platypus

Don't see a need for the brace. Maybe Bandai isn't confident on the single peg (drawn out from under the cockpit) to hold everything together in battroid mode over time... I'm hoping that it's really like what the promo pic shows, that the battroid brace is really optional and it can just stand upright on its own:

Thank you, antibiotictab, for being there to try out the new YF-30 offering from Bandai and your video-sharing! It looks like (in the video) you had to take the missile box out to transform from battroid to the other modes. Is that true, or just that it came off during transformation? How about the gunpod mounting? Was there an adapter piece that allows the gunpod to remain connected to the fighter when the missile box is deployed? And is there a way to mount the gunpod on the fighter such that it doesn't interfere with the retraction and deployment of the nose landing gear?

Ok, this only confirms that the mounting position of the gunpod is fixed, which also means that it's guaranteed the nose wheel cannot be deployed or retracted without removing the gunpod!

What I mean is that so far all the valks we've got from Bandai allow the landing gears to retract into the plane without interference from the gunpod. However, the side profile released by Bandai of the DX yf-30 seems to indicate the the gun barrel is mounted too far forward in fighter mode, such that the nose landing gear is sure to hit the gun barrel if you tried to pull it out or retract it into the wheel well. The tip of the gunpod is just in the way of the nose wheel as the picture below shows.

If antibiotictab can find out how the front landing gear retracts without hitting the gunpod in fighter mode, that would be great! The side profile seems to imply that it's impossible to retract the nose landing gear without removing the gunpod first.

Think it's mis-transformed. The spine needs to be "pulled" back (stretched out) further for the battroid head to fit in snugly and the head lasers to fall into proper place in the recesses. If the spine is stretched out maximally, the tip of the gun pod will shift further back away from the nose landing gear. Right now, with the images of the display we are getting from Bandai, it seems like there is a danger the wheels of the nose landing gear will collide with the gun pod when it is retracted. If this is not due to a mis-transformation then it would be a glaring design issue on the Bandai's part.

Thanks Scyla for explaining it more clearly. A comparison of how the bay doors open up for the VF-0 and YF-30 respectively: IMHO, the yf-30 rear bay door that opens up perpendicular to the roll axis hangs much lower than what we see on the vf-1, which would produce more resistance during take off and landing, and is aesthetically displeasing. Sorry, didn't add the comparison picture. Here it is:

Does the Macross 30 game show how the rear landing gear bar doors of the yf-30 open up? Bandai's DX model seems to open up one of the 2 rear landing gear bay-doors to the front rather than to the side. So apart from the missile launcher not being aerodynamic at all, wouldn't the rear landing gear bay doors already create plenty of drag during take off and landing in an atmosphere? I was hoping Bandai would make the rear bay doors of the yf-30 open up the same way as those on the VF-0. The yf-30 and vf-0 rear bay doors are similar, other than the fact that all the rear bay doors on the vf-0 open up to the side very much like real world aircraft.

Hi guys, I've been following this great forum for a long time. Just like to ask: should the rear landing gear bay doors open to the side rather than the front? Because it looks like (from the pics) that one of the 2 bay doors open to the front (like the vf-1).

me too!

The Vf-27 also doesn't have leg fins. I suppose the the 29 was not meant to have leg fins to, seeing it is a 25 and 27 hybrid...