 Tom Cruise, and I'm here to show you the G.I. Joe jet that was based on the plane that was popularized by my movie Top Gun. Fooled you, it's really hooded Cobra Commander 788. I know, I look exactly like Tom Cruise. You're not seeing double here, it's really me. But this week I am reviewing the 1983 G.I. Joe Sky Striker, which was based on the F-14 Tomcat. So let's kick the tires and light the fires and look at the 1983 Sky Striker. This is the combat jet XP-14F, the Sky Striker. It was first introduced in 1983 and it was sold all the way through 1985. It was discontinued for the year 1986, it was available for three years and most G.I. Joe vehicles were only available for two years. Why was it available for the extra year? Probably because the USS flag was introduced in 1985 and kids needed Sky Strikers for their aircraft carrier. There was a replacement for the Sky Striker in 1986, the Conquest X-30, which was a smaller and more futuristic looking jet. In 1983 there was no Cobra rival in the sky. The Cobra Air Force consisted of a glider and the Fang helicopter, neither of which was a match for the Sky Striker. In 1984 the Cobra Rattler was introduced and the Rattler was still smaller than the Sky Striker and it was more of a ground attack jet. But at least you had a Cobra aircraft that you could send up against the Sky Striker for great aerial dogfights. In 1986 there was the Cobra Night Raven, which was roughly the same size as the Sky Striker and had similar features. The Sky Striker is based on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, which was used by the US Navy and was in service from 1974 all the way to 2006. The wing sweep design on the F-14, where the wings sweep back, is designed to maintain optimal lift to drag ratio for the speed. The F-14 originally had a maximum speed of Mach 2.34. The F-14 was of course popularized by the 1986 movie Top Gun. The movie Top Gun came out in 1986, but the Sky Striker came out in 1983. So by 1986 there were a lot of Sky Strikers in the toy boxes of kids all across America. So I'm not saying that Top Gun ripped off the Sky Striker, but I'm implying it. We have something a little special with this review. We have the box that the Sky Striker originally came in. I don't normally get boxes, so whenever I have one to show you that's kind of a bonus. The front of the box has this beautiful full color illustration of the Sky Striker and this looks great. You get a great view of it there. You can see the underside of it there with all the missiles. You can see the characters inside the cockpit as firing a missile off there. It has that wonderful GI Joe logo on the front. This really makes you want to buy this jet. The front of the box lets you know that the Sky Striker comes with an action figure. It has a photograph of Ace here and an illustration of the parachute. Now this did change. Earlier Sky Strikers came with two parachutes. Later Sky Strikers came with only one parachute. And the text on the box did change to reflect that. The front of the box, the sides, and the bottom of the box are all full color printing. And the bottom of the box has these really nice photographs of the Sky Striker. Note the black tail fins. The Sky Striker was originally supposed to come with black tail fins, but we never got the black fins in the vintage line. We only got the Sky Striker with white tail fins. The top of the box and the back have two color printing. And this just has some of the features, the missiles, the parachute, the landing gear, and the sweep wings. The back of the box was printed in two colors and it has more of a description of the features. It has those black tail fins. It talks about the canopy and the missiles and the parachute with the removable seats. It has a little illustration of Ace over here. Now the Sky Striker was worth five flag points. And the flag points are cut out on my box, but they didn't cut the hole all the way through the box. So that's nice. The Sky Striker did come with a pilot codename Ace. And we are going to take a close look at Ace and his file card a little later in this video. But I'm going to set them aside so we can take a close look at the parts and the features of the Sky Striker. Let's start at the front. The Sky Striker has a soft rubbery nose and it has these stickers that run along the side. And I really like these stickers. I just love the way they're arranged on here. To me, this seems to have a really authentic look to it. I just really like that a lot. It has some black around the cockpit to reduce glare. On this side of the nose, we have this nose gun here. And the blueprints call this a Portside E41A1 Vulcan 50mm Cannon. That's a very large caliber machine gun. And this is probably based on the real world M61 Vulcan Cannon. Now the M61 Vulcan is a 20mm gun instead of a 50mm gun. But it's the same basic idea. There is a problem with the placement of this cannon. The body of the gun would be inside the nose of the jet and it would run right through the pilot's instrument panel, which