Here we have the Air Team in their jet formation as we speak. Their alternate modes have an interesting mash-up of red, blue, white, black, and gold, with the color layout varying on the character in question. I feel that their jet modes are the best part of the whole set if I'm honest. All of them have ports for Energon Stars, though one of the limbs needs them while Storm Jet never had one in the first place. They all have landing gear, but no rolling wheels a la modern Transformers.
Let's cover the best molds of the set, consisting of Sky Shadow and Terradive on the left and right. They turn into Cybertronic A-10 Thunderbolts, usually associated with G1 Powerglide. While they have a pretty cool homage that is unintentional to the Minibot, there is this weird thing at least on my copy where the wings don't like being straightened out, making them point upwards somewhat. As seen on Terradive, the guns can peg on top, and you're about to see how they somewhat function like the HFG accessories from Combiner Wars.
Transforming them is a mix of both typical Jetformer affairs with some new tricks. I like how the fuselage can split in half to become asymmetrical legs, the upper body transformation maintaining the wings on the back as usual yet having a different transformation, and something I didn't show but find neat is how the robot heads were previously used as turrents underneath the altmodes, even if they end up being slightly exposed from the barrels moving around. The resulting robot modes look pretty good, what with the wings and shoulder pylons reminiscent of the G1 Seekers, The torsos do look somewhat non-descript apart from the ports for the Energon Stars, which is about comparable to the lack of details found in the G1 Aerialbot limbs. Their forearms having the turbines blocking off the hands is Gobotesque if you look at them from the front.
The head sculpts they share are about as unique as the legs, with the goggles that could serve as optic blasters a la Cyclops, but twice the ammo. Their articulation consists of neck swivels and waist swivels while the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees are on ball joints.
Up next, we have the second Basic Class limb mold, used for Windrazor and Treadshot. The accessories are meant to be split in multiple parts, for vehicle mode, with the adaptors having no other purpose in this mode. Here, they look like null-rays. The jet mode proportions looks fairly blocky around the wings, and it's hard to say if the lower legs help in making the winglets look in-proportion. Said jet mode looks like an F-22 Raptor, kind of like Energon Starscream from the same line but less so.
Transformation for the two is very basic. Straighten the legs and arms out, flip the fuselage down, and have the tailfins on the back. The robot modes end up looking a little more generic than the usual Jetformer, without any wings on the back and by having a huge chunk of the fuselage be on the chest without breaking anything up. These feel reminiscent of some lower-tier Jetformer toys that came out before the G2 Cyberjets and Smokescreen and after the G1 Seeker mold. It doesn't help by how fat they look, with the torsos making the arms look small while the legs look fine with the winglet knee spikes.
The head sculpts feel like a mix between Power Rangers and the aforementioned lower-tier G1 Jetformers that came out in the later years of the original line. Nicely done but they do have that Generic look to them in some respect. They have the same points of articulation that the previous mold has, though I should mention that their shoulder ball joints are cast in clear plastic. Even if this clear plastic is denser than the stuff we saw in the Legacy line, why would you make those parts of the toy out of that material?!
And finally, we have Storm Jet. He transforms into a Cybertronic-looking Blackbird, though in G1 Jetfire colors that probably would be the closest people would get to ROTF Jetfire in said color scheme. This jet mode looks pretty cool, apart from the way the forearms and lower legs kind of disrupt the deco. The rest of the design has that typical Macross/Japanese superrobot look to it that I feel is commonplace in the early 2000s for the Transformers brand. However, the forearms don't really like staying tabbed in place, which is also annoying when the shoulder joints don't stay locked in any spot whatsoever.
His transformation is fairly involved, requiring additional steps such as rotating the fuselage around while hinging the assembly around after bringing the limbs out. Said limbs also feature a bit of rotation at the forearms to make them face forward as well as sliding joints and hinges for the lower legs to make them more proportionate. The torso's stability, however, sucks. Not only does it fail to feel filled in with the way the figure works, but the fuselage doesn't like staying in place all that well, even with the robot head's assembly attached to the shoulders. Speaking of, said shoulders hang much lower, resulting in him almost having a gorilla-like appearance. There is a small tab that makes it fairly hard to see Storm Jet's face from the front. Very disappointing since his members feel more solid by comparison. Also, notice the shoulder in the second pic. We'll discuss this in a bit.
