Nekko Basara

Not the scheme, the wings. The other -31's look too much like the -29, while the 31A is like a "perfected" -30.

Yeah, for me, that's it exactly. Relative to the -30, the -31A incorporates the vertical stabilizers into the design better, closes up the spine, and gives the canards more presence.

I love the low-viz scheme, don't get me wrong, but I'm fine with "air show" colors, too.

I'm getting on the VF-31A bandwagon. It may be very similar to the YF-30, but I can't hold that against it.

what do you think of Delta team not using delta wings?. I loved one passage of the Macross the First about the 9 series Valks (VF-9, VF-19 and VF-29) as being the ones with swept forward wings and I think it would make so much more sense for the engineering, mythology and the series title to have all VF-31 with delta wings. I believe that they chose to use the swept forward wings in order for the plane to imitate the valkure hand gesture of the "W". It really bothers me somehow

I wasn't aware of the -9 theory, but my inertial reaction is that it doesn't make sense given the way VF designations are assigned serially and loosely mimic the US Tri-Service system. There are decades of time difference, different manufacturers, and widely different circumstances separating those craft. To use an analogy, if the F-5, F-15, and F-35 share any major design elements, it's due to coincidence or common requirements, not due to some overarching plan based on their designations (and it certainly wouldn't mean no other US fighter could use that element).

As far as Macross Delta not having delta-winged hero valks, I think your answer is a good one. Kawamori chose to mirror the name/symbol of Walkure rather than the name/symbol of the series. As long as that's not the in-universe explanation (i.e. Delta squadron literally modified the aircraft design for that reason), that seems like an artistic choice that feels like six or one-half-dozen to me.

(Personally, I dislike most FSW aircraft aesthetically and I'd prefer that they were as rare in Macross as they are in real-world designs, but that's just my taste.)

An Escaflowne redux was also what I had in mind when I suggested the quadrupedal "dragon" gerwalk mode. Even though that was a pipe-dream, I'd love to see an Escaflowne-inspired battroid.

As for the Yamato Escaflowne toy, though, I would hope Bandai borrows nothing from it. While I respect Yamato for the attempt, the result is a floppy mess that can barely pose in either mode and is both complex and scary to transform. I own two of them just so I won't have to go through the transformation process again.

Similar to anhedral/dihedral on the wings, it would also affect lateral stability, wouldn't it? Although I agree that in valks it's probably mainly an aesthetic choice.

Incidentally, it looks to me as though the VF-31's canards (unlike the smaller ones on the YF-30) are hinged for transformation, so the user may have some choice about their anhedral/dihedral.

I'll go one better and say that, given the number of times it has happened, VF manipulators are probably hard-coded to recognize when they are holding idol singers and to trigger the appropriate subroutines.

but I wanna be able to put a 31E and 31C side by side and have a picture of Makina and Reina making the W sign.

You could even do one to the 31A with that picture of Mirage in her flight suit.

Speaking as a cat in John Lennon shades, I fully endorse this message.

Because this is still bugging the crap out of me, I MS-Painted a comparison.
What the heck is going on with the arm cannon here?

I know it goes against everything that has ever happened in Macross up to this point but could we please NOT have a likeable character die this season? I still haven't gotten over killing off Michael in frontier.

OMG spoilers! ;-)

In addition I'm sure that Bandai will color-code the hell out of the different add-on sets. And who would be crazy enough deploy a blue colored laser gun on a magenta colored Valkyrie?

Yeah, and it's not just the weapon itself. On the YF-30, at least, the detachable portion of the pod includes a section of the aircraft spine. Even setting aside Bandai tricks to exploit our OCD, you've got to admit that would look janky on a mismatched valk.

I'll take C & A for $200 each Alex.

BTW, is there any images of the DX prototypes that are close enough to tell if the YF-30's missile pod is interchangeable with the gun-pod/recharger pod on the VF-31? Because that'd be a rather neat trick to allow mix'n'matching.

That would be great, but the differences in the spine of the fighter mode make me think this will be impossible. The VF-31 doesn't have the wide open channel between the engines that the -30 does; it's sealed on the dorsal side for at least half the length of the weapon pod.

Seems to be bad image editing on the Gerwalk mode. You can clearly see it attached to the arm in Battroid mode.

Agreed, but doesn't it appear to have slid further forward on the Gerwalk? If it is intentional, I'm suggesting that it might have both an "attached" and a "hand-held" position, as we know the large cannon on the back does.

Well, if the TomyTec GIMIX 1/144 pre-painted kits are accurate to Kawamori's design, it looks like the arm guns attach to a white box structure that is partially recessed into the front of the forearm. It would make sense for this to be the magazine.

Although that box structure would also have to accommodate the swivel mechanism that allows the guns to rotate back 180° on the forearm.

That seems like a good guess to me, but it also reminds me of something. Did anyone mention how in the promotional art of the different Walkure VF-31s, the arm guns in Gerwalk Mode appear to be detached from the arms and only connect at the hands (as if they are being held like a tonfa/nightstick)? That suggests that the ammo must be contained in the pod itself.