of course would not work. On a real jet, that would be down here on the underside. I'm not sure exactly why they moved it up here to the top, but it wouldn't really work that way. There is a variant on this nose cannon. Earlier versions of the Skystriker had less detail on this cannon. Later versions of the Skystriker, the mold was changed to add a little bit more detail and this grille panel here. The Skystriker has a clear opening canopy and that canopy can be somewhat fragile and can break at the hinge. And that can be a very frustrating part to replace if it breaks, so be very careful with that. This Skystriker has the often missing name stickers. These stickers are often missing even on Skystrikers that are otherwise in great shape and complete. This front sticker, Captain J. Brad Armbruster, is ace. According to his file card, his real name is Brad J. Armbruster. Now the file card has J as his middle initial, but the sticker on the canopy has J as his first initial. This second name, Lieutenant Wayne Rutherl, is a bit of a mystery. That name does not match any GI Joe character, but there is an answer to that mystery. The designer of the Skystriker for Hasbro was Wayne Luther and Rutherl is an anagram for Luther. So this is the name of the designer of this toy. The Skystriker is a two-seater. As it should be, the Jetta was based on was a two-seater. The front seat is for the pilot and the back seat is for the radar intercept operator, or Rio. Ace is the pilot of the Skystriker, but who should be Ace's Rio? The box for the Skystriker shows Airborne, but I don't really like Airborne for that position. He's a helicopter assault trooper. I really prefer to pair him with the Dragonfly helicopter. In the comic book, we saw Ribchord in that position briefly. And in one famous issue, Lady J took that position, but I also like to display these figures in other places. I don't really like to put them in the Skystriker. So usually I just have Ace in the Skystriker and I leave that back seat empty. I put the question to the viewers, who do you have in the second seat of the Skystriker? These two seats are removable and they don't peg in. The shape of the seat actually just wedges in between these tabs. It does not hold in very well. These seats are plain black with a back peg, not much detail there. And attached to this seat is a parachute. If you got an early release of the Skystriker, you got two parachutes. If you got later release of the Skystriker, you only got one. The parachute has to be tightly wound to fit on here. And it's held on with a rubber band that stretches between two hooks. One on the top and one on the bottom. This is not the original rubber band. I do have the original rubber band. This is what's left of it. Yeah, 30 year old rubber bands don't tend to hold up very well. However, this is not a modern rubber band. This is a 30 plus year old rubber band that I have on here. I got this rubber band from the Cobra Battle Game, which had extra rubber bands that looked very close to the size that came with the Skystriker. These rubber bands have held up remarkably well for their age. With the rubber band off, let's open up the parachutes so you can see what it looks like. These parachutes are made of a thin sheet of plastic in a circle with this beautifully rendered eagle and skystriker logo. I really think this looks great. I love the blue. I think this is just a really nice image. You have to fold the parachute very tightly indeed in order to get it back on the seat. And it is attached to the seat with these white strings that are just kind of tied off in the back there. Now when I got this Skystriker, this parachute was folded up on the seat and it had been there for the last 30 plus years. It had never been removed. That's why the original rubber band was on there. Of course, it was dried out and disintegrated. With the two seats removed, the cockpit is essentially empty on the inside. Really no detail. There is an instrument panel there with really minimal detail and not much going on there on the inside of the cockpit. Let me demonstrate how to put the action figure inside the Skystriker. You have the seat with the back peg. You just peg that into the hole in the back of the action figure. Wedge that in really good. Make sure he's on there as securely as he can be. And he has to sit straight legged. There's not enough room in the cockpit to bend the figure's knees which I think is unfortunate. He has to sit in there like a Star Wars action figure. Then you line the seat up with the tabs on the inside and you just kind of wedge it in. And again, that does not stay very firmly, but it will hold in there. We have jet engine intakes, one on each side of the cockpit. On the top, we have two removable engine covers and these do fit in very firmly. They don't always come out very easily. You can take both of them off. And behind them, there is some engine detail there. Not bad. We have a couple vents right here and then we have the mechanism that operates the wings and the