Apollo Leader

Moisture in B-2's air sensors caused crash. Sad thing was it had been an issue discovered on a previous deployment to Guam, but the fix for dealing with the issue had never been properly relayed to other pilots and ground crews.

I just watched both videoes over multiple times. Obviously something caused the aircaft to violently pitch up like that. The question is after it nearly stalled, was the crash caused by that loss of airspeed or was the crash caused by the issue (whether it be electrical, mechanical, aeronautical) that caused the aircraft to nearly stall to begin with? Sad to see such an awesome piece of machinery to meet its end like that, but great to see that ejection system worked perfectly for both crew members. To Starcream, the YF-23 was rolled out in 1990 and both YF-23's flew that year.

It sounds like Itagaki's beef with Tecmo has been ongoing for several years so obviously he's got a case built up though it remains to be seen if he has a valid case. Too bad this had to happen though. As for Ninja Gaiden 2, I'll see how the demo is like, but I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually add it to my collection.

That first picture is apparently the proof that the Matchbox VF-1 was indeed suppose to be partially or entirely transformable, though it looks like in this incarnation the swing bars are still permanently molded to the rest of the airframe. As for the Rick Hunter action figure blister pack, that's obviously GI Joe's Barbeque.

That's a picture of YF-23 #2, S/N 87-801. YF-23 #1, S/N 87-800, is the aircraft at the Air Foce Museum. I you take a look through the museum's restoration pictures, there are a few dated from early 2007. The link I provided a few days I believe are suppose to be newer pictures... just looked at them again, they are dated from just a few weeks ago on 5/9/08. Hopefully it's on display either in the Annex or at the main part of the museum next summer... I'm tentatively planning on making a trip out to Dayton. As for YF-23 #2, maybe it's back on display at that one museum in southern California?

So is Tamashii soppose to be Bandai's "international" arm for certain products? Besides the 1/55th VF-1's (in conjunction with Toynami), there's quite a few other things being plugged on this page including Gundam Fix Figuration and Mobile Suit In Action. Does that mean that these guys are dealing with the US and other foreign releases of Macross, Gundam, and other Bandai anime related products?

Whenever I got to the Air Force Museum's website, the only pictures of the YF-23 are of it in a much more disassmbled form so I thought it was still being restored. Where would newer pictures be?

To answer a few things from above: 1) The Speed Racer movie is based on the US English dub of the old anime Mach GoGoGo. Both were out in the late 1960's. 2) Very doubtful the VF-1 will be seen in the Robotech live action movie. Big West owns the rights to the design and I extremely doubt they would let Harmony Gold and Universal(?) use the design in this new design. 3) Regarding Macross II, part of the reason there hasn't been any serious toy developments in the last decade is that allegedly Shoji Kawamori has been against it (Macross II isn't considered canon in the current scheme of things and the designs weren't by Kawamori and Studio Nue).

For my fellow Northrop fans (don't worry, Nied, no Faux News links this time ), Work on restoring the first YF-23 continues. Northrop/Grumman starting work on the "B-3"? And one more thing F-4 Phantom II turns Phifty.

Okay, I missed this development. All I got to say is, THUNDER! THUNDER! THUNDERCATS, NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Well, I guess we'll see how this turns out.

Konami enters the fray with Rock Revolution. I do like the songs that they have in the trailer (namely Skid Row's Youth Gone Wild), but it looks like Rock Revolution is going with covers for the time being. Rock Revolution will have its own unique drum. Speaking of drums, Gutiar Hero IV's drum set has been revealed: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/14/game-inf...-hero-iv-drums/ How many plastic guitars and drum sets am I going to have by this time next year????

I've looked over in the For Sale section, but can't find anything posted for this preorder. Someone please post the link! Never mind, found it.

Ha, thanks for my new signature! You did forget the whole "Vader's hands are too small" issue, though. But yeah I can't understand why we wouldn't want some sort of conflict resolution between all these parties. It is ultimately us fans that are hurt by this mess.

Well put. This is a big victory for us Macross fans in that not only do we see a US release of these items at prices less then the Japanese release, but since most (if not all) of these toys will be released as Macross products and NOT as Robotech, it's a validation of the real series.

DYRL R1 release is what I'm hoping for.

Metal Gear Retrospective - Part 1

Aargh, you bear me to it. Just way too busy to post any trailer links this weekend. Anyway it looks awesome... just hoping that "Seriously" is not an achievement in this game again! Here's a Youtube copy of the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxoU8wCEr2A

There's an Imax theater here in the area showing Speed Racer so maybe I might go see it tonight. But when I exit the theater will I be singing, "Go Speed Racer, go Speed Racer, Gooooooo!" or will I be singing, "No Speed Racer, No Speed Racer, Nooooooo!"

