The first two years of Transformers toys were figures taken from older Japanese toylines, primarily Takara's Diaclone and Microman lines. 1985, however, saw several figures reused from lines created by Takatoku Toys, of which Jetfire was one — that of the VF-1S Super Valkyrie Fighter from the Macross series. This figure was one of the most articulated of the early Transformer toys, featuring fully poseable shoulder, hip, elbow and knee joints, and even poseable sacroiliac joints. The instruction manual for the toy even included the GERWALK mode designed for the Macross version of the toy, which was used in that animated series, and seen briefly in the Transformers season 2 episode "The Day of the Machines".
Problems over the Jetfire toy began when Bandai absorbed Takatoku Toys, and Macross regained popularity, leading to Bandai's desire to reproduce the Valkyrie toy themselves. This led to problems for Takara when they imported the Transformers toyline — although Hasbro was able to market the Jetfire toy in their markets, Takara was not, nor could they promote it via the animated series, since the mold was owned by their main competitor. Although an animation model had been created for Jetfire based on the appearance of the toy (which could be seen in the original toy commercial advertising the figure), this was quickly abandoned and completely redesigned so as to no longer resemble the Valkyrie. This was the design that went on to feature in the comics and cartoons.
Jetfire only saw a few American production runs, as the show the original toy was based upon, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, was exported to America to become the first third of Robotech. Ironically, since Hasbro released Jetfire first, there was never a U.S. release of an authentic transforming version of the toy for Robotech, even though the design was the series' most recognizable and popular mecha. As with other pre-Robotech borrowings from Macross (for instance, Battletech), the licensing situation for the toy became murky with two different companies (Big West and Tatsunoko Production) asserting exclusive rights to license Macross merchandise outside Japan. Due to these legal issues, Jetfire has not been among the Transformers toys reissued in the 21st century.
This toy is patented in the U.S. as patent number D287037.
Van Nostrand
As far as Sideshow SW, I only collect the Troopers. The only non-Trooper I have is Palpatine and his throne, actually. And ROTS Yoda. I'm really excited for the TIE FIghter Pilot, Scout Trooper, and X-Wing Luke this year but haven't even PO'd any of them yet 
