Okay, why was the F-14 chosen as the development base for the VF-0 and it's descendants?

[cheemingwan1234]

I know that in real life, the reason for why the VF-1 looks a bit like a F-14 is because Shoji Kawamori used the F-14's empty space between the engines to place the arms for a more aerodynamically convincing fighter mode but in universe, the VF-0 and it's VF-1 descendants are mentioned to inherit the F-14 development group, indicating that the F-14 Tomcat was used as a experimental base that was selected to be developed into the VF-1 Valkyrie. Why select the F-14 over other fighters like the F-15 to develop a variable fighter from?  

 

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by cheemingwan1234

[pengbuzz]

56 minutes ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

I know that in real life, the reason for why the VF-1 looks a bit like a F-14 is because Shoji Kawamori used the F-14's empty space between the engines to place the arms for a more aerodynamically convincing fighter mode but in universe, the VF-0 and it's VF-1 descendants are mentioned to inherit the F-14 development group, indicating that the F-14 Tomcat was used as a experimental base that was selected to be developed into the VF-1 Valkyrie. Why select the F-14 over other fighters like the F-15 to develop a variable fighter from?  

 

 

If I had to guess "in universe" (and this is strictly my opinion, nothing canon per se), the F-14 Tomcat has a couple of things going for it that the F-15 doesn't:

1) Fleet defense: the Tomcat is more geared to defending a fleet from enemy attack than the F-15 (not to say that the F-15 cannot defend). The Tomcat's entire purpose was to protect vital fleet assets from being destroyed by incoming enemy fighters.

Some insight into the project:

http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-history-f14a.htm

2) Structure: The Tomcat had a heavier-built airframe when it came to landing, and for good reason: carrier-borne craft land HARD. When a plane land on a carrier, it has to power up when it hits the deck, in case it "bolters" (the tailhook fails to catch the wire), and has to take back off for another try. This puts a tremendous amount of stress on the fighter, and it has to be able to take being jerked to a sudden stop in a fraction of a second. Because of this, the airframe is reinforced in that area (built out of steel) to absorb that abuse. This also means that any modifications for tests are going to be easier to fit to a reinforced airframe that isn't going to overstress and crumple when torsion, compression or shearing enters the equation.

 

JMO.

[Big s]

11 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

I know that in real life, the reason for why the VF-1 looks a bit like a F-14 is because Shoji Kawamori used the F-14's empty space between the engines to place the arms for a more aerodynamically convincing fighter mode but in universe, the VF-0 and it's VF-1 descendants are mentioned to inherit the F-14 development group, indicating that the F-14 Tomcat was used as a experimental base that was selected to be developed into the VF-1 Valkyrie. Why select the F-14 over other fighters like the F-15 to develop a variable fighter from?  

 

 

The simple answer is that at the time of development for the original show the F14 looked cool and had the sweeping wings and was already a carrier based fighter perfect for the anime.

as far as basing it for the vf -0 the F-14 was still a well used carrier fighter after 2010. Sure the F-18 was more common, but the 14 probably was seen more as a bit more roomy for a lot of the transformation. I haven’t watched Macross Zero in a bit and don’t really remember if too many real world planes made it into the alternative timeline of macross , so it could also be that the F-14 was one of the last carrier based real world fighters to exist in that universe before the war that unified all of earth’s governments.

[Seto Kaiba]

11 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

I know that in real life, the reason for why the VF-1 looks a bit like a F-14 is because Shoji Kawamori used the F-14's empty space between the engines to place the arms for a more aerodynamically convincing fighter mode [...]

's more like the attempt to develop the "Breast Fighter" from the earlier Genocidas series concept into a robot that transformed into a plausible-looking fighter ended up looking like the F-14 by coincidence.

 

11 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

but in universe, the VF-0 and it's VF-1 descendants are mentioned to inherit the F-14 development group, indicating that the F-14 Tomcat was used as a experimental base that was selected to be developed into the VF-1 Valkyrie.

Just the VF-0, actually.

One detail many fans get wrong is to assume that because the VF-0 has a lower design number than the VF-1 that it was developed first, and that the VF-1 was developed from it.  In fact, the VF-0 was developed from the Stonewell and Bellcom design proposal for the VF-1 Valkyrie ("Plan E303") and its development, construction, and testing was carried out alongside that of the production-intent VF-1 Valkyrie.  The VF-0 is, in practical terms, a technology demonstrator and development mule for the VF-1 program.

