David Hingtgen

And the answer is: Magnets! Magnetically attached "half-gunpods" on the belly plates. It'd be easy to hide some magnets in the belly plates. And if the belly FAST packs were magnetically attached too, they could be made very thin. However, I'm thinking the FAST packs too may need to use the "half gunpods" as well. Just look at the D'stance----it requires insanely long gear that can't possibly retract into the wells to have like 1mm of ground clearance with all the stuff attached to the belly. If people accept half-gunpods for the armor-less belly, they should accept the same half-gunpods for the armored belly. Full-size gunpods would be for battroid only. (I'm thinking the same set of half-gunpods could be used for both armored and un-armored belly in fighter mode, so there's not a bunch of different sets to keep track of--just one set that'd fit the belly plates with or without armor)

World's best super-cruiser is still the Concorde, so a big goes out to all the F-22 fans...

Which is what I suggested at the bottom of my post.

I just really don't think the FAST-pack-less gunpods on the -21 are feasible on a toy. Space in the belly is so critical the thickness of the gear doors and tire tread is an issue. And there's supposed to be room for guns? You'd need massive doors and hinges in the belly plates, even if you did have room. The height of the doors alone would equal the depth of the belly. It can work in 1:1 scale with a bit of anime magic and the sliding doors Kawamori is oh-so-fond-of in the M+ and later valks. But not with simple hinged doors and 1:60 scale. Basically--I think any attempt at doing so would so compromise the design, it'd end up looking worse than the original Yamato YF-21. Just skip it, and make the gunpods fast-pack only. ::lightbulb!:: Or possibly---make special "fighter mode only" gunpod parts---like, just the visible bottom half of the gunpods. Attach to the belly plates, and there you go. But trying to actually INSERT a full gunpod into the belly isn't going to happen.

Either way, I thought the face color change was almost as bad as the rest of the colors. SS has a dull grey face, to clearly contrast with the other 2. (Though the "later" 3 seekers all have grey faces I think) Changing head and face colors is pretty unprecedented--I mean, Prime ALWAYS has a blue head with a silver "mouth plate". If they made it deep grey, people'd sure complain.

When there's 3 physically identical characters, with ONLY color differentiating them, color becomes very important. Especially when Starscream had a dark grey face, but Thundercracker had a silver face---and the toy has a silvery face...

Since *I* like commercial airliners more than anything else, it will always be on topic here. About 80% of my model planes are airliners. I've read the F-22 makes a distinct sound, but have yet to hear it myself. And for jets, it's all about the engines, obviously. F-16C Block 30 and Block 32/42 sound VERY different. And Block 52/re-engined 42's are probably the loudest and most "ripping", vs the "roar" of Block 30/40/50. Super Tomcats, having re-tuned versions of the F-16C Block 30/40/50 engine, are surprisingly quiet, despite having two of them. Late model F-15E's are said to be about the loudest jets there are nowadays, having 2 of the Block 52 engines. (There's now so many F-16 engines, you'll find them in about every other plane too) I've only ever heard F-15C's. Oh, and Super Hornets are incredibly noisy and "ripping", right up there with an F-16 Block 52. Complete opposite of the Legacy Hornet. And that just makes the Super Hornet "whisper" pass even more amazing. Super Hornets have more of a "rip" than any jet I've ever heard. If you want a buzz, listen to a Rolls-Royce.

Copy the D'stance for most of it, but use the original's foot/leg storage, and neck/forward fuselage.

I keep thinking she has two distinct powers: 1. Healing. 2. Feels no pain. Otherwise, she wouldn't be nearly so casual about things, and probably spend half her life just screaming. PS--is it just me, or is she incredibly accident-prone/unlucky? I mean, she'd have already died like 4 times so far, excluding the "stunts" for the camera etc. Key question is the sink disposal---did she go after it knowing full well she couldn't be hurt, or was she just stupid and stuck her hand in without thinking? PPS--Peter, dude, just try not-so-high things. If you can do it, you can do it from 10 inches, not just 10 feet. ::edit:: Damn, just read a spoiler about him. I tend to avoid threads about shows/games/movies, as well as wikipedia for that reason. Might leave this thread too, as even speculation tends to bug me---because there's always at least a few that are right. I'm the opposite of someone who searches out every forum and bit of info--I like surprises, and try NOT to figure things out. Entertainment is supposed to be just that.

