Name: Sonic Attack Jet
Series: Beast Machines
Allegiance: Vehicon
Function: Aerial Combat
Alternate Mode: Jet Plane
Note: Yes, it's a terrible name, but this is meant to be a mindless, nameless drone. I guess they had to call it something.
JET MODE
Height: 5cm Length: 18cm Width: 13.5cm
A twotone metallic blue jet fighter with some of yellow highlights, transparent red missiles in his side missile launchers and transparent red cockpit, with silver bits here and there. The base colour of most of the toy is a metallic mid blue, but about 40% of the blue is actually a lighter blue, which is painted on. There's also painted green mech details on the fuselage in a couple of spots. Aside from the yellow details on his wingtips and nose, everything's metallic, and he looks great as a result. Yes, I know, drones aren't really "he", but I think of this toy as Sajourn, so I'm going to use that pronoun. If you have Jetstorm, of whom Sonic Attack Jet is a repaint, you'll notice the transparent red is lighter this time around.
This is clearly not a real plane model, by the way. It looks to me like it should be a space cruiser of some sort. I should mention that there are one or two small bits of silver plastic, which isn't as shiny as the silver painted bits. Most of these are bits you wont even notice - it's only really the undercarriage that you'll notice initially.
The reason I call this a space cruiser is that he has very small wings - I doubt he'd generate enough lift to stay airborne. That's not to say this is a bad mode, it's just not one that would beat gravity. It actually looks pretty cool, the overall shape is a fairly pointy arrowhead, with the small wings at the back. He has retractable silver landing gear, one wheel under the nose and wheels under the wings. The wheels are solid cast, and do not roll, but I like the fact they retract - it would have been easy for Hasbro to not bother with them at all.
Sonic Attack Jet has pretty good play value for a deluxe. There's a silver button behind the cockpit, which causes the cockpit to pop forward about 2cm on a silver "neck". The "head" is jointed, so it can look from side to side and downwards, which is pretty nifty. I'm not sure if this is meant to resemble a bird's head, but it does. Smack in the middle of the fuselage is a silver hatch which opens to reveal a transparent orange Vehicon spark crystal. Sure, all Beast Machine toys have spark crystals (except the Deployers, who aren't meant to have sparks), but since they gave him a hatch I'm counting it as play value. I like the fact they used orange plastic for the spark - it's clearly not the red used on his other transparent parts. The other gimmick is the missile launchers, which are built into the toy, and not detachable - they're basically the bases of the wings. Anyway, they're also activated by silver buttons, and will send the missiles about a foot. They don't activate as easy as Jetstorm's do (at least on mine), so they really work for Sonic Attack Jet.
The hair trigger missiles Jetstorm had have been fixed, so he's good great play value. While he's very shiny, I really like this colour scheme - the twotone blue works well and I think the sparing use of yellow is a good thing (compared to Jetstorm).
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Quite complex for a deluxe. Fold up the landing gear, first off. I'd recommend removing the missiles. Unclip the sides and pull them out, to become the arms. Fold the legs down from underneath, swing the hips out, swing the pelvic plate down underneath the nose of the jet to form his groin. The torso folds and swivels around and comes together quite well with chestplates locking it all together. While this is elegant, it's hard to describe so I'm not going to try. In transforming his torso, the head will be revealed and snaps into place on his shoulders. Rotate the legs, fold up the feet and heelspurs. Position the arms and fold up the silver wristguards to reveal the claw-hands.
It's a tricky transformation until you get the hang of things, largely due to all the interlocking and rotating that the fuselage undergoes in becoming the torso. As I said, it's complex, but it's not hard once you get the hang of it - in fact it's nice having a deluxe with such an elegant and satisfyingly clever transformation.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 14cm Width: 17cm
exact width will depend on the pose
Again mainly twotone metallic blue, with the yellow wingtips on his arms, with a fair bit of silver - which is now almost entirely plastic rather than paint. His torso, arms, thighs, hand-claws and head are blue while his hips, heelspurs, shins and shoulders are silver plastic. Round this off with shiny silver painted wristguards and green feet. I should mention that this green is metallic, and is similar in shade to the lighter blue.
The head may be blue, but the face is silver, and is moulded like the breathing mask that jet pilots wear, which is a nice touch. His forehead is painted red, this is the only spot on the toy that uses this red, and it's quite bright so I'm glad they didn't use it anywhere else. He could have done without it, actually. His eyes are red and he has a working lightpipe, although with that bright red on his forehead it's hard to actually see unless you hold him up to a light - the red paint overwhelms his eyes.
The missile launchers are now on the outsides of his arms, and can still shoot in this mode. There's another gimmick in this mode, in his legs. If you rotate his legs outwards and fold down his feet and heelspurs, you can attach the legs together, forming a large triangle around the groin. Lift the shins out to reveal silver jet hover engines with blue cowlings. This is the hover mode featured in the Beast Machine cartoon. While it can't stand up, it's great play value.
Sonic Attack Jet inherits the fantastic poseability Jetstorm had. The head turns, although the tailwings get in the way of the large antennae formed from the tailfins. His shoulders rotate, and also lift out to the sides. His elbows bend inwards, and there are swivels just above the elbows. His claws can rotate with some difficultly, and are made of soft plastic so he can potentially grasp stuff. His hips are ball joints, with swivels directly below them, while his knees, feet and heelspurs are all hinged. The end result of all this is an incredibly poseable robot that can be made to stand in almost any pose.
The colour scheme is awesome, although the red forehead is a mistake. While I'm not sold on the hand-claws, the facial sculpt is cool, so they pretty much even out. The poseability of this mode is great, so overall it's a great robot mode.
VARIATIONS
None, although he's a repaint of Jetstorm as mentioned. He's basically meant to be the drone army under Jetstorm's command (the tech spec rank is 2!)
OVERALL
This is a great mould, with fantastic poseability and good play value. Now with less yellow and the twotone blue, this is a better colour scheme than Jetstorm had. They seem to have fixed the missile launchers, as well, so there's two counts in his favour. If you only get one toy of this mould, I'd recommend Sonic Attack Jet. Jetstorm is still nice, but Sonic Attack Jet is easily better than Stormjet or Jhiaxus. I initially passed on him since he never came out in Australia, incidentally. I found him in a TRU in Vancouver, and only grabbed him since he was the only Transformer they had in stock - once I opened him I was really glad I got him - 9/10
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