Chronocidal

Very very true. I got my first one used from someone here, and my second one new. One thing to remember about the DX-25 is that different people will like or dislike different aspects of it. Personally, I'm an aircraft nut. If the plane looks ugly, doesn't look like it would fly, or severely mangles a good design, it's going to outweigh any sturdyness or decent functionality in robot mode. The fighter mode of the DX-25 is VERY different from the models, which look like they were ripped directly from the computer models used in the show. In this case, I place accuracy to the original design first, so I was disappointed in the approach they took. Overall though, I think a lot of the hate comes from the fact that many of us KNOW Bandai can do much better in terms of accuracy. The DX VF-27 is much more along the lines of what people expected with the DX VF-25. We expected Bandai to try and compete with the standard Yamato had set in the high-end collectible toy Valkyrie game. In the end.. they kind of brought a football to Yamato's tennis match.

Toldya. There are Valkaholics Anonymous meetings every thursday at 7pm, new members have to bring donuts. Sadly though, you might have a tough time completing any kind of collection at this point. Some of the earlier releases just aren't around anymore (depending on the retailer). I know HLJ stopped carrying some of the older ones. I'm glad I got my VT-1 last year at this time when it was marked way down, I haven't seen HLJ carry that or the VE-1 for a while now. Fortunately, the TV Roy is new and easy to get still, and the 1D is a classic that probably won't disappear for a while. Besides though, getting the VT-1 would open you up to DYRL, and you're probably safer sticking with just TV ones.

If you really LOVE the VF-25 design, I suppose it's worth it to grab one. There's no guarantee that a version 2.0 will ever come, so I wouldn't wait for it. In my personal opinion, the DX is the worst representation of the VF-25 currently available, in a pure aesthetic sense. It's just ugly to me, and Both the VF100s and 1/72 kits are light years ahead of it in terms of accuracy and looks. BUT (and this is a big "but") the only one that will hold up to any amount of real play is the DX. The models are display pieces which happen to transform, and the VF100s are more like legos than a transformer. For all it's uglyness, the DX is decently sturdy, although make sure to read up on the tornado armor.. if it's anything like the heavy armor set, it might overstress the plastic around the wings. I wouldn't recommend leaving the armor on to display it in any case. Edit: And Jenius is right, I think most of the people still reading this topic are the ones who were disappointed in the DX, so the opinions here are going to be skewed. I too love the design of the VF-25, I just think the DX is a poor representation of a nice design. Didn't stop me from buying an Alto and Michael though, and so far I haven't had any serious problems with them.

I don't know if I would call them different per se, since these are brand new issues. I got Max and Kakizaki strike bundles, which are both new releases, so the boxes are brand new styling. Style-wise, they look about the same as the TV Roy packaging.

Picked up my box last night, and I have to say I'm much more impressed with Yamato's 1/60 run than with the 1/48. Fiddled with my Max and Kaki 1As a little, and they're just as tight and solid as the first ones I got. Joint tightness on these seemed to lessen a little around the time the VF-1D and Max TV 1A were released, but that may be due to different types of plastic being used. Actually it's kind of funny... I almost preferred that run of slightly loose jointed ones, because I could actually get the landing gear down without any tools. Also, happy to confirm, these DYRL strike pack issues of the 1As do have the new nose hatch design, and non-coated canopy, and I checked the shoulders just in case, but no trouble there. As for the missing arm thruster, that sucks, but fortunately it's a very small and easy to replace bit. In fact, with Hasegawa making 1/48 kits now, you might actually be able to use something from those kits to fix it.

Yep, my order shipped monday... and I got a delivery notice today, so I can pick up mine tomorrow. Fast service indeed. Wait, holy crap, you ordered 8 1/60 CF-1As? XD

I think the wing nacelles and tail kinda ruin it honestly. The rest looks like a nice mix of VF-25 and 27, with a forward swept wing thrown in for.. ok, I can't think of a reason, I liked the VF-27's wing much better. But those tails look... honestly really bad. Not as bad as the extra nacelles, but bad.

Props to you for holding out this long, but don't let them suck you in now. That group of three is a nice set to have. I've gotten 14 of the things now over the past year (12 regular releases, and 2 unpainted kits). I haven't been aiming for completion, but I'm getting pretty close, and I'm running out of room, since I like to keep the boxes to store them when they're not on display. I am glad I decided to grab Max's DYRL 1A though, instead of his 1S, now that I think of it. I almost forgot about the two spare 1S heads the kits provided me with, so I can easily swap them around if I feel like it. Heck, I could even do a crazy what-if, and give Kakizaki one while I'm at it. A fully Strike-1S equipped DYRL Skull Squadron would be kind of amusing to display.

