TFC SR-71 Blackbird & X-47 Phantom Ray [Project Uranos] - Pictorial Review

Been waiting for quite sometime for him considering that he's going to be the last new mold of Project Uranos (the last 2 are re-tooled of the the first 2 figures). But came across few hick-up with the supplier which resulted in a short delay.

Pic Credit : Web

Created alongside with his comrades of Aerialbots, Silverbolt is the commander of the air team that act as a counter-measure for Decepticons' Stunticons. Built from a low-flying cargo transport vessel, Silverbolt face with an uncanny weakness, height which is laughable considering his role. He fight against it, overcoming his fear and become a great commander leading his strike team

Pic Credit : Web

His first toy in the 80's is proven to be having (at least proportional and) a great design, especially when comparing him with other Gestalts Commander

Pic Credit : Web

In 2008, Hasbro surprised fans with the release of Universe 2.0 Ultra Class Silverbolt with a mold that worthy of the name. It's a shame though him and Onslaught (and Hotspot, in 2012) were released as a non-combiner robot



In Package

To fill that hole of sorrow and resentment (LOL!), I present to you, SR-71 Blackbird (Not-Silverbolt) with X-47 Phantom Ray

In Package : Front View

Don't be fooled by the picture, Blackbird is huge. Sorry that I left out in-package comparison image.

From Project Hercules till now, it seems TFC never failed to re-imagine a design that is faithful to G1 but also enough 'modernization' that makes it look good. However, looking closer, the design of the toy for both Blackbird and Phantom Ray lacks a few detailing compared to the artwork

In Package : Back View

At the back, a lot of pictures detailing in the all three, the alt mode, robot mode and combine mode for Blackbird with Phantom Ray

Out of Package

Same presentation, TFC provides (aside from the figures) a poster, a biocard and also an instruction manual. However, it's obvious that all three above consist of the same picture only with Phantom Ray being move here and there.











Alt Mode

Not-Silverbolt, taking the form of SR-71 Blackbird jet, the 2nd of such after Revenge of the Fallen's Jetfire. However, the choice of Alt Mode was largely criticized considering 1) Silverbolt was initially a carrier jet, Concorde and 2) the white color (which is a must to homage Silverbolt) used for a "Blackbird"

Seeing the end product however, I think TFC pulled if off

SR-71 Blackbird possesses great detailing with top notch paint job overall. However, one of the problems (out of the few I have with him) would be that he's a bit back-heavy resulting the alt mode to tilt leaving the landing gear hanging

Same features as the previous releases

From what I can see, AG is the element number for Silver and
the lightning stands for Bolt, not sure bout the 601T though

A few more cons of him would be

Much like ROTF Jetfire, he's basically a robot under a jet. And due to his color, it's really visible compared to ROTF Jetfire which had black-base paint job. And worse, it's obvious if looked from side angle

2nd would be the rear view. Considering the paint scheme, a bit more concealment would do good to hide, in this case, a clear view of the robot components

His partner, X-47 Phantom Ray , is kind f strike me as weird do. Despite the name, Phantom Ray was modeled after Boeing's X-45C Phantom Ray rather than X-47 Pegasus. I can't see whether this was by choice or purely a mistake. Phantom Ray can be attached on top of Blackbird

X-47 Phantom Ray - Back View

One word, Simple! Phantom Ray was roughly using colored plastics with just a few stripe and numbers in which to me is kind of a 'lazy' release. Don't get me wrong, though, I have no objection against his role but a richer paint job and design wouldn't hurt

Size Comparison

With Henkei Starscream

With Henkei Silverbolt

SR-71 Blackbird can easily be considered as an Ultra Class figure, more or less the same size with Silverbolt(especially), Onslaught and Powerglide

Not-Aerialbots

Robot Mode

SR-71 Blackbird

The leader

Finished with great color scheme that really capture Silverbolt's aesthetic. One thing about him though, he looks better in-person.

Close-up

Blackbird possesses a great detailing with a rather clean finishing. In all, Project Uranos does seem to be using a thinner plasctics as opposed to Project Hercules which in fact the plastics is sturdier and more solid than their predecessors.

Back View

As would have expect from a figure of this alt mode. His kibble is (to me) acceptble. The thrusters are attached the back that can swing to the back, giving clearance for more posebility. The back part however, doesn't really locks to anything making it swing loosely

Side View

Yeap, robot attached to a jet. Despite the looks, he's really stable where you don't have to keep on re-positioning his legs just to make him stand

Articulations

I can say he possesses better articulations than figures of his size ie Universe Silverbolt, Onslaught, etc. Top to bottom, his head is on a ball joint. Shoulders on 2 swivel joint2, 360 degree back-to-front and 90 degree upwards. 2 swivel points on the upper arms, swivel on the elbows and fist.  He has 360o waist jointa and double jointed knees but a bit limited on his feet

Clever, cockpit on a blaster, said no human ever

My standard Stability Test

Perhaps another eyesore would be his combiner's connectors on the elbows are visible if you bend the elbows, due to the design itself cattering for combine mode


X-47 Phantom Ray

Being an additional figure, he's kind of lack the 'mass' and suffers from a very simple design, drone like. Aside from deco on his feet, lower arm and face, he's purely consist of red/white plastics.

Phantom Ray possesses somewhat surprisingly limited articulations considering most figure that size right now are full of ball joints maximizing their range of motion.

His upper body lack a waist joint and 180o elbow joints. But my gripe would be that even his head aren't on a ball joint.

His head however, surprised me with the use of a really nice light piping, giving him a better look. As you can see, a lot of connections on his arm are on pin which can either results in the joint being loose overtime or losing the pin (considering the length and the girth of the pin, once it's out, it's lost)

Soundwave-who?

Size Comparison

With Henkei Silverbolt

Maybe it's a coincidence, but SR-71 resembles HasTak 2008 release of Ultra Class Silverbolt.

Project Uranos assemble!

Combine Mode

SR-71 Blackbird and X-47 Phantom Ray form Uranos's torso part. One thing you need to be careful would be when taking the combine mode's head out from Blackbird's body

If you noticed, I change the configurations of his chest plate so that it covered more on the upper part of the body rather than with original configuration. The problem is that, it's now depend on single peg to attach it to the main body (3 pegs if in original configuration but still not as tight as it should be due to plastic tolerence issue). It surprised me to see that the head looks decent enought compared to what I saw on the net.

Let see how Uranos looks like now (with the help of Hercules's team members)

Tada! He's gorgeous! Uranos really felt more solid than Hercules was. However, Madblender's leg mode is a bit shorter than Uranos's, making me eager to see whether in the end, Uranos will be taller than Hercules or not

It's still early to tell but it seems Uranos will suffer the same problem as Classics Megatron and Universe Powerglide. The gears on his thigh (and also his feet) have grooves which are either too far apart or too few. The resulting the figure to either stand closed-leg or to wide spread. We can comment back when at least Uranos's left leg arrive.

Still wondering, will they just use Blackbird's gun or a combined one

Moving Forward

During Project Hercules, it seems like the Rage Of Hercules add on was due to TFC meeting fans demand on several aspects to bring more homage of his G1 self, developed along the way (but this is purely my opinion).

However, on Project Uranos, I foresee a few upgrades that are deemed to be released such as new head (either a better one or homaging his cartoon self, with mouth plate) and a new chest plate (which personally, Phantom Ray already did a great job).

We'll see how it goes. Still wandering when the last 2 members will be released