Seto Kaiba

Those interested in reading about more modern, fusion-based real world theoretical studies in fusion-based turbine engines may find NASA/CR-2005-213749 "Advanced Energetics for Aeronautical Applications: Volume II" an interesting read. The document is public and can be obtained through NASA's STI Program Office website (http://www.sti.nasa.gov)

Oh, handily... funnel missile-type weapons have already been a thing for almost twenty years in Macross by the time Delta is set. The YF-19 had missiles with built-in laser cannons, and an alternate model that had a shotgun-like railgun system instead. If they were flying using a MPD arcjet or something like that, they'd just have to have the VF-31 supply power externally via that multidrone charger to keep the multidrone's cells topped up and it could potentially fly at a reasonable clip and mount a modest beam gun or something. Macross II: Lovers Again's prequels did kind of beat them to that punch though... the VF-4S Siren had funnels in Macross: Eternal Love Song, and the VF-2SS has bits.

IIRC, that was a figure gleaned from freeze-framing the animation of the Macross Frontier series itself. If it is truly the same HMM-5A also used on the Armored Pack, then 20 is the most likely correct count as that is how many the Armored Pack's HMM-5A hold. Unlikely, IMO... the Sv-262 and VF-31A/B are both using variants of the LM-27, which would ordinarily suggest the two are similarly-sized weapons. Thanks to that large shroud over the VF-31's railgun, we don't know how much of that is actually barrel and how much of it is the connection to the feed system. Even if the barrel was shorter, they could easily make up the difference by putting a higher voltage on the rails to increase the Lorentz force on the projectile. That railguns don't/can't have round barrels is something of a modern misconception of the technology... one helped by armature-based railguns which DO need a rectangular-plan barrel to accommodate the sliding of the armature holding the projectile. All you have to do to make a railgun with a round barrel is either have slots in the side of the barrel for a finned projectile to glide along or have the rails mounted flush to the inside of an otherwise nonconductive round barrel. Since a coilgun relies on a series of switched magnetic coils running in sequence to provide the propulsive force, the rate of fire is necessarily limited by the saturation point of the ammunition and the coils themselves... which makes them slower to fire, more complex, and less efficient. A true railgun makes the most sense given the LM-25 and LM-27 being said to be rapid-fire weapons with a high rate of fire, given that as long as you maintain the high voltage on the negative rail your rate of fire is limited only by how fast you can feed rounds into the barrel and your muzzle velocity can be dialed up or down simply by calibrating the voltage at the negative rail. It's gloriously simple, efficient, and terrifyingly effective. And how! The VF-31's developers seem to have forgotten or omitted beam grenade mode from the LU-18A heavy quantum beam gunpod... while the Sv-262's developers seem to have remembered the glorious truth that there's really no kill like overkill. My suspicion is that the Sv-262 has that capability because it's using the newer, more potent /FC2 style Stage II thermonuclear reaction engines like those found on the YF-29 and YF-30, and that it's those more powerful engines that give it the ability to use beam grenade mode without needing extra engines to make up the difference (ala the VF-27). That does make one wonder why Xaos bothered to customize the railguns but not equip the /FC2 engine-equipped custom VF-31s with a better beam gunpod... I wonder if they're not allowed to have something like that, being a NGO? That doesn't make sense though, since the railguns are confined to the arms and the engines and micro-missile launchers are in the engine nacelles.... and railguns are, by nature, very space-efficient things apart from the ammo feed. Literally just two metal rails in the barrel and a connection to the high voltage bus. They did apparently compensate for the loss of the usage of the internal leg bays by adding a second pair of pylons to the custom VF-31 via new wingtips. (Not that they ever used that capability.) Same reason as above, the systems in question are in different parts of the airframe... so that doesn't make sense. The arms aren't next to the legs on the VF-31, they're fused into the wing surface instead.

