ChronoReverse

Go back a few pages, the calculations have already been shown. In any case, it's trivial to convert from kg to N assuming they're using Earth as the reference.

Not to mention it was pulling moves that are VERY familiar.

The only issue I have with that is the semi-experimental status of the VF-25. With that many, it's practically already in mainline service. It does explain where they keep finding more VF-25 and VF-25 parts for Alto though.

We've also been told the EX-Gear system allows the pilot to take more g's. Clearly something wasn't thought out quite as well here...

The only thing there new and interesting is the G limit of the VF-25: 27.5G This is the what the YF-19 was: +31.0/-18.5 Pulling up, even the YF-19 exceeds the VF-25 significantly? Incidentally this is the G limit of the VF-22: +60/-45 So yeah... the VF-25 has massively more powerful engines than the VF-19 or VF-22 but is not any faster nor can it accelerate any better =X

I know what he said and I know what you said and I'm directly agreeing with him and disagreeing with you. If you look at the image of the YF-21 in space, you'll see a lot of damage that couldn't have come from a collision (such as the leading and trailing edges of the wings as well as on the engine nacelles). The damage also has a frayed look that indicates that it's more than superficial paint damage. The material has actually been shredded by the air.

If you look at the intact piece of the YF-21 when it's in orbit after the battle, you can see that it's pretty much junked from the heat damage as well as the structural damage from the collision. Alternatively, if you use purely thrust and little-to-no aerobraking, then conceivably, the heat the builds up is much less.

Sound Energy and Anima Spiritia will save the day!

That's what I meant by excess energy for the SWAG. If the VF-25 is pushing to reach Mach 5 then there's not enough energy for the SWAG. Fine. But if it's not pushing to reach Mach 5, then it would have excess energy for the SWAG and should be able to push further. Since the VF-19 can hit Mach 5 before the thermal issues, it seems odd that the VF-25 can't push even further. This is before considering the VF-27 which has even more ridiculously powerful engines. Note that this is cruising speed. It's almost certainly true that the VF-25 and VF-27 have way higher instantaneous speeds (and the ability for the pilots to withstand the accelerations for those). Hmm, our jet planes leech power from the engines because they're turbines and part of the rotation is being used to generate electricity. I wonder if the OT thermonuclear engines can avoid that. For that matter, are they even turbines anymore? A lot of energy is wasted as heat anyway so if only the waste is captured there might not be a need to steal energy from thrust under most circumstances. We don't even have to worry about theoretical efficiencies either since we can make the engines run uber hot as well as break some laws of physics because of Overtechnology lol.

@David Hingtgen I like that theory too since it does neatly explain a few things. With that said, it's also notable that the VF-25 and the VF-27's top atmospheric speed is still about the same as the VF-19 citing thermal issues. With that much excess energy for the SWAG I'm a bit surprised that hasn't been increased. Perhaps only enough energy to boost the SWAG or the speed but not both as you say? The accelerations are definitely higher though since it's already mentioned the EX-Gears help with that. Dude, the Space Shuttle masses over 68 tons. The VF-19 is only about 8.5 tons which is less than even the featherweight F-16! And the fuel in Macross seems to be very efficient and low mass (magic Overtechnology lol) The primary issue with the earlier variable fighters getting into space is less thrust but fuel anyway. Since they're jets, they can fly up high in an efficient manner before switching to rocket mode and pulling into orbit. With that, you only need a positive thrust to weight ratio (which isn't sufficient for rockets).

This is digging up an old topic, but I was bored and looked up some more thrust values of a few noteworthy fighters. The original VF-1 (225+kN) has less thrust than the F-14D at 240+kN much less the current F-22 (312+kN)*! The VF-4 has marginally more at 274+kN The VF-11 has 558+kN which is just a smidgen over 2x as much as the VF-1 The VF-19 (1107+kN) is 2x that for almost 5x as much as the VF-1 The VF-25 can output 3240+kN which is about 14x (!) more than the VF-1 (incidentally, one VF-25 engine provides the same thrust as one Space Shuttle Main Engine). At the same time, there's the VF-27 (5508+kN) at 24x (!?) the VF-1. One of of these progressions don't follow up with the rest... *Although the F-22 is also heavier than the VF-1, the F-22 actually has a higher g limit (+9) compared to the VF-1 (+7). I guess they're technically "contemporary" fighters in terms of timeline... In any case, the matchup between the variable fighter and F-14 isn't actually that bad before taking transformation into account (the F-14D is about the same in terms of stats as the VF-1). These are just stats of course, but it's still fun to indulge.

You seriously need to separate Feasible Within Physics, Feasible Financially, and Feasible With Overtechnology. I was talking Feasible Within Physics. And neutron flux is much reduced when you have a much smaller pellet of pure fuel. Not to mention that lead is a poor neutron shield. You want something with hydrogen like water or plastics. Which is still pointless since I've just postulated the use of near pure fuel. You can also use a lot less fuel. Using pure fuel coupled with solid compression (something difficult to do but not beyond physics) along with a manner of neutron flux control that requires less space like shaping and space separation and it's a lot less unfeasible. Aren't we using this as a jet engine power source? There's the coolant. The rest is just engineering it such that it doesn't overheat within a certain amount of time. This isn't about how financially feasible it is. This is about how it's possible within the bounds of physics. Your thinking is also way too constrained as evidenced by your continued use of "fuel rods" when that might not even be applicable. And now you're going back to physics? Ultimately a small fission reactor isn't so much physically impossible but rather extremely difficult (understatement) to engineer and fantastically expensive (also an understatement). But that's entirely different from "breaking the laws of physics".

