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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    No, the bit I'm talking about is about 40 seconds after that part... the Konig Monster drifts off in Heavy GERWALK mode, and the next time we see it (circa 19:15), it's in Destroid mode, firing away with the forearm guns while Island-1 descends in the background: In actual fact, the VF-1 had a pair of verniers specifically for deceleration on the outside of its intakes... Well... according to Master File, there's already a GIC system inside every thermonuclear reaction turbine engine, which is both the means by which the reaction is catalyzed and controlled and the method by which the resulting plasma stream is manipulated. If I had to guess, I'd say that the reason nobody's tried to put an artificial gravity system on a VF is that there's too much potential to have something go badly awry... like what happened with the original ISC prototype, where it MAGNIFIED the g-forces on the pilot's body instead of reducing them, or having them somehow interfere with the GIC inside the reaction turbines. Using an AG field to simulate planetary gravity or provide deceleration forces wouldn't actually dampen g-forces from lateral motion either...
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Yep... Guld was not a military pilot, he was a civilian test pilot (and specialist in neurology) with a special pilot's license who was supplied by General Galaxy.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Yep. In this case, it was a theoretical/preliminary analysis done for NASA by MSE Technology Applications in Butte, MT. Not entirely true... the United Nations (before the Unified Government was established) did announce the existence of aliens in 2000 in Macross. They just kept the details (like their giant stature) to themselves.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Here's one that often gets left out... from the old Sky Angels book: The logo of OTEC, who did a lot of the early shipbuilding and research in Macross:
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Most of the time it's more like an X-shape in Macross (two dorsal, two ventral). I think the stabilizers on the VF-4, VF-14, VF-171, etc. work just as well despite being inward-canted instead of outward... sort of an inverted V-tail, when you think about it.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    NASA/CR-2005-213749 Advanced Energetics for Aeronautical Applications: Volume II... a published report from the NASA STI Program office.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Dubbed, you say? The only Macross dubs in English (excluding fandubs) are the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series (via ADV Films), Macross II, and Macross Plus... and DYRL? if we count the borderline gag dub that was Clash of the Bionoids. I've been ordering my DVDs and Blu-Rays from HMV Japan, mostly.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    From the look of the diagram in Master File, the VF-1 may have double slotted fowler flaps to play with... possibly to make up for its relatively small wing. It does, but only in the final episode... after it gets its leg blown off and crashes on the Battle Galaxy. The answer to your other question is "raw thrust". The engines are in the lower legs.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Oh. Well, that explains that then. I learned something new today. Pretty sure the Konig Monster wouldn't be a candidate for an active aeroelastic wing there, on the grounds that it's more or less a lifting body aircraft...
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Well... you've got the ailerons for roll control, and then the outward-canted stabilizers ("ruddervators") and thrust vectoring for pitch. Beyond that, you've got the BLC, VFC, and verniers if you're in the mood to cheat a little. As far as low-speed landings go... you really can't beat GERWALK mode vertical landing, but there's always leading edge and slotted fowler flaps to work with, in conjunction with the BLC.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Nope... officially, the only aircraft in Macross which have been mentioned as having anything along those lines are the YF-21/VF-22 and VF-19ACTIVE. From everything I've been able to find on the X-53 program, it sounds like the same problem was solved using different methods on VFs... specifically, a more rigid wing courtesy of overtechnology materials, and drag manipulation using vortex flow and boundary layer control. Um... why would the actuator need to be aerodynamic? It's INSIDE the airframe in Bomber mode - when aerodynamics actually matter - and is only exposed for a couple seconds during transformation, tops. That's kind of the thing... I'm not really seeing the benefit of the active aeroelastic wing vs. what the VFs already have in terms of airflow manipulation and control surfaces.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Personally, I'm not so sure... from Master File, the attempts to upgrade the VF-1 seem to be concerned with improving the wing rigidity and frequency response, and I'm not seeing anything like it mentioned in connection with any aircraft except the YF-21/VF-22 and VF-19ACTIVE. (Possibly it's because of the VF's other role as a ground warfare unit, where armor endurance is paramount.) They seem to favor methods that alter the airflow over the airframe... like boundary layer control, vortex flow control, variable-cant stabilizers, etc.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Technically, it has TWO... at least, according to Variable Fighter Master File. They first appeared in Macross the Ride (2058), and a custom one called VF-19ADVANCE appeared in Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa (2059). Goodness gracious... I didn't realize your tastes ran in that direction. No, I'm afraid not... just some colored, and rather small, schematic views of fighter mode for the YF-19-3, VF-19F, VF-171EX and VF-25. I like the VF-19A/C's wing arrangement... the short, stubby wings on the F/S bug the hell out of me for reasons I honestly can't quite grasp. Oh, a "Monkey Model" is a sort of deliberately (and significantly) reduced capacity version of an existing piece of military hardware intended for export. The term has its origins in Cold War Soviet export policies for military hardware. The New UN Government of the 2050s was quite fed up with coup d'etat attempts and rebellions and so on, so they were a little on the reluctant side to permit emigrant fleets and planets to produce military hardware on the same level as the gear used by the core New UN Forces. That's also why they submitted a partially redacted set of specs for the YF-24 to the emigrant fleets and told them to make do instead of just GIVING them the YF-24. As far as the purpose of the Caliburn... I suppose you could say that it was, in part, intended to evaluate hardware for the next-gen AVFs (like EX-Gear or the GU-17A) in practical operations. They were used by both SMS and the Frontier's "Round Table" NUNS Special Forces unit. Chelsea Scarlett and Isamu Dyson had custom ones with various extensive modifications (the VF-19ACTIVE and VF-19ADVANCE respectively).