landing gear. And then of course we have the wings themselves and these wings are designed to sweep back for high speed flight. Operate the wings by pushing this lever forward to sweep the wings back for a nice very sleek looking design. And that also raises the landing gear. Then pull the lever back to extend the wings. The landing gear are synchronized with the wings and they go up and back down. And we will take a closer look at the landing gear when I look at the underside of the sky striker. All along the wings and the rear horizontal stabilizers and different parts on the back of the sky striker, there are all these no step stickers. I count 37 no step stickers on the sky striker. And people have complained about these, but I think they're really important. I mean, suppose one of these no step stickers was missing and someone were to step on that spot, then you'd be sorry. On these tail fins we have the image that's probably most associated with the sky striker, this eagle with the red sun in the background. And this is very nice. It's images like this that make me love this vehicle even more. This is very good design. Now these fins are white, but we were promised black fins. Even in some of the printed material like this catalog insert, it shows the sky striker with black fins. Now I don't think the white fins look bad at all. I think that looks fine, but black would have looked even better. In the back we have these two engines and they are both removable and there's some detail on the inside. It looks like jet turbines there and they both have multiple stickers. So you can pull your engines out and pretend that your mechanics are repairing them. It has a rear air brake here that is affixed partially up and there's a little bit of detail underneath it. Under the air brake, there are these ridges and although they weren't designed for this purpose, it was for the service purpose. In 1985, the USS Flag aircraft carrier came with this piece and this is a tail hook. This tail hook allows the sky striker to use the arrester cable on the aircraft carrier and it can be just fitted under the air brake and it is held on with those ridges. You just slide that in there and it does hold on pretty well. It doesn't come out too easily. And of course it is now a working tail hook. You can look at the underside of the sky striker and there is plenty to see here including a lot of detail and features. This hole in the nose right here is just a screw hole but it also can serve a purpose. It fits the small taxi vehicle on the USS flag so the sky striker can be towed into position on the flight deck. This is a good time to look at the missiles and it came with six missiles, small, medium and large. It had two of these small missiles which the blueprints call Sight 5 Sidewinders and they're probably based on the real world Aim 7 Sparrow Missiles which are medium range, semi-active radar homing air-to-air missiles. This sparrow missile is very similar to the missile that came with the 1985 Transportable Tactical Battle Platform and in fact it looks like this just an update of the sky striker missile mold. And if you kind of, you can kind of man up and you can kind of man up and down and you can kind of man up and down and you can kind of man up and down and you can kind of man up and down and you can kind of man up and down and you can kind of make it fit on the sky striker if you wedge it a bit but you kind of have to be careful with that because the slot that it fits on is a different shape than the one on the sky striker missile. Finally we have the big one. We have two of these large missiles which the blueprints call Sight 32 Phoenix Missiles probably based on the real world Aim 54 Phoenix Missiles which are radar guided long range air-to-air missiles. The sky striker is armed to kill targets at short, medium and long range. We have this fuel drop tank which is often mistaken for a bomb but it's not a bomb, that's a fuel tank. Now this is glued on, it's not meant to be removable but I still see them removed from time to time. I guess kids just thought that should be removable and kept pulling on it until it came off. Let's talk about the landing gear. Now some kids including myself kind of wish that the landing gear was not tied to the wing mechanism because sometimes you wanted to fly the jet with the wings out but the landing gear up but you couldn't really do that. But as an adult collector I can kind of appreciate now all the effort that went into engineering the mechanism. I don't mind so much but there is one thing you have to keep in mind if you're going to display the sky striker with the landing gear down it takes up quite a bit more shelf space having those wings out. The landing gear has panels the front panel is attached to the front landing gear and the rear landing gear actually has doors that close when the landing gear goes up. That means that the landing gear is mostly concealed when it's in the up position and aesthetically that's very nice. This is what the landing gear looks like when they're up and as you can see those panels conceal the landing gear so it doesn't break up those smooth lines of the fuselage. These are rubber wheels not plastic and it's always a bonus when we get rubber wheels it has smaller wheels in the front and larger wheels in the back. Both the front and the back wheels are stamped sky striker GI Joe and that is a great detail and this is one of the reasons why GI Joe is so much better than other toy lines it's just small details like that. Let's take a look at the pilot ace and let's start by looking at his accessory he came with only one he came with this helmet and this helmet is clear plastic with white paint on the back this is a unique accessory it doesn't fit any other GI Joe action figure it has some texture there on the top it has some sculpting around here on the back very interesting accessory and it's designed to fit on the ring on ace's flight suit so that doesn't fit any other GI Joe action figure and this is a nice accessory that is really specifically designed to go with this figure. Let's take a look at the articulation and ace had the standard articulation for 1983 GI Joe action figures that means he could turn his head from left to right it may be a little bit difficult to turn his head because his head is recessed inside the ring he could move his arm up at the shoulder about so far and he could swivel at the shoulder all the way around he had a hinge at the elbow so he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees and he had a swivel at the bicep he could swivel his arm all the way around the figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that allowed him to move at the torso a little bit he could move his legs apart about so far he could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees let's take a look at the sculpt to design and color of ace starting with his head and his head has brown hair and it has a very passive expression it's a pretty plain head sculpt this ace head sculpt is often mistaken for the heads on the 1982 flash and the 1982 stealer but it is not the same it is similar but that is a unique head sculpt the flight suit ace is wearing is a pressure suit designed for high altitude flight it's often worn by pilots of reconnaissance jets that fly at high altitudes it's not a typical fighter pilot's flight suit taking a closer look at the flight suit it has that ring that fits the helmet and it looks a bit better with the helmet on the helmet off it looks kind of like one of those cone collars that you put on dogs the chest has some unexpected detail it has this hose here probably for an oxygen system but it also has a knife and a pistol sculpted on there the back is pretty plain but it does have this sort of device thing here on the lower back the arms have these white puffy rings like the Michelin man we have some red pockets we have gray at the cuffs and we do have these white gloves and the white gloves have a bit of detail this waist piece is a bit different it does have the gray and it has a different color red here and it almost looks like it belongs on a different action figure but it does break up the monotony of the lighter color on the rest of the flight suit and it adds some color interest the legs feature those puffy rings like the arms a bit of gray here on the sides and then we have white and gray boots ace's flight suit looks more like an astronaut's space suit than it does a fighter pilot's flight suit let's take a look at the file card and this file card was not printed on the back of the box that the sky striker came in as we saw the back of the sky striker box was printed in two color and not full color so this was an insert inside the box and so it is plain on the back it has its faction as G.I. Joe and it has a nice portrait of ace here and this comes directly from the artwork on the front of the box it says he's a fighter pilot and his codename is ace this codename of ace is probably referring to a flying ace which is a title bestowed on fighter pilots who have shot down five or more enemy aircraft although this file card suggests a different origin for that codename his file name is Brad J. Armbruster his primary military specialty is fixed wing pilot single and multiple engine his secondary military specialty is intelligence operations his birthplace is Providence, Rhode Island and his grade is 03 Captain USAF that's United States Air Force and it's worth noting that ace is an Air Force pilot but the plane that he flies is based on the Navy plane this section says ace would rather fly than do anything else during high school he worked after school and weekends to pay for flying lessons spent one year flying pipelines in Alaska and two years stun flying for movies enlisted USAF age 22 duty most previous to G.I. Joe assignment senior instructor USAF fighter weapons squadron the aggressors in parentheses pilot combat training school the aggressors here is referring to a real world squadron the aggressors that was assigned to the USAF weapon