ewilen

Other than Macross, there are a few things I obsess over, to the point of spending lots of time and money. (My wife obviously is tops but that's as it should be.) My #1 long-term obsession is board wargaming. I've also put a lot of time/energy/money into roleplaying games in the past. But I don't actually get to play any of these games very often; fortunately I also like so-called "German games" and I have a few friends I get together with from time to time for gaming sessions. I also like computer games but I'm not currently into any at the moment. The last one I spent a lot of time on was Oni. Before that, it was Marathon (and derivatives), Myth, and Hornet. Speaking of computers, I like to work and play with Macs. (I like to have as little to do with Windows as possible; unfortunately, due to my work, I still have to do some Windows stuff.) I'm interested in foreign policy, and it's an occasional obsession. I have an awesome pet rabbit (not cat, sorry to break the pattern). Someday I'll get him to pose as the stand-in for a 1/48 RC-4E next to my Yamato Valkyrie. He's just about the right size.

TV show. For a summary of the differences between the TV and Movie versions, see http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...t=ST&f=4&t=1295 Compare with the pics in this thread from the old forums: http://www.macrossworld.com/cgi-bin/mwf/ik...;t=7237;hl=vf1j Looks like the arm pieces match the description but the leg armor has nozzles, not a slot.

While quite different from the Valkyrie's fusion-powered jet engines, there was a project to develop a jet that used either a fission reactor or heat from radiactive isotopes to power its engines. See these links (I'm pretty sure this isn't a put-on): Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft NEPA Polonium-Powered Aircraft The general idea was to use either nuclear fission or radioactive isotopes to heat air, causing it to expand and exit the engine at high speed. For comparison, here's a good site explaining how jet engines work: http://www.geae.com/education/engines101/ Anyway, to answer your question, yes, a fusion-powered jet engine would have to be designed from scratch, since the method of transferring heat to air would necessarily be different from a conventional jet, which uses combustion.

Is The Blob hiding under your coffee table?

Warning: the following is based on experience with PC flight simulators. If all you have is a forward-looking radar and TWS (threat warning system), an enemy can sneak up on you from behind and either hit you with cannons or achieve heat-seeking missile lock without your knowledge. To do this, he has to forego using radar himself (or he'll show up on your TWS) and rely on visual spotting. Even if Valks have improved 360° sensors, they might be fooled by stealth technology (though perhaps not at ranges where visually checking your 6 would make a difference).

It's the same head as a VF-1S. New question: what does "Pitaban type" mean? I see it on a lot of models. Are there non-Macross "Pitaban type" models?

Beautiful. Brings me back to when I cared about Trek.

I wanted to try using the 1/48 heat shield in fighter mode but never got around to it. So it definitely won't work, huh? Re: intake covers, as I mentioned in another thread, they're on all the time in space, so if you'd like you can consider it a "perfect transformation" in that environment. imode: You're right of course, but I offer the following experiment. Suppose we want to create a stop-motion animation of a Valkyrie transformation using an existing toy (without modifying the toy). Leaving aside the heatshield issue, I think you could get the most accurate results with a Yamato 1/60. An external-swingbar (Taka/Bandai/MPC/Banpresto) might work okay. I don't think you can position the body/legs properly on a 1/48 during the intermediate stages of transformation.

Apparently it's from a 1982 anime called Technopolice 21c. So it predates Mospeada. I found both on IMDB; I didn't see any overlap in design personnel, but the info for Technopolice is fragmentary.

Yes, the VF-1 Valkyrie leg transformation is different from the VF-0. Detail for the VF-1 can be seen here: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/specia...nsformation.htm Here's the summary picture. (Not posting it inline because it's too big for the forum.) Now, on the 1/60, you totally detach the legs and reattach them. It's a matter of opinion whether that's a better representation of the VF-1 transformation than either an external swing bar (like the Takatoku/Bandai, Toynami MPC, and Banpresto toys) or an internal swing bar (like the Yamato 1/48). In my opinion, if you have four hands at your disposal, you could probably do the most animation-accurate representation of the leg transformation with a 1/60, but that's admittedly a highly anal-retentive observation to make. And in any case, you have to replace the canopy on a 1/60 (although somebody developed a custom with a built-in heatshield); the 1/48's heat shield works pretty much like in the show (even if it's kind of a pain to move).

Are we sure the TV FAST packs will fit a DYRL Valk? I thought there were some slight differences in the arm sculpts on the Valks and/or packs. As for me: no 1/48 VF-1J. I don't like the head--the chin sticks out too much. If the head was more like the 1/60 head, I'd be sorely tempted to get a 1/48 VF-1J w/o FAST packs--but I'd probably resist as I'd rather spend my money on as complete a line of 1/60 destroids & enemy mecha as my wallet and living space can support.

