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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    To add to David's reply, it also depends on which service the aircraft is with. I think the F-16 has a unique wingtip Sidewinder rail mount, but at least legacy Hornet models all used the LAU-7 launcher, which I think has been in use since at least Vietnam, on a variety of platforms. Over time, I think the actual launch rails have become more standardized across multiple platforms (though the Navy and Air Force might have custom variants). What differs at the platform level are the actual pylons hanging under the wing that the rails mount to, since they're often aerodynamically tailored for specific aircraft. Until internal weapons bays become more widely used though, anything internally mounted is probably going to be a one-off design specifically for that aircraft. Stealth aircraft also throw other sorts of wrenches in the works, because they may want individualized external rails that minimize the radar signature of external weapons. The F-35 has a new custom rail design that apparently supports AIM-9Xs or AIM-120s, as well as the UK's AIM-132 ASRAAM. If you really want to dig into the nuts and bolts of how weapon mounts work, check out http://marvingroup.com/ They're a major supplier of mounting components and pylons.
  2. Chronocidal
    I've now seen this same image from like three different sources. I sincerely hope that "I HAVE MONDAYS!" becomes this generation's "All Your Base"
  3. Chronocidal
    Only problem with that idea is that you assume all of those platforms would use completely compatible hardware. Like you say, airframes are cheap, and the F-35 probably isn't any different in that regard, at least as compared with the cost of the internals and their development. Just in general though, I hope we do go back to another cycle of more specialized platforms, rather than multi-role fighters. The problem though is that aircraft are becoming overwhelmingy software driven, and you could easily drive the analogy that Lockheed Martin is a PC, Boeing is a Mac, and Northrup Grumman would be some kind of Android platform, while each military service is some oddball UNIX platform that doesn't play nicely with the others. Universal components like weapons, radars, and engines, sure, those will be cross-platform compatible, once they standardize the interfaces. But aircraft software? That's an entirely different can of worms. The X-35 was a great X-plane, and you're probably right about the idea that it should have remained a tech testbed, but I don't even think the internal systems are what's driven the program into the ground. It's just that the combined complexity of building an aircraft to meet the demands of over a dozen military services spead across nearly as many countries has snowballed into a red tape singularity so utterly massive that no productivity can escape. If they were making the aircraft for any singular service? The plane would have been done years ago. Requirements wrangling between all the countries and services involved in the development is like trying to run a triathalon with a 747 strapped to your back. Combine all this with your usual government inefficiency in getting anything done on budget or in a timely manner.. and well, there you are. Not to forget that the plane has been in development so long, the hardware it's running on is probably 20 years old, and every time anything gets upgraded, everything needs to be rebuilt to work with the new hardware.
  4. Chronocidal
    Ooof.. what's with the blocky chunk of fuselage that just stops right behind the intakes?
  5. Chronocidal
    Bandai has never had a firm grasp of human anatomy when it comes to fighter aircraft cockpits, and an at-best tenuous grasp of scale. Most of the time, Bandai pilots won't work in anyone else's cockpit because they have this mysterious single structure protruding from their waist, where human beings have two individual legs, and this prevents them from fitting into a cockpit with a traditional center console. The reverse is also true, since because most other pilots will have individual legs positioned to sit on rudder pedals, the Bandai monopod design won't accommodate their wider stance.
  6. Chronocidal
    Thanks, I need to re-read everything some time, this thread exploded past my ability to follow. I'm hoping my pair from AmiAmi will arrive by this weekend, so I might break out the Hasegawa kits and see how those pilots fit as well. The Yammie definitely has a bigger nose, though that was always a hallmark of that particular mold. It's really not very different than comparing molds between companies like Hasegawa and Revell at this point, because while there still is a bit of room for interpretation of the line art, Yamato's and Hasegawa's releases in the past decade have formed a pretty solid foundation for what a "real" VF-1 should look like, and the variability in how it looks and functions has diminished over time.
  7. Chronocidal
    Honestly, they look pretty good side-by-side, and pretty similar in proportion, about like two styrene kits of the same plane from two manufacturers would look. Anyone try a Yamato pilot in the Bandai to see if it fits better?
  8. Chronocidal
    Honestly? I want a PF version of Hikaru's 1J with super packs. My ideal set would be 6 PF valks: Hikaru and M&M 1Js (all with supers), a CF with supers, a 1D (with supers for fun), and a TV Roy with super packs. We've only gotten two of those so far.
