Vespaeda

Spot on observations, Spanner 76![..re: the lack of thrust vectoring nozzles, low speed handling & flaps..] This model has me intrigued and I'd definitely want one if I got into DFs(..prop & gliders only now..) Everything you stated would probably be the way to go: - Instead of roll control/elevator & yaw being 'ailerons+beavertail'-mixed... Use: - 2D thrust vectoring for pitch & roll control; programmed for 'severity of throw' opposite OR together. -Wings with full flaps or flaps+slats instead of ailerons; programmed like a glider/sailplane to 'crow' for low speed flight, better take-off & slow handling/landings! -Rudders, w/'Inward', hi-'AoA' capability as well. I seriously believe these gentlemen focused on the simplest, most reliable approaches for a first try at a 'close-to-anime' accurate model here: focus on CG balance, lightness and as few surfaces moving as possible. They DO know their stuff! However...IF this plane is modified to incorporate these other controls & maybe built slightly larger to better distribute its finished/flying weight, we could very likely see an even more kick-@$$ bird! I'm keeping my eyes peeled on RCGroups to see if their plans are gonna be shared!

Taking a couple of repeat looks at the video, I figured that they basically designed these VF-1s as stretched delta wings...like a Mirage or a EuroTyphoon, with an element from flying wings thrown in. They have broader chord[width] wings than the line art, fixed at an optimum sweep, working ailerons for roll control and possibly includes mixed/combined movement 'Up/Down' to work along with the beavertail elevator. The clue concerning the use of delta fighter design principles was the airfoil shape they used for the wings; they use a recurve in the under surface towards the trailing edge[..visible on the vid frame showing the wing ribs lined up together..] called reflex in aviation design. It specifically helps flying wing designs remain stable without a tail end horizontal stabilizer; preventing 'pitch up' or 'down. I cannot wait until these gentlemen share the plans and other people have a chance to upscale, improve modify and add extra flight features. These are better than all the profile foamies that have come before!

^^-- What HE said…@Mr. March. Avg. 'Joe' movie-goer: "..So, ummm….THAT Brad Pitt movie was THEE "World War Z"??...that was single-handedly responsible for re-inventing and reviving the Zombie genre? ...Including "28 Days", "The Walking Dead" and all the rest, eh?…Hmmm, hard to believe…" Discerning/Informed Fan: "..Ahhh--No. No, it wasn't…not by a billion-gagillion miles, it wasn't. ...In THREE words: 1) Hollyweird…and, 2) Trust ME!… ...Go to the original source material--the book; it will make MOAR sense than if I stood here and tried to explain any further.."

Personally, I believe the flop of the Wachowski's big budget "Jupiter Ascending" is partially why WB let go of the rights w/out renewal. Big budget sfx action like that & 'Pacific Rim' didn't convince them of the staying power associated with the franchise… Not least of which the HG/BW legacy issues, developement hell and no one like DelToro to run things[..his personal TLC being the only reason 'Pac. Rim.' was moderately successful, as an unknown property..] I think their experience with "Jup. Ascend." was a 'bad after-taste' deal breaker for something unlikely to match or exceed "Pac. Rim" in $$$ returns.

This made my day...I figured I wouldn't be the first person to post about it […although I may have if I had been on my computer yesterday…] Glad to know it just may prove JJ has some 'Macross' in is blood.

I enjoy it for what it is: a cheap knock-off of GoT, Fallen Skies & Defiance/Stargate. Still waiting for a synthesis of this concept+'Evangelion'+'Five Star Stories'... Wherein, angels and demons are really power armours/mecha of more modest proportions and one's psychic/spiritual/life's walk can endear you towards being offered an opportunity to pilot one, in some transcendant celestial warfare for souls and life beyond this plane. Events that figure into rotations of the galactic arms, bringing Earth and other worlds into proximity to celestial realms every many thousands of years. Grafting in a whole universe of lore encompassing Judeo-Christian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Sufi legend. All this, at the risk of coming across as a Scientologist platform, LOL!

The U.S. Armiy's 'T.A.L.O.S.' exoskeleton-assisted future soldier program needs Shinji Aramaki onboard to design their sheit. Right now, it looks a mere step or two away from Hammer Industries wares & offerings.

