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Out of the topic question:

It was my first transforming VF-0A and the heat shield popped off. I was able to put it back on, but has that happen to anyone of you guys?

I felt terrible afterwards T_T.

I was researching for a paper and I found this:

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2007/05/f35_helmet_display_system_to_s/.

Am pretty sure most of the parts on there are useless; however, this is pretty attractive in my opinion.

Hi guys, I am kind of new here!

I am an avid gundam fan, but I stick to toys because the models kind of scare me little.......

I like to mess about with my gundam toys, so can gundam models withstand regular posing and play, suppose a MG model??

Thanks, and sorry i am kind of a noob <img src="http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

In my experience, if you are looking for pose/play. I recommend you to the High Grades. They are solid, durable and very articulable --the Gundam O series especially--. As for Master Grades and Perfect Grades, they are bigger but it doesn't mean they are always better. Since they cost a ton; I treat them like glass.

Am really digging the Real Grades.

You've set yourself up for a daunting task wanting to try and justify bringing back the F-14. If you want a ton of stuff on the F-14, go here:

http://www.anft.net/

They are F-14 fanatics there. As for how to bring back the F-14, Tomcat 2000 was a good proposal and incorporated a lot of what DH mentioned. Unfortunately as DH mentioned the F-14 was a maintenance hog, and it just got harder the older she got. Turning her into an FSW, epic fail, the design just doesn't work for it, you can't just slap new wings on a plane and expect it to fly. Now, does this paper have to be on a combat aircraft? Taking on that subject alone increases the complexity of your paper.

I'm confused a little by some of your earlier comments, is this an engineering class or what? What is the degree program, what school?

Also go look over on www.up-ship.com and search the blog, he has a lot of data on various planes, modificiations, what ifs, etc... Some of the APR back catalog might have some data you could use as well. Also how technical is this paper suppossed to get?

I finally have time to sit down and do work and thank you! This is precisely the information that I need!

Eh, The F-111 was inferior to the F-14 because the Navy changed the goalposts to make it that way. It actually had a greater payload (and carryback weight), longer legs and a more forgiving design. The broad arrangement of the F-14's engines was a dangerous design choice because of the unreliability of the TF-30 engine. However the F-14 was more maneuverable, had a gun and had some superior flight characteristics compared to the F-111. The F-111 would be a poor dog-fighter but a very good fleet defence fighter... The 14 was a decent fighter but a just a good fleet defence fighter. If you're talking about adding a bombing role, then its arguable that the F-111B might have been a better choice... but thats an argument for another day.

Okay, see we can work with that here... I'm sure David and Knight can give very good explanations of physical effects of various design choices, while I can give the military/political rationale for various project specifications (as can they too). I've also got quite a bit on the F-35 if you're interested in that project.

Sweet! I'll be firing up questions once I decide and finish an outline.

I wanted to post this earlier but the forum wasn't loading for me.

Truth be told there is actually alot more out there on the A-12 (The SR-71's predecessor) than the F-14. Most of if is very high quality primary source documentation and primary source interviews. The main reason why is because the CIA did a massive information dump in the last few years (Including a trove of documents), and the Udvar Hazy centre held

with a series of former engineers you can find on youtube.

On top of that you can find Clarence Johnson's book fairly cheap.

The A-12 to me is probably the pinnacle of US aerospace engineering, not just for its actual capabilities but how its designers actually worked and produced it. As you'll see in that video, one of the engineers lamented that it took them two years and 100 engineers to put together the A-12; it took Rockwell 5000 engineers and almost three times that time to build the B-1.

Well the question is one of cost. Yeah we could all put together a pretty slick design (Bring back the flying dorito!) but the reality is that cost is of paramount importance. One of the reasons why Variable geometry has basically died is the prohibitive costs of these systems both in production and maintenance. The other is a refinement of air combat principles since the Vietnam war. The F-14 was really a pre-Vietnam design; heavy with so-so maneuverability, it was designed to be a fleet defender carrying a number of large stand-off missiles. Most designs post 1970, were built with particular attributes... top end speed was less important (the JSF only asked for Mach 1.6, which was the top usable speed outlined by the lightweight fighter proponents in the 1970s.)

The other issue is that you have to understand why the F-14 was the Navy's attempt to get out of the F-111 program... that lead to a lot of critical design decisions at Grumman.

