I have wonderd this for a while just never asked. Why are most if not all of the Decepticons able to fly but only some of the Autobots? I know that the Aireal Bots and Jetfire could because of them being jets and the Seekers because of the same reason but then why would Megs, Soundwave, Rumble, and so on? While Prime(Needed a Jetpack), Bumblebee, Hound and alot more Autobots couldnt?

 

you know in the Japanese headmasters in robot mode everyone flew. I think it was just not thought out animation errors really I mean everyone could fly in the MTMTE that I remember anyway. I think even Prime.

 

ah, another unsolved Tf mistery. For some reason they could all fly in MTMTE, but eventually the Autobots forgot that ability. Why? Well, why cars need to fly? XD

 

I always interpreted it that all the Autobots had flying powers, however, it was very limited (except for certain characters like the Aerialbots, Omega, Powerglide, Skyfire, etc.). It seems to me that it drains their systems so they can't sustain it for long periods of times.

I'm guessing the earth-bound Decepticons have a secret technology which allows them all to sustain longer periods of flight. Similar to how the Romulans and Klingons had cloaking devices; meanwhile Starfleet didn't; in the Star Trek series...

 

I just remembered "The Return of optimus prime part 2", when Galvatron screams: "Autobots can't fly".

Odd  

 

The only Autobots that can fly are those with flight-based alt modes; any other Autobot who flew was a mistake on the animator's part.

 

As far as I'm concerned, NONE of the TF's can fly in bot mode without the assistance of a jetpack or something. Enough things about them already don't make sense, so I'm certainly not going to swallow the theory that 60 foot tall 10 ton robots can zip around like birds just because the cartoon felt like animating them doing it when convenient. Next to mass shifting & disappearing parts into controlled subspace, this was probably the second worst wankery of the series, not even worth debating.

 

Didn't the Dinobots fly on more than one occasion?

 

Oh starfleet had cloaking technology(See ST:TNG episode "The Pegasus")
but thats a topic for another day and another forum.

I always found the idea of flying bots and cons to be ridiculous unless there was an obvious system that allowed it(jet pack, or flying alt mode). I like the idea of animation errors. that makes the most sense.

 

Yes the Dinobots could fly in robot mode.

 

I always wondered this myself. But it makes sence to have the bad guys and the good guys doing things the hard way.

 

Didnt Orion Pax refer to the decepticons as the flying robots in "War Dawn"? I seem to remember something like that. Personally I always figured it was something the writers didnt really think through when putting MTMTE together, but decided it wasnt a good idea when continuing season one.

 

So I guess the decepticons prior to that couldn't fly. The Quints built them as war machines, and I guess they learned to fly around the time Megatron was built by the constructicons.

 

If Autobots flew, they'd hardly ever have to transfrom to get anywhere.

 

If I remembered correctly, the Autobots somewhat lost their ability to fly after MTMTE. I believe that this change was made after Hasbro decided to expand the show from 3 episodes it was originally slated for.

To me it makes sense for the Decepticons were flyers or better flyers as they were "war machines"...this concept was emphasized in the Aerialbots and "War Dawn", where Orion Pax (pre-Optimus) admired the Decepticons for the ability to fly.

 

Wow lots of info!!!!! I will have to watch War Dawn this weekend!! Thanx for all the input guys.

 

My interpretation is that the Decepticons can all fly, they've all been upgraded to have that capacity. The Autobots could do these same upgrades, but the Autobots are more concerned with conservation than the Decepticons are, so they would upgrade robot modes hesitantly, or where they make sense(i.e., bots who would already be in the air, or the more powerful bots.)

 

I just assumed that Autobots couldn't fly as good as the Decepticons. Didn't
Orion Pax try to fly before being shot down my Megatron?

 

Yeah, I think you got a point as Orion did fly but it was a very poor attempt.