Alternately, that may just be the result of bad image editing - I haven't seen the arm guns shown this way in any other art or toy pictures. (I also noticed that while you can also see the back-mounted container hanging behind the battroid of unit 05 here, in the identical shots of units 01-04 it is absent, suggesting that the image was just clipped a bit carelessly).

What kills me is that they actually thought no one would recognize it as an R/C aircraft.

It's not clear that they did think that. I can't understand the voice-over, but the Wikipedia page states that at the unveiling, the design team said that they had built both a prop-powered and a jet-powered test model, and showed a video clip of them. The footage above is probably from that clip. I don't know if the Iranians ever expected anyone to think that was a full-sized prototype in flight.

Again, I don't know what is said during the footage or around its release, but I'll err on the side of not assuming a potential adversary is comically stupid (until I'm proven wrong).

I'm reminded of the mudguards that many Russians designs have as part of their general suitability for less prepared runways.

On one hand, Kawamori has been very into the Russian look in his post-2000 valks. On the other hand, the idea of a VF having to use its wheels on a dirt strip is unlikely at best. So, maybe chalk it up to aesthetics or coincidence?

Speaking of assumptions, are we sure we understand the propellant situation in these weapons? Sure, they fire physical projectiles that will require storage space near the weapon, but that's typically only a fraction of a modern cased round's bulk and mass. What if Macross slugthrowers finally have a workable caseless propellant? What if the propellant they use is significantly smaller for a given amount of expansion/force? What if they don't use a traditional chemical propellant at all, but something like electrothermal or gauss propulsion to throw shells? These would all lower the size of the ammunition that needs to be stored near and fed into the gun.

I thought it was to hide the attachment points for the stores when not using the additional parts set...

...which seems reasonable until you consider that the YF-30 has those same attachment points permanently, just so that you can use the 171 stores if you happen to own them.

JAS-39 Gripen. The Mazda Miata of fighter jets.

Hehe, that is a perfect way to characterize it, both the good and the bad.

I was tickled by the video title "Swedish Airforce MOST FEARED military fighter aircraft." No disrespect intended to Sweden's amazingly history of aircraft production, but when the preceding fighter entered service 45 years ago, I'm not sure calling the Gripen the "MOST FEARED" has much impact. It's as if VW had rolled out the New Beetle in 1997 under the heading "our most advanced Beetle ever!"

Meet the US Navy's new $13 billion aircraft carrier

The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is the most technologically-advanced warship ever built.

http://www.cnet.com/pictures/meet-the-navys-new-13-billion-aircraft-carrier/

Made me think of the Prometheus.

Is anyone else weirded-out to see autonomous stealth drones sharing deck space with E-2s? It's likely to be accurate, but it feels so strange.

Don't forget that the US Tri-Service aircraft designation system, on which Valkyrie designations seem to be based, is full of skipped numbers due to dropped projects, manufacturer requests, and even superstition. An "empty" number doesn't necessarily mean a valk we haven't seen.

On a side-note, I enjoy that Kawamori has so frequently used the YF-x to VF-x+1 formula, even though in actual history I think that is limited to the very special case of the YF-17 to F-18, where the prototype was completely re-designed for a new requirement. I'm curious what his basis - if any - is for the VF-17 to VF171 name progression. I feel like that would have been a better real-world way to handle the "Super Bug" than the misleading "F-18E" designation (although I think some funding shenanigans are behind that story).

VF-31E and C - Team MakaReina support sub-unit :wub:

Hehe, Team MakaReina. Very nice.

Here's your damn landing gears.

There ya go - with some proper mechanical detail on them, they look fine. Maybe not the most practical design, but not something from a Transformer toy.

Thanks for the feedback!

I leave the YF-30 front bay doors open because opening them scares the crap out of me, even now. I always feel like something's going to break

Oh yeah, the front bay doors on mine are terrifying as well. The first time I opened them, I must have spent half an hour going back and forth between the manual and the toy to make sure I was doing it right, and I even got some tweezers in the mix. It takes way too much force to get that hinge part to extend. They haven't gotten much better with use, either.

Very silly question, but when the main gear on the -30 are deployed, do folks prefer to close the large doors or leave them open?

Concerns about the clearance of the main gear from the shins may be overstated - the model render could be showing them at full compression, while on the "real" craft they might pivot much further away from the shin when not under load. Admittedly, the degree to which the knee-guard covers the rear of the wheel would limit how far forward they could pivot before that piece hit the ground before the tire did, but I could chalk that up to one model-maker's interpretation - a very small change in the placement of the wheel relative to the knee-guard would alleviate this.

Honestly, I think I'd be fine with the design if we were seeing a mechanically-detailed strut attached to the wheel, rather than an simple block. As far as why this was changed relative to the YF-30, I'd say that the legs of the VF-31 appear more slender and tapered than the YF-30's bulbous calves (which I like, but they are very thick), so there may have been less room for the gear bays. And, frankly, this is a clever, space-saving design if they can just make it fit the realistic aesthetic a valkyrie should have.