Stratosphere

Stratosphere is an Autobot from the Movie continuity family.
I'm a pilot.

When a unit of Autobots needs to get somewhere fast, they turn to Stratosphere. His cargo plane mode can transport an entire team half way around the globe and then supply high-altitude covering fire when they get there. In the air, he is virtually unbeatable, and he knows it; Stratosphere thinks he can take on just about any challenge all on his lonesome, and this becomes a distinct problem when the threat is on the ground, where his combat abilities are no great shakes. As a consequence, he doesn't like to spend a lot of time on terra firma, preferring to reign supreme in the sky for as long as possible.

{{#if:Rollbar"Head in the Clouds"|
“ I dunno. Up in the air, he's the real deal. But on the ground... it all shades a bit more pedestrian! ”
{{#if:Rollbar|

—Rollbar{{#if:"Head in the Clouds"|, "Head in the Clouds"}}

}}

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Fiction

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Rise of the Beasts film

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Voice actor: John DiMaggio (English), Yūichi Nagashima (Japanese){{#if: Frank Matano (Italian), Carlos Campanile (Brazilian Portuguese), Jesús Cortés (Latin American-Spanish), Mathieu Buscatto (European French), Jan Kulczycki (Polish)|, Frank Matano (Italian), Carlos Campanile (Brazilian Portuguese), Jesús Cortés (Latin American-Spanish), Mathieu Buscatto (European French), Jan Kulczycki (Polish)}}

Stratosphere was among the Autobots stranded on Earth, functioning as their primary mode of transport whenever they needed to jump between the continents. When the Autobots needed to travel to Peru to hunt for the Transwarp Key, Stratosphere met them for pick-up outside New York City. Mirage was less than pleased to have the old-timer as their ferry, especially when he suffered from some congestion issues, and Elena Wallace was similarly distressed from the bumpy plane ride (as well as general anxiety over leaving home for the first time). Stratosphere made an acceptable landing in Peru and held onto the late Bumblebee's deactivated body while the crew disembarked for their quest. He later brought Bumblebee's body to the human village allied with the Maximals, and continued to watch over the scout while the others went off to battle the Terrorcons. The coming of Unicron and the battle resulted in a wave of energy lighting up the valley's natural Energon deposits, and Stratosphere witnessed with delight as the wave brought Bumblebee back to life. He then flew Bumblebee into the battle to deactivate the transwarp gate, the smaller Autobot jumping out mid-flight amidst a hailstorm of Unicronian reinforcements from above. After the Autobots and Maximals emerged victorious over the Terrorcons, Stratosphere flew the main Autobot crew back to the United States. Rise of the Beasts

Stratosphere's involvement in the preceding events, or events mostly similar, were also chronicled in the book "The Search Is On".

Titan movie comics

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Have you seen Jackie?

During a routine sweep of British Columbia, Stratosphere lost contact with NEST headquarters when he flew through an unanticipated bank of heavy cloud over a mountain range. The cloud bank proved artificial, created by the Decepticons in order to hide their operation to reconstruct Devastator, a truth Stratosphere discovered when the partially-functional behemoth swatted him out the sky. His wings damaged by the blow and his communications nullified by a Decepticon jamming field, Stratosphere hoofed it to the Decepticons' construction site, and single-handedly took out the work-bots in a frenzied frontal assault. Construction supervisor Skywarp proved tougher to handle, and Stratosphere was floored by a single kick from the Decepticon, but luckily, before a killing shot could be delivered, Stratosphere exploited his unusual body shape by spinning over on the ground and smacking Skywarp with his wing. Realizing that he couldn't face this threat down alone, he destroyed the jamming array and radioed in his position to NEST with a request to bring the rain. Undeterred, Skywarp transformed to jet mode and came streaking towards him, but Stratosphere quipped that being brought down to earth had given him a new perspective, and he tilted the device generating the cloud bank upwards, blinding Skywarp with it. Skywarp crashed, and Stratosphere made himself scarce, meeting up with Jolt, Rollbar and Dune Runner just as the air-strike arrived. Watching the massive blast from afar, Jolt wondered if Devastator could have survived, and Stratosphere advocated not waiting around to find out. After all... any landing he could walk away from was a good one! Head in the Clouds

Games

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon - The Game

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Stealth Force, bitches!
Voice actor: Travis Willingham (English){{#if: Patrice Baudrier (French), Héctor Garay (Castilian Spanish), Matteo Zanotti (Italian)|, Patrice Baudrier (French), Héctor Garay (Castilian Spanish), Matteo Zanotti (Italian)}}

Xbox 360/PS3

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Stratosphere gave Bumblebee a ride to the Soviet relay facility in Russia.

Stratosphere was stationed in a base located in an icy ravine in Nepal, where he would receive the MechTech technology that was going to be sent to Optimus Prime. Air Raid gave the alert of a Decepticon approaching. Several jets deployed to take care of Starscream so Stratosphere could escape, although the Decepticon was fast enough to catch up with him again after dispatching his attackers. Stratosphere attempted to shoot him down with a large anti-aircraft battery, but was powerless against the more maneuverable Starscream. After suffering damage to his fuel lines and one of his engine cowlings, he deployed the Aerialbots to fend Starscream off, but the Decepticon ace shot all of them down and pressed the attack. Stratosphere was furious and engaged his Stealth Force mode to finish off Starscream for good. Starscream merely sneered, launching guided missiles to destroy Stratosphere's engines and cripple the craft. Stratosphere desperately informed Optimus that his engines were aflame and he was going down, only for the Autobot leader to grimly remind him that Starscream could not be allowed to take the MechTech weaponry. Nevertheless, Starscream managed to blast his way into Stratosphere's cargo hold. After finishing off what few Autobots remained, he captured some MechTech guns and detonated the remaining ones to destroy Stratosphere from the inside. As Starscream flew off and declared his victory, a flaming, exploding Stratosphere disappeared into the clouds below. Dark of the Moon

Toys

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Revenge of the Fallen

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*Looking at Stratosphere's feet* "Hey! My eyes are up here, pal!"
  • Stratosphere (Voyager Class, 2009)
Stratosphere transforms into a military transport plane which is an amalgamation of the body of a [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Lockheed C-130 Hercules|{{#if:C-130 Hercules|C-130 Hercules|Lockheed C-130 Hercules}}]], the wings of a C-17 Globemaster III, the cockpit of a [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}C-5 Galaxy|{{#if:||C-5 Galaxy}}]] and the tail of an [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Antonov An-225|{{#if:||Antonov An-225}}]]. The transforming Optimus Prime mini-figure fits into the cargo hold in the aft section of the plane. By rotating Stratosphere's tail fins, Optimus can be deployed from the back ramp in homage to the Revenge of the Fallen film's opening action sequence.
Sadly, Optimus cannot fit in the cargo hold while Stratosphere is in robot mode, but molding on Prime's upper legs allows him to be grasped by Stratosphere's poseable hands.
The packaging indicates that his moving internal gears (Mech Alive) feature is located at his chest, but it is in fact located in his arms.
Stratosphere is prone to breaking over time. The toy has crumbly gold plastic in his thighs and shoulders, with other commonly reported breakages being his lower knees and the hinges connecting his wings to his shoulders (neither of those areas being constructed of gold plastic).
Oh, if only....
Stratosphere was originally going to come with a Space Shuttle accessory that would have plugged into a 5mm port on top of the fuselage in vehicle mode. The shuttle would have also served as a missile-firing weapon in robot mode. Despite making it all the way to the test shot phase, this was ultimately removed from the final production piece likely due to budget concerns, though the figure still retains the 5mm hole on top.

Notes

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  • The Revenge of the Fallen Stratosphere toy is based upon the same plane that dropped Optimus Prime to attack Demolishor in the Revenge of the Fallen film, but with liberties taken to differentiate it from the real thing to avoid the need to license the design.
  • A NEST plane in the Unite for the Universe story "The Strongest Weapon" is drawn to look like Stratosphere (rather than the C-17 plane NEST usually uses in most fiction), but lacks Stratosphere's distinct colors and is never identified as being the Autobot.
  • Hilariously, the vehicle mode description on Stratosphere's Rise of the Beasts Bio-Card copies verbatim TFWiki's own description of the Revenge of the Fallen toy's plane above, rather than listing the [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar|{{#if:||Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar}}]] he actually is in the film.
  • Some early concept art for Rise of the Beasts Stratosphere by Eddie Del Rio appeared to be more directly based on his Revenge of the Fallen design, with a similar color scheme and chest design, among other things.

Foreign names

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  • Japanese: Stratosphere (ストラトスフィア Sutoratosufia)
  • Mandarin: Tóngwēncéng (同温层, "Stratosphere")
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