Nothing really on Gol. I've waded through EVERY page (and there's less actual info each page) and nothing really to report. Certainly the most intriguing crash in years. It's rare to go this long without knowing what actually happened. (WHY can take years, but WHAT is usually known pretty quickly)

Here's an E with the conformal tanks off. Could be for maintenance, could be because the wing CO wanted to see how fast it could go. (It is the wing commander's plane, but no way to know if he's flying it)

Super Dimensional Washer--with Fold(ing towels) capability!

I was going to post a link to pics of Titanium Magnus, but completely forgot where I saw them. If there was only a way to reduce the shoulders, he'd be perfect. (But I think the shoulders form the upper level of the trailer, like the G1 toy, so there's not much you could do, unless you want a super-short trailer) Though you have to assume he's mis-transformed a bit, as the missile launchers REALLY should be able to be put on the sides of the shoulder armor, not the tip pointing up. That'll help the appearance a lot. And I don't think it's so much a "don't have to remove the armor" thing as "the armor isn't separate". Think about it---if you take out the cab from the G1 toy in robot mode, you still have 99% of Ultra Magnus. The cab serves only to hold the head on, nothing more. It'd be very easy to make a new toy that is intended to have the cab integrated into the design. It's a cube with wheels, just tuck it away somewhere while transforming, and have the head flip out of it. I think it could use a bit more red paint though.

Hey Graham--shouldn't your sig be "guess what I GOT YESTERDAY" or something by now? Then we'll want "guess what I got 2 days ago," etc.

First post of this thread edited, YF-19 and Sylph are back. Hopefully more to come.

Quick note to JB0--I considered he was going for bare metal, but bare F-15's aren't silvery for the most part. I think he just thought it looked cool. There was a fairly recent F-15 painted silver for testing though, and it'll match that pretty well. Now for F-15E vs C: Late-build E's have MUCH more engine power than the C, even more than a Super Tomcat. The power increase is about 4 times that of the weight increase. Also the airframe itself is stronger, and can cope with more G's for longer periods. If the E's conformal tanks are removed that day, drag-wise it'd be about 99% the same as the C. (Slightly slightly more drag on the E due to minor airframe changes). A late-build E should certainly out-climb and out-accelerate the C, period. Now, a standard E would be decidedly poor compared to the C, having the same engines but more weight. I really don't know/can't comment on drag effects of the CFT's. It's there, but I really don't know how it'd compare to a C/D's conformals, or "E with just conformal vs C/D with 3 externals, for the same fuel load". A "plain" conformal tank has far less drag than the same amount of fuel in drop tanks, but all F-15 conformals have external pylons, but the E has the most. (I've still never been able to tell for sure if there was ever an utterly plain conformal for the F-15, even in testing--one pic of the first set looks like it, but others seem to indicate more like a mini-pyloned version of the C/D's) Top speed: AFAIK no F-15C can actually do Mach 2.5 like early F-15A's could. Especially now. Long story short, but you can assume most fighter jets cannot acheive their "top" speed, even stripped down to airshow demo standards. Engine power vs reliability---they're tuned for reliability most of the time. A late-build E has more drag, but a lot more thrust, but the engine is more optimized for cruising and low-level, than high-speed dashing like the C's engine. But the raw power increase may be more than enough. (Engine specs are never published for all conditions/speeds). F-14B/D top speed is controversial for the same reason. I would actually vote the F-15K for being the fastest nowadays, especially if they ever get the -132 engine in it. The GE nozzles have a lot less drag than unfeathered PW ones. And with most A's having had engines retrofitted, I doubt any A can hit 2.5 either. (Most F-15's now would top out around Mach 2.3 AFAIK) And there's always pylons! The only way you'll have a drag-free F-15 is if you plan to fight with guns only. In which case the C model has an advantage, for it carries more ammo than the E. Missiles and wing pylons affect drag even more than engine power or airframe drag.

Was playing up until Valk Profile 2 came out, will resume when I finish that.

