Embarrassingly I can never remember Needlenose exists. I know that there's 3 Decepticon Targetmasters and that the other two are Quake & Spinister but Needlenose just escapes my mind. Thinking this was a common problem I surveyed The Hub Forum and discovered that it wasn't and everyone else remembered Needlenose due to something he did in the comics which I had completely forgotten about. Heck the only Dual Targetmaster comic appearance I can remember is Spinister's guest spot in the Dreamwave Armada series.
Needlenose is F-16XL variant of the F-16 Fighting Falcon (thank you http://tfwiki.net). He's got a blue nose, with painted red cockpit canopy, and a blue tail which can fold to one side, a quite unnecessary feature as it doesn't need to do that during the Transformation and is attached so loosely it can easily come off and be lost. The body of the jet and it's wings are grey while the undercarriage is the same dark blue as the nose with lilac engine outlets. There's two darker grey wheels mounted under the engines at the rear of the jet and a fold down landing gear with moving wheel (both the darker grey) that folds down form the body. There's a screw hole in the middle of the plane which is slightly too big to take a 5mm peg. On a toy that uses 5mm pegged weapons that's a big fail point. Instead the two Targetmasters, like Spinister's attach to pegs on the underside of the wings. The weapons integration doesn't work so well here as it does on Spinister and Quake but you can see they're aiming for something like the missile pods on the original Decepticon jets. I wonder if this is what they're getting at with Armada Thrust's Mini-con posts under his wings? Must try him with some of the Dual Targetmasters since no Mini-cons will fit.
Needlenose has two Targetmaster partners:
The purple single barrelled gun is Sunbeam To transform him into a robot fold the gun barrel back into the body of the weapon and stand on the front of the weapon. His robot mode has the 5mm peg usedfor holding him on it's chest (Chest cannon!) He's moulded holding a gun on his fixed left arm. Both arms and the face are painted red while the lower legs and waist are grey. He holds a gun on his left arm while a 4 port missile array is attached along the side of his right leg.
The black dual barrelled gun is Zigzag. His barrels fold behind the back of the robot mode with the peg & corresponding hole in the reverse being found towards the robot's feet. He has yellow legs and arms and a grey waist/belt and face. He doesn't have any moulded artillery instead carrying a swords in his right hand and a shield on his left arm.
Transformation: remove the Targetmasters and fold the landing gear away. Fold the nosecone onto the jet's back. Fold the sides of the undercarriage forward to form legs. Fold the engine outlets down as feet. Stand with the underside facing you. Fold each arm out to the sides from within the body - there's a tab you can sneak your finger nail under to lift with - then fold down at the shoulders - it may be easier to rotate the arms at the shoulders first - and fold the hands out. Raise the helmet up to reveal his eyes.
Hasbro: Ban faces painted greeny yellow. It looks awful. See also Fangry, Flamefeather and Ruckus: All 1988 Decepticons like Needlenose. There's a lot of grey still on this mode on the wings, chest, head and upper legs with the lower legs & waist being dark blue, the arms lilac and the helmet dark grey. Don't fold the helmet too far back as it gives him a massive forehead, instead position it just over his eyes. He can hold the Targetmasters in either hand individually or combined into a super weapon or store them on the pegs on the front of his wings. Although Spinister is he overall articulation king for the Dual Targetmasters, Needlenose has the best arms which turn at the shoulders as well as raising out to the sides.
Lots to like here.
Needlenose was sold with his Targetmaster partners in the west as a carded toys during 1988. he was not available in Japan and has been neither reissued or recoloured.