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Is it now? Behold the VF-19EF.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Similar in the most basic sense... but what the YF-21 did is on a whole other level. Well... actually, it's a little from Column A and a little from Column B there. Several VFs (incl. VF-19 and VF-25) do use Vortex Flow Control for attitude control via negative pressure.1 On the other hand, most VFs have Boundary Layer Control implementations... usually involving a sub-intake in the front fuselage just above the main intake... which is used for attitude control. It's an air suction system, and extends into the leading and trailing edges of the wings (and on the VF-25, apparently into the wing glove and as far back as the stabilizers). 1. See page 49 of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur and page 30 of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah for helpful infographics and explanations.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, it's just a technology that requires an incredible amount of energy to achieve the results it does, and has to contend with lots of other critical functions for the power it needs. The armor on a VF is fairly thin stuff... and while the material itself is extraordinarily tough, the energy conversion armor is drawing an awful lot of power to beef up that material to levels that let it shrug off weapons fire orders of magnitude deadlier than what our modern armed forces have. The VF-0's energy conversion armor needed 90% of the battroid's generator output to beef its armor strength up to the level of a main battle tank. Part of the problem is that while the thermonuclear reaction engines that VFs use to get around use the heat and plasma from the reaction to either heat intake air as propellant (in atmosphere) or use the reaction's plasma stream as propellant in space... which ultimately means that a LOT of potential power is lost generating thrust. So as technology advanced, generator output increased, but so too did engine thrust requirements and the number and severity of "accessory loads" on the power system thanks to more (and more powerful) sensor and stealth systems, integrated energy weapons, computers, communications systems, etc. Barrier systems are also famously energy-thirsty devices, so that probably isn't helping matters any. It wasn't until the VF-25's generation (the 5th?) that engine reactor output finally outpaced engine and accessory power demand to the point that light energy conversion armor could be employed around vital areas like the cockpit and engines in fighter mode. To fully utilize energy conversion armor in all modes, a fold wave system or fold dimension resonance system is necessary, which lets the YF-29 and YF-30 cheat up their generator outputs by pulling energy directly from super dimension space. Considering what is said/shown in Macross the Ride, the VF-27 probably needs at least 3 engines to produce enough surplus power to run its gun pod on top of everything else, so when the gun pod is not in use it can use the excess output for its stated ability to use its barriers and energy conversion armor to compensate for the friction heating of the airframe while flying above Mach 5 at around 10km. Actually, both the CG model from the animation and the art in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah show verniers on the VF-25's wingtips. You can seem them quite clearly in this image. Of course, there is another reason to leave the wings out with the Super Packs on... as seen in Master File, you can still use the 2 outer pylons on each wing for ordinance. (There's a really good picture of this on pages 076 and 077, which show VF-25's using their pylons for AMM-101 and RMS-7 missiles with their Super Packs attached.) Just because it's optimized for space doesn't mean it can only be used there... they used VF-19F's in atmosphere during Operation Stargazer in the Macross 7 TV series. All told, the YF-21's active wing technology is described as being extremely difficult/complicated to control properly without using a cheat like a BDI system or implant technology, to the extent that a conventional FCS capable of controlling it is still WIP in 2058. (This is part of the description of the VF-19ACTIVE "Nothung" from Macross the Ride.) To a certain extent, they're using boundary layer control for this... and have been since the original VF-1... but the existing stabilizers (which are variable cant on many later designs) and thrust-vectoring carry a big part of this burden.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    It wouldn't be the first time someone stuck canards onto the F/S variant...*points to Basara's VF-19 Custom, which Chronicle suggests (on Mechanic Sheet ALL 02) was customized from a VF-19F, and to the VF-19EF.*
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Probably not a huge concern for the VF-19F/S type, after all... that version of the Excalibur was optimized for usage in space.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Extrapolation from Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.2. It helpfully identifies the preferred fuel and gives us the internal tank capacity... which, since the fuel is a real material, gives us enough to approximate the total fuel weight. Hydrogen slush has a density of 0.085g/cm3 (or 0.085kg/L) and the tanks have a capacity of 1,410L... you get 119.85kg of fuel, or 264lb 4oz.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Dunno if anyone's brought this up in this thread... but here's one going the other way: NASA/CR-2005-213749 Advanced Energetics for Aeronautical Applications: Volume II offers analysis of some proposed nuclear fusion turbine engine designs that look an awful lot like the diagrams of thermonuclear reaction turbines in the old Sky Angels tech manual and Variable Fighter Master File. They even bear up to some of the Macross-y overkill-sounding details like an unlimited sortie range in atmospheric flight... with a projected 60,681nmi range on a single pound of H1-B11 fuel. That's 2.8 trips around the world. (Makes you wonder what a VF-1 can do with the 264lb of fuel it carries in its internal tanks...)
