[Lynk Former]

@ Hawk: No, the Valkyries were designed as space fighters originally with the intent on fighting the Zentradi, the whole Macross project was designed to send man into space. The decision to model the fighter after the Tomcat was made for real world value at the time the anime was made. Like I said before, it was the coolest thing ever at the time, so naturally you designed a transforming mecha out of it.

Also, this isn't a human-made nuclear power source we're talking. This nuclear power is "reaction based" (which is a term used back then because of the cold war and the fact that it was seen that the good guys weren't the ones who used nukes to destroy their enemies)... the technology was actually developed using the overtechnology found on the Macross and works differently and is more powerful than anything a human could develop alone.

But anyway, I have been reading up on the Valkyrie's power plant and apparently the air intakes do have a few uses. The Valkyries do have a backup chemical based fuel tank and apparantly it also uses the intake for reverse thrust... or so I read.