Nied

Nice! I was thinking of doing the same thing, I'm just trying to find a good blank for it.

Has anyone tried that gold tint tip (that's a tounge twister) they recomended? I've always wondered how to get a good gold film on to my canopies.

The FSX was at one point going to have ATFI style ventral canards, but that was abandoned. It now looks like a large F-16, and is starting to come into service as the F-2.

Like the tail fins they're too vertical to provide much pitch controll. They are actuated (in episode 27 they tuck up against the legs as Hikaru is entering the atmosphere) but I don't see how they could do anything.

For low speed pitch controll, the VF-1 might be able to use that huge "body flap" attached to the end of the backpack. In almost every drawing and model I've seen it looks to be actuated, and it's definetly big enough to have some controll in low thrust situations. That and the feet are big enough that they might be able to deflect some airflow as well.

Ah but you forgett that the F-22 has an AESA radar. It could detect it's targett and move in for the kill in a low enough power mode to remain undetected and only really light up it's targett once the AMRAAM is off. Actually now that I think about it, isn't the AMRAAM data-linked during the early sages of flight so that it's recieving targett info from the launch plane, as opposed to having it's targett painted by radar? If so a Raptor could remain in LPI mode after popping off and not have to paint the targett till the AMRAAM is halfway there.

And the CF version:

For comparison purposes here's the original:

Yay I finnally got my copy of photoshop back! And to inaugurate this splendid occasion I went back and re-did one of my old paintjobs from scratch. I was never very happy with my original Sundowners scheme (it was the first thing i had ever done in photoshop), and the cannon fodder Sundowner I did turned out so well I decided to go back and re-do the orginal from scratch. Lemmee see if I can dig up the old profile I wrote for it. SVF-111 was one of the first squadrons to convert to the VF-4 (after SVF-1 "Skull", and SVF-184 "Iron Chiefs"). As such it was one of the few VF-4 squadrons to operate off of the ARMD series carriers before they were decommisioned (in this case ARMD-05 Akagi). Represented is the squadron leader's aircraft, which received a unique "navy style" scheme of overall gloss gull gray (FS16440) over white, other fighters in the squadron received a more traditional scheme. Most lettering is in red with the exception of the Akagi designation on the tail, which is in white, and the UN Spacy markings, which are in the traditional black. Of special note is the repeating of the sun pattern on the ventral fins, a unique feature made possible by the large ventral fins on the VF-4.

Frankly I don't see UCAVs ever actually replacing maned fighters. I think that instead they'll end up suplementing them, say one or two manned fighters leading a squadron of UCAVs. I just don't see AI being able to replicate human judgement any time soon.

A few thoughts. SW-AG armour would explain why Misa ordered Hikaru to change to batroid mode in the first episode. I'm not sure how it got in every-ones heads that the VF-0 has a virtualy reality cockpit. The only shot that suggests that is from when Roy first converts to Batroid, and that whole sequence is rather stylized anyway, every other shot shows standard flat panel monitors.

The VT-1 Super Ostrich is a FAST pack equiped trainer, which like all Valkyrie variants equiped with FAST packs is confined to space. The VT-1 Ostirch on the other hand is the exact same Variable trainer without the FAST packs, half the time we see the Super O in DYRL it's just an O without the super (Hikaru very smartly ejects his FAST packs as soon as he and Misa are folded into the atmosphere). The Variable vehicle in that shot apears to be a single seat fighter in training markings (some training squadrons have fully functioning fighters in their ranks for advanced training). The airbrake is a dead givaway, the two seaters don't have them.

But a VF-1D is more than a -1J with a different nose. The fuselage is completely different and thus it would be incapable of mounting to Max's -1J. It wouldn't even work as a non-transformable fighter since the fairing into the rest of the body is defferent. How? It shows a serious ability to hang a nose under another fighter. Roy couldn't have swapped noses on his fighter since his fuselage was completely different than Hikaru's. Why does it need to dry for the transformation? Indeed why transform it at all? One could simply half transform it into some kind of exploded version and set the robot spray arms on it. Paint doesn't require a crew to make it dry. Put it into an oven and it pretty much handles itself. Robotic spray booths don't require man hours or shifts (they're full of robots). Sparying on stencils and warnings take no time at all (they are applied and re-aplied all the time in the field). But you're not right, the fuselages on the two variants are completely different. If there was all this "extreme compatability" you talk about (is that on ESPN2?) they'd all have the same fuselage. Even if all the connectors are the same they still couldn't mate since the two different fighters are physically different.