[in my best Weyland voice and posturing...] "Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you we were about on the cusp of ALL your cybermechanical, robotic and power-assisted wet-dreams come true? Unfortunately, not quite including 'Tony Stark'-esque flight, mind you--[trust me, we ARE all working so very, very hard on that one...keep the faith...yes..] However, domestic humanoid and biomimetic robots, brashly leaping the 'Uncanny Valley' to tackle realistic, facial muscle modulation and...perhaps, heat-sensitive, supple touch, localized pelvic thrusting, gryration & undulation--with accompanying fluid warmth...Hmmm...got your juices & attention now, eh?!? Seriously now: powered-assist suits, armour and mechs scalable as desired?" ...Behold--the simple, cheap & innocuous NYLON FISHING LINE!! http://io9.com/scientists-just-created-some-of-the-most-powerful-muscl-1526957560

AWESOME! May it rock!

"...The lure of illicit, Nazi gold...payment in exchange for production freedom. Offered by unseen benefactors, who are actually a remnant vanguard of escaped, Third Reich collaborators...from an obscure mountain villa in Argentina... "

Thus far, all we have that are remotely close upon such aerospace themes are "Wings of Honneamise" and "SkyCrawlers"--by Hideaki Anno & Mamuro Oshii. Does "Porco Rossi" count? Actually, I just Wiki-Googled "WoH" to verify the art influences. I was pleased to read a reference to a long-shelved sequel, named 'Blue Uru', to be tentatively set 50yrs afterwards and concerning [fighter] pilots; supposedly discussed at Tokyo Anime Fair by Gainax( Last paragraph on Wikipedia entry, Ref. [7]: 21 Mar '13, from ANN article )

If they wanna go "alien invasion vs. powered armour" as driving gimmick, why not grab the rights to "Genesis Climber Mospaeda" and REALLY apply memorable mechs/power suits with characters and plot arc you CAN care about? (...This isn't still "Whore-Money Gold's" license property is it?...) Particularly if they are at risk of getting killed off... Could this older Tom Cruise pull off Stig? Rework the 'Mospaeda' story/plot line: Humans have colonized much of the star system and occasionally fought one another for 'expansion room' beyond a crowded and depleting world, as was the historical norm. So, they maintain an almost conventional military structure, using the same consumption/attrition logic we've always used. Never seriously imagining encountering an intelligence or accountabilities beyond defacto norm after 149 years beyond Earth sphere. The alien Mimics(...or InViMics...) are first aroused by human technological tinkering with wormhole/'jump' gate tech, in the hopes of interstellar travel--their next step toward 'Level 1 Civilization' progress. It involves using the mass of Jupiter to direct energy and collapse/bridge a 'loci' in space; monopole ores from Jupiters titanic gravity environment are also involved. A molecule or 'three or four' of which can power mechs, ships, fields and weapons. There are curious 'in vivo/gravito-etheric' field effects around living beings[...precursor to InViMic sensitivity to activated vehicles and weapons…]. What sets off the InViMics feelers is not Robotech 'Protoculture' per se, but the fact that concentrations of biotic sentient mentalities were behind this 'worm-hole' phenomenon--something they could detect & had a kinship to--versus naturally occuring wormhole events(...almost closer to the Macross interpretation of Proto/DeCulture...). They fold, like termites/ants(Vajra) on 'Swarm Day' and arrive on Earth, at the center of all the biotic sentience. The expected space opera ensues... Humans have never actually faced non-humans in such scaled war and are out-thought/strategized...like domestic organisms in the face of invasive fish, tropical snake or snail species from another country. They evolve after their initial takeover to incorporate human engineering technology, versus only their innate biorganics and hive strength that contributed to their actually costly but rapid victory. It is NOT what the Hive Race had in 'hive'mind...and they are now stuck on Earth. They are committed to replenishing themselves, which must be at the expense of the simple, fleshy, psychically 'dull' bipeds who 'tricked' them in-system to a dead-end world[still showing the effects of human resource ravages from the prior 2 centuries of industrial & environmental consumption..) Marlene is killed in the first "Maginot Line" Op to defend Earth from the 'InVi-Mics'. Stig(Tom Cruise--at a bit more than his 'canon' age…] is near mortally wounded fending off this global attack and watches Marlene burn up with her ship before passing out. He's rescued by fleet elements that limp away to Mars and Jupiter colonies where humanity tries to wrap their heads around what has just happened and fortify against what else may come. Forward 9 - 12 years: the D-Day Force is nearing completion and Stig--older, scarred inside & out and lovelessly bitter(...easy attitude for Tom Cruise...)--volunteers as a leader for the advanced, RECON wave from Mars Div. The main fleet elements from Jupiter-Sphere are almost a full year behind in preparation. Mars Div. are to stir up the 'Crabs'(only engaged in a few skirmishes over the years); observe and foment human resistance, making sure there are no major surprises to doom the coming Op. In reality, the Human colonial leadership is worried it will all fail massively and are actually sending Stig et al. on a "Dieppe Beach" Op...to ferret out whether Earth and any humans are really salvageable--whether the Neutron-S(...or whatever they're called in 'Mospeada'...) warheads, derived from the wormhole research and monopole matter their powerful mechs are driven by--will be necessary to sterilize Earth and start over. They are also scared by the high possibility the InViMic's proliferation on Earth portends that when they reach colonial hive mass, they'll come out to Mars and Jupiter, consuming the remainder of humanity[..an ironic parallel with contemporary behaviour Humanity leaving Sol for the bounty of a stellar community..]. The rest of the movie/story arc follows our favorite anime generally, with Marlene and the other ochre-eyed, Human-InViMics all being genetic replicants of crewmembers from the annihilated orbital defense forces. Stig is reunited with Ariel because the Hive Conscious senses the powerful 'pit' of loss/hatred/emptiness/loneliness within Stig that correlates with a molecular memory of her persona/being. Thereby moving Marlene/Ariel's 'genetic remainder' into contact with him, so as to understand how such mentally obtuse/flesh limited creatures can create wormholes. Story subcontexts of regressive human imagination, holistic awareness and inertial, tribal behavior upon the cusp of breaking free of Earth and joining a potential stellar community. The unconscionable waste of our only world and resources for short-sighted, attrition-like repetitious culture. And whether we really still need to look at vast portions of our human brethren as sacrificial or 'expendable' for some shallow goals--no matter how impoverished or conquered by the "dice roll-of-Life" they appear. The possibilities of alien mentalities that value and move according to different rhythyms, like the InViMic's draw to biotic sentience behind gravitational/'wormhole' disturbances; yet they're organic, not-so-alien intelligences as tangible, relate-able beings in a 'first contact'...and ones we could learn new awarenesses from. All of this to be contemplated before we join the stars--were the 'jump tech' completed. A kind of pre-graduation lesson for a Level 0.80-0.85 civilization on the Kardashev/Sagan scale. A necessary, mutual learning curve for all species before leaving their ontological cradles. Unfortunately, I see how this might vaguely touch some of the themes within "Ender's Game"…must not imitate. However, I'd much rather see such as this become a sci-fi movie plot cliche, more importantly an excuse to create realistic, on-screen Ride-Armours and Legioss fighters[!!!]…than irrelevant time-loops and a dark, brooding future for the sake of being "Call of Duty"-edgy.