Fundamentally you only need to have a chain reaction. And you definitely don't need a runaway chain reaction. At normal densities, you'd need to have a certain mass. Compress it and you'd need a whole lot less. Considering a ball of plutonium smaller than a soccer ball is enough for a runaway reaction (usually results in a "mess"), there's no physical reason why a fission reactor can't be made the size of a Smart Car eventually. Especially if we add in Overtechnology into the mix.

I didn't say anything about the 171 vs the 17. I meant the 17 vs the 19/22 in that all three were special ops. Now it's clear that the experimental versions of the 19/22 were tough to pilot, but by the time it made it to production, those kinks are worked out and the difference shouldn't have been that great anymore. Particularly in space where some of the nasty things that could happen, don't happen. And we know that the 171 is easier to fly and produce so that implies that the original 17 wasn't really that was even after so many years of production. And as for cheaper, it was cheaper at the same time because the 17 had been out for a while, but there's a reason why it was also relegated to special ops in small numbers. Again, it had to be redesigned because the 17 wasn't that cheap (like the stealth materials) so it had to cut down. The result is the certainly cheaper and easier to fly VF-171 of which _I had not disputed_ If you have uber powerful engines in comparison to a much older fighter (the production engines were as powerful as the first set of engines on the YF-19), then I'd say there's a case for the VF-17 being disappointing in terms of atmospheric performance. The VF-11 even has canards that limit speed but give it greater maneuverability. Isn't that utterly premature? One of the things that have been noted is how the 25's basic design is pretty light and shouldn't be that hard to mass produce eventually. For the elite, there's the fast packs and armor packs.

In episode 1 of Frontier, we already saw why the Ghost wouldn't be able to do jack against the Varja either.

I'm not sure why there's so much going on about the VF-17 being "easy to fly" and "cheap to produce". Not only was it made using special stealth materials (it had passive stealth as well as active) but its original design meant it was very poor in an atmosphere. Also, it wasn't really that widely deployed. In Macross 7, it was reserved for the special forces until they were replaced by VF-19's and VF-22's. Now the VF-25 is a true successor to the the VF-11. SMS already has like a dozen of them. We didn't even see six VF-19's in Macross 7.

Ah good, I didn't have bad memory, I just relied on bad information =) With that said, it still doesn't explain the VF-171EX being so high performance (relatively). If that can be upgraded to such stronger engines, the VF-19/22, both being designed to withstand higher stresses in the first place, should also be able to incorporate more powerful engines.

Actually I meant what I said. However, I need to search back on some threads (and there's a LOT now) for where that was mentioned (which was pretty early). I could be just imagining it after all. What was said was something to "the VF-25's performance is only somewhat better than the VF-19/22". I took this to mean something like how the VF-19 had only somewhat better performance than the VF-17 while in space (the VF-19 was far superior in an atmosphere). Even in Frontier, the VF-171EX was close enough to the VF-25 that Alto could put a scratch on Ozma. Sure piloting makes a difference, but unless they've upgraded the VF-171 so much that it's unbelievable (in which case, why not the VF-19/22?), it's far-fetched for the VF-25 to have that much more thrust.

How can Kowamori say that the VF-25 still has similar performance to the VF-19 and VF-22 with a straight face when it appears to have so much more thrust? Maybe they also upgraded the engines in those fighters as well?

Even if it were fission, it can still be quite clean. OT allows for thin light airframes to be tougher than tank armor. I don't see why thin light shielding is much of a stretch. Please note I'm not saying that the valkyries use fission. I'm just saying that given what we know about OT, building a small light fission reactor isn't any stretch at all. Furthermore, we already have modern pebble-bed designs where the fission material is embedded in glass beads. Even if pulverized it's pretty much inert. And our coal power plants have been dumping huge, Huge, HUGE amounts of radioactive elements into the atmosphere since they occur naturally in coal. Naturally occurring radon gas is also very significant. Even granite is slightly radioactive. Destroying even a fleet of hypothetical fission valkyries really won't have much effect on Earth.

Eh. Most of that is true of fusion as well. It's tremendously complex, requires careful application of pressure, a way to contain the plasma, lots of heat to dissipate. It's only plus is that on such small scales, it can't "run away" but neither can most modern fission designs. In any case, because we're told the OT engines are thermonuclear, we know it's fusion, but there's really not much reason why it can't be fission.

When you consider the extreme excess of thrust available to the variable fighters, they most certainly can fly. And we already know that the material in them are at least as strong as tank armor but still light even as early as Macross Zero. This is why structural integrity and transformation isn't an issue. As for GERWALK, the way it's used is always (relatively) low speed maneuvering like Alto's first stunt or it's for bleeding off speed very quickly to get behind your tail.

Even in Plus, they pulled stunts that are way too high for humans to withstand already ignoring Guld's final one. It should've been assumed there was some sort of inertial dampeners already. Besides, if you have the ability to control gravity with any sort of finesse, the basics of inertial dampening become trivial.

2 x 1620 = 3240 4 x 1377 = 5508 As a point of comparison, the VF-22 has 2 x 639 kN engines if I'm reading it correctly. The Macross compendium says 2 x 65200kg which actually doesn't mean much at all but it also says (x g) so I've assumed Earth gravity is the measure. The cruising speed for the VF-22 at 10k feet is also about Mach 5 so I presume they still haven't figured out the airframe overheating problem.

I wonder if the funky teleporting effect has anything to do with this. However, the effect was also used in space where presumably it wouldn't be needed =(