vsim

A while back when I was writing my VF-1 simulation. The main problems to note were that without an elevator, the VF-1 relies almost entirely on the thrust vectoring for pitch control. I forget the numbers, but when I tried to fly it with actuators that moved at the same rate as the ones on the F-22, it flew horribly. The control system I wrote could not move the thrust vectoring fast enough to keep good control over the aircraft, it was just not stable in any form. I eventually had to up the actuator rate and then it was happy (sorry I don't have numbers without looking into my source code up on sourceforge). But if I recall (it's been many years) I had to roughly double the actuator rate from the published numbers the F-22 uses, possibly higher. It was big problem. It also made the weight and balance of the aircraft tricky because the wing sweep would move the aerodynamic center and center of mass around a fair bit. I did eventually manage to balance things out in all wing sweep configurations but it did require some fudging. Basically I redid calculations until I could come up with the best way to keep things realistic while still keeping the aerodynamic center and center of mass as close together as possible all the time. The last thing I would note, which further points out how important the balancing and even the thrust vectoring actuators are, was trying to land the aircraft. In order to fly the aircraft slower, the engines have to be throttled back, which means less thrust. Less thrust also means less pitch authority, which means the thrust vectoring has to move even faster (often hitting limits) to try to keep the aircraft balanced and under control. A temporary solution I came up with for this was to deploy spoilers to increase the drag on the aircraft during landing, which means the engines are running at a higher thrust to maintain airspeed, but gives more pitch control. The other answer is to land faster, which is not unheard of, but usually not desirable . So yes, in short, the VF-1 is feasible, with a little bit of alien technology in the form of very fast thrust vector actuators . I wish I had the time to revisit my project but I'm horrible with graphics and my area of interest is really in the modeling of the aircraft and control system itself. I hope some of this makes sense.

Awww, but combiners would be new ground for Macross! Maybe Delta is referring to the deltoid muscle and that is where the new Valkyries fit into forming a new (small) capital ship!!

Nice!

Looks fantastic!

Mine finally shipped from HLJ last week. Mine also doesn't seem too bad to manipulate. It's a little tight, but really wasn't that bad in my opinion. I'll post a picture of the VF-0A/S/D together when I get a chance .

Nope, for the most part, no duplicates here.

Last time I ordered some, Red Frog Hobbies carried Mr. Color.

Wow that's impressive.

OMG, no way am I adding that up. I've been gathering stuff for about 17 years now...I think I would gag if I even attempted to add it up.

hmmm...meh...maybe

Hmm, these leads me to a question I have pondered from time to time. When introducing someone to Macross, should you start with Macross itself or Macross Zero?

I'm kind of scared of this. The transformers remake was not at all what I would have hoped for. But then again, any attention to the brand might help (hopefully Macross and away from Robotech!).

Ohhh, I could put my Yamato Rau on my stand with my Super Max

Yeah, a little wobbly just because the 1/48 are so heavy, but not so bad. I was hoping to have one be upside down, but I didn't trust that a bump to the stand wouldn't cause the toy to fall, so I didn't try it. They also tend to tip backwards a little bit because so much of the weight is behind the adapter, so I had to twist the joint forward a few degrees to compensate. Not a big deal really.

And just to drive spanner a little more crazy: I finally took some pics of my 1/48 M&M together.

Bandai 1/65ths. Especially the VF-17..

http://www.intellivisionlives.com/ Mwhahaha. I have one actually, it's pretty sweet to play the old games....including baseball!

The only aerodynamic advantage to swinging back the wing that far would be purely to reduce drag. Of course elephant in the room is the loss of lift that would accompany it (as was said above). You would be reduced to the lift you get from the body itself, which could easily start to counteract any reduction in drag you got in the first place. So, yeah, only good for reducing drag under conditions where very little lift is required..let's just call it lawn dart mode. I can't even see it being that useful at higher Mach numbers because I don't think it would help much to sweep the wings back that far when the forebody and wing root are already going to be forming shock waves anyway. I've always liked swept forward wing configurations and the benefits they get in control surface effectiveness at high angles of attack compared to normal aft swept wings.

Any chance they will bring the supervision army in on the story? As far as I can recall, we've only ever seen the Zentradi directly. And I recall some protoculture in Macross 7 (and Zero of course). Am I forgetting something?

Thanks for posting this, I'm getting a few ideas on how to do some things a little better on the kits I build!

Nice! Love it.