David Hingtgen

I don't like panel-lined things from the factory, because the factory usually does such a harsh job. (Us modelers tend to like washes etc---fine, subtle highlighting--see wm cheng's stuff----NOT stuff that looks like tar slathered in deep trenches, outlined like a drawing in a coloring book)

Plus Chevy seems quite affable to having Alts made, and you can be sure they'd love to promote the new Camaro--heck, I think the new TF movie and new Camaro have the same target audience.

It's simple--straight, or angled. The exact angle isn't important--a line is either straight, or it's not. IMHO it looks a lot better with the angled wings. (since that's how real fighters are, generally, and that's how the YF-19 is based on everything I can find) Of course, gravity and joint looseness alone will probably have the wings angle down a bit anyways even if it's not designed to, but that won't affect the shape of the top of the intakes/wingroots. It's definitely there in every drawing on Graham's "lineart comparison page". PS--if a company is going to spend lots of time and money making something, they could at least spend sime time to note the finer aspects of its design/shape. "Forgetting" wing anhedral and quasi-gulling of the entire upper fuselage (F-14-style) just kinda says "we don't really care, the shape is close enough". Just because a shape is subtle, doesn't mean it should be ignored. Basically--it is a part of the YF-19's design, as much as having canards and forward-swept wings are. No, it's not real obvious, but it affects the upper surface of the entire mid-fuselage, the intakes, the wingroots, and the wings. Looking from sides, you should be able to see the upper surface of the intakes, wingroots, etc--because they SLOPE UPWARDS. They are not flat. PPS--if I was *really* being nitpicky, I'd start commenting about the INCIDENCE angle of the wings...

Re: Phyrox's concerns. I'd guess the nosecone is too symmetrical and ogival in profile. It should curve up more/be steeper on the bottom, and be slightly flatter on top. Honestly, I think it needs to be a bit more VF-1ish. (They have similar noses---the real-world reference for both appears to be the F-111, look up pics of it)

Re: feet. The feet (AKA nozzles) are actually too short IMHO--the upper one mainly. It's hpartly how they're mounted (far apart), and also how thick they are (vertically, when viewed from the side in fighter mode). It's all so they "fit" in the thickened legs/ankles without having gaps. The leg is bigger that it should be from the side, so the feet are thickened and moved apart to fill in the bigger space. Nose gear: as I posted above, having thinner legs (up closer to the shoulders) would lower the entire plane--thus allowing a smaller nose gear but still having a "level" fighter mode. Oh, one more thing: I think the whole plane may be off from the front. There's no anhedral. There should be anhedral across the entire wing/LERX/wingroots---it's definitely there in every drawing I can find but clearly not there for the Yamato. Basically, from head on, the wings should angle down a bit, not stick straight out perfectly level. The wingroots/LERX/tops of the intakes should also follow that line. Ok, modified the CAD drawing--my version is on top, original version below. I have the anhedral go all the way from the wingtip over to the sides of the nose--but it's a shallower angle across the intakes due to looking strange trying to modify the drawing that much in that area. Wing anhedral exaggerated a bit so you can see what I'm talking about. Does anyone else think that the wings (and intakes) should have anhedral like my drawing, versus the "perfectly horizontal" ones?

And to counter that point, another comparison! From the sides, the legs don't fit right. The legs should be "higher up" with the shoulders retracted into them. The legs are simply too tall and too low (red lines). The shoulder and leg should mesh together well enough that they almost combine into one shape (green line). Now, while there's some anime magic in there, THE SHE MODEL COULD DO THIS. Now, the SHE doesn't look all that much better for it (it can't retract them all that much, but it can bring the legs up closer to the shoulders by folding away area surrounding the knee---the back of the knees themselves are the problem), it does help at least a little The new Yamato might even be doing this, but compared to the 1/72 it doesn't look like it. Basically---with "how to do that" already figured out years ago, how come it doesn't seem to show up all that often? Surely by now Yamato should have been able to improve on it and incorporate it--they've had years. By making the legs able to "wrap" around the shoulder better (or conversely, sinking the shoulders into the legs), you get a much thinner valk from the side, from intakes to feet. And with a thinner/lower valk, you can have smaller/shorter nose gear while maintaining the same stance---thus a smaller/thinner neck/belly...... :edit: I guess I should attach the drawing I was referring to...