I wouldn't bet on it being the new version. I got my Max 1A quite a while after the new crotch design was introduced, and it was still the old version. Likewise, I would assume the canopy probably still has the coating, since I think only the newest releases have been confirmed to not have it. Actually, the canopy thing might bug me a bit.. I'd kind of rather have the coating on all of them so they match, but my DYRL Max and Kakizaki 1As will both have the uncoated version.

That was some great stuff all around. Loved all the Macross love. I think someone even tried to make the red VF-1 seen in that split second clip of the next Frontier movie. Think my personal favorite though was the navalized F-22 Obviously the change to leading edge slats didn't make any sense, but I loved it in those 1970s high-vis markings. By the way though.. what the heck was up with that F-15.. robot... thing...?? It looked like someone threw parts to an F-15 and a Zero in a box, dropped in a tube of glue, cranked up some funky 70s porn groove, and shook the box for all it was worth. Edit: There's actually a lot more fun stuff if you dig around more on the site. Someone built up an F-14 testbed in Focker's markings (VF-84 scheme with macross insignia and a skull on the neck where the VF-0's canopy shield is) and carrying a VF-1 gunpod, and VF-0 missile pods in place of normal fuel tanks. There was also some sort of weird custom armored VF.. I couldn't tell what it was, it was only in the corner of another shot, but the feet looked like a VF-0 battroid.. with reaction missiles and the boxy VF-1 missile pods strapped to its legs.

Well, I'd managed to resist getting a DYRL Max or Kaki until now, but 40% off is too tempting. Picked up a 1/48 Hasegawa VF-1S kit too. Probably didn't need to get the strike versions, but oh well, now I can have the full skull squad displayed together properly.. provided I can find the space to do it. Sad how much the dollar has fallen to the yen though, even with 40% off they were about $90 a piece. A plain non-strike 1/60 now normally goes for nearly much as I paid for my early super Hikaru 1A.

Given how the Mac+ line only has 3 planes, that one's kind of a no-brainer to finish.

I rarely hear F-16s referred to as Falcons by anyone anymore, seems everyone's picked up the nickname Viper instead, similar to how the A-10 is originally the Thunderbolt, but everyone calls it the Warthog.

I always thought it was pretty similar to Dambusters actually. I got the dvd of the first IE a while back for like $2.. figured it was worth it for the soundtrack and reminiscing about my childhood dreams of being a fighter pilot. Same reason I bought Top Gun, actually, though the F-14 pushes it easily on top. In fact, I don't think I've actually watched any part of either of those movies not involving aircraft in years. Reminds me, I need to find a way to setup a custom chapter playlist so I can skip all that useless character development automatically, and get to the flying. Honestly, for all that goes on in the first movie, it needs to be shown as a military training video in how NOT to conduct security. <.< I never could stand the second one, and never even knew 3 and 4 existed.. which was probably for the better.

That could work, but for decent speakers you're probably going to need two plugs.. a patch cord to go into a standard headphone jack, and a tiny power adapter to boost the.. heh.. sound. I mean you could just put a simple speaker and input in there, but it would be a travesty for those speakers to be weak and underpowered.

Aww, no love for a 1/48 YF-21? My ginormous YF-19 will be lonely. I'd rather have a VF-11 anyway though.

Sheesh, why wasn't that book around when I made my old flight sim model? Funny though, I don't think those main gear even resemble the anime. They look decently designed, but I don't think the gear originally had that F-18 style bend. I had a newer set worked out for an updated flight sim version in Gmax once, but that was for MS Combat Sim 3, which uses Gmax only, and I never made a 3DS Max version.

Wait, less than $100 for a fast packed 1/48? Nice, I'd probably jump on that if I wanted more 1/48s, but the 1/60s are just easier to manage, and I really like the sturdy booster attachment. Though as far as quality goes, the 1/48 M&M 1Js were near the end of the 1/48 production line, and the molds had degraded some I've heard. The Hikaru 1J I have has some issues with the nose/intake alignment. Nothing serious, but some parts don't match up as well as they should.