... I'm not sure what you're looking at, that you're saying the VF-2JA looks "basically the same" as the VF-2SS. They don't look much alike at all, and have very different airframe shapes. The VF-2JA's aerodynamic profile is, as I said, very close to the VF-1's if you actually look at the art. It's longer, proportionally, but it's also a fair bit larger than the VF-1. It's got a nice flat bottom, and both the wing and wing glove act as lifting surface. Proportionally it all works out fine... probably better than the VF-1, considering that relied purely on thrust-vectoring and the roll control thrusters as ersatz elevators. Those models in the video you're using as reference aren't correctly proportioned either, they've had their wings enlarged quite a bit.

Eh? The VF-2JA's aerodynamics aren't all that different from the VF-1's... it's hard to tell from the lineart alone but it's actually a reasonably streamlined design. It's got all the same control surfaces and so on that the VF-1 does, and a few more that it doesn't (again, it's hard to see from the art alone, but it actually has horizontal stabilizers too). Not sure how well the switch from rear to forward swept wing would work in GERWALK mode, but lift is hardly the top concern in that case. Aerodynamics aren't really the Valkyrie II's concern though, given that it's a dedicated space fighter.

It's a well thought-out theory, but if there's one thing we can be certain of with respect to the Siegfried it's that it isn't short of power despite the extra burdens of Walkure's support equipment. After all, it doesn't just have two Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines... it has a fold wave system supplying it with energy directly from super dimension space like the YF-29 did. That was enough energy to let the YF-29 run its energy conversion armor at full power even while in fighter mode and devote 100% engine output to thrust production. Even without the fold wave system a VF-31 has enough excess generator output to run a heavy quantum beam gunpod, and that's a notoriously power-hungry system. With a fold wave system under the hood and the engines still detuned by 12.5% they ought to have enough generator surplus to run everything and then some. Nah, if it was a question of using what was to hand, they'd have kept the LM-27 railguns that were original equipment on the VF-31s they were customizing. That way they'd have been using the same weapons and ammunition as the VF-31s flown by the other three flights stationed on the Macross Elysion.

All told, it's pretty clear the railguns on the VF-31 are not using an armature to guide rounds down the barrel... which means the only limit to the gun's rate of fire is the speed of the feed mechanism putting the ammo in the barrel while continuous voltage is applied to the rails. To drop its caliber from 27mm to 25mm wouldn't result in much of a gain in terms of ammunition capacity as the difference in projectile size is minimal to say the least, and the acceleration provided by the gun is a function of barrel length, voltage, and the electrical resistance of the projectile more than it is the projectile's inertial mass. The reason I said it was probably an attempt to make the guns less lethal is because that's the only sane explanation I can think of, given what we know of how railguns work, for stepping the caliber down. Kinetic energy is still 0.5mv^2, so if you have a smaller and lighter round coming downrange at the same speed you're going to have less energy for the projectile to impart to the target... and restraint in the amount of energy transferred to the target is the key to reducing the lethality of a weapon. We know that, with the exception of Messer, Delta Flight didn't kill the Var sufferers whenever possible, and with a questionable tactical ethos like that it makes sense they would go in for a less powerful round for the sake of reducing the damage dealt to enemy mecha in the hopes of increasing the pilot's chance of survival and successful recovery. The mission of Delta Flight was to suppress Var outbreaks, not exterminate the afflicted. Model numbers have gone up, but that doesn't mean capacity has too. If the numbers you cited are correct (will check the Model Guide later), that would mean the VF-31's CIWS launcher pods carry eight fewer missiles than the VF-25's, which are said to carry 23. Also, remember that more launchers doesn't necessarily mean more missiles when it comes to FAST packs. Just look at the VF-11B and -C. The packs are significantly smaller on the VF-31, so it seems safe to assume they probably carry fewer missiles. Newer is not automatically better... which is pretty much the moral of the whole VF-31 series. Yes, the Draken III's gunpod is a General Galaxy-built GBP-35A. In all likelihood, it probably wasn't Windermere who contracted with General Galaxy though. The Sv-262 Draken III was developed by the Dian Cecht corporation's SV Works... formerly known as the General Galaxy SV Works. Dian Cecht is a subsidiary of the Epsilon Foundation, and purchased the SV Works from General Galaxy at some point after the development of the Sv-154 Svard that Windermere was using in the 2050s. The contract for a Draken III's beam gunpod was probably a completely above-board contract between Dian Cecht and General Galaxy. For most of the series, Windermere IV's government was very much in bed with the Epsilon Foundation... despite their hostility to humanity, the Windermerean economy is still predominantly agricultural and painfully underdeveloped. They needed technical assistance and weapons from the Epsilon Foundation and its subsidiaries to be able to wage their war in the first place (and repair the Sigur Valens), and since they'd already had a business relationship with the SV Works...

