I jumped the fence and grabbed this guy up yesterday. He is better than pics make him out to be however he would have been much better if they had left the shuttle\gun in the mix. Does anyone know why they pulled it?

 

Budget cuts LOL

 

I ordered him Friday along with Ldr Jetfire and a second Ransack.
can't wait to put these guys on a shelf together.

 

I like him, the mini Prime is cool too, but be careful if you put the Prime in the cargo hold and eject him. It is a nice feature but on mine it seems to have banged up the top of the smokestacks, the space is really tight. Just be careful of that.

 

I like this guy, he seems so alien. Just awesome.

 

i got him and i like both modes, but i have a few notes:

1.) i have had my Prime get stuck in the cargo hold. i thought i had lost Prime, it was that bad

2. His transformation- the first time I transformed him, i thought i was going to break him; his pieces were so tightly locked in. And in the process of changing him back to alt mode, i had a hard time getting his arms in the right position so that i could fold the top down into place.
i kinda wish there were tabs or pegs for the arms to lock into on the top piece to hold them or let me know they are in the right place for that step.

For some reason, i feel like he shoulda been a leader class to really drive home his sense of mass- after all, he is bigger than Jetfire's alt mode- but as spindly as he is, i doubt Hasbro could have justified that move. At least not without having to gimmick him up to the Nth degree.

I keep him in Alt mode on a shelf with all my RotF airplanes and he looks great there.

 

I had the same problem with Prime stuck in his... rear. Take that as you want and as you like. As for the scale, I wish there was an ultra class in ROTF he could be in....

 

I just can't stop thinking...
Ratchet: What's wrong Stratosphere?
Stratosphere: Either i got Junkion Hemorrhoids, or I got a Peterbilt stuck so far up my ass...I can't transform.
Ratchet: (sticks head in rear cargo door) Prime, you in there?
Prime: I don't think this is what Alpha Trion meant by 'Till all are one."
Ironhide: Do you want me to take him out?
Ratchet: For so many reasons, I wanna say go ahead. but you'll kill em both.
Ironhide: Just wanted to show em my cannons.
Stratosphere: By Primus, this sucks.
Prime: You say something?
Stratosphere: um, no....

Back to topic.
Kinda wish they had sacrificed Prime and kept the shuttle gun, ya know?

 

Yes, and no. Yes, i wish he had a cool gun for a weapon instead of a peg hand. No, because I like the lil Optimus Prime.

Now, if you have the old Classic Camaro Bumblebee, the big guy can hold that gun very well PLUS it plugs into the hole on the top!

 

  oH MY GOD.....thats so funny....I cant stop cryin. 

 

You made my day, Nemesisconvoy.
thanks.

I may go through my spare weapons baggie for a gun i can give Stratosphere since i don't own that particular BB, MyO3Tundra. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

I picked him up on a whim yesterday. Didn't think I'd like him NEARLY as much as I do... Somehow his boat feet don't bother me at all, which surprises me.

 

Anything with that size of peg would work. I liked it as it looked like it could be some form of JATO (wrong place for it though) or satellite launcher.

Or, one could fill the whole with styrofoam real tight, coat it with some brush on superglue (makes it as hard as plastic) and paint over it.

 

ranks among the most appaulingly ugly transformer designs ive ever seen.

 

I just got him and i don't mind the boat shoes at all

 

Boatshoes.. True, his feet look kinda odd. From the front he looks a little wee skinny but okay. But his backpack is kinda long.. :S

 

Can you post up a pic of how he comes up with leader rotf Prime?

 

I'm torn on this guy. His feet are just too dumb. I really wish they'd broken them up and put some on his lower leg. Breaking up parts and scattering them about is a BayFormers design trait, so leaving them as huge chunks just doesn't make sense. The joint where they connect to the foot was massively stiff on mine too, and I felt like I was going to break something angling them into place. Also, as they're so big, not having decent ankle articulation just makes them even more of an eyesore. He has great arm articulation though.

I'm not a fan of his huge wings in robot mode either, especially them just pointing straight up. It just makes me think of Cybertron Jetfire and his sideways sticky-out shoulder wings and wondering how these guys manage to get through doorways. There's a certain distance something should poke beyond the body before it just looks dumb. I wish they'd had an extra hinge somewhere to fold them smaller.

The paint on his cheeks makes him look like a clown. I really think I'll have to paint over those in silver.

I'd have gladly swapped the mini Optimus for the shuttle gun. Or at least had a non-transforming mini Optimus in truck mode so he could still fit in the cargo bay.

But even with all this, and his rather simplistic transformation, there's something strangely appealing about Stratosphere. The really irksome point is I just can't work out what that appealing thing is.

 

For more pictures, click on the image above

Robot Mode: As a Voyager-class robot Stratosphere is bigger than your average ROTF figure and, depending on how you position the wings on his shoulders, he can easily reach the height of a Leader-class figure. That is his toy-scale, of course. If Stratosphere were built in the actual scale his alternate mode suggests, then he'd easily be the tallest figure of the entire Transformers franchise, dwarfing Fortress Maximus. In a real-world setting he'd probably be taller than Devastator (though not nearly as wide). So the bottom line is: Stratosphere is really tall.

