Awacs

Badb

Macha

Nemain

But then, I'd probably have nicknamed my own fighter Medb or something, so the pattern would fit.

Karl

But not as weird as those Brits who put Sidewinder missiles (Jaguar) or fuel tanks (Lightning) on top of the wings.

What can I say, we were running out of space under the wings - and Heath Robinson is still a part of the national psyche in some quarters..... :-)

Karl

There's been a carrier version of EVERYTHING proposed. Including the DC-9 and 727...

The idea of the latter is a little bit of a mind-bender I have to say. I'd never like to write anything off as flatly impossible, but that feels at first glance somewhat improbable at the least.

FYI, the Naval F-16 carried Sparrows on the main gear doors.

well, that's.... different.

Karl

The Lightning/Spitfire dogfight was because the RAF was about to potentially get involved in an overseas operation where the opposition might be using P-51s, so they wanted to see if such dissimilar combat would cause problems.

Didn't know about that. Interesting.

There was a study looking into navalising the Typhoon, but I don't know how comprehensive it was. Going by how often its suggested as an alternative to JSF, I'm guessing it decided that it was feasible.

I'm not sure how seriously they looked at it though. Until recently there has been - in public at least - a sense that we were committed to the JCA as the only "game in town". So I do wonder if it was anything other than a "tick the box" exercise.

The Harrier did have the advantage of generally eliminating the main reason why naval aircraft have to be built like bricks...

True, I guess. But you find these things often carry their own cost - in this case it was combat radius and bring-back weight (the latter being one of the issues that led to the Sea Harrier's retirement or so I had read.).

Karl

Supposedly a study was done to see if navalizing a Typhoon was do-able. What jet aircraft that was designed as a land based aircraft ever converted for carrier use? I can only think of one - the British Hawk - which became the T-45 Goshawk.

Well, the Harrier spawned the Sea Harrier and AV-8* series, although those were significant enough redesigns that it is questionable whether they were "converted" as such. The VF-17 did spawn the F-18. I can't think of much off-hand that has gone straight from land onto ship in terms of long-term service. There are some that have gone the other way though - the Bucaneer adapted very happily to land-based service once the RN had packed away the last of our large carriers.

Karl

No, but it is what properly proportioned landing gear are for. But then again, nothing else is in proportion on the DX, so why should the landing gears be different?

At least it is demonstrating the virtue of consistency.......

Karl

fair enough but have you realised that you will not be able to put the gun pod in fighter mode with the gears down with michel ?

Isn't that why the hory froating head invented Gerwalk mode? :-)

Karl

And during the 60s, the RAF did dogfight a Spitfire with an English Electric Lightning - it seems that while the Lightning could always choose to engage and disengage at its usual warp speed, the Spitfire did quite well. Maybe fitting a couple of ASRAAMs wouldn't be too bad an idea...

I can see that making for an interesting engagement actually - the Spit was designed with the dogfight in mind, whereas the Lightning was.....not so much for the turning. A bit of a mismatch actually, and the sort of extreme case likely to give odd results.

It would be nice to see Naval Typhoons, and it would seem to be the best way to spread some of the costs involved around if the UK JSF doesn't happen.

The thing is though, I'm not sure whether there has been any real work done on the baseline stuff for navalising a Typhoon - like undercarriage loading, corrosion resistance issues. It may well be that it would be a case of having to start from scratch, and it is anyones guess if we are going to be able to afford that in the near future. With the Rafale or the S'Hornet all of that work is already done. On the other hand the tabloid press would be jumping up and down screaming if we bought a French aircraft.... which almost makes me want it to happen just for the hilarity of watching the reaction.....

Karl

I think my standards must be a bit lower than most folks because like VFTF1 a few pages back I am pretty happy with the 1/60th. It isn't entirely one hundred percent accurate to the model but I find myself looking at it and thinking "yeah, that is near enough for horseshoes(or hand grenades)".

There has been only two things stopping me putting in a preorder - one was not knowing whether either of them were coming with any accessories that the other lacks (and it sounds like they don't), and the other is an attack of indecision as to whether I want the Ozma version or the Alto. (Seeing as I can't have both). (Mind you, the reason I can't have both is I want to be absolutely sure that I have the funds available for the Michel version once it hits - ludicrous mecha-scale sniper weapons are definitely a hit with me.)

