F-ZeroOne

Thanks, though I more often get a "funny weird" than "funny ha ha!" response...! Sorry I can't help you with a website; only thing I can think of is to see if you can find a copy of a Janes - perhaps your local library could help...?

None other than R.J. Mitchell, the designer of the Spitfire itself, commenting on the name given to his plane by the Supermarine admin. (I can't believe I know that ) Thanks for the clip, G, it was a good laugh . Pin-pon! You win... uh... ...we'll get back to you on that...! We British have traditonally preferred understatment to invective, and have generally found it possible to express all our outrage into sentences like "Three Panzer divisions and a squad of Tigers heading for us, and all we have is this broken Sten gun? Oh, bother." Destroids Rage - I don't know of a suitable website, but the pedant in me needs to point out that the Vickers Vimy was actually a late World War One design; I believe it was created after Air Marshal Hugh Trenchard asked for a "bloody paralyzer of an aeroplane" to attack German strategic targets.

Radd - yeah, I had a bit of trouble getting the leg armour on. It does appear to require a degree of force unless theres some secret technique I'm missing. Takatoys decals - I suspect, though I can't be certain, that being based on the Hasagawa models they've come out a touch too small - possibly the Yamato FAST packs are a bit bigger than strictly speaking they should be. I went with the Yamatos because their skull fills the circle more completely, but I used the Takatoys for everyones favourite MW fan artist on the leg side packs ( for those who haven't a clue what I'm going on about... "Beware of... " ) I put my Budweiser and Cola stickers on the Reaction warheads, partly because its more obvious and partly because I don't have a handy reference copy of DYRL around...!

Theres a good deal of evidence to suggest that the very best pilots have outstanding spatial awareness - they might not be able to physically look straight behind them but they have an uncanny ability to be aware of whats going on around them in the sky. During World War II, the British ace "Sailor" Malan used to pin a dot on a wall and then practice swivelling his eyes towards it, so that he could train his eyes to quickly focus on a target. Its possible the rear-view mirrors on the early Valkyrie block numbers are actually fed by rear view cameras. Hurricanes, Spitfires, and other WW II aircraft also used mirrors, though for every technical account that describes them as being too small to be really useful, theres another account of how a pilot looked upwards at the crucial moment a Me109 was sneaking up behind... I believe that during the Vietnam war, an awful lot of attackers were spotted by the back-seater in F-4 Phantoms.

Anime, science fiction, reading, and history, particuarly military history from World War I.I. I also enjoy video games but find I rarely have as much time to play them anymore as I would like. That may change with Half-Life 2 hopefully appearing shortly, and then PC Knights of the Old Republic around Christmas time...! B) My work colleagues would also say that I am just a touch obsessed with Japanese bullet trains, but thats only because I work for the UK rail system and feel I am entitled to at least know what several hundred billions pounds-worth of investment can do for your daily train performance...!

Thanks for that, Graham - that was superb! I'm a bit of a Spitfire fetishist, so I enjoyed that a lot! I think that footage may have been shot at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, England. Theres what looks like a B-17 in the background (its hard to tell, but not many other planes have a rudder like that... ) Also - again, its hard to tell for sure - I don't think that was a Merlin making that noise, but a Rolls Royce Griffon engine, which was used in the later marks of Spitfire. I can't be completely certain, because I'm going by the fact that the Spitfire involved looked like a later mark, with the configuration of the underwing radiators and the outboard placement of the cannon barrels (later marks had 20mm cannon outboard, .50 cal MGs inboard). Hey, I said I had a fetish... Pop quiz - who remarked that the name Spitfire was "just the sort of bloody silly name that they would choose?"

Well, I finally got my FAST Packs today - thanks to Kevin and the Valkyrie Exchange, and no thanks to Her Majestys Customs for the huge customs bill I will no doubt be receiving later... <_< First impression: look at the size of those things! ( despite which, I still managed to walk right past the box when I first came home this morning... ) Yep, they are quite heavy, but something I don't think has been emphasized is how freakin' huge the Packs are; its suddenly obvious why Valks can't use them in atmosphere - they'd just go into a flat dive...! Although I have a set of Takatoys decals, I mostly used the Yamato Strike ones; this is no slur on the quality of Takatoys decals, which I've used on my 1/48 itself - Yamato, please learn from this guy! - but partly due to my being a bit of a klutz and partly being in a hurry to get the stickers on so I could fit the packs. Quibbles first: take your time. I found it quite difficult to attach the armour; however I should have slowed down a bit and looked closely at everything - once you've actually attached something, its suddenly obvious what you should have done in the first place ( I even managed to fit the arm armour backwards first try...! ). Landing gear on my VF-1S does have a bit of trouble; it can collapse if the Valk is pushed hard enough but its not generally a big problem. The gunpod does also hang a bit low. The micro-missiles were a bit of a pain; in fact if your experience is anything like mine you might need eye protectors because the things were springing all the over the place! However, again, this might be due to there being "flash" from the sprue left on the rockets and me not taking proper time to file it off, or even remove the missiles from the sprue properly. That might all sound negative - however, to sum up, I adore these things and only wish I had more room for more Valks and their FAST packs. My VF-1S suddenly looks like it could take on the entire Zentraedi fleet on its own, Minmay or no Minmay! I also love the little "drinks can" stickers, which was a nice touch on Yamatos part. And, oh, the packs fit very snugly; the only looseness can be found on the dual Reaction warheads and even thats not a significant trouble. If I ever get to Japan again, I might have to find a loose set of 1/55 armour just so my 1/55 Max doesn't feel inadequate anymore...!

