David Hingtgen

I liked this a lot. And since it was only like $18 when it came out, a good value for an OVA. Anyways--Dolores is TOTALLY different. Yes, same world/era and some characters, but tone/idea is WAY off. Like FFX-2 and FFX. But, even more so. I mainly got Dolores because I like chick-mechs. But you've got to REALLY like chick-mechs to like Dolores. Dolores is like a very long, humorous, hi-jink filled version of Idolo. Though it does explain even more background. *MINOR* SPOILER ALERT FOR DOLORES ... ... ... ... ... ...... ... .... you'll see anubis ... ...... ...... ... ... ... ... And thus, while Idolo sets up the first ZOE game, Dolores sets up ZOE 2.

Hey, he had to reach over and push his own eject button to let his cassettes out. Soundwave must be an older TF, with little automation.

#1 complaint I've seen has been the whole server/worldpass thing. That alone is reason for me not to get it. (For there are few people I'd want to play with, but would LOVE to play with those few people). It'd be a long expensive process to get everyone together. Just not worth it. (In addition to me deciding not to get it the day it was announced) First FF ever I won't buy. ::waits for FF12, thankfully FFX-2's out next week:: Last time I checked, FFXI sold 1/4 the copies of FFX in Japan. Any more recent numbers? Hopefully Square learned their lesson with a 75% drop that we want FF to be traditional, not on-line.

IMHO, the best-looking all-black models are always done one of two ways: 1. "Serious paint chipping". Go find pics of P-61's. They define aircraft paint chipping. But a well-done model of a P-61 is usually going to win every prize at the show. LOTS of fine, thin, silver lines/spots where the paint is gone and the metal is showing through. Every rivet causes a little paint chip. 2. "Many shades of black". Usually done to F-117's, though IMHO it doesn't look right fort them as F-117's are the blackest black of all things. (Submarines and SR-71's are less black than an F-117). Anyways, it usually comes out best if you do it like wm cheng did for his YF-21--kind of random, angular patches of color, don't follow the plane's lines. 3. Want ready-made different blacks? Go check out the model railroad paints. I like polly-scale, and they make (from darkest to lightest) engine black, steam power black, oily black, and tarnished black (almost a purple-black). "Grimy" black isn't black at all, more like FS36076 or so. Engine black and steam power black are VERY useful---steam power black is as close to pure black as something can possibly be without being pure black. It's more like "90% flat black" as opposed to a purely dead matte 100% flat black. Reflectance is its only difference from engine black. (I have found that enamel blacks often are "deeper" blacks than acrylic---engine black isn't deep enough to touch-up some models painted with enamel, even though it's the blackest acrylic I can find around here)

Skip to the last half of this post for interesting info on real-life truck stack lengths, start here for my opinions and ranting. My *opinion* is that Hasbro knows d*mn well the US one will have the short stacks, but they're simply not going to say it until it's too late to pre-order the JP one. Anyways---I would be *stunned* if the JP one had short stacks. What possible reason would there be? The long stacks exist. There's a mold, it's been used. It'd be very different if ONLY short stacks had been made and Takara would have to make another mold for the JP market, but that's not the case. My main concern is real life stacks, regardless of TV/comic accuracy (though since the original G1 model, and thus TV was real-life accurate, it's the same)---IMHO, MPC Prime sacrificed a lot in truck mode, G1 has a more accurate truck mode. (of course the overall tradeoff is well worth it---1,000x better robot for an 80% as good truck). The reason I'm not an Armada fan is sucky vehicle modes. (And loved RID) (Ironically, for G1 etc, the main concern was a good robot--you were guaranteed a good vehicle, since they were real). I don't need REAL vehicles, just realistic. RID Ultra Magnus is a good example. Not a real truck, but very realistic. Armada Prime is a bad example---not a real truck, looks like a parallel universe's Ford F350. (That's probably my #1 beef with Armada--Prime's not a semi! He's a pickup on steroids. Whoever designed it obviously has no clue what makes a semi a semi, and not a pickup with stacks) Finally---I posted a much longer version of the following at the TF2005 boards, I'll post a quick version here Stack shape/size is not determined just by what the owner thinks looks cool. It is determined by what the truck will haul. Hauling van-type trailers (e.g. Optimus Prime) requires the tallest stacks of all. Why? Because if your stacks are short, they will exhaust right in front of the trailer, staining and corroding it. (Possibly acoustic damage, if it's a loud truck). This is bad (diesel truck exhaust is far, far worse than the worst car exhaust). So if you haul a trailer, you want stacks high enough to exhaust ABOVE the trailer. They will also often have the tips canted outwards 45 degrees, to have them exhaust on either side of the trailer, further helping to prevent exhaust from damaging the trailer. Of course, you can't be TOO tall, you'll start hitting bridges/overpasses. Standard "tall" stack height in the US is 13ft, 6 inches above the ground. (Lots of people go with 13ft 5in for a little extra safety margin) This will clear like 99% of overpasses in the US, and exhaust above like 99% of all trailers. (This is why you never see a sign saying "Clearance 15ft"---any truck will fit under it, no need to post a sign. But anything less and you'll start seeing listings--mostly 12 and 13ft, which most trailer-hauling trucks will not clear, though many tanker-hauling ones can) (I could go into tankers if you want, but suffice it to say, they MUST be shorter, and luckily they CAN be shorter without damaging the tanker)