Drifand--that's a pretty inaccurate drawing of TF-15A #2, 71-0291. Probably most famous as the "bicentennial" F-15 in gloss white/red/blue. If you want to see what it really looked like, try here: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0889876/L/ I can scan/post plenty of pics where F-15E's look blueish or even greenish---doesn't mean they're green, just that photographs can be really off. I have yet to see an F-15/16/B-1/2/52 mis-painted green instead of dark grey, but plenty of pics where they kinda look like that. Photos of grey rant: Grey will drive photo-developers (and cameras) nuts, they always try to color-correct one way or the other, especially when the sky is visible--they'll tend to try to make the sky "look right"---which will often tint the whole exposure bluish or greenish. Early F-15 pics suffer from that tremendously, as they try to take out the blue, because they think the planes are supposed to be grey in a blue sky--but everything looks too blue. Except that, early F-15's WERE blue, and they flew in California in the summer, in incredibly super-blue skies. So a lot of early F-15 pics look they're in "normal" blue skies with grey paint, instead of the super-rich blue skies with blue paint they actually were. They "corrected" the exposure, but actually made it wrong. Same thing happens with ship photos all the time---taking "neutral" pics and trying to match the greenish Atlantic, or taking blue out from Caribbean pics----which will really mess with the grey color of the ship. IMHO Takara took one of those greenish pics and used it as a reference, rather than the 98% of GOOD pics where they show up as the correct dark grey. Or 9even better) looking up what color they're supposed to be, then buying that color to see what it is. I know they sell F-15E grey in Japan at every hobby shop. And that there are plenty of F-16's in Japan painted the right color. Why reference bad pics when the real thing, or correct color paint, is readily available? That'd be like trying to match Corvette yellow from a scan of a magazine, when your local dealer or Autozone has the exact touchup paint just sitting there on the shelf for sale.

Just wait for the Titanium Magnus. He's exactly what you're asking for. A new, G1-style Magnus with armor.

XLAA's generally suck. If they actually HIT you can take out an entire squadron. But I've had a full volley hit like twice, in Ace Combat 4/5/0 combined.

Try searching places that cater to model railroaders. They light everything, and in 1/160(N) and 1/220(Z) scale. www.walthers.com is probably the largest retailer in the world---but beware, their catalog is literally thousands of pages.

RFT---that is actually a rare (but totally possible) configuration for a Strike Eagle--pure air-to-air. 6 AMRAAMs, 2 Sidewinders. Also, the wing pylons can carry any mix of AMRAAMs and Sidewinders. Sparrows are conformal tank-only. (Or on the fuselage itself if the conformal tanks are off) The way the Type 4 and 5 conformal tanks are designed (the types used on real F-15E's, not what MP SS has) the forward 2 positions on the lower pylon are swappable---there's actually always 5 hard points---3 bombracks and 2 missile launchers--but due to spacing/arrangements you can only actually have the following combinations working, from fore to aft: 1. Missile/Missile (actual configuration is M/B/B/M/B) 2. Bomb/Bomb/Bomb (actual config is B/M/B/M/B) 3. Bomb/Missile (actual config is B/M/B/M/B)--have to drop the bomb first before the missile can fire in that configuration---so no point in "fighting your way in" to bomb stuff---only real use would be "fighting your way out" after dropping bombs---but the F-15E would excel at that---with the bombs and drop tanks gone, and the improved power of late F-15E's, in that instance they should actually be able to out-fight the F-15C. While pure air-to-air is pretty rare, a mixed load (left/right) of missiles and bombs is decently common. Here's one with AMRAAMs and Paveway bombs: PS--I saw that repainted MP SS earlier, when it was only like 80% done. I'd love to see one in grey, not silver---he matched the G1 red and blue shades perfectly it seems, but wonder why silver. Either way I like it a lot more than the Takara scheme.

KingNor---Strike Eagles aren't green. That's the worst F-15E pic I've ever seen, color-wise. You can find F-15's looking from blue to purple to green if you look around enough and the lighting's off enough. F-15E's are THIS color: Pure grey. (based on the many F-15E pics I have on my PC, and having seen 36118 in real life on many planes, that pic is about the best-lit best-color one I have) Ever seen an F-16? The dark grey on their upper half? Exact same color as the Strike Eagle--and F-16's are NOT green at all. And the B-1B, and B-2, and B-52--same color. Stealth bombers aren't green. At the moment all USAF bombers (which the F-15E basically is) are painted the same color. Could you imagine a B-2 stealth in the color of MP Starscream?

Airlines nowadays tend to get anything they want as compensation, all agreed to long before the prototype flies. I'd guess it came about from the MD-11's shortcomings. I know United had it set up to be paid thousands of dollars (possibly tens of thousands), per pound, per plane, for every bit the 777 was overweight from design spec. (It ended up like 8 pounds under---which is amazingly "on the money" a basic 500,000lb plane)

There was a blurb that supposedly one of the designers said it was supposed to be an accurate F-15E. Probably from the same magazine Dobber mentioned---but I've still yet to see an actual translation etc.