Bri

I'm not a fan of messing around with original work other then doing some enhancing to make the work suitable for new formats like DVD /Blue Ray. It would be nice if SDFM would get the same treatment as Gundam or Zeta Gundam in a 3 part movie box as a seperate entity. Even more tempting would be a NGE like treatment like 1.0. Won't happen but hey I can dream. ( Im sure a few more successes like Frontier would help a lot). I'm sure everyone on the boards would go mental at the concept of seeing SFDM redone in a 3 or 4 part movie set with DYRL like animation and the latest CGI. You touch on a very interesting point. SDFM still stands out amongst the other Macross works for it's great character development. I wonder how much influence Ishiguro, Tomita and Matsuzaki had on the story and character development compared to Kawamori (and Ohnogi). I'm not saying that they were more important but maybe they added something special to the mix that when the team broke up the franchise never really got that vibe back.

I'd definetly grab a Blue Ray version if it ever comes out, I don't mind the lack of subtitles. Seen the series often enough to know what is said even without reading it. Annoyingly same goes for the Robotech dialog Found my old VHS tapes last week, recorded the show when it aired here in '87. They are still in pretty good shape

Quite possible that the commanders of the ARMDs have other tasks when they are on the SDF-1, not sure if they are full time captains. Curious what the job of the commander of an amfibious landing ship/hovercraft is, when it is aboard their troop transports at sea?

The Japanese airforce wants the F-22, doubt they will accept the second/third best option easily. Their government would lose polical leverage in the negotiations if they'd even consider voicing support for an F15 upgrade.

IIRC the Eagle has a massive frontal radar crossection due to its intakes, which were optimised for high speeds to intercept the MiG 31Foxbats. This version should remedy that I guess. "Convenient" for Boeing to have a upgraded F15 ready now Lockheeds F22 production is in doubt.

For me the movie with streetraces is still American Graffiti. Love those late 50s cars. Only thing wrong with the movie it didnt have a '59 corvette.

From what I have read on ANN it should be an alternate retelling of the series.

I'm not sure if the series is intended as a comedy but entertaining it sure is.

Finished Bounen No Xamdou and Rahxephon. Both from Studio Bones and both are semi-mecha series. Raxhepon is a more art oriented, slightly pretentious varaint on the NGE theme without the angst and larger production values. Bounen no Xamdou is more Eureka 7 in an advanced fantasy world (hard to describe this one, both outdated and futuristic tech mixed in a modern setting) They are total opposites: Rahxephon has a well developed plot and very balanced pacing but it's characters are a bit bland, altough the lead male and female are great. Bounen no Xamdou is a mess story wise, the writers seem to lose track of what is going on and can't explain it. Halfway through I had the feeling they knew as little as the viewers of where it was heading. Still Xam'd has some redeeming qualities. It has one of the best casts of characters I have seen sofar. Probably because of the focus on the characters the plot gets left behind. I feel it had a lot more potential then what it turned into. Maybe if it had gotten 50 episodes instead of 26 it wouldnt have felt so rushed at times. Eureka 7 beats Xamned in most areas altough on the whole I like the Xamned cast slightly better. All in all two nice shows though bit worse then Bones' Eureka 7 imo.

This VF-11 is my favourite non VF-1 valk so Ill have to get it. To bad it's going to be hit by salestax as its slightly above the free import limit. Would be able to buy at least 2 regular 1/60 VF-1s for that price.

Same here. Loved the ending of Eva. Neccesity is the mother of invention. If things hadn't gone the way they did, I doubt NGE would be as good as it finally turned out. Luck is a factor. Don't think the movies were bad just a physical representation of what happened during the last two episodes. Not better but nice in the way of additional scenes and they didn't detract from the series. As for Frontier, not sure if it's fair to compare it too SDFM and NGE, the latter are more character driven and still have a fanbase even after a 25 respectivly 15 years. That says something about they way they stand out from the crowd.

Both the archer and 0 use a "particle storage tank". No drive just a mere battery that needs to be recharged.

The trademark covers the US and Canada (can't find any info on Mexico but seems likely due to NAFTA). Harmony Gold renewed their Robotech trademark here in the Benelux (part of EU) in 2006. But Macross and UN Spacy are not copyrighted. I also checked the WIPO in Geneva: Macross is not a world wide trademark either. Seems HG is mostly interested in the North American market. -edit- Seems HG bought the Macross trademark on a national basis in the UK and Germany in 1999 in Europe. Should run out in 2009 (TMs last 10 years) Some Japanese anime related firm has bought the U.N.Spacy rights EU-wide

Is it specified that canon refers to the sun-earth Lagrange points? Any 3-body system can have langrange points if the smallest mass is negligible compare to the other two. A 5-500 km Factory satelite could be parked in one of the earth-moon Lagrange-points without going against canon. Those points would be closer to the earth then the sun-earth ones. -edit- ignore this post, SchizophrenicMC beat me to it.

The F-35 was marketed over here as the new no-nonsense standard lightweight NATO fighter to replace the F16A/Bs. It isn't so much a maintenance issue but more of a cost issue. The F-35 was expected to have the same cheap operating costs like the F-16 and have low unit costs due to its large production run. I don't know if it's hard to develop an attack version of the Typhoon but why redesign a 80 million euro fighter for an attack role when you can buy a plug-and-play 40 million euro bomb truck with stealth? (at least those were early estimates of the F-35 unit costs). I'm not to sure if the F-35 will be so advanced compared to a Raptor or Typhoon. Why would congress opose exports of the F22 so strongly but allow those of the F-35 without issue if their performance is similar?

