Inferno mounts in a tray to the rear of Thrust, between his engines - it's the only point in plane mode with an upward facing Minicon post. Once Inferno is mounted on the post he can be pulled back to launch his missile - or you can mount the launcher on Inferno the other way up and trigger it manually.
Inferno has an easy Transformation - fold the cab down to form the legs, and fold the arms out from the sides of the launcher. The launcher can then be placed either way up on his back - courtesy of 2 horizontal tabs on Inferno and matching holes on the launcher - or the pegs that were used to secure the arms to it can be attached so the launcher is mounted on the outside of the arm or in his fist - the only real posable use for it is to place it on his shoulder though.
Inferno is blessed with shoulders that rotate and move to the sides, hips and knees that move fore & aft, and a waist. The waist piece is as per all my other Infernos mounted the wrong way round - one side is detailed, the other has a hole and I reckon the detailed side should be the front - but seeing as the pegs that hold the legs on are virtually posts it's trivia to pop them off and put them on the other side.
The pegs on the launcher also match a couple of sockets towards the rear of Thrust's engines. I'd noticed the match on my first review but had forgotten about them since. I was intending to go off on one about using a fourth system of connecting pieces in Armada - after standard size hand holes, Minicon posts and Gear Gimmick but a closer examination shows that the peg holes match the larger of the 2 small peg sizes that TF toys use. They're too big to put Spychanger guns in - thought some Minicons - Astroscope springs to mind - can hold Spychanger guns. The holes on Thrust do fit the peg size used with Robotmasters - both the Flipchangers and Victory Sabre. They also match pegs used on some other toys - most excitingly Skyblast which allows you to give Thrust rocket boosters. The peg hole size shows up elsewhere - Payload and Dead End - so they can in turn hold Thrust's missile launcher. Thrust has 3 other Minicon ports - 1 underneath each wing which are next to useless cos nothing is small enough to fit bar an upturned Street Speed Team car, and one on the undercarriage - robot chest - which has even less clearance.
To transform Thrust: First remove Inferno. Pull the engines slightly to the side releasing the tray Inferno sits in. Fold this onto the top of the plane. Pull on the missile launchers at the side of the plane and the sides fold out to become the legs, Pull down on the nosecone which will detach from the body - there's a small arm with a peg that pins in - and fold under the plane towards the rear. You want to swing the little arm with the peg round 180 degrees and slip that between the shoulder blades, then turn the head so it's facing forward and fold the cone down if you so desire. Fold the feet out and the engines down to form the arms.
Thrust's robot mode is really where it all falls down. He's got 2 huge missile launchers stuck to his knees which get in the way. There's no hands, and the ends of his arms are covered in the tail fins. The articulation is good - ball jointed knees and hips, a waist & neck, shoulders to the sides & forwards and elbows. The gimmick is laughably poor - pull the wings out at the back on an arm, make the back the front by turning at the waist and then insert a Minicon on the chest peg to make the wings spin. Laughable. Oh so poor. The post on the chest is useless for attaching a Minicon as a meaningful add on. The 2 under each wing are now mounted to the sides of each shoulder and are still not much use.
The small holes are now on either side of the wrist - if his missile launchers had been removable as intended they'd have pegged on here - instead you use Inferno's missile launcher or the removable nosecone acting as a shield. There's some additional holes near the knees, perhaps left over from a previous design for the missile launchers mounting.
So overall - it's a poor design, but with some good points I'd forgotten about.
Then the Armada cartoon makers animated Demolishor in Red which meant the toy had to be Red. So not to make too many Red toys they made Thrust Blue and Brown like G1 Dirge. There was a massive outcry amongst fans, not just because the red toy had already been shown but it was the natural recolour for the toy with that name. Hasbro then promised to change to Red Thrusts and put them in later wave. Said later wave (also containing Blue Striped Wheeljack) never came out in the US. Some Red Thrusts were sent to Japan in a limit quantity exclusive for Toy's Dream Project who shipped almost all the US exclusive Armada toys to Japan. Since then there have been limited sightings of Thrust round Europe. Then Thrust showed up with some other unreleased to the UK Armada recolours - Hot Shot, Cyclonus & Airazor in the Entertainer.
The dark red and very dark grey - near black colour scheme transforms the plane into something that's much more pleasing on the eyes than the previous grey version with it's hideous pale and bright green trim - makes it look like Battle Armour Crappy Little Elf (TM2 Cybershark) has been reborn as a Decepticon. And as for the hideous yellow and orange Sunstorm version ..... what is the Sunstorm obsession ? A yellow jet appears for 5 seconds in the cartoon and every Decepticon plane in history has to be repainted in those colours ?????? But both of these previous colour schemes have good elements to them - Thrust's grey works, would have been better with a black or dark blue for the green pieces. The brilliant white on Sun works by itself and indicates a toy entirely cast in the colour with some careful painting - a little red and black detailing would be good. But I digress.
Thrust's Minicon Inferno has been repainted mainly in white but with dark grey limbs and missile launcher. The missile - and the Thrusts other missiles and launchers are a much lighter grey.
Having said all that the robot mode is again improved by it's new colour scheme - though the white (shared with Inferno) used on the shoulders looks a little out of place, but doesn't clash. Perhaps using the red again on these parts would have been better.
The new colour scheme is fantastic, and improves the toy no end.
Inferno is very nearly identical - just his shoulders, waist, leg and Minicon socket have changed colour from off white to blue, the majority in white remains the same. Once again he is mis assembled with the legs on the wrong way. As I remarked previously it is the work of seconds to correct it.
Thrust is a predominantly brown jet with purple/blue missiles - this says G1 Dirge to me. The TF reveals more blue - upper legs, waist, chest stripe and Minicon socket, with the brown legs, wings and tailfins once more alluding to Dirge. So all in all 10 out of 10 for a G1 Dirge repaint. It was a shame that it was a G1 Thrust repaint that was wanted and indeed shown on the cardback, so you can understand why people where disappointed. But a decent repaint, and so obviously different from the red PL Thrust that Armada Dirge will now stand beside him in battle.
minicons are the same bare swapping blue for green plastic. The scooter looks fantastic in black though :-)