Honestly, I'd probably move away from the F-14... yeah it was a great design back in the day but was actually not nearly as good as was portrayed in popular media. David pointed out some of its flaws. The only reason why you'd keep it around was for its large payload and good range... however if that was the case you might as well push for the F-111B, because that had better payload and better range. And as David pointed out, the F-14 was utterly horrendous in its O&M department. Basically it was eating up huge amounts of the Navy's budget. Any redesign would need a completely new avionics architecture, and thats probably going to be the bulk of your development costs right there without even considering the feasibility of FSW or anything like that (Which Knight posted about)

The F/A-18E/F on the other hand is extremely modifiable; it has a dozen development spirals, completed, ongoing or planned. Its O&M was designed to be extremely affordable as well. That means more of them can be put into the air to carry out operations.

What was the paper's actual question?

Whoa...thank you for your time.

Yeah after reading the responses from this community, things aren't look so well for my paper. I'll check the links you guys provided me and decide if I want to tackle this. Also I thought the f-111b was worst than the f-14. I've check this aircraft before and according to wiki, it crashed 3 out of 7 experiments and the other other 4 was scrapped.

As for the paper it really does not have a question; more like you create your own question. However, it must include factors why engineers build this aircraft a certain way e.g why delta and not a high aspect ratio wing. Why use this engine, load factors and all the other good stuff

I'm definitely no expert, but you might want to look into Grummans "Tomcat 21" proposal - this was to be an updated Tomcat proposed as a cheaper (for a given value of "cheap"!)alternative to the now aborted Naval ATF (essentially, naval F-22 or F-23) requirement. One of the things they proposed was making the Tomcat easier to maintain. In fact, I believe a swing-wing F-22 was even proposed for that requirement as well!It is also possible to update aircraft designs to a degree; the Strike Eagle is a similar shape to a "standard" Eagle but rather different structurally (designed to carry heavier payloads).

Edit: oops, Knight26 got in just ahead of me!

Thanks I'll definitely see what they mean by cheap alternative. If not am going to do a research on the Bis-14 or Sikorsky "first hop"..................yeah right!

You've set yourself up for a daunting task wanting to try and justify bringing back the F-14. If you want a ton of stuff on the F-14, go here:

http://www.anft.net/

They are F-14 fanatics there. As for how to bring back the F-14, Tomcat 2000 was a good proposal and incorporated a lot of what DH mentioned. Unfortunately as DH mentioned the F-14 was a maintenance hog, and it just got harder the older she got. Turning her into an FSW, epic fail, the design just doesn't work for it, you can't just slap new wings on a plane and expect it to fly. Now, does this paper have to be on a combat aircraft? Taking on that subject alone increases the complexity of your paper.

I'm confused a little by some of your earlier comments, is this an engineering class or what? What is the degree program, what school?

Also go look over on www.up-ship.com and search the blog, he has a lot of data on various planes, modificiations, what ifs, etc... Some of the APR back catalog might have some data you could use as well. Also how technical is this paper suppossed to get?

Thanks for the info.

I am currently enrolled in Florida Institute of Technology in pursuit of aviation management with flight. The paper is for Aeronautics 2. The problem is the professor who is instructing us is a enthusiastic aerospace engineer. We are suppose to be learning about weather, regulations, systems, part 141, commercial etc; yet he drops a bomb on us with his research paper when he was -god knows how- young. Am fine with that since am interested in these kinds of topics,but I am just a fledgling. Right now I don't have a foundation to stand on so I have no clue what am talking about; thus I need information. He had two 20 pages research paper (tiger sharks f-20s) for us and in it is a bunch on engineer's lingo I don't even understand except for huds, force divergence Mach number and a few other; the rest was a lost cause.

Also it does not have to be on combat aircraft, but if am going to do a 20 page research paper, it better be something that prevents me from crying every-time I yawn. I mean writing about the piper warriors or Cessna sky hawks is a lot easier than f-14s; however, I do training in those every odd days and it gets old after awhile.

What's the paper for may I ask? like what's the class focus? I think you'll find a wide range of perspectives on here if you ask.

It is for my Aeronautic 2 class.