Kind of, yeah... but the VF-31 Custom "Siegfried" is, at least, a reasonably impressive aircraft that rivals or exceeds the performance of a YF-30 when enjoying the more modest overboost of its genuine fold wave system. It only gets about half the performance bonus the Sv-262 does as the Draken III's reheat system is entirely focused on improving engine performance, but it gets up a little bit above the YF-30's unboosted main engine thrust (2,156kN vs 2,110kN). The Siegfrieds are a bit weird in that the designers sacrificed a good portion of the VF-31's firepower and made the aircraft significantly more expensive through the addition of technologies intended to let them more efficiently support the ground operations of Walkure. They lost the ordinance bays in the legs to multidrone racks, they lost the missile bays in the ordinance container to the multidrone charger, they dialed the firepower of the railguns down (presumably in the name of minimizing loss of life among potentially-recoverable Var sufferers), and included that fold wave system and inset fold quartz fold wave amplifiers to boost Walkure's power. This is, however, the same technology that made the YF-29 so expensive the wealthy Macross Frontier emigrant fleet could only afford the one aircraft, so mass production is probably out of the question. That said, I'm not sure it'd necessarily be cheaper to import VF-25s or build them locally under license. The VF-31 has one major advantage that the creators of Macross Delta completely forgot about when they were giving each main character their own variant to maximize its toy sale potential. Namely... the ordinance container. That innovation by SMS Uroboros headwiz Major Aisha Blanchett basically rendered specialized variants obsolete. The VF-31 has a "plug-and-play" equipment package that lets a single model be quickly and efficiently equipped to cover a sizable array of operational roles and equipment types that were previously the domain of special mission-specific variants or FAST packs, all in the space of a minute or two instead of tens of minutes or hours. A completely stock VF-31A can take the default container and be a multirole variable fighter. It can equip a beam cannon container and fill the anti-ship attacker role. You can drop a folding radome container on there which will let it operate as an ELINT/AWACS plane. You can even slap a speaker container on there and use it as a Tactical Sound Unit VF without any further modification. There was literally no reason to have five different variants of Siegfried. This technology makes for ideal conditions to have just one variant, maybe two at the most, which can cover every major mission role the five main VF-25 variants did and plenty of others besides. The VF-31 may not be the latest and greatest bleeding edge technology, but when you think about it... it must be incredibly cost-effective in normal military operations and lend truly monstrous versatility to forces in the field.

Believe it or not, that was the short version... when we get around to covering the Macross Delta mecha for M3 the writeup I pass to Mr March is going to be a lot longer and packing an awful lot of footnotes. (Fortunately, I've probably got a little while before we get to that point... when I last measured the pile of books waiting for translation it had reached three feet and was threatening to go higher still.) Yeah, the way we were introduced to Delta Flight's custom VF-31s first and that it wasn't made immediately clear in the series that they were all one-of-a-kind "ace custom" jobs that were extensively modified from the original design made a lot of people think the VF-31 was a lot higher-spec than it actually is. As far as the VF-31's failure to represent much of an improvement over the VF-25 despite being nearly a decade newer goes, I suspect that has a lot to do with its intended customer. The Brisingr Alliance is a cluster of worlds way out in the galactic boonies, and they mention that it's economically underdeveloped for the age of the settlement(s). That they're still flying their aging fleet of Block II (2055) VF-171s in 2067 won't be fielding the VF-31 in significant numbers until the 2070s says a lot about what the economy can spare for the defense budget when many of the New UN Government member worlds (including, ironically, former member Windermere IV) had moved to widespread adoption of 5th Generation VFs years before. Surya's VF-31 feels like a minimum effort attempt to get a 5th Generation VF in the air as inexpensively as possible by using mostly off-the-shelf hardware to keep the prototype phase as short as possible. Yeah, the 5th Generation VFs based on the YF-24 Evolution have a second-generation version of the ARIEL airframe control AI developed for the YF-19 and YF-21.