school qualified expert F5E F15, F16 XP14F and of course the XP14F is the sky striker this bottom section says ace has one major character flaw cutthroat poker a predilection for gambling would ordinarily disqualify an applicant for the G.I. Joe team but in Armbruster's case you can hardly call it gambling since he never loses that's why they call him ace so gambling only disqualifies you if you lose that sounds sketchy the sky striker was all over G.I. Joe media in the cartoon series it appeared in the very first episode of that first mini series in 1983 and it appeared many many times thereafter in the cartoon though the sky striker is often not piloted by ace it seems like in the cartoon any Joe could just jump in a sky striker and fly it in fact the first time we see the sky striker it is flown by scarlet in the comic book the sky striker first appears in issue number 14 it is not a very spectacular or noteworthy first appearance the sky striker got a chance to shine in issue number 34 titled shakedown in which it went head-to-head against the cobra rattler even though that issue is a standalone story and did nothing to move the overall plot forward I still really like it and it's one of my favorite issues now I have the opportunity to do something that I don't often do and that is compare the vintage G.I. Joe toy to its modern equivalent this is the silent strike from the 2015 50th anniversary line and as you can see it is pretty much a copy of the sky striker other than the color it is essentially the same toy although it is very similar to the vintage toy there are some significant differences the body for the silent strike is broken up into sections whereas the body for the sky striker was all one solid piece also on the silent strike the wings needed to be assembled out of the box whereas on the sky striker those wings came already assembled the most significant differences in the cockpit which is a lot more detailed than the original sky striker but instead of being a two-seater it is now a one-seater and this is 50th anniversary ace looking a lot more like a fighter pilot than version one of ace version one of ace still looking more like an astronaut as with a lot of modern figures he comes with some unnecessary accessories but this does look like a nice update he looks appropriate for the sky striker I like the jumpsuit really good looking action figure I still prefer vintage figures over modern figures but I would have been very happy as a kid to get an ace that looked more like a fighter pilot looking at the sky striker overall of course this is a fantastic toy it's not perfect but it's pretty darn close of course I'd like to have a more detailed cockpit and it would be nice if the landing gear were independent of the wing mechanism and of course we'd really like to get those black fins we did finally get the black fins in a modern sky striker but never in the vintage line the sky striker was GI Joe's first jet and it was their best I don't think any of the planes that came after quite measured up to the sky striker even the Phantom X-19 which was comparable in size I don't think quite matched up with the sky striker the ace action figure does leave something to be desired he does not look like a fighter pilot he looks more like an astronaut and as a kid that's something that always kind of bothered me it doesn't bother me as much as an adult collector but it's not my favorite figure despite my misgivings about the figure I cannot recommend this set highly enough it's fantastic it looks wonderful and if you can get your hands on the original box the box artwork looks great and it makes a fantastic display that was my review of the 1983 sky striker and the pilot ace I hope you enjoyed it if you did make sure you leave it a thumbs up on youtube and don't forget to subscribe that's what keeps this channel going and don't forget to like me on facebook and follow me on twitter you get a lot of updates there you don't get anywhere else thanks for watching and I'll see you next week with another vintage GI Joe toy review he'll fight for freedom wherever there's trouble GI Joe is there GI Joe striker ace the airborne let's get those turkeys we're gonna get cobra this time or call that gender on the way hey check my missiles they're a-okay great I'm going to have a closer look way to go Joe GI Joe sky striker comes with ace and two parachutes other figures sold separately from this is ace and the sky striker to USS flag I am flying above the storm I am en route to provide air support to base OG 13 I've got a blip on radar that's not likely to be a commercial aircraft it's probably a hostile somebody's trying to contact me on channel 5 weasel you old dog you survived our first encounter not many pilots can say that out of respect I offer you an opportunity to turn back now and avoid destruction I'll think about that in the meantime the cobra wrestler is more maneuverable than this I've lost him on radar switching to thermal scanners you won't get away that easily where are you ace