Not much is said in official media about the VF-0 having "inherited" the F-14 Experimental Systems Group.  Shortly after the outbreak of the Unification Wars, the Earth Unification Government began experimenting with applying technological advancements derived from OTM to conventional weapons.  A handful of all-new weapons built around OTM (such as the F203 Dragon II) were rushed into service, while a number of older designs including the US Navy's Grumman F-14 received OTM-based upgrades and retrofits to extend the usefulness of those designs as the conflicts dragged on and the UN Forces struggled with the attrition of many simultaneous conflicts.  The group that worked on the OTM-based improvements for the F-14 was pulled into the work on the VF-0, presumably due to their experience in applying OTM to conventional systems.

It's only in the unofficial material in Master File that there is a concrete connection between the F-14 itself and the VF-0.  In the development history laid out in the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix book, the VF-0 was also preceded by the Plan E303 design for the VF-1 but had a number of intermediate steps between that and the recognizable VF-0 from Macross Zero that involved progressively adapting the F-14's design to test various features.  The starting point being the UN Forces version of the US Navy's F-14 which had received some degree of enhancement derived from OTM.  From there, it progressed to a single-seater stealth version of the F-14 one could say is loosely based on the Grumman plans for the Super Tomcat 21 which the book calls the Advanced Tomcat and a "F-14X" that incorporated a rudimentary variable system for test purposes, before arriving at the earliest version of a true VF-0 in late 2005.  (That prototype, which the book calls YVF-X-0, is said to have been a converted F-14 Advanced Tomcat, which many later VF-0s were constructed as a VF-0s.)

 

11 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

Why select the F-14 over other fighters like the F-15 to develop a variable fighter from?  

To summarize the above... they didn't.

Once the initial Variable Fighter development plan was approved, the existing design that most closely resembled Stonewell and Bellcom's Plan E303 was Grumman's F-14.  That the F-14 was also one of the older aircraft models selected for improvement and a return to frontline service during the Unification Wars is more or less a coincidence.

[JB0]

Because they recognized that making a jet plane that transformed into a robot was so fraught with peril that their test pilots would be heading right into the danger zone.

 

I'll see myself out.

[SebastianP]

22 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

I know that in real life, the reason for why the VF-1 looks a bit like a F-14 is because Shoji Kawamori used the F-14's empty space between the engines to place the arms for a more aerodynamically convincing fighter mode but in universe, the VF-0 and it's VF-1 descendants are mentioned to inherit the F-14 development group, indicating that the F-14 Tomcat was used as a experimental base that was selected to be developed into the VF-1 Valkyrie. Why select the F-14 over other fighters like the F-15 to develop a variable fighter from?  

 

 

Actually, the real life reason why the VF-1 looks like a Tomcat probably has something to do with the movie "The Final Countdown", which came out in 1980, and starred the Tomcat in the flashiest incarnation of the VF-84 Jolly Rogers paint scheme, which was only used for a few years (on the Tomcat at least, a variation had been used on the Phantom previously), and which had never visited Japan. Unless Kawamori was a collector of what was referred to as "airplane porn" (so called because it was printed by the same people and laid out in the same style as porn mags, only with airplane photos), that's about the only chance he'd have of being exposed to the Jolly Rogers paint scheme given that the squadron lived in the Atlantic and hadn't visited the Pacific since Vietnam. 

Design-wise, the VF-1 is only superficially similar to the Tomcat anyway, what with being much smaller, with smaller engines, and differently shaped *everything*. The only similarities are in their broad outline, and even then the VF-1 doesn't have the gigantic horizontal tails of the Tomcat. Even the VF-0 isn't based on the Tomcat, it's just the VF-1 scaled up because they didn't have the thermonuclear turbines ready and couldn't make conventional turbines with enough power. Once that was decided on they did use Tomcats as testbeds for some tech.

As for why Tomcats were still around in 2008 in the Macrossverse when they were all decommissioned in 2006 in the real world... chalk that up to Kawamori being a fan of the design, I suppose. It is explained that in universe they were upgraded and stuff, but the divergence either has to have been before 1999 (because Tomcat production, and spare part production, had ended in the early 1990s), or production had to have been restarted due to the war (at likely *massive* expense, due to a lot of the production tooling having been deliberately destroyed in the 1990s to prevent new parts from being made and shipped to Iran.)

