 We hit 9,000 subscribers! Woo! Thank you for helping the channel reach another milestone. This means there are still a lot of people who remember and love G.I. Cho. I hope you will all find a home here. I want to thank each and every one of you 9,000 people for joining and staying with the channel. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, I lost count. I do need to thank one viewer in particular, Thomas Hogan, for donating this toy to the channel. This is the third review in a row that was donated by Thomas. That was just a coincidence. When I was making the schedule, I was just looking at which toys would make sense each week. I tried to keep the lineup diverse. I try not to review the same character and subteam too close together. That helps me narrow it down. So by coincidence, three toys in a row donated by Thomas. I appreciate Thomas' generosity, but I worry about accusations of favoritism. Maybe I should say something mean about Thomas just to balance it out. Thomas f***s b***s. The Desert Apache is a peculiar bird. In many ways, it fits perfectly with G.I. Cho. It's based on a real vehicle. It's desert themed, as a lot of G.I. Cho vehicles were. It looks great and it brings a lot of firepower to the battlefield. In other ways, it doesn't fit with G.I. Cho at all. It literally doesn't fit with G.I. Cho. Let's look at one of the strangest vehicles in the entire vintage G.I. Cho toy line. HCC788 presents the Sonic Fighters Desert Apache. This is the 1992 G.I. Cho Sonic Fighters Desert Apache AH-74. This vehicle was introduced in 1992 and it was available in 1992 only. It was discontinued in 1993. To my knowledge, this is the only version of this vehicle ever introduced in the G.I. Cho line, vintage or modern. The name Apache comes from a group of Native American tribes. The Desert Apache is based on a real-world military helicopter, the Boeing AH-64 Apache. The Apache was developed to replace the AH-1 Cobra, the vehicle that was the model for G.I. Cho's Dragonfly. It's a great idea to give G.I. Cho an attack helicopter based on the Apache. G.I. Cho was due for an upgrade in that department, but for a number of reasons, the Desert Apache never achieved the legendary status of the Dragonfly. The Desert Apache was released as part of the Sonic Fighters line. It was one of two Sonic Fighters vehicles in 1992. The other was Fort America. Sonic Fighters were action figures that included electronic sound playing backpacks. In 1990, the Desert Apache is two years too late for the Sonic Fighters. In 1991, the Sonic Fighters became the Super Sonic Fighters. The Super Sonic Fighters was a new set of figures with the same sound playing gimmick, but it had new characters and the branding was changed. In 1992, there were neither Sonic Fighters nor Super Sonic Fighters. That year, they had the Talking Battle Commanders. They had sound playing backpacks like the others. Unlike the previous iterations, the Talking Battle Commanders had their backpacks bolted to their backs. The Desert Apache is a vehicle for a defunct subteam. The Desert Apache had a sound making gimmick, which I will demonstrate later. The Desert Apache continues a long and storied tradition of G.I. Cho helicopters. In 1983, G.I. Cho got its first attack helicopter, the Dragonfly. The next was the Tomahawk in 1986. More than just an attack helicopter, it was also a troop carrying gunship. There was a helicopter action pack in 1987. I'm never sure if I should count that. In 1988, G.I. Cho had the Skystorm, the X-Wing Chopper. Also in 1988, G.I. Cho repurposed the Dragonfly for Tiger Force, calling it the Tiger Fly. 1990 was a big year for helicopters. G.I. Cho had the Locust in two different forms, and the Larger Retaliator. The Battle Copters were introduced in 1991, and there was another set in 1992. After the Desert Apache in 1992, there was only one more Joe helicopter in the Vintage Era, the Razorblade from 1994. The Desert Apache is unique among all these G.I. Cho helicopters, and not because it plays electronic sounds. There's something peculiar about the Desert Apache. For a G.I. Cho vehicle, it is in the wrong scale. Many G.I. Cho vehicles were scaled down from their real-world counterparts. They were still made to accommodate G.I. Cho figures. The Desert Apache is truly underscaled. A G.I. Cho figure barely fits in it, and only with his head and arms hanging out. The cockpit looks like it's made for a much smaller figure. There's a reason for that. This is a flying fighter. The Flying Fighters was a toyline from Hasbro in the early 1990s that featured realistic-looking aircraft with joysticks attached to the back so kids could pretend to fly them around. They had a sound-making feature. The Flying Fighters were in a much smaller scale than G.I. Cho. They included tiny little pilot action figures that would fit in the tiny little cockpits. The toyline didn't last long. There was a helicopter in the Flying Fighters line, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. It was slightly closer to G.I. Cho scale. Hasbro said close enough, changed the color, slapped some G.I. Cho stickers on it, and called it the Sonic Fighters Desert Apache. The Desert Apache was a reissue of a non-G.I. Cho toy from a toyline that was in a totally different scale. That's why it looks weird next to other G.I. Cho vehicles. That's why the plastic feels weird compared with other G.I. Cho vehicles. That's why the figures don't fit like in normal G.I. Cho vehicles. I have the instruction sheet and the blueprints for the Desert Apache, and I will refer to these. I did have standard G.I. Cho blueprints with listed features. Note it is the AH-74, not the AH-64. G.I. Cho just had to be 10 AH's higher. The instruction sheet shows how to insert two AA batteries. I have batteries in this toy, so it is ready to test. We will get to the electronic gimmick after we look at the rest of the vehicle. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Desert Apache. The helicopter can be removed from the support rail, as the blueprints call it, which is attached to the joystick with the electronic sound making gimmick inside it. There is a tab on the bottom. If you pull that down, the helicopter can be slid back and out. When removed from the support rail, it is a basic G.I. Cho style vehicle with no electronic features. Starting in the front, we have the radar and sensor cluster on the nose. It is in black plastic. It is hinged, so it can turn a little. On the underside, we have what the blueprints call a full rotation 30mm chin gun. It is in black plastic. It can pivot, but not quite all the way around. It runs into the body of the helicopter, so it's not really a full rotation gun. It's pretty tiny as G.I. Cho vehicle weapons go, but it is in scale for the helicopter. Next, we have the canopy. It is in tan plastic, the same color as the main body of the vehicle. It is the frame only. It does not have clear plastic windows. It has some cobra kill marks, and it can be removed for placing the action figure in the cockpit. Then we have the cockpit, and this is a big problem. It has one seat, it has no instrument panel, and it barely fits one figure. The box art shows a two seat cockpit, as a real Apache helicopter would have. Falcon is piloting from the back seat. That's a bit of false advertising. Who should be the pilot? The box art shows Falcon. He was a supersonic fighter from 1991, and his backpack was sort of a helicopter. The file card for 1992 bullet proof says he should be the pilot of the Desert Apache, but he was in the DEF series. He had nothing to do with Sonic Fighters or supersonic fighters. I'm choosing Falcon only because he's slightly more related to the Sonic Fighters series. You can place the figure in the cockpit in a seated position. You just put him in there, and then you have to put the canopy on over him. Place the front tab in first, and I don't know if you can get this to work better, but I have only been able to get this to work with the figure having his arms and his head sticking out of the canopy. The canopy has openings on the side and the top that seem to be for this. They knew a GI Joe figure wouldn't really fit in there. This looks ridiculous. It looks like he's flying a toy helicopter. Which of course he is, but I mean it looks like he's flying a toys toy helicopter. The Flying Fighters version had a two seat cockpit, and it came with small scale figures that would fit in it. Moving on, we have the main rotor. The hub and post are in tan plastic, and the blades are in black. All of the blades should have these green little safety stickers, but I only have one of them. The blades spin pretty well, though they are a bit wobbly. Let's turn our attention for a moment to the main body of the helicopter. It has some excellent detail, some lines and rivets, and some technical detail. It's all in a light tan plastic color, perfect for a desert mission. Later in the line, GI Joe went for more desert themes, possibly inspired by Desert Storm, and I think it looks good. The body is covered with paper stickers, not vinyl stickers like classic GI Joe vehicles. There's a problem with these stickers, they tend to dry out and fall off. I had to re-glue all of these stickers on this vehicle. They had fallen off, as if there had never been any glue on them. On either side, we have what the instruction sheet calls engine covers. That's what the instruction sheet calls them. They are not the kind of engine covers we usually get with GI Joe vehicles. They are not removable engine cover panels. They are tan like the rest of the main body. On each side of the helicopter, directly under the engine covers, we have stabilizer wings. And they each have missiles and bombs and spring-loaded missile launchers. These spring-loaded missile launchers make it feel a bit more like a 90s GI Joe vehicle. On the end of each stabilizer wing, there is a spring-loaded missile launcher. They can be removed. They are black. There is one on each side. They can fire these neon green missiles. There are four total green missiles, one for each launcher, and two more that can be pegged onto the wings. These black missile launchers and the missiles were copied wholesale from the 1991 heavy-duty figure. It's the same missile launcher, but in black plastic instead of green. It even pegs on in the same way, and the green missiles appear to be identical. The extra missiles can peg into the underside of the wing. Oddly enough, the underside of the wing has a dumbbell-shaped slot, like a regular GI Joe missile. But these missiles don't have a peg for that. You have to just slot in one of the fins. You can place the missiles into the launcher with the flat rail to the side. Press back until it clicks. Then you can place the missile launcher on the end of the wing. It can slot in, like so. Then you can take aim at our favorite target, Dr. Mindbender. The trigger for the missile launcher is in the back. You just take aim and fire. Okay, that was really weak. Let's try it again. Press it all the way back. And can we get a little more energy out of it this time? It's a good thing we have four shots because Dr. Mindbender is proving not to be an easy target. Let's try a third time. Dr. Mindbender, you're going down. Last chance. I can't believe we can't hit that guy. Let's see if we can take him out. Dr. Mindbender, you're going down. In addition to the missile launchers and the missiles, each wing has a cluster of black bombs. The bombs are on a rack. The racks have dumbbell-shaped pegs that actually fit in these slots on the underside of the wing. So you could put them in any slot. Each rack has a cluster of four black bombs. Each one has a dumbbell-shaped peg that goes right through it like a regular GI Joe missile, so they can be removed. There are four bombs on each side for a total of eight. The Desert Apache has landing gear. It has a pair of wheels in the front. They do roll. They are black. They are not detailed, though. There is some detail on the struts. The struts are tan like the main body of the helicopter, but no detail on those wheels at all. A