Karl

Well, if we do pull out there have been a couple of ideas for a back-up plan bandied around. Given that the only major design difference that is planned between our new carriers and the one that is planned for the French Navy is that the latter is going to have catapults it wouldn't be to hard for ours to be built able to operate conventional aircraft. So there has been muttering about producing a navalised version of the Typhoon, and even some wild speculation about buying the naval Rafale. The latter would have the advantage of being an off-the-shelf purchase,but I'm not sure how politically acceptable buying a French aircraft would be. The former sounds viable in theory, but given the slippage in the dates for delivery of some of the RAF Typhoons I'm not sure how viable taking it to production would be in the short-term.

We might have to get a bit longer out of our GR9's than we were anticipating.

Karl

I have to admit I am very tempted to preorder one of these - probably not the Alto as I prefer Ozma's colour palette. The newer prototypes look like great strides have been made. It could be an expensive back half of the year at this rate.

Karl

I would have to go for:-

"Don't be late" - it was this track that first caught my attention in the trailer for "Frontier", not the animation, not the hardware, but the song. It stuck in my head and I find myself humming the intro quite a bit at work (I don't sing, never sing - there are reasons).

and the Ranka version of

"W'bout my star"

there is just something about it that is quite catchy. I'm kind of hoping it will be on either the OST or a single at some point.

Karl

btw it's still on sale http://www.hlj.com/product/YMT00050 71 USD! ShAZAM!!!

*BOOM* Oh yeah, I forgot. I only get struck by the magic lightning bolt when _I_ say the magic word.....

Why must you dangle temptation in front of me. I have to by a new oven in the next month or so, I have no funds to spare for Valkyries!

But seriously - love the YMCA poses, that sort of absurdity always brings a smile to my face.

Karl

It isn't really adultery surely - given that Roy isn't married. I think one of the requirements before you can cheat on your spouse is that you actually have to have a spouse.

Karl

So are there any brits who are going to be screaming, "rapped childhood"? Or are they all pretty much aware of the series origins?

Probably not in all honesty. We aren't particularly inclined to that sort of thing by national character. (Sort of like when British Transformers fans saw the early 2007 movie pictures, in my experience we just sort of shrugged and said "oh, flames, odd"). I would have been surprised to see any of the "Action Force" backstory in a movie based on "Gi Joe". Two subtly different but genetically related franchises.

Actually, I'm rather looking forward to "Gi Joe", it shows all the potential to be an entertainingly terrible film.

Karl

Well thats when you pull out the Japanese dubs of the other shows... and that's when you compare copyright dates.

Yep, pretty much. I will hang my head in shame and admit I don't have that data on tap in my head, but I always know where to send people looking for it.

There are modern day helicopters without tail rotors, they use their exhaust to stabilize IIRC.

Yep, the NO-TAR concept (No TAil Rotor), some of them look quite funky. I have a sort of half-love for the Auroran - based purely on my love of the underdog - it's a silly looking design, and not particularly effective even in the context of it's home show. And in Robotech, as you say Jenius it just looks like a technological leap down a blind alley. Somehow that endears it to me a little.

Karl

And uh... the one thing I didn't much like about Southern Cross was that other than those biroids and the hover tanks - I don't think they had much other Mecha - did they?

VFTF1

There was the "Flying Cat" (Logan in Robotech), the Auroran (AGACS in Robotech), several non-transformables seen in the series and a number more seen in the opening animation and a military police robot thing - off the top of my head.

I actually fall into the category of "prefer the original versions, but still have a mild soft spot for "Robotech". I've got SDF Macross and GC Mospeada for when I want to watch the shows properly, and I've got "Robotech" for when I am more in the mood to watch the tat versions. That said - when a friend and I watched "Shadow Chronicles" we did end up getting extremely drunk in order to cope with the pain....

Mind you, I actually have come across the "Robotech came first" lobby - one or two folk have said in my presence "When the Japanese dubbed Robotech into Japanese they just did the Macross Saga and pretended it was a show by itself". Which fills me full of irritation and choler.

Karl

Yeah, but that's still a "severe career limiting" move. Damaging a perfectly good airplane? He'll be flying a desk soon.

Indeed - and given that we don't have very many of those.... I would say that the RAF would be expecting better of folk who have gone through the conversion course. Wouldn't be surprised if he finds himself in a lot of hot water once he is back home.

Karl

I managed to miss out of the CMS Rey type sadly. But I am sufficiently impressed with my Stick that some back-up for him would not go amiss. The Yellow looks decent, and I would be severely tempted by it. The Hoquet type however is pretty much a certainty. I can't even think about putting the group together without her, and it would be good to have them all in the same scale. (That said, I am still considering picking up the Megahouse ones , so I may end up with clones of the rabble...).