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Actually, the real life reason why the VF-1 looks like a Tomcat probably has something to do with the movie "The Final Countdown", which came out in 1980, and starred the Tomcat in the flashiest incarnation of the VF-84 Jolly Rogers paint scheme, which was only used for a few years (on the Tomcat at least, a variation had been used on the Phantom previously), and which had never visited Japan.

We can rule that out with a fair degree of confidence because we have Kawamori's draft designs going back to early 1980. 

As I said, it's largely a coincidence that the VF-1 ended up looking like an F-14.  The design of the VF-1 Valkyrie originated from a transformable powered suit design that Kawamori drew for a series pitch titled Genocidas that also originated the GERWALK concept.  It was a big, bulky, ~4m tall powered suit which could transform into a not-at-all realistic fighter mode vaguely reminiscent of the Martin Marietta X-24B.  A little over a year later in March-April 1981, the design had evolved into the Breast Fighter: a giant robot with the VF-1J's visor and a body plan largely resembling the final VF-1's but retaining the Gundam-esque aesthetic.  Its transformation resembled the final VF-1's as well, but the actual shape of it was more in line with the earlier Genocidas draft and bears a fairly strong resemblance to the (much later) Zeta Gundam Wave Rider.  Later that year, the Breast Fighter design was revisited and reworked into a less sci-fi aesthetic while retaining much of the Breast Fighter's design and transformation, producing a fighter that looked a lot like a miniature F-14... though with aspects explicitly noted to be drawn from other aircraft like the F-15, Su-27, and BAE Hawk.

You can see this design progression in the first section of Kawamori's Macross Design Works book.

He did probably get the Jolly Rogers-inspired paintjob for the VF-1S from The Final Countdown, but the F-14-like design is mostly a coincidence of its development from the earlier designs that already set a similar pattern.  (The Genocidas designs in particular predate the release of The Final Countdown in Japan.)

 

14 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Unless Kawamori was a collector of what was referred to as "airplane porn" (so called because it was printed by the same people and laid out in the same style as porn mags, only with airplane photos), that's about the only chance he'd have of being exposed to the Jolly Rogers paint scheme given that the squadron lived in the Atlantic and hadn't visited the Pacific since Vietnam. 

His enthusiasm for military aviation is a well-noted matter of record.

 

14 hours ago, SebastianP said:

As for why Tomcats were still around in 2008 in the Macrossverse when they were all decommissioned in 2006 in the real world... chalk that up to Kawamori being a fan of the design, I suppose. It is explained that in universe they were upgraded and stuff, but the divergence either has to have been before 1999 (because Tomcat production, and spare part production, had ended in the early 1990s), or production had to have been restarted due to the war (at likely *massive* expense, due to a lot of the production tooling having been deliberately destroyed in the 1990s to prevent new parts from being made and shipped to Iran.)

That second one... the Tomcats and other old aircraft were hauled out of mothballs and upgraded or prevented from being retired and upgraded to make up for the shortfalls in other areas due to losses and the like in the Unification Wars.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[TehPW]

wasn't the F-203 supposed to be, if they had the rights to do so, actually a F-15?

[SebastianP]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

We can rule that out with a fair degree of confidence because we have Kawamori's draft designs going back to early 1980. 

Keep in mind that the whole concept of Macross was changing throughout 1980 and 1981, and that both Kawamori and Miyatake were working on the Diaclone toyline in 1980 (says Wikipedia at least). Originally Macross was supposed to be a silly parody, and then it evolved into a more serious show. 

Also, it turns out that The Final Countdown, rather than having a release delay in Japan as happens sometimes, actually released almost a month earlier over there than it did in the US, on July 5, 1980. 

So I can see Kawamori learning how to do transforming robots working for Takara, starting to work on a transforming fighter for the parody show he's planning with Studio Nue, and then when the concept for the show turned serious, going "this fighter does not look realistic enough for a more serious show, I'll start over and try to make a Diaclone-style robot that looks like a serious fighter instead", and picking the Tomcat as the base because swing wings and twin tails are more easily tucked away during a transformation. And pairing well with the Jolly Rogers tails.  Nothing in that is keeping anyone from re-using the better elements of the old design, like the robot mode components that remained. 

Final design wise, there pretty much aren't any explanations more plausible than "Kawamori saw The Final Countdown", because the Jolly Rogers tails must have come from somewhere and there weren't that many practical places for him to have seen them. Even model kits bearing the Jolly Rogers tails didn't actually start releasing until the late 80s as far as I've been able to tell (courtesy of Hasegawa in 1989 and Heller in 1990 in 1/72 scale, and IIRC later still in 1/48 scale). 