My professor wanted us to base our paper on a current aircraft and explain why did the aerospace engineers decide to build it this way, and how can we change it to make it better. I was thinking of spy planes like SR-71, however, after watching "Macross Zero", I've switched to the F-14.

My rough draft will consist of these questions(and more once I get an outline): why did it retired, and what factors can I put in it to make it as useful as the f-18 or other navel aircraft and hopefully I can expand it into a 20 page paper.

It's a daunting paper . I guess he's trying to change pilots into engineers, but am fine with that, the informations I've been reading are intriguing.

What I need is information, tons and tons of information on f-14/f-18. F-14/f-18 fan boys are fine too

Am just a noobie trying to get his P.P.L so any other suggestions for the f-14 e.g delta wing f-14, or thrust vectors for the f-14 etc would be great. I just need a reason why and then I'll go do some research and expand.

Thank you!

Ah sounds like a fun challenge. I guess I'll try a different approach and do more research once I get my greedy hands on information links.

It seems that you are very knowledgeable in this area, may I have your email address and spam it with burning questions ?

Good evening,

This is totally off topic from the previous post, however, I need assistance and I believe this has to do something with aircraft --I hope--.

I am trying to come with a research paper for a class at my university, and it's going to be based on the retired f-14. My proposal for the paper is to insist the f-14 be brought back in service by making it lighter (don't have a conclusion for that yet)cheaper, and more efficient. Since the f-14 turn rate is pretty slow compare to the f-18, I was thinking of making the f-14 famous variable-sweep wing into a variable forward-sweep wing; this should decrease the lateral stability and more blah blah blah to get to the 20th page. I have more ideas; however I don't want to bore you guys.

But the point of this post was to ask if anyone is willing to share some sites that contain TONS and TONS of aircraft information from general aviation to military.

Don't get me wrong, I did some leg work myself; however, the Florida Tech resource facility suck @#$%^&*, and the sites that I've looked at are pretty sketchy(fan-boys everywhere I guess). Wikipedia is a great source but I can't use only one source; I also question its accuracy.

Thank you for your time!

I have to agree, the Zero lines are dieing; grab one before it's too late. Like I said before, with some creativity, you can always fix it or have it in a permanent mode/pose.

Yeah, I chose SAL as the delivery option. I was expecting it in a month but I guess not; it just means my two stands and my ghost will arrive in about a week too!

It came it came; I came! Like "old man" said, it is the re-release version.

Now...how to I take the landing gear out; am afraid I might break it since this thing feels like it's glass.

I had the same issue with the VF-0A. In the end I bought it anyways. 55 percent off, there is no way I would miss that regardless if it was the first edition or a re-release version. I believe my topic about me complain about it is still around here. Maybe their advices might help you.

In the end if it breaks, I'll just duct tape it together.

Well, it looks like this thread is coming to a close.

Thanks to you guys I found the solution.

I'll stick around here and see what else are in these forums.

See ya around.

Thank you again for your contributions.

i got a re-release 0S a couple of years ago... no real problems except for one of the feet retracts when in battroid mode (and i remember others also had this problem). it's an easy fix since you can access the part just by deploying the landing gear on the problematic leg... no need to open the whole leg assembly. just dab w/ nailpolish or superglue to the sliding part. there's also a fix here if the front fuselage of your VF-0 starts drooping... i think it's in the "What's wrong with my Yamato, Bandai" thread.

if you really like the design of the VF-0 this maybe the last ever large scale incarnation that will ever come out since Yamato has said that the Mac Zero line is pretty much dead. At that price it wouldn't hurt too much if you have to do some tweaking here and there.

...and you might wanna ask HLJ about the box design of their VF-0A coz the latest VF-0As that Yamato released came with this box design - new VF-0A box .

Ah... I jumped the gun and the picture on hlj is definitely not the one you posted -__-". I'll just cope with it I guess.

I believe that a 1/60 VF-1 is similar in size to a 1/72 VF-27, so this comparison pic of a 1/60 VF-1 vs. a 1/60 VF-0S should be somewhat helpful.

For more accuracy though, I would definitely ask around the forum here as I bet people who have both models will be willing to snap a pic or something for you.....

Oh...well--I'll have to buy 7 more 1/72 and claim that they are fin funnels/dragoons.

I believe this is a win-win situation.