I sadly am not going to be able to afford the Red CMS Legioss at this point in time. I do regret it, as it is the only one of the core three that I don't have a three mode transformable version of. If a re-release were to come along in a year or to I might be seriously tempted then though.

Karl

Yeah, but Guardian robots weren't in the original toy colour. Technically Guardian robots aren't carbon-copies of Omega Supreme, either. They were pretty fat bastards.

From my perspectiver (coming from the UK I lean much more toward the comic than the Sunbow 'toon), that doesn't look much like a Guardian unit at all. Guardian units were much more humanoid in form, and a mix of silver and yellow in colour. To my eyes that just looks like a random recolour of Omega Supreme called "Guardian Robot" for no specific reason.

I'd love someone to do a proper toy of a Guardian unit, but then I'd also quite like one of Centurion and Impactor...

Maybe it's a "british" thing?

Karl

One question for you guys that have played around more with these: can the Treads head rotate? The pics in the instructions show it turning but mine doesn’t come all the way up and I don’t want to force the metal bar I connects to.

The Tread's head certainly can rotatate in the horizontal plane. I had the pleasant experience today of watching someone unfamiliar with the design learn that for themselves when I got my Tread down from the shelf for them to have a fiddle with. The head should slide far enough up to clear the neck of the socket it folds down to, at which point it should rotate fairly easily.

Karl

But as I type this I'm now leaning towards it being gunpowder or accelrant based as opposed to a railgun... for the sake that the weapon is Single shot/ semi-auto. A reason for such being that it has to compensate for recoil created by the propulsion of the slug, and probably the dissipation of heat from the combustion. If it was a railgun using magnetics propulsion, you wouldn't need a pause in between shots as there is no friction in space and no recoil created since there is no combustion as the slug is simply being pushed by the weapon through magnets.

True, but if the weapon was built around a capacitor based power system you would be restricted by the charged/discharge cycle time on the capacitors. The VF-25 would be able to supply power to the weapon fairly readily, it has a fusion reactor after all, but you would still be limited by the cycle time of the weapons power accumulation system.

Karl

Gravity, quake with fear - your nemesis has returned!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7350939.stm

Oh, now that is a beautiful sight!

Karl

Only just had a chance to see this - some of the subbed versions I have simply kill my laptop stone-dead. And I'm taking forced reboot from a "drawing error" KOing the display driver. Fortunately the AiA MP4 is something my system can handle.

Quite impressed, quite impressed indeed. I did notice the string of homages to the original series that made up the opening few minutes, but fortunately they were riffed on enough that it didn't seem too forced I'm actually liking what they are doing with the characters - Ozama (spelling probably wrong but I am too tired to check) seems quite nicely rounded as a character, he clearly has a deep-seated issue with the Vajra which makes him prone to "act out" but at the same time he is a very different person around his sister. Add to that the hints of a personal history with Cathy Glass and I think there is going to be an interesting road to travel with that characters. Alto I rather like as well - he has a quite believable reaction to his first experience of combat, and even his sudden impulse to ask to join the SMS pilots seems to be a natural action for his character rather than a random plot-development thing.

It does feel like we are getting a "unified field theory" of Macross in action with this show. Another angle on the musical mysticism of "Zero" and "Seven", along with a little bit of the grounded feel of "Plus" and with a lot of carryover from the original series. I'm hopeful that the whole is going to add up to more than just a "greatest hits" package though. It feels like this series already has a definite sense of a direction it wants to go in, I think it is going to be fun finding out what lies along the road.

Karl

The new(er) A88 seems to have something of a bad rep...the only real problem I have with it is that it was too short!

Really? I hadn't heard anything one way or another about it, so I picked up the first volume cheap and thought it was ok. Not spectacular but certainly watchable - one I got past the character design on the lead. Pilots shouldn't have enough hair that it interferes with their depth perception when they have a helmet on! :-)

I was impressed with the aerial choreography, and with the effort put into researching the aircraft (Harriers (mostly GR1s and 2s) and Phantoms were something I grew up with to one degree or another so they sprang out at me when I watched it).

I'm probably going to wait until I can rent the second and third volume from somewhere. The £19.00 price tag is a little too steep for my blood to be honest, especially as I don't think it is a series I would rewatch that often. It is a decent show, and one I do intend to see the rest of, but not one I would rewatch regularly I don't think.

But Area 88 is one of my special favorites, so I'm more than a little biased.

I've not actually seen the previous adaption, or read the comic. Up until now it is something that I have been aware of rather than something I was familiar with. It is quite nice to be able to go into something with no baggage and expectations one way or another. Pretty much everything else I see these days has either been hyped or anti-hyped long before I can get near it.

Karl