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That second one... the Tomcats and other old aircraft were hauled out of mothballs and upgraded or prevented from being retired and upgraded to make up for the shortfalls in other areas due to losses and the like in the Unification Wars.

The expense must have been utterly ruinous without a pre-existing point of departure from our history though, at least going by what's known now (over what was known when Macross Zero was released). Then again it probably wasn't well known that the US had specifically destroyed critical parts of the tooling for the Tomcats to prevent parts from being exported at the time when Zero was made.

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, TehPW said:

wasn't the F-203 supposed to be, if they had the rights to do so, actually a F-15?

Kawamori's Design Works book mentions the F203 Dragon II bears a resemblance to the F-15... but I don't think I've ever seen it said that it was supposed to BE a F-15 originally.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Keep in mind that the whole concept of Macross was changing throughout 1980 and 1981, and that both Kawamori and Miyatake were working on the Diaclone toyline in 1980 (says Wikipedia at least). Originally Macross was supposed to be a silly parody, and then it evolved into a more serious show. 

That's a common misconception... or perhaps it would be fairer to call it an oversimplification.

Macross was not originally a parody.  Both the initial pitch Genocidas and the later Battle City Megaroad series concept were conceived and developed as serious sci-fi dramas in a similar style to 1979's sleeper hit Mobile Suit Gundam.  After Artmic (under the name Wiz Corp.) bought in as sponsor, Artmic insisted on changing the direction of Battle City Megaroad from the serious space opera Kawamori et al. wanted to make to a Gundam parody series.  Once the two companies had a falling out and Studio Nue found a new sponsor in the Big West Advertising Co., the series changed back from a Gundam parody to a serious drama.

Studio Nue does credit a specific 1980 film as having significantly changed the direction of the project... but it's not The Final Countdown.  It was another, rather more famous, film that came out in Japan a few days earlier: Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back.  That film, and specifically the Imperial AT-ST walker, was what ultimately spelled doom for the initial Genocidas concept because many of the mechanical designs for Genocidas were reverse-jointed walkers.  Other designs from Genocidas, including the Flight Suit which was to evolve into the Breast Fighter and then the Valkyrie, were carried forward into the next series concept.  The F-14 was not the inspiration for the VF-1.

[JB0]

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The expense must have been utterly ruinous without a pre-existing point of departure from our history though, at least going by what's known now (over what was known when Macross Zero was released).

It really seems like we should leave it at "history diverged at publication", but they've updated the timeline to reflect real-world historical events like the fall of the Soviet Union, so...

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The expense must have been utterly ruinous without a pre-existing point of departure from our history though, at least going by what's known now (over what was known when Macross Zero was released). Then again it probably wasn't well known that the US had specifically destroyed critical parts of the tooling for the Tomcats to prevent parts from being exported at the time when Zero was made.

Depends on your definition of "utterly ruinous".

The Earth Unification Government was already spending a huge percentage of the entire planet's GDP on a military build-up to resist a potential alien invasion.  Macross Chronicle and other official media generally do not acknowledge the F-14 Tomcat's circumstances in any way other than to mention they were used by the UN Forces during the Unification Wars and that they had been received upgrades/updates based on OTM.  This lack of detail can probably be chalked up to the F-14's relatively minor role in Macross Zero.  One article published in Great Mechanics DX does note that there would have to be some divergence from the real world timeline for F-14s to still be in service in 2008, but goes no further than that.

For its part, Variable Fighter Master File's unofficial/non-canonical history offers the explanation that the Earth UN Forces officially put the brakes on plans to retire the F-14 sometime in July 2001.  The decision was apparently driven by difficulties in procuring sufficient quantities of the newly introduced F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the Navy variant of the new F203 Dragon II (an unofficial variant exclusive to Master File).  A modernization plan for the F-14 was launched to keep the fighters viable, and in 2002 this plan intersected with the new VF Development Plan and led to "dozens" of mothballed F-14s being restored and reactivated for duty with OTM improvements for field testing as part of early VF-0 development.

[SebastianP]

21 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The F-14 was not the inspiration for the VF-1.

Really? Either we're talking at complete cross purposes here, or you didn't actually read the book you're claiming to source your info from, or you didn't *look at the aircraft involved*, or some combination of the above. Because that's so blatantly false that posting it undermines your credibility in *general*. 