I find it humorous that the mods themselves can't agree, and interpret the guidelines completely differently. Anyways, my PC is so old (I plan to replace within 12 months, hopefully before the HD dies) I won't go into many specifics. Suffice to say, 500mhz, 128MB.

Yeah, but "Angel Birds" just never sounded right. If they mixed the teams the other way, you get a WAY better name for a squadron (or 80's band)--- Blue Thunder! That'd rock, and there's a lot of cool paint jobs you could do. Blue/white lightning stripes.....

Well I didn't know it wasn't going to focus until the pics came back. I've never photographed bare titanium before in a museum. That camera (now retired) had never not focused on anything, even stealths, but it didn't like the M-21. Nowadays I have a digital, so I can more easily adjust stuff, and get instant feedback on the pics. Will be a while before I'm in Seattle again though.

Is her eye color fixed? Blue eyes are best with pink or red hair. Green eyes are good with green or purple hair. If she has purple hair (my fave) than magenta eyes are really good. (of course for real life, nothing's better than a blue-eyed redhead)

There's one M-21 left, it's in Seattle. In fact, it is the EXACT plane in the photo above. Hard as hell to photograph though, the bare polished titanium finish with matte black stripes really messes with the camera. Every pic I took came out horrible. Has a D-21 mounted on it, too.

That's because that's how about 99.9% of Americans (including me until I found out it was wrong) pronounce Fokker. I need to meet more Fokker pilots etc. and see what pronunciation variations I find....

Real world stuff: 12 fighters per squadron. 3 squadrons per wing. A group is generally a wing as well, but some big wings are split into two groups, (and each group might have several squadrons), thus making a HUGE wing. Usually, a wing will 3 squadrons of the same thing--3 F-15C fighters, 3 F-15E, 3 F-16's, etc. But if there's 4, you'll usually split it into 2 groups of 2 different things-- 2 F-15E's and 2 A-10's, or 2 F-16's and 2 F-15's. So if there's 3 squadrons, it'll be a single group/wing, but if there's 4, it'll be split into two groups that make up the single wing. Then there's multiple wings per air force, then all the air forces together make up the US Air Force. (Main air forces are 8th, 9th, and 12th. 1st is the ANG, 10th is the reserves, most of the others are overseas, primarily Japan/Korea, and UK/Germany/Italy) Navy squadrons are however big they need to be, usually 10 or 12 planes each. A Naval carrier air wing is huge though, 6-9 squadrons.

Yes, both.