Well, my answer to your question would depend largely upon what you consider to be "new" information... have you been following our progress over in the Macross Delta Mecha and Technology thread? Going back a couple posts (and over half a year), we can now answer with some certainty the questions that were being asked when Macross Delta was just starting to air courtesy of official specs published with model kits and so on. I'll hit the big talking points, and if anything jumps out at you or any questions occur to you, go ahead and shout 'em out as the mood strikes you: Where do the VF-31 and Sv-262 stand in comparison to other 5th Generation VFs? As we now know from the official specs published with the model kits and toys (thank you Tomytec), the new 5th Generation VFs presented in the Macross Delta series don't represent a dramatic improvement in overall performance vs. the previously featured 5th Generation VFs which appeared in Macross Frontier. Easily the biggest factor skewing early impressions of Macross Delta's tech level is that it wasn't made explicit or clear in the series that those VF-31 Siegfrieds being flown by Delta Flight of the Xaos Ragna branch's 3rd Fighter Wing are all ace customs and not representative of actual VF-31 performance. This, of course, led to an inflated impression of the Sv-262's capabilities as well, since the natural assumption was that a VF-31 was the new gold standard for 5th Generation VFs by dint of having the highest number. As it happens, the "stock" VF-31 Kairos, which the Brisingr Alliance NUNS is expected to start adopting circa 2069, offers very little in terms of improvement over the VF-25. In a lot of ways you could argue the VF-31 is a bunch of VF-25 hardware packed into a different-shaped airframe. Compared to the Low Rate Initial Production (Block 1?) VF-25/MF25 Messiah fielded by the Macross Frontier emigrant fleet: The VF-31 is a little longer (19.31m vs 18.72m) but has a shorter wingspan (13.7m vs 15.5m) and a smaller vertical profile (3.85m vs 4.03m) The VF-31's listed empty mass is 200kg lighter than the VF-25's (8,250kg vs 8,450kg), but that's without its ordinance container so that basically means it's missing a big chunk of its airframe. The empty thrust-to-weight ratio of the VF-31A is very slightly higher than the VF-25's (40.664 vs 39.098). (This is also misleading, for the reasons stated above.) The VF-31 is using a slightly improved variant of the VF-25's FF-3001A engine, which provides an extra 25kN per engine (1,645kN vs 1,620kN). The VF-31 is slightly faster at 10km (Mach 5.5+ vs Mach 5.0+) They're using the same EX-Gear interface and the VF-31 is using a slightly improved variant of the initial VF-25 ISC system, which has 0.5G more buffer capacity (28.0G vs 27.5G). The airframe control AI is an updated version of the ARIEL II system used by the VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, and YF-30 designated ARIEL II+. Roughly half the VF-31's weapons are the same type used by the VF-25. They both use the ROV-127 beam machine gun on the monitor turret, and the CIMM-3 micro-missile launchers for the VF-25's Super Pack are integrated into the VF-31's legs. The VF-31's offensive guns are a more advanced assortment, a pair of 27mm rapid-fire railguns and a heavy quantum beam gun pod instead of either 25mm beam machine guns or regular machine guns and a large-bore rotary cannon. It's hard to say how their ordinance capacity measures up... since the VF-31 Kairos's ordinance container is something of a mystery due to an idiot ball mistake wherein the specs say that a Kairos doesn't have the equipment to support Walkure and the models have given the VF-31A the same container as the Siegfried. All told, the Kairos seems to be more or less on the same level as the VF-25 Messiah, putting it well below the performance of the VF-27, YF-29, and YF-30. Armament-wise, it's harder to say. The VF-31 has a much greater bias towards close-quarters combat, with half (or less) the overall number of pylons the VF-25 has, but with a whopping 60 internal micro-missiles (18 in each leg, and 24 in the ordinance container if the Model Graphix coverage is on the level) plus the two internal bays in the back of the legs. The VF-31's Super Pack is much less impressive, being a lot heavier and slower, and with what appears to be less weaponry. The Xaos Valkyrie Works custom job, the VF-31 Siegfried, is a somewhat different animal being that it's been retrofitted to have forward-swept wings, a detuned version of the YF-30's engine, a slightly improved ISC, a custom airframe control AI (ARIEL III), and a less powerful railgun on the forearm/wing root mount, while also forfeiting almost half of the micro-missiles for a multidrone charger and the leg bays for multidrones themselves. The Sv-262 Draken III is a much different animal. It's noted as being a VF designed specifically to combat other VFs, from a design house that specialized