Most modern paints dry in 12 hours. One would think that with overtech they could cut that time in half. I find it hard to beileive that a service crew couldn't find half a day to prep and repaint a Valkyrie, but that they could find the time to replace the fuselage of one. One is very simple and requires very few man hours (remember drying paint doesn't need anyone to do anything) while the other is rebuilding an already complex peice of machinery.

I think one of the things that's plauging the Trek franchise is that "continuity fatigue" is setting in. The same thing happened to UC Gundam and I think that maybe something similar to what they did for the Gundam franchise might be in order for Trek. I'm not saying we need Star Trek Wing here, but something along the same lines. Boil the franchise down to it's basic componenets and start over from scratch (I think this includes getting a new creative team). After a few false starts it worked for Gundam, I don't see why it couldn't work for Trek too.

Actually no. Phyrox's visual is pre Hasegawa line art and it clearly shows that the 1D's nose sits much further back than the single seat models. Hardly aircraft get ad-hoc paintjobs in the field all the time, especially in the Navy. And that's on a cramped carrier with very little room to work. It's not hard to imagine that given the larger amount of space on the Macross, and maybe a good robotic spray booth, they could have a Valk re-painted in a matter of hours. THe VF-1D isn't a trainer, but it's also not a VF-1J with a different nose and head. It has a completely different forward fuselage as well. To convert a 1J into a 1D you'd have to replace everything forward of the wings to make it compatible. When you consider that all that would be left of Max's orginial Valk would be the wings, backpack, legs, and arms a complete repaint of a VF-1D doesn't sound so unreasonable.

A couple of things regarding this. First the chest "intakes" are actually used for aerodynamic control (the compedium lists them as being used in lieu of glvoe vanes) so the couldn't be collecting water vapor. Secondly I don't see how collecting water vapor could work, under the best conditions there's hardly enough in the atmosphere to create a sustainable fusion reaction, and under the worst conditions (such as in desert climes) there's none at all. Finnally I don't think the space explanation is workable either. Simply squirting reactor plasma out the back wouldn't provide enough thrust, you'd need a reaction mass to really be effective (which again is why I like MAT's solution of kerosene it gives you reactor fuel and reaction mass all in one easily storeable liquid).

The VF-1S has uprated engines so it would follow that it would have somewhat better acceleration, though it's probably not much faster flat out. Most aircraft are limited more by their drag coeficient than their engine thrust. The 1S is also supposed to have vastly superior avionics. I'm not sure if the 1J has any advantage other than another head laser (though I always thought that point on it's chin was some kind of powerfull IFF antenea).

Well the arm units are completely redesinged, they only retain thier basic shape in DYRL. THe leg packs in the TV series had two verticaly oriented thruster bells and one long horizontally oriented slot, the DYRL version has slightly larger thruster bells and has replaced the slot nozel with three engine bells. The backpack units are almost identical except for some minor panel variations, and larger thruster bells like the leg units (the main engine bells apear the same though).

Except for the AV-8B!

It may be that they used overtechnology in the manufacturing process to make it much faster and cheaper. The actualy plane may have had very little overtechnology put into it. Though I could see them putting in a new hypercarbon wing box to replace the titanium one. Bring the flight hours up.

Well as David pointed out it gets many of the external upgrades of the D (most notebly the dual TCS IRST chin pod) but retains the original A cockpit. My theory is that the animators screwed up, they wanted Shin's mount to be an F-14D, but they got bad references and put in a perfect A cockpit. Then after realizing their mistake called it an A+ Kai and were done with it. If you want an in story explanation, you can say that the UN Spacy used overtechnology to very cheaply upgrade the US Navy's quite large F-14A Fleet to a modified B standard (hence the new chin pod) to bulk up it's air arm while wating for all these new designs to come out.

Another thought on using air as reaction mass in an atmosphere. Yeah gas isn't quite as efficient as a liquid, but so what? That's exactly how modern jet engines do it and they don't seem to have much trouble.

Something else to think about. Most of the materials suggested emit radio waves while cooling from a plasma state, not something you want in any military spacecraft. I've always liked the MAT theory of using kerosene for fuel. SInce it's two main components are hydrogen and carbon it could easily be used as a simple fuel/reaction mass combo. Just seperate the Hydrogen from the carbon for the reactors (a simple catylist could do that), and use to carbon as reaction mass (carbon doesn't emit radio waves while cooling).

The only differences between all the models are internal. I think the A, B and C Models have different avionics while the G is practically the VF-1X of VF-4s (rebuilt with better engines and equipment). However like the VF-1X it still looks identical to it's predecessors.