1/72 = 0 1/60 = 1 1/48 = 1

Not necessarily. Check lebhead's summary, which is somewhere around here and/or http://www.valkyrie-exchange.com and/or http://protoculture.lebhead.com Basically, the Yamatos look the best, and if you want a "perfect transformation" Yamato VF-1, your only choice is a 1/48. However, if durability/playability and ease of transformation is important, the Bandai reissues are still worth considering. Plus, they cost a lot less. You'll have to see what other people say about MPC's; I don't have any. There's a lot of animus against them around here, some of which I'm sure is justified. As for the other VF's, Yamato makes them for Macross Plus and will make them for Macross Zero, but not for Macross 7. Bandai did some Macross 7 VF's in 1/65 scale, which have been bootlegged as well. I don't know which of these are "perfect transformation". The best place to see nearly all the offerings is the Valkyrie Factory, at http://www.menet.umn.edu/~ngo/frame.html

I think the intake covers are always closed when Valks are operating in space, so you could leave the intake covers on in fighter mode for a perfect transformation (especially if you have the FAST packs). Also do the main intake covers open in battroid mode in atmosphere when the battroid uses the foot thrusters?

If I'm not mistaken, the basic idea of rocket propulsion is also accelerating mass for thrust. It's just that the mass is carried with you instead of grabbed from your environment. So to carry your point a bit further, one way the Valkyries (and Macross) can achieve high efficiencies in use of reaction mass is to shoot it out the back really, really fast--provided they have enough energy at their disposal. At a certain point you may run into weird relativistic effects (like if you try to accelerate a 300,000 ton space battleship 10 mph by shooting a single hydrogen atom) and/or the jet of reaction mass coming out the back may be a better weapon than your lasers/cannons/railguns. So there may be practical limits on the force achievable by accelerating a given mass out the back of your spacecraft, regardless of how much energy you have available.

Click here for the original discussion in the old forum. The only thing I have to correct is my reference to a 1/65 "carded bootleg cheapie". As noted in the Reviews section, the bootleg in question is really 1/60. So there may not be a good scale match for the destroids and Glaug. On the other hand, the scales we came up with in this thread may be off due to ambiguities in the measuring points.

Yup, thanks much!

If I'm not mistaken, what is distinctive about the 1/55 trimode Legioss is (a) the way the vertical stabilizers/tailfins on the legs are diagonal in fighter mode, and (b) the lack of elbow articulation. The 1/35 and the dual-mode 1/55 have vertical tailfins and normal elbow articulation. The 1/72 looks horrible in fighter mode and has an opaque canopy which distinguishes it in diver mode. It looks okay in battroid mode but it can be distinguished by the fact that the air intakes aren't colored in. These are my observations based on http://www.menet.umn.edu/~ngo/gsamson_legioss.html (But I just noticed that Noel's pic of the 1/55 trimode also doesn't have the intakes colored in.) The http://mospeada.free.fr/ is also an excellent place for identifying toys. Tip: when an image doesn't show up on that site, it's because the author mixed up his forward and back slashes. You can manually correct the URL to get the image to show up.

Does this mean we've figured out how to take them OFF safely? I'm waiting for a final verdict on this before I put mine on.

Whatever you guys do with that 1/100, you might have a look at this Valkyrie Creations page: http://www.geocities.com/valkcreations/index2.htm There's a 1/100 VF-1S Strike, a 1/100 VF-1D Strike (!), and a 1/100 VF-1J GBP-1s (!!).

Yes, it does look like the 1/55 three-mode. Note the way the legfins stick out diagonally. (Why did they make it that way?) The arms on the 1/55 trimode appear to have very limited articulation, which makes it look goofy in diver mode. Good news for HG/Toynami, I suppose, since their Alpha will also be a trimode 1/55. Edit: My question was addressed to Hiriyu and Kanata67, both of whom spotted the 1/100 in the auction as a bootleg.

Ah, so Tatsunoko did work on the DYRL animation. I had assumed otherwise.

Another possibility would be to follow a counterclockwise trajectory from Saturn past Jupiter to Mars. This would give them one more gas giant to suck up some reaction mass, and I'm guessing it would be easier to enter into Mars orbit if you're approaching the planet from "behind". Edit: but if they took this route, they might as well have gone straight to Earth from Jupiter.

Since Saturn is the only giant planet on the "left" side of the solar system at the time, it seems likely to me that the SDF-1's trajectory would start somewhere to the left of Saturn, curve around that planet, and then head more or less straight/clockwise toward Mars's October 5 position. After taking off from Mars, SDF-1 would continue clockwise to Earth. In order to meet the other gas giants as well as Saturn, SDF-1 would have to follow a very long, spiralling, counterclockwise trajectory.

November 15, 2009 (just the inner planets):