Jan 20, 2025
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AFSOC Pave Lows in Iraq - September 2008
Why we fight. A USAF special operations MH-53, similar to the type soon to be infiltrating Green Beret teams into Afghanistan, involved in relief operations over central Manhattan and the still-smoking ruins of the World Trade Center. (USAF photograph by Gary Ell)
Photo and caption featured in US Army Green Beret in Afghanistan 2001–02 (Warrior Book 179) by Leigh Neville
I miss those days!
Next photoshoot: Studio Series Leader class Blackout!
I love this figure as much as I don’t, having had it in my posession for many months now. It cannot be disputed that it is one hell of an amazing looking figure in his robot mode and even nearly so in his MH-53 helicopter form. But he has so many troubling aspects that it doesn’t really pay off in either mode and leaves a bitter taste going from one to the other.
Transformation to robot mode? Fluent, fun and surprisingly complex. Going to alt mode? That is the troublemaker. I have yet to get everything to line up correctly, not helped by the fact each panel collides with one another no matter how you try to approach them.
Robot mode looks phenomenal. I can’t fault it, it’s such a leap beyond the original voyager class of 2007 that saw figures as late as the waves beyond the 3rd film. But appearances aren’t everything. As stellar as Blackout looks, he is severely limited in his mobility. There’s plenty of joints, but each one has very little articulation due to colliding with other body parts. Hence the not so amazing photography above. I just couldn’t work with it (not helped by the ratchet in the right leg being overtightened and both knee joints being loose).
The Skorponok and blade chopper accessory are both neat accessories, but for such a powerhouse of weaponry in the film it’s a let down to not have a single gun included.
I scored Blackout before, but I will again upon reflection; 5/10.
Edwards Air Force Base, California
Dubrovnik, Croatia- A US Air Force MH-53 Pave Low closes in on the wreckage of the CT-43 “Gator” that crashed and killed 35 people on April 3, 1996. Among the dead were US Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and The New York Times Frankfurt bureau chief Nathaniel C. Nash . (US Army/SSG Randy Yackiel)