in precisely that school of thought. The highlights are: The Sv-262 is smaller than the typical 5th Generation VF, and only 17.54m long with a 13m wingspan (on the Hs type), but a higher vertical profile of 5.74m. The listed empty mass is unusually high for its size, at 9,810kg. It's lighter than the VF-27 and YF-29, but it's heavier by far than VF-25s and YF-30s. Being the only known production VF with an ersatz fold wave system (albeit a "poor man's" one that is basically just an elaborate afterburner), the Sv-262's normal T/W ratio is actually almost identical to the VF-31A's at 40.641, but worse than the Xaos Custom Siegfrieds by almost 10%. When overboosting with its fold quartz reheat system, the Sv-262Hs is slightly worse than the YF-30 at nominal (unboosted) maximum engine power with 52.834 vs. the YF-30's 53.085. Based on the designation, the Draken III is using a /FC2 version of the initial-type Stage II thermonuclear reaction engine (FF-2999). It's faster than the VF-31 and VF-31 Custom Siegfried at altitude, topping out at Mach 5.8+ at 10km to their Mach 5.5+. The Sv-262 is not using EX-Gear, but it does have a full virtual cockpit like the VF-27's (but without the need for implants) and an ISC based on the VF-25's that is significantly improved to a capacity of 30.8G. The Sv-262 is also using an ARIEL II+ airframe control AI. Armaments on the Sv-262 are very similar to the MilSpec VF-31A Kairos's... at least in terms of guns. It has a heavy quantum beam gun pod, a different variant of the same 27mm railguns used on the forearms of the VF-31A (twin-mounted on the right arm instead), and the command model (Sv-262Hs) has a pair of beam machine guns on the head. The standout parts of its weapons are that it doesn't have any pylons and it doesn't have any internal weapons bays. Its missiles are all tied up in conformal packs. A number isn't given in the specs, but model kits have shown 29 micro-missiles in the pack, times four packs is 116 micro-missiles. Instead of the VF-31's two knives, it has a big damn sword that was only used in the final episode for some reason. The Lilldraken drones add a 30mm beam machine gun and four micro-missile launchers apiece. One special trait that's noted for the Sv-262 is that its unusual transformation gives it an atypically small onboard fuel capacity, which limits its endurance in space combat. Where do the VF-31 and Sv-262 stand in comparison to each other? Performance-wise, the Sv-262 seems to be on a mostly level footing against the military spec VF-31A/B Kairos intended to become the main VF for the Brisingr Alliance NUNS in the next two years. They've got similar thrust-to-weight ratios, though the Draken III has the greater peak airspeed at low altitudes and the advantage of the rotating wing-engines formed by the Lilldrakens to boost its agility. It's actually at at slight disadvantage against the VF-31 Siegfried in those departments due to the Siegfried's lighter weight and roughly comparable engines, but the fact that there were never more than five Siegfrieds at any one time negated that advantage pretty swiftly. Armaments-wise, the Draken III has a pretty substantial advantage over the VF-31. They both have the 27mm railguns and a heavy quantum beam cannon, but the Draken III has a significant edge in missiles... boasting almost twice the capacity of the VF-31A without its drones, and more than three times what the VF-31 Custom Siegfried brings to the party. Having two drones for ad hoc wingmen is also an advantage well worth mentioning. It's not mentioned in any source I have, but the Sv-262's gunpod appears on several occasions to have a similar "beam grenade" mode to the VF-27, YF-29, and YF-30 gun pods... something the VF-31 is never shown to have. All in all, I would judge the Epsilon Foundation/Dian Cecht SV Works Sv-262 Draken III to be the superior aircraft when compared against the Surya Aerospace VF-31 Kairos, and arguably the superior aircraft when compared to the Xaos Valkyrie Works VF-31 Custom Siegfried. Their performance seems to be in the hope (or expectation) that a high-quality aircraft made to exploit the superhuman abilities of Windermerean pilots would compensate for the significant numerical disadvantage Windermere's Aerial Knights would be up against when confronting the New UN Spacy. Unfortunately, the aggressively short lifespan of the average Windermerean and the losses sustained fighting against rogue Zentradi and then the New UN Spacy in 2060 seem to have left them badly short of experienced combat pilots... so much so that, despite a colossal technological and performance advantage, we saw on several occasions that more experienced pilots in the old VF-171 were quite able to shoot down their less experienced enemy's newer and more potent aircraft. EDIT: Wow, that got long FAST... those of you who made it through that in one sitting, treat yourselves to an ice cream or something. Yikes.