It depends. For any formal announcements (to your squadron, ground, AWACS, etc) it'll be the flight's call sign plus flight number (Air Force) or squadron call sign plus modex number (Navy, and I think Marines). Thus, if you were flying the Jolly Roger's CAG plane, you'd report in as "Victory 101". (Call signs aren't the squadron names, and are often TOTALLY unrelated). If it was an Air Force F-16 or something, it's usually something like Wolf, Viper, Stiletto, Hammer, etc. "Viper 52" for the flight or something. Now, as for personal call signs, they're used all time time, for one-on-one, etc. If you're just calling your wingman, or talking to the RIO, they seem to use the callsigns ALL the time, at least from what I've read. Finally--people don't pick their callsigns, they're given to you, and are often derogatory. Callsigns aren't Iceman, Viper, etc. They're Stinky, Greasy, Dogboy, etc. If you're lucky, it'll be something like Smiley, Gizmo, or Froggy. Though my all time fave was a Lt Royce. Call sign "Rolls". Also fond of Cmdr (I think) "Race" Bannon. (Though so few people get that nowadays, but it's so perfect if you get it). Just saw a call sign "Psycho" a few days ago on TV. (F-15 pilot).

Ironically, "Fokker" was actually "correcting" the name to a real-world aviation name. But Focker was, IMHO, an INTENTIONAL miss-spelling from Kawamori, like the dozens of other "almost spelled like" aviation names throughout all of Macross. Either due to a joke, or avoiding copyright infringement.

I always mainly refer to Fokker's commercial planes. They ALL rock and always have. Combat planes--only their really early ones were good, they fell behind after WWI. Their final aircraft was the F70, a shortened version of the F100 but with just as much power. Here's one of the few that was in service in the US: (I have personally seen this exact one, there was only 2 like this)

Sweden's always done well (SAAB), though it's always been considered surprising how a small country can make world-class planes alone. Even the UK and Germany haven't gone alone for a while. France just keeps modifying the Mirage XKR2M01 2000 Mk 6 ver 9.0 Platinum edition. (The Rafale's a Mirage with canards and we all know it)

Yeah, but where can you gloves like this for a young boy?

Hmmn. Jupiter's not bad, but Mars was the best. (There was a thread about this a while ago)

Yup, Fokker=very famous Dutch aircraft manufacturer. Big obvious hint: Hikaru is playing with a FOKKER toy plane, and it breaks when Roy dies. Unless it's a total coincidence written into that episode for no reason. Anyways---Fokker is pronounced "Fock-er". Yes, 99.9% of Americans (including Fokker pilots) pronounce it "Foke-er", but I asked a Dutch guy who was interested in aviation, and he says it's "Fock-er". And I'll trust a Dutch guy who knows planes on how to pronounce a Dutch aviation name. So Fokker is the right spelling, but Focker is the right pronunciation.

Don't you mean the salmon pink Comet? Anyways, wow, a rocket in a hour. I couldn't build an Estes Alpha that quick, and you guys got a 8-footer! Anyways, (maybe a stupid question) is the K530 a K-class motor?

It's from 1/67 to 1/70 I think. Don't recall if Graham ever got the EXACT number. Anyways, the canopy was slightly changed for the heatshield, hip bars are said to be strengthened, and I think there was a slight change to the shoulder slider bars to prevent them from scraping pain on the calf sides in fighter mode. No holes were added/removed/changed to accomodate FAST packs, it's always been able to.

The VF-11MAXL and MAXL Kai only have the ENGINES of the VF-16, they're not based on it. VF-11 modified to VF-11MAXL is exactly the same situation (on purpose) as the F-16 modified to F-16XL. (unless you think it's pure coincidence that aviation enthusiast Kawamori used "VF-16" and "XL" to explain the new VF-11, and it just happens to look like an F-16XL) http://www.anime.net/macross/mecha/united_...vf11/index.html

FAST packs came with the F-15C, not the E. They were in service long before Macross came about. It's just that the E has them 99.9% of the time, and has almost no bombing capabilities without them, and is HEAVILY associated with them. The C rarely uses them, usually only North Atlantic intercept missions. ::quick check:: First FAST packs were flying by 1974--plenty of time for Kawamori to learn about them before Macross.

Yeah, might want to toss the VB-6 (it isn't even a VF, it's a VB ) and add in the VF-0. (My fave's the -19 BTW)