True, I didn't mean to draw that parallel. In the Macross storyline that problem disappears anyway because of advances in cloning, but at the time the Earth got nearly wiped clean, I don't think they knew that would happen. I'm just thinking of the issues in a purely biological sense. Just due to physical limitations of the human body, if you're going to repopulate the species, you're going to want as many available females as possible. While men can potentially just keep producing kids, women aren't baby factories, and there's a limit to how many children they can have safely. Of course, I'm ignoring any emotional or psychological factors here entirely... this is more like what I kind of assumed would happen with the Vulcan race after the recent reboot Star Trek movie (that whole seven year wait thing isn't going to hold up well, I think). No matter how practical you can make it sound, you're not going to be able to mandate human reproductive trends without a nasty backlash. I remember watching some clip from the mid 80's about women flying F-14s, and how people were adjusting to that. I should probably revise or retract what I said before actually.. it's not so much that it's a female-unfriendly environment, it's just something I haven't seen in person, and the pilots I do know are all guys. I just have to remember that correlation isn't causality here I guess. The pilots I do know are a pretty rampant goofy kind of sausage fest, but whether they're like that all the time, or just because they know they're in an all guy environment is up for grabs. I think it'd be interesting to see what effect a few female pilots would have on the squadron. Personally, I wish I knew any female pilots myself. Just something about flightsuits...

Looks to me like that metal swing bar should pop right out of the backplate, but I guess the stress to get it out might be too much. It might just depend on rotating the bar to a specific angle, actually. It looks really possible from your photos, but I haven't tried taking mine apart that far, so I don't know how tightly that upper bar is lodged in that slot.

Well, didn't Jack Archer have a female wing-... uhh, I mean.... *looks around nervously, then points* Look! A diversion! *runs* I may have missed her being mentioned earlier, but Michael's sister was a pilot as well.. unfortunately, in her case, I think one of the biggest commonly portrayed obstacles to female pilots wound up being her downfall. Obviously you can't assume that relationships with other pilots will happen, and have a negative effect on their performance.. but it's a very real possibility that I imagine a lot of people would rather avoid altogether. The Zentraedi took care of it preemptively by having the men and women fight in separate groups to begin with. [edited for realizing what I typed didn't make sense even from my own experience] Yeah, what I had said here really was pretty much just assuming female pilots would cause drama. It obviously could happen, but no more than it already does between guys. In a Macross sense though, with the human race in the state it was, sending females into combat seems like it'd be a rather dumb thing to do.. If I was them, I'd be wanting to preserve all those essential internal organs necessary for making more humans.

Ok, I don't have time to completely take my 0S apart at the moment, but which part of the bar is mounted backwards? For it to work, both the upper bar and the hip crossbar piece should look like this. If both pieces are backwards, it might be a really simple fix. It looks like the main mount to the backplate isn't pinned the same way, and it might come out just by taking apart the wing area (3 main screws, the ones in the wings and one under the swing bar when you swing it toward the nose.. I don't think the two holding the shoulder mounts need to be removed). If the two pieces for the bar are flipped at the lower pin mount though, I think your best bet is just going to be applying VERY LIGHT direct pressure on the pin, maybe with a hammer or mallet. Fortunately, you're dealing with metal parts, so there's a little less to worry about than with plastic, but it can still break. I'd suggest something like a nail setting tool, if you have access to one. Basically, it's a rod with one fine tip and one fat one, used to gently tap nails below the surface. You'll need a REALLY fine one to do this though.. A regular nail might be better to use actually (smaller diameter than the pin) with the tip filed blunt to get solid contact with the pin. Once you've got that, it's just a matter of lining up the nail or nail setter on the pin, and gently tapping the nail until it pushes the pin out. The trick to this though.. it looks like the pin isn't knurled in the middle since it spins with the larger bar, but it might be knurled on one end, and that means you'll have to tap the non-knurled end to get it out. Your guess is as good as mine here, since I can't tell if there's any knurling at all.. but if tapping one end goes nowhere, try the other side and see if it moves. Hope that helps some, and remember be very gentle tapping with that hammer. For stuff like this I usually use a rubber mallet, just to be on the slightly safer side.

But is what's happening now, happening now?

My pair just came in the mail the other day, so I've been picking through the boxes. I'm going to build as far as I can without glue I think, just to get an idea of how much will need to actually be glued together. The paint scratching worries me some, but I think if I stick to high-vis 70's F-14 schemes, the majority of the moving parts will remain white. First things first though, I'm going to detail me some cockpits. Btw funny thing... I noticed they gave us DYRL markings for everything.. but what's with the TV pilot? Although, I suppose that's the perfect opportunity to save myself some money and make my own TV Roy.

Playing around with manual settings can be fun