Ah... it pains me to admit this, but I've come up empty-handed after a quick check of all my available resources. I'd assume, given that it's a derivative of the VF-17 Nightmare that isn't all that different in Battroid mode, it's probably ~15.18m.

The VF-31 is 19.31m long in Fighter mode and 15.33m tall (not counting the beam machine gun barrel).

Very close, but with one small correction... the reactor is inside the part of the engine analogous to the burner can in a conventional jet turbine, but the reaction itself is isolated from engine airflow. Plasma from the reaction chamber can be introduced into the airflow downstream of the reactor to further heat the air flowing through the engine and produce more thrust though. There is, however, some (possibly accidental) truth-in-television in the way the energy of the reaction is harnessed. The reactor produces electrical power in two ways: with an OTM-based thermoelectric generator and a magnetohydrodynamic generator. Special carbon allotropes like graphene have been confirmed to have exceptionally high Seebeck coefficients, more than thirty times better than Selenium and are also extremely strong, making them ideal for a high-stress application like a thermoelectric generator inside of a jet turbine.

So... did anyone else notice something a little odd with the VF-1EX Valkyrie specs in the liner notes for Macross Delta Vol.5? The majority of the specs look familiar enough, and the maximum airspeed at 10km is familiar enough and makes it look like the VF-1EX is probably a detuned and modified VF-1X or VF-1X+, but the engine is straight out of crazy town. The text of the booklet describes it as a "FF-2001 Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engine" and gives it a per-engine thrust of 147,000kgf (1,441.58kN). That's gotta be an extra zero there, since 14,700kgf per engine would be consistent with the ~Mach 2.89 performance at 10km. As written, it'd make the VF-1 almost as zippy as the YF-27-5!

Yeah, that's super-alloys for ya... Macross is no different from Gundam or most other mecha shows in that the ships and mecha are made from advanced composite materials and alloys that significantly exceed the performance of modern materials. If they were made out of modern materials, they'd be much heavier. Some other forms of overtechnology, like thermonuclear reaction engines, are key players in helping to keep the operating mass of a mecha down. The Grumman F-14D carried 7,350kg of jet fuel in its 9,100L-capacity internal tanks, and that was enough to give it a combat radius of about 925km from its home carrier or base. Because it's using hydrogen slush as fuel for two gravitationally-moderated fold reactors, the VF-1's more modest 1,410L fuel capacity weighed only 119.9kg and the high-efficiency reactor makes that fuel last much MUCH longer.

