Nekko Basara

I just realized what the main gear reminds me of---the YF-23's. Just the "bent backwards" shape etc. And the YF-23's gear is itself, modified F-18 gear. (basically removing the largest secondary strut).

(yes, this is a real YF-23, it just looks "fakey" because this pic was taken just after refurbishment---fresh paint on the stealthiest fighter airframe ever made means it's SMOOOOTH)

Total tangent, but I just realized how strange it is that Northrop nicknamed their test aircraft the Gray Ghost, when historically that name belonged to one of the P-80 prototypes - made by their direct competitor in the ATF competition.

My first impression is that the main gear have a toy-ish "afterthought" look to them. Like, that's how you'd design gear to go on a Transformer so that you could say it had them and you could place it flat on a table, but not how you'd ever design them on a real aircraft.

On the other hand, I can appreciate that they are less obtrusive to the overall design than past gear have been. It has always bothered me from a realism standpoint how much of most valks' legs are taken up by the gear bays, given all of the other mechanisms that have to fit in there (the entire engines, transformation mechanisms, locomotive components, etc.) Given that a variable fighter can operate in ways that only require landing gear for ease of maintenance and storage, the VF-31 gear seem more in-line with their importance in the overall design than past gear have been.

I suppose there's no way to know the answer to this yet, but I'm curious if the Delta versions of the -31 are really full variants the way their names suggest (like the VF-1D, J, S, etc. in SDFM), or if they are one-offs built specifically to support Walkure (like the VF-11MAXL Kai and VF-19 Kai for Fire Bomber). If they are normal models, their "customization" could be limited to stores only - Voomerangs in the legs in place of micro-missiles, plus the special weapons pod - and maybe we would see other forward-swept -31s in general issue colors.

I took it to mean the thicker wing root area that contains the forearms, giving the underside of the wings a sort of stepped cross-section where they merge into the fuselage. Personally, I think it's visually more interesting than a sharp wing-to-fuselage connection, and I if I saw it on a real aircraft it wouldn't look out of place. The F-15 has a similar bulge in the underside of its wing roots, it's just much less pronounced.

I think the -30 had bulges in all the right places

Are we just assuming that sensors in Macross are based on active projection and return of electromagnetic radiation, or is that canon?

I'll just have to get Delta 2 and ignore that helmet skull thing, because otherwise it looks so damn good.

Nothing a giant UN Spacy Kite sticker won't fix, right?

Is that video old, or is she seriously 58 years old in it? 'Cuz I thought Mari Iijima was ageless, but... wow.

Is anyone else surprised that the Delta Squadron models of the -31 don't have a different canopy arrangement from the -31A? I was expecting dedicated two-seaters with some setup that would let the idol exit the rear seat without the pilot having to open the main canopy.

I also recently got a -30, and I'm on the "love" side as well. In pictures, I felt like that the battroid and fighter were the prettiest of any valkyrie to-date, and getting it in-hand that hasn't changed that a bit. The battroid proportions are sleek and muscular at the same time, and it strikes a heroic stance without even trying. Mine doesn't need any of the clip-on braces, but I will put them on for extra stability if I want to really play around with it - and to its credit, it has better articulation than some non-transforming figures. It seems like I'm in the minority, but I adore the "stadium lights" missile pod and don't find it awkward at all. It's a small bummer that it doesn't tuck away cleanly in battroid mode (although if I spread the wings slightly, it can certainly fold the pod back in a way that's no more awkward than the backpacks on the -25 family), but I see the bulky missile pod as a much better solution to perfect transformation than a parts-forming shield. Maybe this is Macross blasphemy, but I've never been comfortable with the way the gunpod on most designs magically gets from the centerline to the hands during transformation, and the shields on the -19 and the -25 series just double that sin.

As far as the -31 goes, I see nothing but improvements to the already fantastic -30 design (except maybe the skinnier arms). To me, the "A" model is the prettiest by far (I don't like FSW as a rule), but it's close enough to the -30 that I won't pick it if I can only get one. My first pick of the Delta team has to be Delta-2.

If I could ask about the RVF-171 specifically, then, because it seems to have the least coverage online:

Does the belly antenna/wing make it impossible to attach the gunpod? And does it prevent the backpack from locking down flush like the normal 171EX? Finally, are any of the new parts (the belly antenna or the radome mount) removable, or are they built-in changes to the mold?

I love weird valks and that green-and-white color scheme is so sexy!

I have no 171s at all, and I'm really tempted by the relatively low prices on secondhand ones (on Jungle, Mandarake, etc.), particularly the RVF-171EX. Given the issues the Bandai 1/60 design had for some folks, should I take my chances on one of the existing releases, or wait and see if there is an improved version for Delta?

I appreciate any opinions. Thanks!

I'm surprised that the VF-31 appears to use the same canopy as the YF-30. Judging by the YF-30 toy, there's ample room under there to fit a second seat, as in the VF-25, but if the special versions (other than the -31A) are intended to carry and deploy Walkure as shown in Ep 0.89, I'd expect them to have a separate rear canopy section that could allow the singer to hop out more easily. It didn't look bad in the animation, but the design feels kind of thoughtless if the pilot has to pop the entire rear-hinged canopy open into the slipstream and let an idol squeeze past like an 8-year-old exiting the back seats of a 2+2 coupe.

https://youtu.be/HqUTINolvHg?t=20m28s

You don't think he covered that base the first time around?

