My Father-In-Law took one look at him and said "That's an A10 Tankbuster". I'll take him at his word. The jet resembles the Cybertron Jetfire in some ways, with the colour of original Jetfire - I wonder if this was planned as a Cybertron Defence/Vanguard team member upgrade of Jetfire ? He's armed to the teeth - double cannon under the nose, and under each wing a 6 barrelled cannon, a quad missile box, 4 more moulded missiles and a launching missile on the end of the wing.. There are 2 Minicon ports under each wing which are pretty inaccessible - see my various Armada Thrust reviews on how I feel about Minicon ports under wings ! However all the under wing weaponry can be swung out to the sides to extend the wings, which makes these ports top up at that point. 2 more Minicon ports are each side of the cockpit at the front. Speaking of the wings they have what might be a unique feature for a Transformer toy - he has working wing flaps that lift up and down along the rear of the wing. The cockpit is part of the key gimmick - insert the Cybertron Autobot Planet Key (#uya7) and the 2 cockpit halves spring to each side revealing a very different nose cone which is much more Cybertron style sci fi in nature. There may well be some noises here, but I've not tried batteries in it and I don't want to wake Jonathan at 11:45 at night ! There's a button on the cockpit which activates other noises, again I can't say what. The arrangement of the jets and tail at the back is slightly wobbly in jet mode but it works just about. There's a wheel at the back of each cannon, with a fold down front landing gear.
To transform - pullback on the front of the jet exposing the arm connecting it to half hay down the body of the plane. Fold back on this recessing the arm under the nose so the nose is now on the back of the jet rather than in front of it. Detach the jets and tail fins from the rear of the jet. Bend the rear of the jet up, and remove the contents of the underside - these are 2 handles for his swords. Pull the connecting piece for the engines down, straighten the jets and their connecting pieces out to form the robot legs, fold down the feet, turn at what is now the waist and push backwards. Stand on the feet. Fold the 6 gunned cannons down to form the arms, and pull back on the side tab on each cannon to retract some of the gun barrels to form the hands - out of each set of 6 one recesses completely and disappears, the other half way to form a thumb. The head folds up from the top of the body - you may have some difficulty with this as on mine the frame round the back of the neck stopped it folding up the whole way - it will click into place. Unclip the wing flaps - these form sword blades ending in a standard size peg - Classics Grimlock may well be borrowing one ! Clip the swords into the handles and peg into the sides of the wrists.
The resulting robot is a mix of the jet's white and the metallic brown of the undercarriage, with a big yellow crest round an Autobot symbol on his chest. The wings are stretched out over the rear of the shoulder blades with all the weaponry displayed forwards pointing upwards. It's a bit different from many previous robots for plane toys. The robot's articulation consists of a head that turns, The arms raise & swing to the sides at the shoulder, have a bicep joint and a double elbow that allows the hand to rest level with the shoulder. The waist turns, and he can lean forward at the waist as well, universal joint hips with a bicep joint below the hip, forward bending knees, and feet that bend down. Although the hands cant hold anything there's standard size peg holes on the side of the arm for the swords to fit into. The swords can be exchanged for the missile launchers that unpeg and come away as part of a curious S-shaped piece of plastic - they look odd as weapons. For extra firepower fold up the grey frame round the back of his head, pull the plane's nose up from his back, peg into the frame and insert the planet key to form a huge cannon over the head.
Wing Saber's other function is to act as a combiner with Cybertron Optimus Prime: Prime should be in super mode, but remove the wing & gun assembly. remove both swords and missile launchers, and place the nose cone of the jet onto his back. Take the missile launcher and clip onto the sides and back of Prime's feet - the curious S shape of them now adds heel spurs to Optimus. Fold the head in. Raise the arms up at the shoulders and straighten out. Extend all 6 gun barrels. Fold the chest plate up so it's level with his neck, and then further so it's upside down over where his head would be - they'll be 2 grey supporting struts at neck level. Pull the chest panel up so the struts unfold, and then bend down at the top of the chest panel so the panel is pointing forwards. Rotate the waist 180 degrees and fold up the feet. Fold the legs into a kneeling position and swing to the sides. If you so desire fold the wings out to extend the wing span - I prefer them in but you need to decide before combining. There will be a yellow clip visibly in the chest cavity and 2 raised blocks above and to the sides of it. These recess into the head raising lever slot and shoulder blade panels on Optimus. The grey arms fold over his shoulders, and the crest over Prime's chest. The sides of the crest slide apart, and the swords - via posts on the handles - peg into Prime's fists.
The resulting super mode ticks many of the Optimus Super Mode boxes - it adds a pair of over the shoulder cannons - smaller than Overload's, but these are 6 barrelled :-). He gets wings - don't forget original Prime was commander of a flying squadron. There's some extra missiles and armour, and of course some swords.
Now remember I mentioned the standard size pegs on the swords that other toys could hold ? This means the sword handles that attach have standard size peg holes. So you can remove the swords - reattach them to the wings so they don't get lost or loan them to a passing warrior robot. You're left with 2 handles that for an adaptor for Prime's rather odd but articulated hands so Prime can now hold the standard size weapons - Star/Energon sabre, Requiem Blaster, Skyboom shield, Robotmaster missile launchers, Minicons Overrun, Rollout and Prowl and many other weapons are now available for Prime to use. And since the handles aren't needed for Wing Saber's jet mode, and the blades can be stored on Wing Saber the only time Prime need loose them is when Wing Saber wants to hold his swords. A small touch but quite brilliantly enhancing the play value of the Cybertron Op.
So: Excellent jet mode, decent robot mode, good add on for Optimus with a stunningly effective side effect. If you've got Cybertron Op you need this toy, and it's very good without him.
Wing Saber was available in Japan as Galaxy Force toy GC-22 Sonic Bomber. The Sonic Bomber version is notorious for having a moulding fault which I thought was on the jet but my research indicates may be on the figure's helmet. Sonic Bomber was also available in the EX-02 Sonic Convoy Giftset where he has gold chromed wing blades, a red chromed chest panel and metallic red paint. These lack the moulding fault. In the USA an Optimus Prime & Wing Sabre giftset was available at Costco for less than the retail price of Optimus Prime by itself ! This set includes a DVD of the Cybertron episode United.