The Typhoon is much lighter due to it's use of those despised composites. Compare the wingspan, volume and internal fuel cappacity and you'll see its closer to an F15 then an F16. Note that composite panels can be replaced and composites do not suffer from metal fatigue. The life span of F-15 was cutshort by that problem. (7000 flight hours versus 9000 planned I think it was, not sure, don't have the data at hand.) So there are advantages and disadvantages to the use of composites. As for replacing the Tornado: It will only replace the airdefence Tornados not the attack version. The Uk and Itally will buy F-35s for the attack task. Many of the smaller European countries (mainly F-16 users) decided to go for the F-35 as they considered the EF Typhoon to be to heavy and overcomplicated for their needs a desire a more multi-role aircraft. The Typhoon like pretty much any other fighter can be turned into a groundattack version but was first and foremost designed as a air-superiority craft (see F15E strike eagle). It's the best pure fighter that is for sale but that is a very small market. The US never considered the Typhoon, that was a joke by FZero-one to someone who suggested using the F22 without the maintenance heavy stealth material, which leaves you roughly with a plane similar to a Typhoon.

Fair question: the answer is that the Typhoon aims at a niche market: heavy air superiority fighters. Like the F-15 and the F-22 it has 2 engines, can carry a lot of internal fuel and support a heavy radar. Their avionics/software are purely geared toward it's air-to-air mission. These planes can fly caps for extended periods of time without refueling and their large wingsurface gives an advantage at high altitude combat.. The two engine design gives some redundancy when operating over water. The F-16/F-35 are lightweight single-engined fighters. Designed to be massproduced light attack aircraft and frontline fighters. They are very good at air to air but are not specialised in it and lack the internal fuel for the long range missions/prolonged combat. Same goes for the F-18 and the Rafale who are dual engine but are low weight due to design limits for carrier operations. So the Typhoon only has 2 real competitors (not counting the Russians). The F-22(not for sale) and F-15E derivatives. So which is better? The Typhoon is newer design, has super cruise and is more maneuvarable but the F-15 comes with a proven combat record and air-to-ground capability . Sofar the F-15 has been selected by Korea and Singapore, mainly due to it's better air-to-ground capability. I think it's tellling that Japan considers the Typhoon and not the F-15X as a replacement for the F4s if they can't get the Raptor. Off course it's a political ploy to get F-22s but the seriousness of the threat leaves little doubt about the capabilities of the Typhoon.

While the mecha action has been top notch for a while, I haven't been to thrilled about the way the writers handle the characters. I'm still very intereted on how they will wrap up the plot. As for what I mean by character mishandeling well... Lets just look at what I would have imaged the characters would have to say about the last episode: Louise Halevy: …oh god, I'm next right?... <pleads temporal insanity to escape death sentence> Graham Aker: At least I am the official Char clone. Damn the script I’ll just grab the coolest mecha around and kick ass. Setsna F Selei: Well. I’m the unofficial Sousuke Sagara clone. Instead of a feisty schoolgirl my love interest is an uptight Afgan princes that plays an organ so badly it makes even a Doors fan cringe. Oh my, that Gundam is starting to look hot. Soma Peries: I’d rather die then to turn back into Allelujah’s moe doll again. Saji Crossroad: I’m so emo… Marina Ismail: I will audition for the part of idol singer in his upcoming Macross Frontier movie.

Doubt it, Bandai and Yamato don't exactly have the same target audience.

However Alizee proves there is still a fifteen-year-old boy inside every man. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICd_iHCDVog...feature=related All this talking of French girls reminded me of this vid

I was under the impression a large number of F15s would be upgraded with active phased array radars? I don't believe airframes make that much of difference anymore (unless they are stealthy ofc). It's information warfare that wins or loses air superiority. Hence my belief that pretty much any decent fighter would do well in a high-tech airforce assuming its equiped with the latest radar and missle tech. Maybe I have to much faith in command, control and communication in that respect. That said -and slightly OT- any future conflict for any major airforce would be costly if they can't deal with ground based air-to-air fast and effectively. The Isreali's learned that the hard way in the Yom Kippur War. Stealth cracked Iraqi and Serb airdefences but will it work in the future? Imo that's a far greater threat to air superiority then Russian high spec fighters.

Well said.

So we are talking about a situation where the most advanced Migs and Sukhois engage the oldest USAF birds in uncontrolled airspace with equal supporting units? To make it more sporty they both don't use their AIM-120s or AA-12s but close up and go toe-to-toe with short range missles and cannons. Yes, I can see where the numbers are coming from. I guess it's all in the game off course. To sell new material they need to make a look good to whatever is around now. Under realistic conditions I would find it hard to believe that F15Es and F16C Block 50s (or potential upgrades/new to build airframes to the level of F15Ks and F16E Block 60s) wont be able to take on the latest Russian designs. There are probably just as many if not more F15Es flying around then Su30/Su35/J11s.

Nice try , you hippy

That's the one thing I really dislike about the financial sector. There is more techno-bable going around then on a Star Trek Convention. I started of as a student in Aerospace engineering before switching to economics when the whole Fokker collaps and aftermath killed the chance to work in the sector in my country. In engineering it's an art to keep things simple and clear. In finance it seems cool to make easy math look complicated by adding tons of abreviations and silly conventions. It's not exaclty helping in amking people understand what this crisis is all about or what can be done. I pity the people who have to explain to the politicians what has happened.