Wow, completely forgot about the Escaflowne "high speed mode" - good catch!

I'm just imagining. So what you're saying is, a 'Dragon' mode with its legs deployed like typical Macross' Gerwalk mode (which we partially seen in the prologue episode) but has or a possibility that look more like a dragon? And the nosecone will be the 'dragon's' head somehow(?). Kind of like Cutlass gerwalk form?

I don't have a clear idea of how such a transformation would work, but my guess is that the legs we see deployed in Ep 0.89 would not be the dragon's legs at all - those would be battroid legs that are just able to swing out for maneuvering like in a typical valk. I'm picturing a dragon with much more slender legs, possibly derived from the battroid arms and/or just a portion of the battroid legs (or maybe just one pair of legs, more wyvern than dragon).

Essentially, imagine if Kawamori could have another try at the Escaflowne's transformation scheme, but work in a jet mode as well. It's far-fetched, but he does like to come back to ideas over and over again, even decades apart.

I'm coming awfully late to the party, but here's a crazy thought. What if they are being so secretive with the 262's Battroid/GERWALK modes because it doesn't have one of them?

Ok, no Battroid is very unlikely. And it seems like we've seen its Sazabi-esque bell-bottoms, suggesting it definitely has two humanoid legs. But what if instead of a traditional GERWALK mode, the 262 has a "dragon" mode? Maybe the name is more than a reference to its real-world inspiration. I was struck by how Escalowne-ish the Aerial Knights were, so what if the 262 had a transformation scheme of fighter->dragon->armored knight?

I admit, we've already seen a 262 deploy its legs, but that doesn't definitively mean that was its GERWALK mode; a battroid would need to have legs regardless of its other forms, and the "just pop the legs out" maneuver is as old as SDFM. I do think the "dragon mode" is a longshot idea, but I wanted to toss it out here before the speculation is over.

Delta takes place long enough after M7 that I could imagine a grizzled, middle-aged Basara showing up anonymously. Maybe a drifter with gray stubble and an old guitar shows up for a one-off episode where he teaches everyone a lesson about love and the power of rock, before disappearing as suddenly as he arrived.

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And then Mylene shows up in the next episode looking for him, and the rest of the series is about her. Please?

I'm not familiar with the property except by way of Veef's reviews, but there are already four figmas from Muv Luv: Yui, Cryska, Kagami, and Meiya.

Or were you looking for Schwarzesmarken specifically?

those eyelash stickers look strait garbage, and I'm not sure how to work around that.

Totally agree. They need some Kotobukiya-style pre-applied tampographing. It looks like they got around that issue with the eyebrows by making them slots with a darker piece behind them. And I'm guessing the eyes also use holes, with a decal added to the backing piece.

The strange thing is that, unless the builder did some painting, the shorts look like they must involve some pieces that came painted on the sprue - Kotobukiya does that regularly, but Bandai doesn't.

On another note: Frothy you would be surprised how much lift those wings will generate. Look at the F-104, that bird had one of the smallest wingspans on a supersonic aircraft. Its wings generated enough lift to get it off the ground pretty quick. As long as the Skylon isn't required to make extreme maneuvers the wings will probably work very well.

Speaking of Lockheed, the Skylon concepts remind me a lot of Lockheed's Project Suntan proposal, CL-400-10. Admittedly, they are both very simple aerodynamic shapes - I'm not suggesting any shared lineage.

The VF-171 is changed so much from the VF-17 that I think of it as a totally new fighter. If you look at them side by side in scale, wouldn't you say there is quite a contrast?

IMO, it's like comparing the VF-11 to the VF-1.

Really? I haven't handled them in toy form, but the relationship between the -17 and the -171 seems a lot stronger than that. More like a "F-102 versus F-106" scenario, where many of the actual assemblies have changed, but the overall shape and arrangement of parts remains the same. Or maybe an F-18C versus F-18E?

Tail of the VF-31. Name of a new faction in Macross Delta? Or is it the squadron name?

image.jpg

And it's blue, so... Azure Aether?

next is Valkyrie junk mashing..

Valkyrie reproductive organs.. interesting!?

Think I'll start a business making stickers for DX valks, to add representations of the reproductive organs of your choice. Gonna call it... Repro-labels!

It's just occurred to me that, since the Draken III's don't have a transparent canopy, the pilots must fly them completely through sensor inputs, and perhaps a computer generated image of the outside world. Take it a step further, and perhaps the Knights are cyborgs, and those hair things are their brain interface to the Draken's systems.

I think that's an awesome set of speculations. No way to know yet, of course, but you should win a Minmei doll if you're right.

What occurs to me is that, since we saw all the way back in M+ that a valk cockpit could have an external view displayed on its solid interior surfaces, there's really no reason other than failure-proofing for valks to use transparent canopies at all. So having a solid canopy doesn't necessitate some kind of special sensory interface, although the "coding" of the show certainly suggests that correlation.

Well, the red-head's the only one wearing a fluffy ribbon/bow-tie thingy instead of a straight tie like the others...

That doesn't make him a girl - that makes him the sexiest guy. Case in point: Allen Schezar: