Variable fighter
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A Variable Fighter is one of a series of fictional transforming aerospace fighters primarily designed by Studio Nue's Shoji Kawamori and Kazutake Miyatake for the animated series The Super Dimension Fortress Macross and later related projects.
Their most notable feature is the ability to transform—usually into a humanoid giant robot called Battroid and an in-between mode called GERWALK (Ground Effective Reinforcement of Winged Armament with Locomotive Knee-joint), in which the nose and wings have a pair of "chicken walker" legs extending underneath enabling VTOL, and two arms reaching forward from the sides. Another prevalent (but not universal) design point is the use of a detachable gun pod instead of an internally mounted gun. This allows it to be used as a hand-held weapon in GERWALK and battroid modes. They usually also have one or more trainable head-mounted lasers in battroid mode, stowed internally or used as fixed armament in fighter and GERWALK modes.
In the original series, the reason behind the development of the variable fighters' Battroid mode was the discovery of the existence of the Zentradi race, giant humanoid aliens genetically engineered for military conquest. Although at the time the humans hadn't met any actual Zentradi, the discovery of the SDF-1 Macross and its accommodations for humanoid giants justified the development of a weapon that could enable mankind to fight the aliens on their own environment (Battroid mode), on the ground (Gerwalk mode), and the air (Fighter mode). Thus, research into Overtechnology culminated in the development of the variable fighters for the U.N. Spacy.
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[edit] List of Variable Fighters
(Items in Parentheses indicate where they first appeared)
- Stonewell/Bellcom VF-X (non-transformable flight test vehicle)
- Northrop Grumman/Stonewell/Shinsei VF-0 Phoenix (Macross Zero)
- Sukhoi/Israel Aircraft Industries/Dornier SV-51 (Anti-UN Forces variable fighter not in the UN designation sequence) (Macross Zero)
- Stonewell/Bellcom VF-1 Valkyrie series (SDF Macross)
- VF-X-2
- VF-X-3
- Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu VF-3000 Crusader
- Stonewell Bellcom VF-4 Lightning III (Macross Flashback 2012)
- VF-5
- Shinsei Industry VF-5000 Star Mirage
- VF-6
- VF-7
- Zentradi Variable Glaug
- General Galaxy VF-9 Cutlass
- Shinsei Industry VF-11 Thunderbolt (Macross 7)
- General Galaxy/Messer VF-14 Vampire (Macross 7)
- VF-15
- VF-16
- General Galaxy VF-17 Nightmare (Macross 7)
- Neo Glaug
- Shinsei Industry YF-19 (Macross Plus)
- Shinsei Industry VF-19 Excalibur (Macross 7)
- General Galaxy YF-21 (Macross Plus)
- General Galaxy VF-22 Sturmvogel II (Macross 7)
- General Galaxy/Messer-Varauta Fz-109 Elgerzorene (Macross 7)
- General Galaxy/Messer-Varauta Az-130 Pantserzorene (Macross 7)
- Northrom & Grumman/Mikoyan-Varauta FBz-99 Saubergeran (Macross 7)
- Zentradi Variable Device "Pheyos Valkyrie" (Macross Digital Mission VF-X, Macross VF-X2)
- General Galaxy VF-171 (Macross Frontier)
- VF-24
- VF-25 Messiah (Macross Frontier)
- VF-27 (Macross Frontier)
The following variable fighters are from the parallel world of Macross II:
- VF-XX Zentradian Valkyrie
- VF-2SS Valkyrie II
- VF-2JA Icarus
- Metal Siren
[edit] Variable Attack Aircraft
- Northrom Grumman VA-3 Invader
