stunts" for the camera etc. Key question is the sink disposal---did she go after it knowing full well she couldn't be hurt, or was she just stupid and stuck her hand in without thinking? PPS--Peter, dude, just try not-so-high things. If you can do it, you can do it from 10 inches, not just 10 feet. ::edit:: Damn, just read a spoiler about him. I tend to avoid threads about shows/games/movies, as well as wikipedia for that reason. Might leave this thread too, as even speculation tends to bug me---because there's always at least a few that are right. I'm the opposite of someone who searches out every forum and bit of info--I like surprises, and try NOT to figure things out. Entertainment is supposed to be just that.

Nothing really on Gol. I've waded through EVERY page (and there's less actual info each page) and nothing really to report. Certainly the most intriguing crash in years. It's rare to go this long without knowing what actually happened. (WHY can take years, but WHAT is usually known pretty quickly)

Here's an E with the conformal tanks off. Could be for maintenance, could be because the wing CO wanted to see how fast it could go. (It is the wing commander's plane, but no way to know if he's flying it)

Super Dimensional Washer--with Fold(ing towels) capability!

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.