Most purples in general are too red. 95% of all purple paint you can buy of any type is quite "red", when it seems 95% of the purples you see anywhere are way on the "blue" side of the scale. Even "Royal" purple, which most people consider to be very blue, is often times red when you try to buy some. So check for redness! I've been disappointed many times by thinking I've found a good, bluish purple, only to actually test it and have it dry red.

Question for Graham: You keep saying the real thing looks better in person than the CAD drawing. Does that mean the prototype is actually DIFFERENT than the drawing, or it merely translates to 3D better than people think? Also---the Hase YF-19 just looks so "right" to me, and I think most everyone else. PS---just have a removable nosegear! Solves all the problems in the entire front half of the plane...

Boeings float pretty well, historically. And airliners don't jettison engines. Of the few with structural fuses to have clean breakaways from certain types of failure/damage, I seriously doubt it'd be possible to get it to work on a newer 737, due to how the pylons are integrated with the wing (both ahead and behind) and the mounting of the engine (more in front than below). Basically the 737's engine mounting has been F'd up since the initial design, due to using 727 engine and nacelles--designed for tail-mounting! Also, in almost all cases you'd want engines to flip up and over the wing--rear mount fails first. On a water landing however, the engines will dig in the water and flip down, forward mount failing first. There's not much you can do to try to make the engine mounts fail oppositely of how the water will force them.

After you do all that, take that box and put it in ANOTHER box, surrounded by foam peanuts. Here's a few articles about shipping model planes: http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/TnT_...ransporting.htm

Re: fuse location at front: On bombs, yes, on missiles, no. Missiles don't make direct contact (unless you're really lucky). Missiles simply get close (proximity fuse), then fragment into shrapnel, shredding the plane. Nastiest is the 'expanding rod' style like a Sparrow, which basically creates a buzz-saw to slice the plane in half. (in theory--in practice it just goes boom like any other--but its a big boom) The proximity fuse on most missiles is behind the warhead. Always in the front half, never the very front. Front to back, most missiles go: seeker/guidance, warhead, fuse, motor. Re: ASW. The P-3 is to be replaced by modified 737-800's, the P-8 MMA (Multimission Maritime Aircraft). Yup, Harpoons on pylons (and torpedoes and sonobuoys) on an airliner. Plenty of concpet pics out there.

Just repaint the tail entirely, that's what I plan to do eventually. (Since the odds of a G1-accurate TC seem low---if SS looks more like TC, imagine what TC will look like---black with lavender? Seafoam green with orange stripes?) TC's tail is simple to do, it has the easiest to paint striping of all the seekers.

Latest pics reveal to me the first actual "they got the shape wrong" part. The tailbooms ironically enough. From the leading edge of the v.stabs back, it's off. Like there's strakes or something. Basically the rear "inch" I'd guess on the actual toy.

It's stupid because nobody expected that they would change the colors to overall teal-grey, with fuschia and blurple accents. For a character that is DEFINED by his color scheme (since he's physically identical to Skywarp and Thundercracker) changing the color scheme pretty much re-writes the character. I don't see anybody who actually prefers the scheme that's coming out--some find it acceptable, but it seems all would prefer the many digi-repaints we've seen of either G1 toy colors, or a real F-15E grey with G1 red and blue. If the G1-colored version was the normal version, and was as easy to get and the same price, I think almost everyone would go for it. Nobody prefers the teal/fuschia one, but they'll take it because it's easier/cheaper to get. It's no different than if the Yamato VF-0S would have had dark grey and orange accents (and how about a purple visor to boot). Kinda close, but clearly not what it should be. Then making "correct" yellow and black with green visor a limited-run exclusive. How many people do you think would have gone for orange/grey as their first choice? How many would have preferred black/yellow but ended up with orange/grey because it's all they could get? What would MW's boards be like if if Yamato just flat-out changed the colors of certain valks, then made the REAL colors only available as exclusives, so most people couldn't get the colors they wanted, they colors that should have been available in the first place? "New VF-22 announced! Available in Milia orange and Max purple!---also we will make 20 red and 20 blue ones to people who win a cell-phone contest in Paris--good luck"

They change what the A350 is every week... PS--you want artisic airliner shots? This is the best one in years: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1088680/L Now THAT is a contrail! Plus quite clearly defined wingtip vortices--which will eventually lead to what you see in the shot above.