Dreamed of this for like...forever. Didn't have the guts to attempt surgery like this on my Gakken and haven't been equipped to attempt 'Chinese engineering industry'-protocol of replicating each part for such mods. You are inspiring, though.

Sorry news indeed! A good collector and obviously always one for friendly banter; my condolences to his family.

Watched it Saturday night, after failing at getting out to an IMAX 3D theater on opening weekend. I didn't have any of the false pretenses about what it would be about(overly melodramatic with unnecessary plot twists/gimmicks): excrutiating visual detail to convey the surreal, 0-gee environ and its inhospitable hazard and a small crew of astronauts struggling to survive an over-the-top nightmare accident of some kind. I wasn't disappointed. I did see Neill DeGrasse Tyson's commentary--and notably, that he THOROUGHLY liked the movie for what it accomplishes[...met him a handful of times when he was a 20-something grad student, managing the Hayden Planetarium in the early '80's; he was my H.S. buddy's boss, when we both volunteered summers as research assistants; guess my age... ..]. Although some of his criticisms blew away some of the plot drivers, the major thing they serve is in uniting audiences around the world over Cuaron's movie: it gives EVERYONE a new, visceral respect and tangible understanding of just how dangerous and unforgiving actual astronaut work is. I don't care how big a sci-fi nerd or legacy space opera/fiction aficionado you might be; compared to some of my deployment environments and ships underway in pitched seas, I give mad props to international astronauts and scientists who seek out this career. Space is pharking terrifying! Its gonna be a looooooong time before we're galivanting around in it, like Star Wars or Star Trek... 'Nerves of steel' undertakings! Akin to exploring kilometers of an active Kilauea or Icelandic lava flow field, while flying over them in nothing sturdier than a gossamer soap bubble...and a tool box of assorted wands & only a child's plastic jar of extra soap bubble fluid for replenishment during your trip! If this country ever gets its head out of its A$$ long enough to encourage renewed NASA/orbital work, this movie can do the same for cultural motivation for space, like the 60's Mercury & Appollo program and Kubrick's '2001' did for that generation. 5 stars for cinematic experience and story-telling!