I don't know if you already know this or not, but just in case you don't, I believe that a 1/60 VF-0A will be MUCH larger than the 1/72 VF-27 in your pictures. Unless you intended for that in the first place, at which point you are right on track

NOPE! Never had a 1/60. How big can it get O_O?

Not stupid at all, check the link in my sig line below. (page 2 in the link have the better fighter mode pics) I also weathered my VF-0A and 0S and added a little more dark grey to the stab. on the 0A. Incidentally, the are both original releases and haven't broke or fallen apart either. Granted they mainly stay in fighter mode, but I have transformed them a few times after they originally arrived. Let me know if I can help you out in anyway.

Chris

Yes any advice would be great.

I was thinking of applying the basic steps from Gunpla.

I wanted to make the VF-0A as the squad leader of Razgriz from ace combat 5 and have the VF-27b a wing men.

The problem with the toy compare to a model kit is it's already assemble so I have yet to find out how to airbrush with accuracy.

Steps on weathering would be a great help as well. Here is what I'll be working with.

Thanks.

Why don't you just ask HLJ which version they are carrying?

In fact I doubt if there is any brand new 1st release VF-0A around. Though they are prone to break, they were sold out before the re-release.

The re-release box has no flip cover, and is easy to tell.

I...god damn it; I didn't think about that. I'll take your advice once their servers are back up and running.

hard to say, the mold was released in 2006, and I got one in 2008 after a long grueling battle over the over priced shipping issue from the seller. 5 minutes after opening it up and ready to transform it, shoulder disintegrates and the laser turret snapped off. sad sad day as a collector. It truly turned me off from the series.

When in doubt-- duct tape.

Am just kidding. I have yet to watch Macross Zero. The only reason why I desire this unit is because of the head design ha-ha-ha...

Am a model-kit builder myself and am just trying to expand my arsenal of Mech minions.

You should try to get a hold of epoxy putty, Tamiya Extra Thin Cement, with tiny metal rods for a bootleg frame. Unless you tossed it somewhere, duct-tape is a fine solution >=)

Yes, but that was just the initial release. I've ordered many things from HLJ, such as Max's TV VF-1A. Although the page I ordered it from indicated the original release date, the version I received was the reissue with the new hip lock mechanism and clear canopy. Thusly, although the original release date of the VF-0A Mass Production Type was in 2006, there was also a re-release issued in 4/10. Now, I'm not inferring that the one offered at HLJ is the re-release, but it isn't necessarily the original release either.

I really hope what you said is true. I thought Gundams were expensive when I broke a unit, but with a Macross mech, I firmly believe it hurts a lot more.

How are you certain that VF-0A offered at HLJ is the one from 2006?

They list the original release date as Oct 2006 near the pricing.

Also according to my research for this aircraft; 2006 was ver.1 while the VF-0A Shin with Ghost was ver.2

The cake is a lie?

I am not positively sure, but I have heard that the re-release of the 0S and 0A were flawless and good toys to boot. But you say that the one on HLJ that is currently on sale is the 2006 issue? I believe this is the release that was plagued with breaking arms that may even pop off during the first transformation or right out of the box.

On the other hand though, there have been a lot of people who have gotten theirs in perfect condition with no problems. So all in all, it seems as though things have really been hit and miss.

At this price, I would say go for it. At nearly a $100 savings, the sting of a broken toy will be a LOT less than if you paid full retail, AND there is always the good chance that you will get a good copy of the model with no issues.

Beyond that, you can always find ways to get new arms from Yamato in the case that your model breaks. Also, since you seem to really like the design of the 0A, the potential benefits really do outweigh the negs.

Lastly, if you don't want to take a leap of faith for a potentially broken toy, then you could always pay up a bit more for a re-released model, though it can be hard to tell which release a store is selling.

Just my $0.02

Point taken.

Thank you for your time.

I see, thank you for your inputs ladies and gents.

Am going to linger around this thread a little longer to collect more opinions. I know, ultimately it comes down to the buyer's decision but maybe someone has a mod or fix that can be applied to this model.

I have my doubts as to seeing more VF-0 re-releases... if you're a big fan of the design that's a hard price to pass on.

Woops, my mistake. I read my information wrong. It was the re-release of 2010. Looks like the one they have on hlj was the one from 2006.