I bought many of the early Alternators, but quickly thought "they're just slight re-hashes of the same transformation". There's a few "new" ones, but there's really only 2 or 3 transformation schemes. Saw Mirage, and it looked really nice, it just looked to transform exactly like several others I already had, only with fender-shoulders. Smokescreen was the first, and still the best IMHO.

Regardless of how you see the YF-21 belly sides as being shaped, I think you'll agree it's quite unlike how the arms look in battroid mode.

Surprised Apollo Leader hasn't posted in this---PM him if he doesn't show up soon.

I'd be surprised if the club isn't Japan only, so having non-Japanese across the web wanting to join won't bring in any money. And Takara won't see any money from Japanese auctions. "Helping people in Japan who sell on Ebay make easy money" probably isn't one of Takara's goals. Also---having high demand for a small-run exclusive won't help sales of the regular one. If EVERYBODY wants the exclusive, that means 90% of the production run will be unsold.

Not IMHO. Napoleonic violet has always struck me as being a very EVA-01 color, if you want a ready-mixed substitute. There's always the actual EVA color sets, but they're always in and out of production.

VF-22 doesn't have the morphing AFAIK, but transforms the same. It can fold the wings and tailplanes for highspeed mode, but that's it. I still think it's all about the belly plates, that's the key--either they "wrap" around the arms, or they have smaller panels deploy to cover the arms--because I think Kawamori wouldn't resort to "pure" anime magic to transform round segmented arms into flat smooth panels---he may use anime magic to tweak proportions and shapes a bit, but never to completely change something into something else.

As stupid as making "how he actually looked" MP SS an exclusive? Yup. Current word is still "Roller only available with the club exclusive version of MP-04". Remember---the trailer should have been available with MP-01! They're going to make you wait and pay for every little thing. I'm surprised they're giving us blue stripes on the trailer at this point, figuring that'd be an optional $20 sticker sheet...

Just like to point out that the most advanced fighter in many years is also the overall boxiest-fuselage fighter in many years, the F-22. It's an angled F-15 and little more, shape-wise. Aircraft designers finally discovered something ship (and locomotive) designers did a while ago: boxy shapes have more internal volume, and are cheaper to make. Avionics determine an aircraft's future and usefulness more than its aerodynamics do nowadays. The Legacy Hornet isn't being phased out for age/aerodnyamic/engine reasons, it's run out of room for avionics! It simply can't be upgraded any more, because there's no room inside. (The F-14 actually got too old, it has room for some more electronic gizmos inside--but it would have been gone a decade earlier for avionics reasons if it didn't have that room) The Super Hornet has like half of its avionics space empty when it leaves the factory, to allow for the inevitable needs in the future. What are the new big LERXs on the Super Hornet used for? More electronics space! They're packed with them. Bigger, boxier fuselages also allow for more of another critical factor: fuel. More fuel is always good. Final comment: I do think the F-22 is kind of "against the trend", and is mainly boxy for stealth+internal carriage reasons. Go look at the YF-23---as un-boxy and 3-dimensionally complex as can be. (And stealthier and sleeker overall). The YF-23 was the future of aerodynamic design, the F-22 is "what Lockheed's lobby accomplished". Maybe in another 20 years we'll see planes that equal the YF-23. Gotta wait for the future to catch up to the past. PS--going with sketchley's comment---it's pretty common to design someting classified system-by-system, with almost no one knowing how it'll all come together until the end. (just gotta make sure it fits--also why military design is slow, expensive, and inefficient--hard to design stuff when no one knows what's going on) F-117 was done exactly like that. Wouldn't be surprised if the VF-1 hand-articulation team had no idea they were doing anything other than something for industrial factory robots, and that the VF-1 "eye sensor" team had no idea it was actually to be installed in a head, not some new type of submarine periscope.

Leave it to Kawamori to make the most complicated transformations the least documented... (it's obvious he has every step of every valk's transformation carefully figured out, he just doesn't write them down that often) I still want a more detailed explanation of the YF-21's shoulder transformation---the Design Works doesn't help much, I actually like the SHE instructions more! (but that's simplified and inaccurate--but far better than Yamato's)

The VF-1 has the F-14's gloves/bags/fences, intakes, overall wing design (especially the control surfaces) and beavertail--that's a LOT of the F-14's design cues, and utterly "not needed" for transformation or battroid looks--they're pure F-14 parts. He may not have been going for an F-14 to start with, but he sure ended up putting a lot of "looks exactly like the F-14 and nothing else" parts on it by the end. Basically agreeing with sketchley's last sentence.