*blink* No, I covered it... it's the third line in the FAST packs part of the posts you just quoted. The pack doesn't, AFAIK, have an official designation (yet) so I listed it under the name "Hiotori/Bharat Super Pack" because the FAST pack in question is described as being the Super Pack and was built by those two companies. It's probably SPS-31-something.

The LRIP/early block VF-25 without FAST packs has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 39.098.All of the following are computed without the mass of the ordinance container, per the official stats (because that's how their mass was provided): The LRIP/early block VF-31A without FAST packs has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 40.664. The Xaos Customized VF-31C without FAST packs has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 44.812. The Xaos Customized VF-31F without FAST packs has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 44.822. The Xaos Customized VF-31J without FAST packs has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 44.854. The Xaos Customized VF-31S without FAST packs has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 44.765. With their respective Super Packs at a standard operating mass (which is, again, how their masses were provided): The LRIP/early block VF-25 with the SPS-25S/MF25 Super Pack has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 17.288. The LRIP/early block VF-25 with the APS-25A/MF25 Armored Pack has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 12.119. The Xaos Customized VF-31J with its Hiotori/Bharat Super Pack has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 15.950. It is, however, worth noting that the thrust figures given in Macross Chronicle are bizarrely the same for the VF-25's Super and Armored Pack, and none of them line up to the acceleration forces. The variance is only about 3.8% for the VF-31J Super Siegried, but it expands out to a whopping 27.8% for the VF-25 Super Messiah and 10.7% for the VF-25 Armored Messiah. (The amount the instantaneous thrust is overstated vs. the acceleration g-load the fighter produces.)

So... incredibly short version:Macross Frontier fleet, 2058. SMS Apollo Platoon pilot 1st Lt. Chelsea Scarlett is suffering some classic emotional trauma after a bad experience in battle, so she becomes a VF air racer instead. Gets stuck flying the VF-19ACTIVE in the Vanquish League's Ultimate Class races, because Shinsei and LAI want to collect development data on the VF-25 hardware installed on it. Shenanigans ensue, she ends up developing a friendly rivalry with veteran racer Hakuna Aoba (who may or may not be former NUNS Special Forces). Macross Galaxy is caught red-handed illegally carrying out field tests of the YF-27 prototypes when they attack the race for shiggles. A great deal of fuss and noise is made about that, and the completion level of Galaxy's next main variable fighter (and allegations of espionage on Galaxy's part). Then some remnants of the Earth-supremacst group Latence attack and try to take a resort ship hosting the races hostage. Worked pretty well, IMO. Well enough that Vanquish League races are referenced in Macross 30 as well, as a playable extra game mode to unlock certain bonus items and blueprints. (You also have a few unavoidable races, like the race against Isamu.) Not so much... yeah, most (but not all) of the Vanquish League entries to be featured in the story have corporate sponsorship, but it's only recently the military-industrial complex started using the Ultimate Class races as a very public venue for testing new technologies, and it's only one or two teams in the league doing it. Shinsei's in-house team, and SMS's (which was using the races to test Shinsei and LAI advances). They're accused of trying to win by sheer fiscal supremacy (by throwing 4th Gen VFs into the race when everyone else is flying 3rd Gen and older...).

It's not really talked about much, but my understanding of what little is said on the matter is that the eye-following pointing system used to aim the VF-0's guns and designate targets for the FCS was production-intent hardware that was intended for the VF-1... and built into all of the VFs that followed (with the possible exception of the YF-21).I'd assume the reason it didn't show up in visuals was simply that Kawamori and co. hadn't thought of a way to make it look visually appealing. Helmet-mounted targeting systems have existed since the 1980s, but even today they're still not much in the looks department. Kawamori probably needed time to think up a way to do it without obscuring the pilot's face, and real-world technology didn't start to offer an answer to that until the mid-to-late 90's (using infrared or other forms of optical tracking).