  9. Chronocidal
    If you're talking about drones, no, normal G-limits for pilots obviously don't apply. Aircraft are able to pull far more strenuous maneuvers than pilots would be able to do physically and remain conscious/healthy. Thirty Gs sounds like a ton, and most aircraft probably aren't meant to experience those stresses for any long period of time. If anything, the airframe would probably be stricken from flight status afterward, and relegated to a static display. Even minor envelope excursions generally require an aircraft be grounded afterward for a structural integrity check. Just because an aircraft is built to survive heavy G-loading doesn't mean it's meant to operate at that level continuously.
  10. Chronocidal
    You literally just listed off the entirety of what I remember of the music in the series, and for the same reasons. "Axia" is "the one Kaname sings because Messer liked it", "Giraffe Blues" is "the one Freya un-brainwashed the cat-guy with" and "Ikenai Borderline" is "the one Mikumo sang while magic-punching herself out of a debris pile." It's remarkably Seinfeldian. What's disappointing to me in all three cases? I don't think any of them were lyrically relevant to the scenes they were used in. They're good songs and all, but I don't recall any of the lyrics actually being contextually appropriate for the scenes (if they were, I like to think I would recall them). They were just what the characters happened to sing at those moments. "Axia" was the only one with a story connection, and even then it wasn't the song lyrics itself that were meaningful, just the fact that it was a nostalgia trip for Messer. Comparatively, Sheryl's live "Diamond Crevasse" performance in episode 6? I don't know whether it was just better composing and lyrics (unfair advantage here really), better context for the story, better writing/characterization, or some combination of all of the above, but it still blows me away as my favorite scene in the entire series.
  11. Chronocidal
    Guessing the tolerances on either the tabs or arm holes were off a tiny amount then. Does mounting the gunpod force the arms to align, and then force that arm to pop off the tab again?
  12. Chronocidal
    Entirely possible. Though, I disagree with it not being a negative yet, since there are reports of those pegs not holding the arms well. I'm mostly managing my expectations with regard to the super packs. After a decade of rock-solid fighter modes with Yamato's design, it's just disappointing to see Bandai implement what looks like a distinctly inferior method of holding the arms in place.
  13. Chronocidal
    Technically speaking, they must have something to hold them up, because dropping the legs to mount the super parts will re-locate any tabs on the legs that support the arms. If they follow the pattern of the Yamato 1/48, the arm packs should have a slot that the leg tabs can peg into to support them... or at least try to support them. I'm lowering my expectations here ahead of time. Yamato just solved the problem entirely ahead of time with the v.2 1/60 by having the arms lock into the underside of the backplate, and not require any connection to the legs at all. I just love the feeling of watching Bandai go through a bunch of the same mistakes as Yamato's older releases. Makes you wonder if they're even aware of all the VF-1s released in the past 10 years.
  14. Chronocidal
    It's not that the music in Delta was necessarily bad, but aside from a few specific pieces it was background fluff that was mostly interchangeable throughout the story. When you compare that to Frontier's soundtrack? Frontier was literally Wagner-esque by comparison, and most of the main characters had orchestral musical cues associated with them, without even counting any of Sheryl or Ranka's personal songs. There were also some DYRL-like cues during the series, where familiar themes were remixed into alternate settings to fit different scenes, both for Sheryl and Ranka's songs, and for orchestral tracks. To be entirely fair to Delta, I've only seen it once, and I don't know if the soundtrack CDs have lots of character tracks like Frontier did. In my case, I just don't remember any of the non-idol tracks having any kind of staying power like Frontier, not to the point where I thought to myself "I need to find the name of this track!" like I did with the bombastic piratey-sounding SMS themes, or that majestic orchestral bit during the movie premiere applause scene. So much emphasis was put on the pop music that I don't recall any of the rest of the soundtrack.
  15. Chronocidal
    While I can get the idol side of things still making money, I think they lost the crossover audience that Frontier had. Delta's music might be decently popular run-of-the-mill J-pop, but it has about as much connection to the characters and story of Delta as "The Girl From Ipanema" has a connection to elevator manufacturing. It's probably partly an artifact of having an idol group, as opposed to solo artists, but where Frontier's songs tended to have story and character context attached to them, Delta's soundtrack was completely detached from either. You could have any Walkure member singing any song at any point in the series, and it wouldn't really make a difference, as long as the tune was properly fast/slow/peppy/major/minor to fit the scene. Bottom line.. much like the characters themselves, Delta's music was basically under-developed to the point where it didn't matter to the story except as a piece of background scenery. If the music is making money on its own, it probably doesn't make sense to blow the money to develop a new series just to advertise it more.