The next thing you notice is how big his feet are. Stratosphere might well be the origin of the expression "gunboat feet", for his feet are truly the size of boats. They give him a very stable platform for all sorts of poses, but don't really lend themselves to any kind of dynamic ones, such as running. Then again when you're a robot as tall as a medium-sized skyscraper, you don't really need to run, so that's fine. Stratosphere is very posable and hindersome bits such as the wings and tail fins can be folded in various ways so as not to encumber his movements. Nicely done.

Two things I must mention, though: Stratosphere does not have a weapon (he nearly had one, see below). Now I'm always a bit put off when robots built for war come without weapons. One might imagine the engines on his wings as missile launchers, but that's pretty much the end of it. What he does have, though, are very intricate hands. Nicely sculpted, individual thumbs. I'm a sucker for nice hands, so he gets bonus points for that. Too bad he's got nothing he can hold in those terrific hands.

The second thing is Stratosphere's head, or rather the head of my very own individual stratosphere. The missing speck of silver on his brow is not supposed to be there. Now I'm not the kind of guy who goes and exchanges a toy because of such a tiny error in production, but it does annoy me a bit. Since it's not a general problem with this figure, there'll be no points deduction, but still: It annoys.

All in all Stratosphere's robot mode has no obvious flaws except for the lack of weapons. Very nicely done.

Alternate Mode: Stratosphere's alternate mode is, or so I read, not based on any single plane, but rather an amalgamation of no less than three: A C-17 Globemaster III (body), a C-5 Galaxy (cockpit), and an Antonov An-225 (tail). Not being a plane groupie, I can only tell you that Stratosphere transforms into a military-style transport plane and does a good job of it. The plane looks big and sleek, there are no robot bits visible, everything fits together pretty well.

The plane even has a working loading ramp in the back and enough room to store a tiny little Optimus Prime truck (see below) inside. A working landing gear is included as well. The only slight downside I've found to this mode is the design of the tail fins. Yes, they need to be hinged in order to fold them away properly for the robot mode, but couldn't they have included some sort of mechanism to make them stay in proper place when in vehicle mode? They're not loose, mind you, but getting the left and right tail rudder into identical positions isn't the easiest thing int he world and a slight touch suffices to make everything skewy again. Apart from that, though, no complaints. A nice, solid vehicle mode.

Partners / Add-Ons: To showcase how big Stratosphere would be in real life, he is accompanied by an in-scale version of Optimus Prime. The tiny little figure transforms from robot to truck and fits inside Stratosphere's belly in vehicle mode. In robot mode this version of Optimus is even smaller than the Legends version and its posability is limited to swiveling its arms at the shoulders. That's okay, though, as this Optimus here isn't meant to be a toy in its own right. As an add-on, he's okay. Looks good and properly brings across Stratosphere's scale.

Going back to the lack of weapons I mentioned above, Stratosphere was originally meant to include a second (or possibly alternate) add-on, a space shuttle for his vehicle mode, which would double as a missile launcher for his robot mode. The space shuttle would plug into the hole between his wings, simulating a real-world shuttle transport. This development made it as far as the test shot (See a picture of it here), but was dropped from the final product for undisclosed reasons. Too bad.

Remarks: Stratosphere is one of those figures that didn't actually appear in the movie accompanying his toy line, but can at least pretend he did. He transforms into the same type of aircraft that dropped Optimus Prime into Shanghai during the opening battle of Revenge of the Fallen. Sadly that plane didn't transform, as Stratosphere would easily have dwarfed pretty much every other Transformer in the movie, but them's the breaks.

As I've mentioned elsewhere the Revenge of the Fallen line has broken with the usual Transformers trend of reserving the best figures for the Deluxe class. In ROTF it's the Voyager-class that produces the best figures and Stratosphere is definitely a good example for that. He isn't the best of the lot, but he's a good figure with a good alternate mode, no flaws except the lack of a weapon, and the fact that he would be the tallest Transformer of his entire line if he were in scale only adds to his appeal. If they'd left him with that space-shuttle / missile launcher thing, I might have given him an A. As things stand, he gets a very good...

Rating: B+

 

Since teeny Optimus can't store when Stratosphere is in robot mode I make use of those hands so I don't lose the little figure. (whoops - just noticed you'd done that too)

It's like Stratosphere has been ROTF toy shopping.  

As for the hole on his back where the shuttle gun was supposed to go, I'm thinking I might dig out a spare Targetmaster companion and make Stratosphere a Targetmaster. As long as he doesn't shoot himself in the back of the head mounting the gun in robot mode.
Actually, what with those third party accessories for figures kicking about (and now Headmaster snake things) it'd be cool if they made a shuttle/gun (/and maybe Targetmaster companion) for Stratosphere.
Or I suppose we could just glue an old Minicon connector peg into the hole on Stratosphere and plug Sonar into him.