Yes, the genesis of the VF-1 did not involve the Tomcat at all, but the resdesign that gave it its final form? Someone had a good long look a the Tomcat and liked what they saw, because you don't get *so many* otherwise unique features and combinations of features from a single design into one of your own unless you're literally staring at it while drawing your own thing.

Especially when you end up slapping an iconic Tomcat paint scheme (recently popularized by a movie) on your Tomcat-shaped creation. 

(The thing about the supposed other inspirations is that the Su-27 and MiG-29, the other possible sources for some of the design elements used in the VF-1... weren't seen by westerners other than by spy satellite until 1986.)

 

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by SebastianP

[pengbuzz]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Depends on your definition of "utterly ruinous".

The Earth Unification Government was already spending a huge percentage of the entire planet's GDP on a military build-up to resist a potential alien invasion.  Macross Chronicle and other official media generally do not acknowledge the F-14 Tomcat's circumstances in any way other than to mention they were used by the UN Forces during the Unification Wars and that they had been received upgrades/updates based on OTM.  This lack of detail can probably be chalked up to the F-14's relatively minor role in Macross Zero.  One article published in Great Mechanics DX does note that there would have to be some divergence from the real world timeline for F-14s to still be in service in 2008, but goes no further than that.

For its part, Variable Fighter Master File's unofficial/non-canonical history offers the explanation that the Earth UN Forces officially put the brakes on plans to retire the F-14 sometime in July 2001.  The decision was apparently driven by difficulties in procuring sufficient quantities of the newly introduced F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the Navy variant of the new F203 Dragon II (an unofficial variant exclusive to Master File).  A modernization plan for the F-14 was launched to keep the fighters viable, and in 2002 this plan intersected with the new VF Development Plan and led to "dozens" of mothballed F-14s being restored and reactivated for duty with OTM improvements for field testing as part of early VF-0 development.

Yeah; the F-14 was retired 2006 IRL, so in the Macross storyline, the 1999 crash of the ASS-1 would have allowed enough time for OTM to develop to have been applied to the craft.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Really? Either we're talking at complete cross purposes here, or you didn't actually read the book you're claiming to source your info from, or you didn't *look at the aircraft involved*, or some combination of the above. Because that's so blatantly false that posting it undermines your credibility in *general*. 

Proper discussion etiquette would be for you to make an evidence-based argument not an ad hominem.  Just FYI.

 

2 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Yes, the genesis of the VF-1 did not involve the Tomcat at all, but the resdesign that gave it its final form? Someone had a good long look a the Tomcat and liked what they saw, because you don't get *so many* otherwise unique features and combinations of features from a single design into one of your own unless you're literally staring at it while drawing your own thing.

To clarify the matter, the point I'm making here is that you have the causal relationship backwards.

As attested to by Kawamori's own Design Works book, the general body plan and transformation for the VF-1 Valkyrie were carried over from the earlier "Breast Fighter" design that had been developed for Battle City Megaroad.  It's well attested-to that Kawamori drew some stylistic inspiration from the Grumman F-14 for the final version of the design when its concept was changed from a Gundam-inspired late 70's SF design to something more grounded.  Kawamori didn't set out to design a robot based on the F-14.  Rather, when he sat down to rework the 70's SF-inspired Breast Fighter into a more grounded aesthetic what he got was something that bore a strong resemblance to the F-14 because of many design choices that were made when the Flight Suit design evolved into the Breast Fighter a year or so earlier.  Notably, the orientation of the cockpit, the way the wings folded during the transformation to robot mode, and the separation of the engines (because the pelvis was dead-center between the engines in the Breast Fighter).

In short, it wasn't "I want to make an F-14 robot".  It was "Hey, when I draw this in a modern aesthetic it kinda looks like an F-14.  Let's explore that direction further."  

You can see several early drafts that bear a resemblance to his more SF design for the VF-X-3, as well as some that bear a resemblance to the BAE Hawk (esp. in the cockpit and the mounting for the gunpod).

 

2 hours ago, SebastianP said:

(The thing about the supposed other inspirations is that the Su-27 and MiG-29, the other possible sources for some of the design elements used in the VF-1... weren't seen by westerners other than by spy satellite until 1986.)

Don't blame me for the stuff Kawamori put in his own book.  He's the one who mentions the resemblance the VF-1's nose has to that of Sukhoi's Flanker.