  16. Chronocidal
    I mean in fighter mode, specifically with super parts attached. The rounded stub pegs on the lower legs that were intended to hold the arms level in fighter mode on the old 1/48 were too shallow to be very effective, and without the backpack to hold the legs stable, the arms would slip off of those stubby pegs with very little force, and just hang with the gunpod aimed at the underside of the cockpit.
  17. Chronocidal
    Apologies, I'm jumping the gun a bit remembering how badly the Yamato 1/48 arms sagged, and haven't received mine yet to try out. That being said, I'm always wary of pegs meant to support weight directly opposed to their direction of insertion, and those peg holes look pretty tiny in pics, so I can't imagine they'd be as effective as the clip around the upper arms used on the v.2 1/60. Given the too tight/too loose tendencies I've heard mentioned, it wouldn't surprise me much if mold variability made those pegs more or less useless to secure the arms. Only time will tell how well the entire thing holds together once we get super packs involved.
  18. Chronocidal
    Ok, if they couldn't get this to work, that's just all kinds of fail. The original Yamato 1/48 had the exact same issue, and it caused the arms to sag really bad with super packs attached, since the backpack was folded up. This was fixed on the 1/60 by putting a clip for the arms under the backplate. If Bandai couldn't figure this out, they need to be slapped.
  19. Chronocidal
    The DX doesn't look any bigger than the 1/60 Yamato pilot though, it just looks like it's positioned differently, leaning back instead of hunched forward. It actually looks smaller overall, because everything is slimmer, and the head is a whole lot smaller. When I get mine, I'll have to dig out some 1/48 pilot figures to compare to. I think the real test will be to see what sort of figure Bandai puts in a DYRL version. The Yamato/DX comparison is roughly on par with the Hi-Metal DYRL/TV comparison. I know Bandai seems to love adhering to how the animation appeared, but they'd do well to ignore things that are so obviously wrong.
  20. Chronocidal
    Funny thought, but is the construction big enough to fit something like a small lego mechanism inside? Even if you would rather make all the components from scratch, you could use a few lego elements like lift arms, gears, and drive shafts to work out the mechanism sizing. In terms of the just using the components you have though, would it be possible to drive two threaded shafts in parallel with a single motor? Might need some tiny gearing to accomplish that, but it looks like there should be room.
  21. Chronocidal
    Nothing from AmiAmi for me either, though that's to be expected since I told them to switch my shipping back to EMS. I've also got one waiting for me at HLJ, but I'm waiting to see if anything else makes it to my warehouse before I ship.
  22. Chronocidal
    Did the 1/48 GBP come with those DYRL-styled hands, or were those made by someone after the fact? I don't remember which style it originally included.
  23. Chronocidal
    I'd buy that crossover for a dollar!
  24. Chronocidal
    While it's more work in some ways, I tend to prefer just painting as much as humanly possible on Star Wars kits, and only relying on decals for the tiny logos and stencils (and maybe those gun barrel stripes). Most of the Bandai kits have parts breakdowns that help quite a bit with that approach, and do a decent job breaking out the larger colored areas as separate assemblies. Some like the 1/48 X-Wing and 1/72 Y-Wing even have the marking panels themselves broken out as separate panels that can be painted and then snapped on after the rest of the ship is done. On the other hand.. I do wish they'd include the marking panels in the base body color. I know they want to make it easy for kids to snap them together, but having only half the markings molded in color means you're going to have to just primer over everything anyway to get the decals to match.
  25. Chronocidal
    I only intended to pick up two, but AmiAmi's site flaked out and I got an extra. Will probably sell one somewhere down the road, or maybe two if they release all the versions I want. The more I see of Bandai's designs though, the more I have to question what (lack of) design process keeps making them choose these horrible mechanisms for moving parts. It's not like hinged fins are a new thing, or even a difficult thing, but they keep flubbing it in ways that make me scratch my head. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they're actively avoiding using any previously proven design. If they were managing to improve on old designs, I'd applaud the effort.. but they're repeatedly failing to come up with something even equivalent to what's already been done by other companies.
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