Welcome to Kimia Room 113, Skyhammer and Airlift

Well it's that time again. Today we're going to talk about the second and final Wave 4 2 pack.

Remember how I said that Wave 4 was when it got good? Well it kind of hits a speed bump with this weeks subject.

Skyhammer isn't a figure I have a lot of attachment to, he's a figure that was bought mostly because I wanted to finish the PCC line off. All I remember is that I didn't pay full price for him

He transforms from a modified Su-35 fighter jet to a robot and then a torso. He's picked out in a blue/grey (almost Shadow grey/Space Wolves grey for you 40K/Citadel paints fans!) with some dark blue camouflage patterns. He's got some orange decals splashed around too.

As a jet he look pretty good but he does suffer from “Oh look robot kibble under a jet” syndrome.
As long as you look at him from above you're good. He doesn't show his PCC pegs quite so much in jet mode but they're still on show if you know where to look (again don't look at him form the side or bottom, just the top, OK?).

In robot mode the problems start to show up. Lets work our way up the body. The legs are fine, you need to swing his PCC pegs out to give him decent heel support but that never feels like it's a big problem to me. He's got no waist articulation but I'm not fussed about that either. The chest is were our problems start, from the side there is a massive gap and it's a weird shape. His head sits a little to far forward which doesn't look natural, it's not like it works as him being hunchbacked as nothing else about the figure is designed for him to look that way. The arms don't look like there in the right place, they should be higher up but they are blocked by our next problem. The wings. They are not really set up to sit anywhere in robot mode. They could have done with a place to click into so they'd sit OK. They don't, they suck. You can see his shoulder PCC pegs to.
His head looks good it has orange light piping and he looks like a squished up Jhiaxus!

As a torso the problems continue. Everything does standard torso transformation tricks however it does a few things differently. Skyhammer is one of the few PCC commanders that doesn't have a hidden torso mode head (Only Sledge shares this “honour”). What he gets is a flight cap. Yeah a flight cap complete with goggles! (hooray.). It's awful, imagine if Superion just had Silverbolts head with one of those hats with a propeller on it, that's how it feels. (And yes I am that G1 Superions head was literally just a hat for Silverbolt!)
The shoulder wings and arms fold up to form, different shoulders, maybe.... Umm... Yeah.
It's safe to say I don't like the torso mode.

Something which I've only just now realised is how badly the shoulders hold up. Once you attach any limbs to them they want to sag. I fit weren't for the arms being pegged in the weight of the limb attached to the peg would pull them down. I knew there was a good reason why I don't put limbs on Skyhammer much. I've used Wave 4's Constructicons for the photo.

Third party time!

I'm fairly certain I've never really tried either of my third party limb sets on Skyhammer so as such these are my very raw thoughts on the matter.
Mobine makes his torso mode look even leggier than it already is. The arms just add more blocks to the figure. Blocks with clearance problems! It's not a good pairing unfortunately, moving on.

Iron army doesn't look to bad, there's no clearance issues, it's OK, not much more I can say on the matter really.

Shall we move on to Airlift?

Airlift is another of the “Targetmaster” style Mini-Cons, he's so close to being a G1 Targetmaster that the mold has been used twice for Targetmasters for Takara releases. He's molded from a very fiery orange and black. He's got some paint on his head picking out his helmet in a gun metal and black for his visor.
There's some nicely sculpted detail on the figure, but really that's on par for the rest of the Mini-Cons in the PCC line.

In his gun mode Airlift can either be held by his peg or with a simple twist of his waist you can swap him to a peg mounted gun. I like the fact that they designed him like this. The joint that spins the legs for either gun mode also passes as a waist of sorts but it also moves the head so he has the most head articulation of ANY of the PCC Mini-cons. In that he has some articulation for his head compared to no articulation from anyone else.  

So I should mention the chest armour. It's weird. I'm just going to lay it out there. It looks like he's hugging Skyhammer. It really does, it's like he ran at him jumped into his chest while yelling “DADDEH!”. It's pretty much the same on any other figure you try it on. I can live with that though, nice robot mode with a great gun mode what more do I need?



To put it polity Skyhammer is a disappointment. Wave 4 started (for me any way) with SUCH a good figure in Heavy tread and then it went here with Skyhammer. It felt like a step back. Yeah disappointment is all I can say about him. At least Airlift has some good uses.


Well that's it for Wave 4's 2 packs, next week we BUILD on Wave 4's good toy streak and start to HAMMER home the really good toys.

Yeah it's Steamhammer and the Constructicons. Subtle hints right?

Stu "Darkageis" Murray is a founding member of The Old Oilhouse, a lifelong transformers nut and collector of Sentai and Kamen rider in most of it's forms.

He sometimes takes epic trips to Newcastle, and tells tales of these sagas often. 
When not watching people in spandex fight each other he paints miniatures, go HERE to take a look.

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