The Sixwing team consists of the following six toys:
Chain Gun - AH-64 Apache helicopter and team leader - Sixwing's Back
Missile Run - B-1B Lancer bomber plane - Sixwing's Chest
Raker - Space Shuttle - Sixwing's Right Arm
Supersonic - Super-Sonic Transport plane - Sixwing's Left Arm
Flanker - Light Blue Sukhoi Su-27 "Flanker" jet - Sixwing's Right Leg
Falcon - grey & red F-16 Falcon jet - Sixwing's Left Leg
The three new six team combiners moulds introduced in 1992 all feature body parts that combine to form an aircraft when not being used to make the combined robot. Most of the body parts are the same for all three newer Sixteam toys: The chest & feet are moulded together in one colour (red for Sixwing) while the legs & gun are another (black). The head & hands are moulded new for each toy but each features a 5mm peg hole (again black). To combine the pieces take the waist & legs and lock them onto the chest unit. The gun goes between the where the knees would be on the combined robot, the fists lock onto where the robot's shoulders would be then the feet peg onto the fists. The robot's head is then put onto the back of the plane upside down. The resulting vehicle is about the same size as one of the Micromaster Transports, and one Micromaster figure can stand in the middle of the chest cavity using it as a cockpit. It's not the best Transformers plane but well done for doing something with all those left over bits when Sixwing's in it's robot/vehicles mode.
To form Sixwing take Missile Run (all toys are in jet mode unless stated), fold back the rear of the jet as if you were forming it's legs then bend the legs at the hips 90 degrees. Fold the arms of the robot out so they line up along the jet's nose and plug into the cavity on the chest piece. Plug the upper legs into the chest piece then take Chain Gun's robot mode, fold the legs so he's in a sitting position then peg him onto the back of the legs. Both Raker & Supersonic have their back halves folded up at the back & their nose cones folded down and under their aircraft forms before the respective hands are attached - the hands are unique so no arm swapping here - before they're plugged into the right and left shoulders respectively. Flanker & Falcon have their nose cones folded back and their wings folded up before being pegged onto the right & left feet respectively and then being attached to the knees of the upper legs. These can be swapped easily enough, but when you've decided which leg is which fold out the wing on the outside.
The red of the combined parts does Sixwing no favours especially when clashed with the light blue of one leg (Flanker) which in turn gives the legs a lop sided appearance. Recolouring this one piece would give the whole robot a more unified look. As with the other Micromaster combiners the articulation on Sixturbo is limited to the shoulders and head turning. Unfortunately the design of the chest plate means it is very difficult to raise his arms straight in front of him - like Sixturbo they catch on the sides of the chest, but in this case you can bend them out to the sides before raising the arms and then bend them back in so they're almost round the sides of the chest plate. The hands again beat Sixturbo's and are much more securely attached. The visored head design looks almost too evil to be an Autobot !
Operation Combination Sixwing does more for me than Sixturbo does but the original colour set used here is my least favourite of the four that exist for this toy.
I need to return to a point I keep making - why are there so few small Decepticon plane toys ? The Autobots have the Mini Autobot cars but the Decepticons don't have a corresponding size of plane toy. The first small Decepticon planes are the Triggercon Windsweeper and the Targetmaster Needlenose - both released in 1988 the *FIFTH* year of the line. The first group of small Decepticon jets is the Predators, released in 1991. Even the Micromaster Decepticons have just one team of planes. Probably the worst offence in this regard is in the third year of Transformers - 1986 - where the Autobots get the plane combiner moulds.
In Japan there's also a recurring aversion to making enemy toys - at the point the Sixcombiners came out there were no Micromaster Decepticons being made - almost all the Decepticon Micromasters in the west become Cybertron Micromasters in he Japan. So there's no original Destron Sixteam Micromaster Combiners.
So when Sixwing was released in the Micromaster collection he gets a Decepticon repaint - a lot of black and purple, very Decepticon colours. Confusingly each part retains it's original name, but they are now packaged individually along with a part of the combined Sixwing robot:
1 Chain Gun with Waist & Upper Legs
2 Missile Run with Chest
3 Raker with Right Fist & Gun
4 Supersonic with Left Fist & Head
5 Flanker with Right Foot
6 Falcon with Left Foot
Micromaster Collection Destron Sixwing ticks the boxes for me, great choice for a recolour which hits the spot. It also raised the question of would Takara do a recolour of SixBuilder..... and would it be green & purple ???
1 Chain Gun
2 Missile Run
3 Raker
4 Supersonic
5 Flanker
6 Falcon
Each part retains the same accessory as it's standard coloured version. This chase version of Sixwing was available at a rate of 2 white parts per box of 12 parts with the two white parts being different in each box - no box had two of the same - and replacing the second version of their coloured counterparts. I built a Berserker Sixwing from 3 boxes of Sixwing pieces which might suggest that they were paired together.....
1 Ro-tor (Chain Gun) with Chest
2 Air Raid (Missile Run) with Waist & Upper Legs
3 Storm Jet (Raker) with Right Fist & Gun
4 Skydive (Supersonic) with Left Fist & Head
5 Fireflight (Flanker) with Right Foot
6 Silverbolt (Falcon) with Left Foot
It's a decent repaint and although Flanker/Fireflight is now coloured more in line with the rest of the toy he very much stands out in combined mode as he's all red while the other limbs are mainly white. Four of the five original Aerialbot names are reused for this mould - though perhaps Silverbolt would have worked better on the Supersonic mould. The missing name - Slingshot - could be altered to Spaceshot to make a good name for the Raker component on this version.