real Apache helicopter has a wheel on the tail, and this one does, too. It is molded in. It is in that tan plastic color. Unfortunately, we didn't get another color for that. It is in a raised position, but it does function. The helicopter will rest on it. The tail itself is quite long with GI Joe library and stickers that say airborne with what looks like a Native American shield and eagle feathers. I'm not loving the lime green color they went with on these stickers. That's definitely more like a GI Joe vehicle from the 90s than a flying fighter. They could have gone with a different color, maybe brown, to complement the tan. It has a tail fin with a tail stabilizer, United States and American flag stickers. On the port side of that tail fin, we have a tail rotor, and it's two separate pieces. They do not lock together, so they do spin independently. Maybe that's by design, but I just think it looks odd. On the underside of the tail, we have some tabs, and that's for placing the helicopter in the support rail. The support rail itself is in that tan plastic and attached to it is a black joystick with a battery compartment and the electronic components inside it. The joystick has a green button on the top. This appears to be a standard flying fighter's joystick, unmodified for GI Joe. By squeezing these tabs on the side, the joystick can be removed from the support rail, and here it appears to be a standard flying fighter joystick that you could probably put on other flying fighters. Yes, that's exactly what it is. It is an unmodified flying fighter's joystick. To place the Desert Apache on the support rail, just line up those slots and press it forward until it latches. That makes me a little nervous. I feel like this plastic is maybe just a bit too delicate for this latching mechanism, but so far it has connected and disconnected without any problem. The joystick allowed kids to fly the helicopter around and pretend to be piloting it, and that's cool. That's really not a bad feature. The underside of the joystick that attaches to the support rail has a speaker and it has a battery compartment and cover. Just slide that forward. It takes two AA batteries. This control stick produces three sounds. It has a helicopter engine sound that runs constantly as long as it is switched on. It starts slowly and then builds up speed. To activate the other two sounds, you use the missile on the top of the joystick. Pressing it to the left makes a machine gun sound. Pressing it to the right makes a missile launch sound. The instruction sheet says you have to let the engine sound get up to full speed before you can use the other two sounds. So let's switch it on to see what happens. Looks like we switch it back to turn it on. Okay, there it goes. Okay, the helicopter engine sound is up to full speed and it's super annoying, but let's go ahead and do the other two sounds. Let's press this top button to the left for the machine gun. Machine gun sound and to the right for the missile launch. Let's launch another missile and machine gun. That helicopter engine sound gets annoying really fast and it does not stop as long as the thing is on. There. That's enough of that. I'm not a big fan of noise making gimmicks. I know some kids liked this stuff, but it was never my thing. The helicopter noise gets annoying really fast. Unfortunately, you can't use the other sounds without also hearing that incessant clicking. Looking at the Desert Apache's media appearances, it doesn't seem to have any. It was not animated and I can't find any appearances in the comic book. Looking at the Sonic Fighters Desert Apache overall, this is such a strange vehicle. It's hard for me to wrap my head around it. I maintain it's one of the strangest G.I. Joe vehicles in the entire line. Yes, the Pogo was strange and the Buzzboard, but this vehicle is strange because it's not a G.I. Joe vehicle. On its own, it looks great. It's a nice model of a real Apache helicopter. It has some nice features. The desert color is cool. I wish the missiles weren't neon green, but I can live with them. When you put a figure in it though, it all goes awry. It's very obvious this vehicle was not made for G.I. Joe scale figures. The joystick attachment is kind of fun. The electronic sounds are fun for about two minutes. You can remove the joystick and ignore those features and that's good. It's a gimmick that does not get in the way of normal play. How do I rate this toy? Do I rate it as a flying fighter toy or as a G.I. Joe toy? As a flying fighter, it's awesome. It's a faithful reproduction of an AH-64 Apache. I want the Desert Apache to fit in G.I. Joe because I want G.I. Joe to have an Apache helicopter in its arsenal. Rating it as a G.I. Joe toy, it comes up short. Literally short. It's too small. It doesn't fit. It looks less cool with a figure in it. So it lands in the middle tier, I guess. Seems like everything is hitting the middle tier lately. The Desert Apache is too cool for the bottom tier and too weird for the top tier. So there you go. That was my review of the Desert Apache. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you again to Thomas for donating this toy. You f***ing f***er. If you liked this video, please consider giving it a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribing to the YouTube channel, hitting the notification bell and sharing it with your friends. You can always find me on social media on Twitter and Facebook and I have a website, hcc788.com. Things as always to my patrons. Their support is invaluable. They help keep this show going. If you like G.I. Joe and you like these videos and you like to help me make more of these videos, please consider supporting the channel on Patreon. You can get some special perks and even find out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos. Like that one right there. Thank you to each and every one of you 9000 for joining me on this journey as a G.I. Joe fan. I'll see you next week and until then, always remember. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.