Funny you asked about Halo 3... I actually played the game for the first time in 3 months earlier this week. I had quit during this time in part because because I was back into seriously playing Gears of War again and that I really needed to take a break from it since I had started becoming too obsessed with getting my rank up and trying to earn the last achievement I needed to totally beat the game. Regrading "my fanboy conspiracy nutjob" statement, it wasn't intended as a personal jab at you, but instead was intended to be a general comment towards some of the attitudes that exist here. Whether it be here on Macross World or other enthusiast based message boards (Macross, anime, video games, etc.), we sometimes get too wound up in our hobbies and take things way too personally. We also start anthropomorphicizing these companies into these imaginary friends/protagonists (Big West, Yamato, etc.) or enemies/antagonists (Harmony Gold, Toynami, etc.) when most of us know very little about the actual people who run and work for these businesses, what legal issues they are dealing with, economic restraints and limitations, etc. Sadly I used to go off on a lot of these fanboy tangents myself in part to take out my fustrations with situations I couldn't control and situations I didn't have a complete understanding of. I feel real sorry for people like George Sohn. The guy is clearly a fan and enthusiast like the rest of us. He's put a lot on the line trying to make a living for himself and his employess based off of something he loves to do. But yet by coming to a place like here or other boards, you would think that George was the anti-Christ. Just a day or two back, someone started a thread which called Toynami "Toynazi" just for the sole purpose of bashing the company. What are people like George or any of his employees suppose to think when they hop onto Macross World? It's one thing to criticize the company because of delays, QC issues, accuracy and appearance of the products, etc., but when we start getting this wound up, personal, and venomistic, that is just taking it too far. Hopefully this is an adequate explination of where it was I was trying to come from with my original comments. As for your concerns with some of Toynami's past record when it comes to the timeliness and actually following through on some of their products (though it looks like their Beta is heading towards an actual reality now AND the 1/100th FAST Packs are now very close to release), it has to be remembered here that it's BANDAI doing the heavy work here. Toynami is just being the middle man. We are going to see some real results here since we are talking about a company with the size and resources as Bandai does.

With the way things are going, it is a good idea to: 1) Square away one's debt, in particular your credit cards. In the last month I finished off a 5 year bank loan I had and I finished paying off my credit cards. This is like the first time I've been debt free in 9 years. 2) Start stocking up on food and clothing. I already have enough canned and frozen stuff to meet most of my food needs for a few months. 3) Consolidate one's driving in as few trips as possible. Bike and walk when you can. Since the weather around where I live is finally becoming more spring like I'm going to try biking to work most days that I can.

If you see George, pick his brain and see if you can find out how this all came down.

I would argue more like 6 or 7 since that was when the Bandai rereleases were first done. It was still the time that the old 1/55th's were still going for an arm and a leg on eBay. But regardless, I'm happy this is finally becoming a reality. There are a lot of us Macross toy collecting diehards who will always love the 1/55th. Not only was this a great looking transforming toy for its day (still is), it was also very rugged and durable. Sadly Yamato has had QC issues with their stuff and their stuff is not as rugged or durable as the old 1/55th. I really hope and pray that Yamato's Macross toys will be able to hit the states too at better prices. I pretty much gave up on Yamato's stuff a year or so ago because I am having a hard time justifying paying in excess of $100 or $200 or hunks of plastic that are going to sit in a box or tote container for the next few years until I have space to display them. I ended up canceling out on getting the 1/60th YF-21 because it was just too expensive for me to justify. $150 or so to get the new 1/60th Strike VF-1S is also now getting to be way to rich for my tastes. Before shipping, it looks like the Super VF-1's will be selling under $90. I need to jog my memory, but I think I payed a little more then this in 2002 dollars. Adjusted for anflation and everything this still comes out to be a better deal. This fan boy, conspiracy nut job stuff has got to end. Why would they post that information unless they are truly serious in persuing it? The original molds for the Elint Seeker and Super Ostrich may be gone, but using samples of the original toys along with modern CAD/CAM, this shouldn't be a huge problem.

Well Robotech.com has the VF-1S and J for preorder for $79.99. Considering that Big Bad Toy Store is preordering the Super VF-1A's at $84.99, I wouldn't be surprised if you could find the VF-1J and S for well less then $80 through other dealers.

Hopefully that last blurb means that the Super Ostrich and Elint Seeker will be getting some love... and a US release.

This was brought to my attention a little bit ago: Article on the deal up at Robotech.com Based off of what I'm reading (if I have read this correctly), the TV series VF-1's will be marketed as Robotech, but DYRL VF-1 Valkyries will be marketed as such. Guess we'll see how this pans out. I've looked at the preorder pages for the VF-1J and S and they are being pushed as MACROSS VALKYRIES, so hopefully the TV series will be Macross, too.