Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Deluxe
Difficulty of Transformation to Robot: Easy
Difficulty of Transformation to Leg: Very Easy
Difficulty of Transformation to Arm: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Light flat gray, black, red, and some metallic gold, dark metallic bluish silver, moderately dark blue, metallic bronze, and silver
Rating: 7.9

    Skydive's alternate mode is a jet, and fits right in with the rest of the Aerialbots in terms of being a realistic aircraft. The "core" jet mode looks great-- it's largely proportional except for the wings, which are a titch small but not to the point where it's really obvious. The gray used for most of his coloration is a fairly flat shade-- rather dull, but at least it's not that super-blah light milky gray. It looks more like the actual color of an aircraft. What makes this mode pop a bit visually are the gold paint on the main wings, the gold stripes on the black tailfins, and the gold missiles. The contrast on the wings is exceptional, with the shade of metallic gold going VERY nicely with the black. The dark metallic bluish silver is also a great shade for a cockpit-- it makes it look a bit tinted. There's also some red in this mode, though it's more of an accent color to just bring a bit more color variety to the toy. In general, however, where the gold paint isn't present this scheme can get a bit dull. The big issue I have with this mode is sadly common to jetformers, and that's all the robot kibble underneath. The arms are particularly obvious, and stick out in between his wings even when looking at Skydive from a top-down view. At least the front of his shoulders look like intakes, though, so that part of his robot mode at least fits in here. His folded-up legs also give him a larger undercarriage than I'd like, so he looks too bulky from a side view. He also doesn't have any sort of landing gear, and there's no transformational reason for this. Skydive has three 5mm ports in this mode for holding compatible weapons-- a port on the underside of each wing near each tip, and one smack-dab in the middle top. Skydive comes with weapons to fill two of these ports-- one of the "hand/food/gun" accessories that pretty much all Combiner Wars toys come with (this one has two missles molded into the front), and the other is a double-barreled blaster accessory-- nothing special, but TFs do need their guns. One final note about this mode is that the nosecone and black tailfins are made of the softer, rubbery plastic for safety reasons, but I haven't seen any warping on the wings yet.
    Skydive's robot mode is definitely the strongest of his modes, and is definitely where the "meat" of the design work went. His jet parts-- his wings and nosecone, namely-- fold up his back and don't hamper articulation at all, even if they make him slightly backheavy as a result. Due to his transformation you can also fold out his wings slightly if you so desire. His core robot mode proportions are largely fantastic-- his waist is a bit overly skinny and his shoulders a bit TOO broad due to his transformation, but these are fairly minor quibbles. I do love his thicker-than-normal arms, they make him look a bit more individualistic, since his transformation is very uninspired for a jet, mostly consisting of just folding out his robot bits from underneath his jet mode (the shoulders sliding around and up is the only really unique part of it). His headsculpt is also fantastic, calling back to his G1 form while also modernizing quite a bit, with some excellent robotic detailing around his lips and the sides of his "helmet". The bronze paint on the face and the blue eyes also go REALLY nicely against the black-- I wish the bronze had been used a bit more on him, it's a great shade. Red also becomes a much more prevalent color in this mode, contrasting particularly excellently against the black-- nearly his entire chest is painted in this color, along with parts of his shoulders. This helps to give him a bit more color variety, which is good since the gold from his jet mode is largely hidden here. The mold detailing for his robot parts is fairly generic in the legs (certainly not bad, just nothing in particular sticks out), but he's got some nice ridged detailing on his chest, and the black-painted "armor" on his lower arms is also a nice touch. Skydive is quite articulated-- he can move at the neck, shoulders (at three points), elbows, waist, hips (at two points), and knees. His feet are sculpted to work in a slight "A" stance, so there's no issue there, either. The hip ball joints do seem to be a little looser than I'd like, however.

    Skydive's arm mode-- as is the case with nearly all Combiner Wars limbs-- is a bit of a variation of his robot mode. His head is rotated back while his combiner port rotates forward, and his legs are pressed back together, his accessory transforming into a hand, with his robot waist serving as a sort of elbow joint. The jet parts on the backback stay the same, but Skydive's regular arms are folded up in a rather obvious, ineffectual manner against his sides. I wish they had more seemlessly blended into the sides without the hands being so darned obvious, but at least the arms peg in somewhat securely into the wings so they aren't loose. All in all it's one of the more solid arm modes of the Combiner Wars line-- despite said obvious arms, they do get rather compact. There's also those two ports on the ends of the wings that can hold extra weapons. For articulation in this mode, Skydive can move at the shoulder (at two points), elbow (at two or three points, depending on whether the robot knees are facing forward or not), wrist, thumb (at two points), and at the base of his four fingers (all moving as one joint).
    The leg mode for Skydive is pretty much just his jet mode with the wings and cockpit folded into their robot mode position. The tailwings are also folded together, the robot head is rotated down to bring up the combiner port, and then the foot accessory is plugged in at the bottom. By and large this is a pretty decent leg mode-- it certainly looks solid, and those same two ports on his wings I mentioned earlier can still store stuff in this mode. However, his robot arms stick out like sore thumbs from the sides-- again, I wish there was some way to collapse them into the main body or fold them to the back. Skydive has the same articulation as all other Combiner Wars deluxes in leg mode-- his foot can rotate, and the knee joint can move at two points.
    Skydive works much better as part of a gestalt than as his own individual toy. His arm and leg modes aren't perfect, but both of them are relatively solid and stable. As a stand-alone toy, though, he may have some great robot mode proportions, but his transformation is pretty boring and his jet mode has a bunch of stuff on the undercarriage that makes it too bulky. His color scheme-- beyond the wings-- is okay, but nothing particularly awe-inspiring, either. Among other Combiner Wars toys, Skydive doesn't really stick out. He's not really bad, he's not really good, he doesn't do anything particularly innovative, he's just... there, to help fill out the Aerialbot ranks, and as such my opinion on him overall is pretty mild (though he does have one of the best headsculpts of the entire line).

Pre-mission psych-screening report by Rung, Autobot Psy-Ops Specialist:
A true "student of the game", Skydive uses his eidetic memory to analyze, catalog, and mimic the aerial maneuvers and techniques of any aircraft he observes. Displacement rolls, defensive spirals, pitchbacks, wingovers-- Skydive has seen them all and, more impressively, he can DO them all. The lone drawback to having such a thorough and varied "bag of tricks" is that Skydive is occasionally difficult to communicate with during a battle, as he's always thinking four or five moves ahead of his opponents. Skydive utilizes laser-guided missiles during airborne combat, and wields a double-barreled nega-blaster in robot mode that crumbles objects by severing molecular bonds. With fellow Aerialbots forms Superion.
CONCLUSION: Cleared for mission.

HISTORY (extracted from compulsory biographical download):
Prior to enlisting with the Autobots, Skydive served as the Cybertronian equivalent of an air traffic controller. Monitoring hundreds of simultaneous flights and routing them all for safety and expedience honed his multitasking processor and sharpened his eidetic memory. Having assumed a jet form as his alt mode, he puts his knowledge and memory to use as the chief aerial tactician for the Autobots. Forms either an arm or a leg of Superion, the combined form of the Aerialbots.

Review by Beastbot

Back to Transformers: Generations Index