  21. Seto Kaiba
    If that's the case... then they failed spectacularly. One of the MANY problems with this line of reasoning is that, as I indicated previously, there were already explicit statements that these mecha were transformable years (or in the VF-X-4/VF-4's case, over a decade) before the article was written. The same is true for the VF-5000... there may not have been art, but the existing material was VERY clear that it was a variable aircraft. Your claim that there is no evidence is demonstrably false (and, in fact, had been disproved several posts previously). There has never been a toy for the YF-24. Nor, for that matter, art of its other two modes... yet, like the VF-4 and VF-5000, we know it's transformable because the text materials tell us so. Only one, in actual fact... the VF-X. The VF-X-4 is a transformable aircraft, per the notations in Macross Perfect Memory. The problem, as originally stated, is that the information was incorrect back then, and time has not made it less so.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    That's about the letter of it, yeah. Well, I'm not sure if you'd call it the pinnacle of 4th generation variable fighter design... it's certainly the most successful design of its generation though. Well, sort of... the initial mass production type (VF-19A/C/E?) had the same set of problems as the YF-19, and the VF-19F/S had a more stable engine and refined airframe that made it something an average pilot could fly without losing control. My interpretation would be that there's a subtle nuance of "anyone can fly" vs. "anyone can fly well" where the VF-19F/S vs. VF-171 thing goes. * The record is sketchy (and contradictory) on the nature of the VF-19E. The VF-19's Variable Fighter Master File book presents a VF-19E as the first variant of the second mass production type (the VF-19F/P/S), but the VF-19E in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy is a first mass production type (ala VF-19A/YF-19). The derivative VF-19EF is shown looking like the F/S type in Macross the Ride, but the A/C type in Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa. The one thing we CAN say with certainty about that one is that it is not the VF-19 Kai "Fire Valkyrie" base model... Chronicle identified that as the VF-19F on Mechanic Sheet ALL 01B. This is gonna drive me nuts... I know I read something about the Project Super Nova space testing arrangements, but I just can't remember where.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Definitely start with the original series, or half the stuff in Macross Zero will come across as "Wow, that's neat looking... but I have no idea what the hell is going on".
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Unfortunately, no... there are arbitrarily-scaled comparison-only numbers for maneuverability and so on, but only between the VF-25 and VF-27. Survey says... "Yes, you absolutely can." If a VF's verniers are powerful enough to get it airborne in fighter mode with 0 forward velocity, just imagine the crazy stuff that they could be used for... especially those full-circumferential verniers on fighters like the VF-14, VF-17, VF-19F/S type, etc. From the animation, it looks like UN Forces missiles routinely use verniers for their maneuvers in atmosphere.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... I was more on about that the VF-19S doesn't use the FF-2550F, that's the VF-19 Custom's bag. Oh boy... now you're askin' the tough ones. Well, generally speaking, the VF-171 is "outclassed by design". It was developed after the VF-19 but before the YF-24 Evolution as a sort of compromise plane that would incorporate many of the technological advances of the Project Super Nova prototypes but without the unnecessarily excessive performance that was their greatest weakness. The VF-19 and VF-22 were extremely unforgiving aircraft to fly, as their performance pushed (and exceeded) the limits of the human body's endurance. The Nightmare Plus was designed to be an aircraft that even average pilots could get the most out of. Once you've got the same generation of weapons... the Anti-ECA shells in the gun pod and the warheads on the missiles... the difference becomes more one of individual skill and tactics than raw performance. We saw this in Frontier, when they gave the same ammo SMS was using to the regular New UN Forces, and suddenly they were having a much easier time against the Vajra. Alto, in a Nightmare Plus EX, was able to nearly rival Ozma in his VF-25S Armored Messiah... and that's pretty damn impressive right there. It's not an insurmountable difference in performance, and MDE weapons on the VF-171EX would definitely be an advantage.
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