I don't have any inclination to paint the tips red, but its obviously a matter of preference. I could quibble a bit about it being "anime accurate" though, because in at least one episode of Macross TV ( "Pineapple Salad" ), Maxs missiles have both red and blank tips at various times during the same dogfight...! I actually do quite like the tips on the low-vis, but it does give an impression of it being rather a "painted lady" Valk...!

TV: an utterly stupid idea for a SF show that worked incredibly well. The instant-classic characters, the Valkyries, the story, the overall "look", and Max. DYRL: Stunning production values; opportunity to show what the animators could have done if every TV episode had that much money behind them. And Max. Plus: Everything. One of those anime that reminds you why you got into anime in the first place. More specifically, the Valkyries, the music, the animation, and those dogfights. No Max, though. 7: The music ( no, honestly ). Some good ideas ( the colonisation fleets are pretty well thought out ), and an ( eventually ) involving story. And, of course, Max, the coolest near-60 year old in the Universe. Zero: Not entirely sure just yet, but at the moment, showing us the possible future of anime.

Is that the one where Kaifuns father turns up and rattles on about how Kung-fu was so much harder when he were a lad and bloody youngsters these days can't even do a flying crane stance...? ( sorry! couldn't resist! ) And regarding submarine toilet seats - hey, its a steel tube packed with young male sailors. Theres no way they'd be capable of lowering one quietly without sound-proofing assistance...!

May I suggest that those interested in the Battle of Britain and the defence of Malta look up two excellent books; first, "The Most Dangerous Enemy" by Stephen Bungay & "Fortress Malta" by James Holland. Both are extremely fine reads and the "The Most Dangerous Enemy", especially, explodes quite a few myths. The RAF were not quite as outnumbered as often supposed; if one includes all aircraft the numbers were only slightly in favour of the Germans and much more importantly, the RAF had the bigger reserve - the Luftwaffe were forced to use almost all their strength up front, whereas the RAF were able to keep feeding in replacements. Granted, the replacements were not very expereinced and all too often fell victim to the Luftwaffe experten, but all the RAF had to do was last long enough for the weather to become bad enough to make an invasion impossible. Additionally, the Germans pretty much did not have much idea of how to go about conquering a country entirely by air - not surprisingly, as no-one else had ever done it either. The RAF were in a similar boat, no-one having tried to defend a country entirely by air before, but on the other hand, they had directed a great deal of thought about it ( much more than the Germans had given to invading Great Britain ) and crucially, the two men in the most important posts - Hugh Dowding, C-in-C Fighter Command, and Air ViceMarshal Keith park, in command of the vital 11 Group area, probably knew more about fighter defence than anyone else on Earth at the time. ( Keith Park, in fact, not only stopped the Luftwaffe over England, he then did it again when placed in charge of the Malta air defence later in the war. One of his first questions, upon being told Malta was the most bombed place on the planet, was "Why don't you stop the bombing?". He did just that - in three weeks ).

Is it just me, or does that look slightly like a truncated Zeon symbol from Gundam? Is this Kawamori getting one back for Gundam pinching "UN Spacy" for 0080 & 0083?

If you think thats impressive, you should have seen the size of the wind-up motor!

Very nice pics! I've never been overly keen on the VE-1 design, but those pics make me want to get one...! Pity I've got very little room left...

If you ask me, what killed BattleTech was that blasted cartoon - though it did provide the one line that made it truly memorable: "If you say 'information is ammuntion' one more time, I'm going to put this axe somewhere uncomfortable!" Uh, anyway... I think the 'Mech you're referring to is the Phoeinx Hawk - although I did not have the majority of BattleTech products, I don't recall ever coming across a transformable Dougram/Shadow Hawk ( when I first started playing BattleTech, I didn't have any of the Tech manuals and tried to build the Macross - or as I knew them then, Robotech - mecha with what I thought were the correct weapons. I couldn't work out why I couldn't have a Warhammer/Tomahawk with twin PPCs and twin LRM15s. I later found out that FASA couldn't do it, either...! ) I liked the Shadow Hawk. It could do a bit of everything... One thing I do have a slight grudge against BT is that BattleTech has led to the adoption of the word "Mech" to describe a piloted robot. I much prefer "mecha" - I've described the difference before as being between a walking tank and a dynamic, rocket-boosted, robot ninja... Another of the BT oddities are the Clan "second-line" Mechs that appeared in the 3050 manual. These were of Japanese origin, and I was once told the story behind their design, but I've forgotten exactly what it was. The images that appeared here don't seem to match up with those designs, so I wonder if they were specially commisioned or are in the full set of Japanese BT images...

The Miyazaki-style similarities is due to the fact that Nadia was originally going to be a Miyazaki project, that was passed on for some reason. Gainax have always liked to hint at their anime fan roots; Macross would seem to be a favourite ( Hideki Anno had a small part in the making of Macross TV, and further homages can be seen in Gainaxs own Otaku no Video ).

My Valkyries are generally tied up with my recollections of my trips to Japan. I got the original 1/60 VF-1A from the Gamers store in Akihabara, just one part of a mind-blowing total experience. My 1/48, I was able to get on the day of release, at a lovely shop opposite Akihabara station, from a female sales clerk with a marvellous sing-song voice, after spending most the day at a Wonder Fest. I'll be remembering them for things like that long after the rubber has seeped completely from its knee-joints... B) Whats even better is the FAST Packs will now give me the Valkyrie I've always wanted, from the first early days of discovery of that "R"-series, to the gradual dawning of understanding...