David Hingtgen

Anyone have shipping estimates for places? I plan to pre-order soon. HLJ's already out as I doubt I'd be in the first (or second or third) shipment of theirs at this point. TMP already pre-sold out, they were high on my list. Should have just gone with them when they first offered. ::edit:: Now TMP has it available for pre-order again. Did they get a bigger allocation, or is this "second shipment"? (Because I want to be in the first shipment of wherever I get it from--and I also want somewhere whose first shipment won't be like 2 weeks after everywhere else).

Looking through the Design Works pages on the VF-1 mentions the F-14 numerous times. The only F-111-ish part of the valk IMHO is the nose. Or, it may have been inspired by, but ended up incorporating details of others. I think the best VF-1 explanation is that--after a while, he eventually saw some F-14-ish areas, then made it F-14-ish on purpose, detail-wise. May have started with another plane in mind, but it sure ended up looking like an F-14, from overall aspects to tiny little details. Kensei---the F-14's tunnel is inherent to the design and rather unique (Flanker has it too). Basically, you can't mess with that area without making it look VERY different and changing the overall configuration/shape of the plane.

General term for a doppler-evading turn is an "F-pole" manuever. Here's some choice quotes from the Iranian defense ministry regarding the modified F-5 called the "Saegheh": "Meantime, air force experts also tested their optimized F5 fighters successfully. The optimized version of the fighter uses a wider variety of weapons, enjoys higher operational power and is more difficult to pick up on the radar systems compared with the normal version due to its higher maneuverability" ...quoted the commander of the Iranian army General Attollah Salehi as saying their new indigeous Saegheh [DID: "thunder" or "lightning", reports vary] aircraft is "similar to the F-18 fighter jet, but it is more capable and has been manufactured domestically... designed, remodeled, optimized and made more capable by our engineers... no country has aided us in its production." Yeah, so it's the new stealth F-5 that's superior to the Hornet. Those must be some AMAZING canted fins---not only does it endow the F-18's looks, but its abiities as well!

Nexus, where I became one of the all-time top 10 posters in like 4 days...

I'm sure mikeszekeley will post. It's supposed to be out tomorrow? I wasn't even aware the JP release had happened.

Well, Iran says it makes it so manueverable that radar can't pick it up, thus a STEALTH F-5...

I would guess due to the fact that it's Toynami. Their stuff is inherently "tainted" with Robotechiness by this point. Changing what name you slap on the sticker on the box doesn't inherently change the company/product. Plus AFAIK it's been here for a long time. That means people look for/expect it here.

Wouldn't that be kinda pointless, as well as possibly a conflict of interest/copyright issues? Jetfire the F-14 instead of Jetfire the VF-1S, yet still Kawamori's design? Also, if you want a pure F-14---where would the arms go? The F-14's belly tunnel pretty much precludes arms, and is the main difference between a VF-1 and F-14. F-15 works much better for arm stowage--see MP SS.

I thought the whole "VF-4 had no battroid mode until recently" thing was only a widely-believed myth. http://macross.anime.net/fallacies/index.html Scroll down to near the bottom.

Exactly--the latest pics are likely 99% final, and there's not anything under the wings to attach to. And magnets won't work, they'd have to be like 0.5mm thick and imbedded into the wing during molding. Still, there better be SOMETHING other than the gunpod in the box for that much money. I'll make the comparison for the zillionth time: The VF-0 is almost identical in size and complexity/detail, costs less, yet included FAST packs and many missiles.

There's a surprisingly low correlation between smell and safety. Some of the nastiest glues have no odor at all, yet basically increase your risk of cancer about 1% per minute of exposure... Tenax has no smell, but evaporates so fast and works so well it worries me.

I'm seeing a lot of conflicting info. BestBuy has the "blue lion" set in their circular for coming out on this Tuesday, most places say the 26th. Then it seems in 2007 they're releasing the actual Japanese series subbed. But the description for the blue lion set says both English and Japanese language... Can anybody put all of this straight?

I had no idea it was that HUGE until I saw the VF-0. The text "24 inches" just doesn't make the same impression.

I'm interested, keep talking, just don't get into flaming.

That's what I've been trying to figure out--the nose splits apart right where the hinge for a forward-opening windscreen should be. I tried and couldn't figure out a way for it to work, other than having the hinge itself separate during transformation. Probably something simple yet ingenious.

Episode 1 makes me believe that a VF-0 in Gerwalk can take most anything...

Maybe he could have just went up to it, extended an arm, grabbed on, then the S-3 would let go of it.

Rmajet's good, maybe even better than SS. Jetfire--if you're going to make him an F-14, make him an F-14. Not an F-14 with the nose of a Abrams tank. So close, yet so far. It just looks weird to me---the front half and back half look like two different planes. Kind of like Darkwing/Dreadwind, but not meshing as well.

Ack! I was going to go with TMP. Hmmmn. Guess I'll wait for some of MW's own dealers to start offering pre-orders. Honestly, with Yamato's QC history, you want a dealer you can deal with personally incase there's 2 left hands, or a missing piece, or there's something else wrong. Most of the bigger places that aren't really "up" with Macross aren't as likely to help or part out another one to fix yours.

Latest battroid pics seem to confirm a MG Hase-style torso transformation. Which is more correct than SHE/Yamato style--this moves the cockpit aft in battroid mode. Thought of an easy and obvious solution for how to attach the Fold Booster---new shield. Just have the Fold Booster permanently molded onto a new shield--when you want the Fold Booster on, just swap shields. It seems the "mystery tubes" are interpreted as guns by Yamato--seem to resemble mini-gunpods and have a clear line of fire in fighter mode. ::edit:: Now that attachments are working 100%, here are the BIG pics.

The original thread is archived here: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=19382 For those that haven't been to MacrossNexus while the board was down, Graham posted new scans and new official pics, then I snagged the BIG pics from Yamato's own site from their Flash player. Also there was a big discussion about the color of the feet. These pics were found by newbb on MacrossNexus. Big thanks go out to newbb, that was a great find. The "big" pics are delayed, seems to be an attachment size limit issue. Will put them up as soon as the board lets me.

Bump, because this is that cool.

Quick post to all MW members: I'm closing this thread as soon as attachment uploads are working again---this thread is over 50 pages and way out of date now. Please avoid posting for the next few hours until the new one's open. I already have lots of new pics to start the new thread with. And *I* will start the new thread. (Mod-power abuse)

Absolutely. TIE Fighter is the best PC game ever IMHO.

KISS Rodimus is the GT, like Mirage.