His head sculpt certainly has that youthful protagonist vibe that you'd find in some mecha that don't have a mouthplate or visor, but it still looks like it belongs in Transformers. As for the articulation, being a Deluxe grants the ability to not depend on ball joints. His neck is on a swivel along with the shoulder joints that move front and back, the bicep swivels, and thigh swivels, while the shoulder joints moving outwards are on hinges along with the double-jointed elbows, and the knees...which you may notice an issue right off the bat. The hip joints are on ratchets, which helps for stability in the Maximus mode. Going back to the knees, they don't bend properly whatsoever, as the toy was incorrectly assembled from the factory. All copies were affected by this, including the Japanese Superlink version!
In order to fix his legs, you need to first unscrew the lower legs so they can be removed from the hinge piece that is cast in butterscotch plastic. Do this on both sides and have the knee joints rotate so said components can face inwards of one another. You can then assemble the lower legs back in place, and this will grant you the proper knee articulation. You aren't done yet, however; disassemble the hips so you can not only swap the lower legs in the proper spots (hollow spaces facing inwards), but you should then have the small tabs on the hip joints face outwards as part of a theoretical bit of stability for the lower legs when they are entirely shifted upwards. Once you're done, you now have a properly assembled Storm Jet! However, you may notice a bit of sculpted detail in the armpit, because the shoulder joints are also misassembled, only without there being a proper way to fix this issue without knocking out the pins. Ugh.
Here we have the Air Team together once more. They certainly have that anime flare that was absent from the G1 Aerialbots, but I have to admit that the limbs are certainly better than the torso this time around, especially given the issues Storm Jet has.
Combining them into Superion Maximus is where things get a bit muddy. See, HasTak was given the option to either use the last bit of budget for either making two Maximus teams with 5 molds each, or three teams with three molds each (and a repaint per limb). Going with the latter results in a fair bit of asymmetry if you go for the official configuration, but it's made worse with how the hands and feet work. The Thunderbolts look better as legs because of their proper foot shape, while the Raptors could work as arms if you mase them look less stumpy as arms. As a result, Superion Maximus ends up looking incomplete and poorly thought out. It's be one thing if he was better engineered to have arms and feet, but the way the lack of ankles and elbows makes him even more compromised, especially when you consider he has knees.
His head sculpt may be less like the G1 version and more like a Megazord, but it feels like a version of Superion regardless. The articulation consists of neck rotation, and ratchets for the shoulders, hips, and knees. The is also rotation above the knees, but things feel weird without the elbow joints. And don't get me started on Superion's pelvis falling apart.
I configured a fan mode that I'd argue makes the to look much better. You have the Raptor nosecones pointing up, better legs with the Thunderbolts, and elbow joints made up from the legs of the Raptor limbs. It's not perfect, but it did lead to the FansProject upgrade kit that ditches the Energon weapons in favor of a properly-designed combiner mode for the Air Team. A variant exists for the G1-colored versions of the team.
Speaking of which, the Universe 2008/ROTF Superion set is the more well-known and desirable version of the set as far as reuses are concerned. This is backed up by FansProject making their upgrade kit along with original molds for Swindle and Blast Off. Storm Jet is now Silverbolt, but the clockwise list of members include Fireflight, Air Raid, Skydive, and Airazor, who is not Slingshot.
The limb molds were reused for an entirely new combiner set. This is Skyfall, who reminds me a bit of the Cobra drone from Combiner Wars.
The second mold later became Breakaway. Both were included with matching repaints of the Destruction Team to form Nexus Prime...or Nexus Maximus if you remember the brief time he had an unfortunate name associated with an NSFW toy.
For a size comparison, here is Superion Maximus next to SS86 Swoop. The Energon gestalts are essentially shorter than something like Legacy Menasor but are taller than a Leader Class. Honestly, Superion Maximus is a mixed bag. We have great Thunderbolt mold, a decent Raptor mold, and a subpar torso that feels underbaked. I highly doubt HasTak will make remakes of Energon toys as often as they do for Armada and Cybertron, so if you want this set, don't pay too much for it.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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