Cliffbee.com Air Raid Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Air Raid
Series: Generation 1
Allegiance: Autobot
Sub Group: Aerialbot
Function: Warrior
Vehicular Mode: F-15 Eagle



JET MODE
Height: 4.5cm Length: 13cm Width: 9cm

   A black F-15 Eagle with a silver cockpit, black rubberised nose and silver, red & yellow stickers on the wings & tailfins. For those not familiar with the F-15, think Starscream. Twin tailfins, air intakes on the sides of the cockpits. Except Air Raid is a lot smaller than a Seeker jet. Taking away the stickers and the cockpit, he's all black.

   Like the other Aerialbots he has rolling undercarriage. The front wheel retracts.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Swing the tail and nose onto his back and join them into a backpack. Swing the wings up, grab the legs and pull down. Swing the arms out and stand him up.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 10cm Width: 3.5cm at shoulders

   Like Slingshot and Fireflight, he's got a red torso, white legs, arms and head. He's got a silver face, as well as a silver forehead. There are various stickers on the robot mode, which keep the silver-yellow-red theme of those in plane mode. All are fairly inconspicuous but add sufficient colour. There's almost no black, aside from the plane bits on his back. Despite the kibble, it's a nice looking mode, the red & white works and the stickers all work in his favour.

   As with the other Aeriabot limbs, Air Raid's got ball and socket shoulders. He's got a fair bit of plane mode sitting on his back, looks like a giant jet pack or something. I suppose he does fly in robot mode during "Fight of Flee", even if it is in the vacuum of space.

VARIATIONS

   Released in some markets as a Classic, although with no significant changes. There's also the G2 version.

For the record, Air Raid is my only Aerialbot that's not a Classic.
OVERALL

   One of the better Aerialbots, Air Raid's got colours that work for him and he's lucky enough to have a good plane mode. No real kibble in plane mode and well dealt with robot mode kibble. About as poseable as small toys got in his era. Didn't get quite as much characterisation as Slingshot or Silverbolt, but more than Skydive or Fireflight. I'm giving him 8/10

"Transformers" and other indica trademarks of Hasbro and/or Takara.