[nightmareB4macross]

On 12/23/2022 at 12:45 AM, cheemingwan1234 said:

I know that in real life, the reason for why the VF-1 looks a bit like a F-14 is because Shoji Kawamori used the F-14's empty space between the engines to place the arms for a more aerodynamically convincing fighter mode but in universe, the VF-0 and it's VF-1 descendants are mentioned to inherit the F-14 development group, indicating that the F-14 Tomcat was used as a experimental base that was selected to be developed into the VF-1 Valkyrie. Why select the F-14 over other fighters like the F-15 to develop a variable fighter from?  

 

 

I just believe it to be a preference by Kawamori. The F-14 had a wing sweep that allows perfect stowage of the wings. The F-15 would require more thought process at the time to develop it into something more robust. 

just my two cents.

[SebastianP]

On 12/27/2022 at 11:17 AM, nightmareB4macross said:

I just believe it to be a preference by Kawamori. The F-14 had a wing sweep that allows perfect stowage of the wings. The F-15 would require more thought process at the time to develop it into something more robust. 

just my two cents.

All of the Starscream toys from the original 1984 one onwards were unarticulated bricks... until 2006, when they actually released two different versions of it with actual elbows and leg articulation. And guess who's name is on the more convincing version?

(Note that Kawamori was involved in the Diaclone designs from which Transformers stem in the 1980s, and is apparently one of the designers that made "Battle Convoy", aka G1 Optimus Prime.)

 

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

What if the Macross ship had crashed into a large lake in Siberia in a different timeline where the Soviet Union was successful in the same attempts but instead of  the F-14 it would have been the MIG -29  and instead of the jolly roger it would have been the hammer & sickle  & the paint jobs would have been red like jetfire.

The Soviet Union was very much still a thing in the initial versions of the Macross timeline and backstory.

It wasn't until the mid-90's that the Macross official timeline was adjusted to account for the real world dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.  References to the Soviet Union were replaced with Russia, references to Leningrad were replaced with St. Petersburg, and references to Germany were updated to reflect German reunification.

Mind you, it's entirely possible that it wouldn't actually have changed a thing.  Russia was one of six major nations to cofound the overtechnology research institute OTEC alongside the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan, and a cofounder of the Earth Unification (UN) Government and Earth Unification (UN) Forces.  The development of various new weapons was done via design competitions and bidding processes as with normal military procurement.  It took the industry and economy of the entire world to successfully reverse engineer the systems of the crashed alien starship and apply it and the UN Government mandated sharing of technological advances among all member nations to ensure nobody could monopolize those advances.  Stonewell and Bellcom landed the winning proposal for a Variable Fighter out of all the companies around the world that submitted proposals.  Alien StarShip 1 could have landed anywhere, and it probably would not have affected Stonewell and Bellcom's design significantly because it was based not on an existing aircraft but on a set of requirements put forward by the UN Government.

Both in-story and in the real world, the VF-1 was not based on the F-14.  It ended up looking like one largely by accident due to the unique requirements of its transformation.  The real world version started out as a transformable powered suit vaguely reminiscent of Gundam's Core Fighter, before evolving into a more SF-like giant robot and then ultimately a modernesque fighter reminiscent of the F-14 thanks to how its transformation was designed.

EDIT: Also, Soviet Air Force and Navy aircraft didn't typically use the hammer and sickle iconography of the Union's flag.  They would have used the red star, like the one on that MiG-29 model in your video, and as a rule they tend to lack the fancy iconography the US uses.

 

3 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

If that was the case the first toys would have looked more like Macross Zero instead and that movie strangely enough was a prequal? but what if it had been a post DYRL movie instead?

Probably not, unless somehow a different set of firms won the contract to develop the first generation Variable Fighter.  Like how Sukhoi, Israel Aircraft Industries, and Dornier worked together to develop the SV-51 based on development data stolen for them by VF test pilot D.D. Ivanov.

Yes, Macross Zero is a prequel.  It's set in 2008, one year before the start of the First Space War in the original Macross series.

It wouldn't work as a post-DYRL? movie, given that everyone on Earth's surface was killed in the First Space War when the Zentradi destroyed Earth's surface.  The non-technological society of the Mayan islanders would not have survived the bombardment and the contamination of the atmosphere and oceans.  The only survivors were the people who were 6km underground in bunkers beneath the Grand Cannons or out in space aboard the Macross, on the moon, or in the space colonies at Earth's Lagrange points.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Seto Kaiba