Yammie 1/48 VF-1S

[yman1437]

I have seen the yammie 1/48 has been reissued at least twice, anyone got the link or info as to the difference? (sorry tried searching for the thread but nothing came up)

thanks !!

[eugimon]

the hikaru 1a and the roy 1s had front landing bay doors that were a bit difficult to open, the nose cones tended to easily fall off and the wing flaps were easy to knock off as well.

The roy 1s had crooked jolly roger emblems on the tail fin.

Also, the cockpit seat had a flat head rest while the newer 1/48's have a curved head rest.

that about sums it up.

[Fortress_Maximus]

This might help:

http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/toys/_toys_yamato.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/reminator2/HT...tech/vf1s48.htm

http://www.menet.umn.edu/~ngo/frame.html

Also as I recall there was information in the NEWBIE section as well:

How can you tell a reissue from a first run 1/48 hikaru and roy?

Velcro on box missing?(not sure about this) and more importantly headrest within the canopy is changed. There is no 2nd edition sticker.

Other comments from many wise people over at AP:

you cant tell from the box

the 2nd and 3rd reissues are the same

the 1st is a lil dif, you can tell by looking at the seat

The first edition of the Roy 1S and the Hikaru 1A seem to suffer from pretty stiff joints IMO. Need greasin up. Elbows do not bend 90 degrees for long, and the nosecose is easy to knock off. Also the Skull insignia on the rear left tailfin is crooked. This was fixed in the second edition Roy, but is seen again on the 3rd reissue. This time though, it is not as bad and is hard to notice until you actually sit there and compare two valks alonside each other.

Now, the ones that you don't want to get unless really desperate are the 1st production run of the VF-1A Hikaru and VF-1S Focker. They have the black boxes with the velcro on the two bottom corners. Concerning the VFs themselves, they have wing flap and nosecone problems, Fockers usually have a fuselage gap problem, but not on many. Joints are also stiff too. The nosecone also tends to fall off easily and the elbows do not stay stable when flexAd to a 90 degree angle. I think that's it. Oh yeah, and the Skull is crooked on one of the VF-1Ss tailfins. The VF-1S canopy also has problems staying upright. The headrest is straight.

Let's call the VF-1A Hikaru and VF-1S Focker 1st production run the 1st generation of 1/48 VF-1s. Now with the second production run of the VF-1S Focker and Hikaru VF-1A they have the improvements. These came out after the VF-1A Max and LV, so let's talk about them first. These are what I like to call the second generation of 1/48s. VF-1A max and LV have several structural improvements over the 1st generation. They came out at about the same time, so even though they have a difference, I would like to keep them together.

The VF-1A Max was the first to come out after the VF-1S Roy Focker. It has the hard plastic pilot only with blue accents instead of red or yellow. But the most important things are that there is no gap in the fuselage, stable 90 degree elbow flexion, redesigned nosecone (addition of two horizontal tabs to the radar and corresponding grooves in a revised internal nosecone redesign), improved wingflaps that only go in one direction and don't pop loose do easily. The canopy problem that was prevalent on the VF-1S Focker is fixed from here onwards.

I would like to classify new valk variants from now on as the 3rd generation of 1/48s. This includes the VF-1S Hikaru and the VF-1Js.

The VF-1S Hikaru was released after the Max and LV. Featured all the improvements of the 1/48s so far but is the First valk to incorporate three things: the first canon rubber pilot, curved headrest in cockpit and loose airbrake.

Next up came the reissues of the VF-1S Focker and the VF-1A Hikaru. Features all the improvements of the second generation of the 1/48s but now have no velcro on the boxes (actually, there have been a few reports of velcro on these reissues, Yamato probably just used up leftovers) and now feature a curved headrest like the VF-1S Hikaru. The thing is, that Yamato kept the original hard plastic pilots. But, all the other things were fixed, such as the crooked skull on the VF-1S.

Continuing on the third generation of 1/48s was the VF-1Js of Hikaru, Max and Millia in that order. Hikaru was the only one to have an option of VF-1J only or a coupled FAST Pack with his valk, Max and Millia you have no choice with. Feature all the improvements of 1/48 seen so far. There are only a few structural differences and features of these 1/48s compared to the DYRL ones.

The "elbows" of the forearms are "U-shaped" instead of flat like the DYRL? valks. Nice touch I reckon. Also, they feature the rubber TV pilots and rubbers fixed pose hands. There is a slight colour change between Hikaru and the lovebirds, a slightly lighter shade(?) of white. FAST Packs that come with the VF-1Js are coloured differently from the rest. Hikaru has a slight grey-green shade all round on has FAST Packs. Max and Millia ahve the same, but the NP-FB-01 Backpack Booster Unit on Max and Millia are painted with their respective colours. The NP-AR-01 Arm Units are also redesigned for the TV valks. There is no option of a ROX-2A Strike Beam Cannon for the TV valks although you can slap one on from a DYRL? FAST Pack issues ifyou have any to spare. (Interesting to note that even though there is a general consensus that boxes should not have velcro by now, there were still a few people that had them even on their Millia's, which was the latest of the VF-1Js).

And of course, recently we have the 2nd reissue or 3rd production run of the VF-1S Focker due to high demand. Pretty much the same as the 2nd production run or the 1st reissue, but the dreaded crooked skull was back again, although this time you have to sit and look hard to see that it is crooked. Again, there are a few exceptions.

Whew, that should cover it. Thanks to SR, kensei, & Godzilla for the AP info.

[yman1437]

aligato FM for the detailed description.....now I know much better

[yman1437]

oops...forget to give eugimon credit as well, thank you !

[Graham]

Very well written post Fortress_Maximus.

Graham

[eugimon]

yup!