Air Defense Team - Armada - Figures


What do you get when take two jets add a space shuttle and blend for twenty minutes on mini? Why, a giant sword of course!

Tech Specs
Mini-Cons: Air Defense Team (Jetstorm, Sonar, and Runway)

"We are the power of the sword."

They combine into a powerful sword that empowers the one who wields it with awesome strength and destructive energy. Therefore, the Autobots and Decepticons are in constant battle to claim these three mini-cons for their own. When they are apart, they are formidable air defense machines used for high-altitude and high-speed missions.

Strength: 6.0 Intelligence: 5.0 Speed: 8.0 Endurance: 7.0
Rank: 5.0 Courage: 6.0 Fireblast: 4.0 Skill: 7.0

First, there is some confusion as to which toy is Runway and which toy is Jetstorm. The blister card and the official site both list the clear and gray jet as Runway while the instructions name him as the clear and blue jet. For the sake of argument, I’m going to go with Runway being the clear and gray jet.

Runway
At a little over 2 ½” in length, Runway resembles a sleek transport jet. As stated above, he is made mostly of clear plastic with some gray pieces making up his robot arms and legs, which make up the undercarriage of his jet mode. There are some black highlights on his cockpit and rear fins as well as a couple spots painted red. The neat part in this mode is that he has retractable landing gear in the front. The robot legs are rather bulky looking in this form. Each leg has a Powerlinx notch for use with the Autobots and Decepticons.

Transformation is fairly easy, though not Micromaster easy. Retract the landing gear; flip down the legs and arms. Flip the head up and the rear engines down. Runway now stands just under 2 ½” and looks a little more opaque now that his arms and legs aren’t tucked away. He features eight points of articulation. His elbows, hips, and knees move and his head and waist can be moved as well. The detailing is very nice considering the size.

Jetstorm
Like Runway, Jetstorm is primarily comprised of clear plastic. His secondary color is also gray; he just has less of it. His tail fin is blue with blue stripes painted up to the cockpit where white, red and black highlight the front of the jet. Jetstorm looks to be similar to a Concorde jet, but I’m no aviation expert. He also features the front landing gear but has only one Powerlinx notch in the center of his undercarriage.

Jetstorm’s transformation is a bit more involved. Retract the landing gear and flip the front of the jet back. Unsnap the legs from the back of the jet, swing them down and rotate the lower legs down and forward. Swing the arms done and flip out the lower arms. Push the tail fin up and swing around to form the chest.

In robot mode, Jetstorm stands at 2 ¼” and features eight points of articulation: shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. While his chest plate is blue, his legs are mostly gray with some black highlights. The rest is clear plastic with exception of hit upper arms. Again, the detailing is fantastic. His face resembles those of the Generation 2 Cyberjets, the Hooligan mold in particular.

Sonar
Resembling a futuristic space shuttle, Sonar is the shortest of the bunch at just over 2” in length. He hides the robot parts very well. The only kibble is the sword handle underneath. Sonar is mostly white with blue highlighting his wings, nose and underbelly. The cockpit windows are painted black and his smaller fins are molded in gray. His robot face is unfortunately visible in the rear of the shuttle. The sword hilt provides Sonar with two Powerlinx connectors.

To transform, pull the front of the shuttle out and separate. Push the nose halves outward and rotate so the cockpit windows are facing out. Flip the hilt to the back, fold the arms down and move the head up. In robot mode, Sonar is mostly blue and gray with some clear parts in his upper legs and back. He’s still shorter than the rest at just a little over 2”. Like the others in his team, he has eight articulation points: shoulders, elbows, hips, and ankles.

Form Blazing Sword!
Start off with all three in vehicle mode. Separate Sonar’s legs as before, but leave the cockpit section alone. Fold Jetstorm’s front section back and attach to Sonar. Then simply attach Runway’s engines to Jetstorm’s and you’re done.

Star Saber
Measuring 5 ¼” from the tip of the handle to the tip of the blade, Star Saber looks more like a spacecraft than a sword. With all the robot undercarriage from Runway and Jetstorm, the blade of the sword is very think and couldn’t cut it’s way out of a wet paper bag. Since I don’t have any o the larger Armada toys yet, I used Laser Optimus Prime to test how well they would light up. Sadly, it wasn’t very far. Even in the darkest room, the Laser Prime’s light shone only halfway up through Jetstorm and didn’t even “ignite” the lower section of the “blade.” Hopefully, Armada Prime and Megatron will have stronger lights.

Overall
While the Star Saber mode is a bit disappointing, each of the other jets are remarkable on there own. Jetstorm’s parts for the cockpit when it raises seem a bit brittle, so be careful. Still, they are not bad toys for a start of a new line.

Tech Specs and images courtesy of Transformers.com.



ReviewerViceGripX  
DateJuly 11th 2002  
Score 7 stars (7 out of 10)  
Reads8219


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