On a proper-sized carrier, you'd have a couple different options... like using the ventral verniers to "hop" the fighter and transform that way, or taking it down to the hangar level on one of the elevators in GERWALK and using a crane.(There is official precedent for both.) They weren't intended to operate on small warships. That's what VTOL-capable aircraft and helicopters are for... many later VFs were VTOL capable in all modes, though the capability was seldom used since dedicated naval vessels weren't all that common and the surface-based carriers offered pretty darn significant decks. Actually, the VF-1 has a set of large, high-powered verniers on the outside of each engine intake for rapid deceleration... many other VFs are outfitted with thrust reversers. The VF-1 is also unusual in that there is a clearly marked "Reverse" setting on the throttle lever. Aaaaactually, Hikaru briefly hovers a VT-1 to transform it from fighter mode to GERWALK mode in DYRL? during the escape from Vrlitwhai's ship by using the ventral verniers. The reverse should be equally possible.The verniers on VFs are small, but they're quite powerful. Especially those reverse verniers and the wingtip ones used for roll control. Prior to the First Space War VFs were deployed to the large carriers and to ground bases... not really to small warships. The smaller space warships like the Northampton-class had very small footprint but very tall hangars and stored the VFs in battroid mode instead.

We don't make the news, we just report it... though I'd imagine the wingtip roll-control thrusters, the reverse verniers, double-slotted fowler flaps, an AI based airframe control system, and the stonking huge size of the carrier they were intended to land on probably help somewhat. That the Prometheus having seven cross-deck pendants instead of the usual three or four for a modern aircraft carrier may also have helped.

I've never really had an issue with it... since it was, at least, applied consistently until Macross Delta and the Valkyries were as much infantry as aircraft. About all we know is that, according to Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah, the VF-171L was the last mass-production type of the Nightmare Plus which was used by the Macross Olympia fleet in 2065 when they were starting to transition to the VF-25 they'd codeveloped with the Macross Frontier fleet after canceling their own YF-26. I'm not sure if that version corresponded to what Macross Chronicle called Block II (the 2055 update, which was what the Macross Frontier fleet used) or the Block III update that served as the basis for the Frontier fleet's anti-Vajra upgrade. On review of the animation of Macross Delta's first and sixth episodes, I would be inclined to suspect that the Brisingr Alliance's NUNS is using a VF-171 variant corresponding to the 2055 Block II update.

http://www.macross2.net/m3/sdfmacross/vf-1a-valkyrie/vf-1-fighter-controlsurfaces.gifhttp://www.macross2.net/m3/sdfmacross/vf-1a-valkyrie/vf-1-fighter-machinery.gif Mecha Manual's got your back. It looks like they deploy from the landing gear bays, from the side closest to the aircraft's centerline, and are canted slightly inwards towards the center.

That's a question with a lot of potential answers... since older fighters are often retired from normal duties and placed into the training fleet, and the special forces are sometimes keeping the fighters in service much longer.The VF-1 Valkyrie, for instance, went out of mass production in 2015 but was still being used as late as 2050 by the special forces because it was as close to invisible-in-plain-sight as you're likely to get with a giant robot thanks to the prevalence of civilian VF-1s. That's a good 35 years after mass production ended. The VF-4's mass production ended in 2022 and it was still in service in 2047 with the special forces, though it'd otherwise been retired to training service. It was presumably surplussed out to civilian buyers in the late 2040's or early 2050's, same as the VF-1X series. That's around 29-30 years. The Frontier fleet was selling off the last of its VF-11s in 2058 to civilian buyers, though we don't know when mass production ended on that model. It didn't enter production until the end of the 2020s, so it was only in service for about 28 years total, though as an emigrant fleet main fighter there probably wasn't any one end of production galaxy-wide... every fleet likely stopped at a different time. The VF-171 is already staring down the prospect of replacement at only about 20 years in service, though like the VF-11 it'll probably be retired at different points in time in each fleet using it. Master File suggests that it was still being produced around 2065, with the final variant being the VF-171L.