Powerglide

Powerglide is the name of several fictional characters from the Transformers series. He first appeared in 1985, and was voiced byMichael Chain in the animated The Transformers series.

Transformers: Generation 1
Powerglide (Jumbo in Italy)'s original bio characterized him as somewhat of a show-off. He is one of the few Autobots able to fly, and takes full advantage of this, using massive bursts of acceleration to outpace his opponents. He also frequently shows off to both his friends and foes, outwitting them with his great maneuverability. He transforms into an A-10 Thunderbolt II Warthog airplane, but on the ground he is relatively weak. Powerglide's personality and speech pattern is based on the fictional character of Ralph Kramden.

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Animated series
Powerglide first appeared in the episode "Dinobot Island, Part 1". In the episode "A Prime Problem", Powerglide was seen saving Spike after Megatron threw him from his ship, with no explanation of his origin. He went on to make regular appearances, seemingly replacingSkyfire as the Autobot aerial support. Powerglide seems to have a real superiority complex as he calls himself "Sophisticated", "Ace of the Air", and "Sultan of the Sky."

He had many adventures, including being shot down by a teleporting Skywarp ("The Master Builders"), acting as a "giant evil alien" in a Hollywood film ("Hoist Goes Hollywood"), delivering the miniaturized Perceptor, Brawn and Bumblebee to knock out the Heart of Cybertron within Megatron ("Micro-bots"), and travelling to Cybertron to save Optimus Prime and battle the Decepticons alongside the female Autobots, where he was reunited with his long lost love Moonracer ("The Search for Alpha Trion").

Powerglide's largest role was in episode 54, "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide", where he thwarts an attempted Decepticon kidnapping of a young CEO named Astoria Carlton Ritz, who falls for Powerglide. Powerglide despised the spoilt rich girl, as she soon proved her talent for jinxing machinery. However, after she revealed that she was only chairman due to her father's death after he inadvertently touched her locket, he began to warm to the human - only to have her kidnapped by Dirge, Thrust and Ramjet. Powerglide set off to rescue her, but ran into trouble with the Decepticons newest weapon, which could create energy storms. Seeing his plight, Astoria threw her locket (containing the formula Megatron was after) into the Decepticon beacon, causing their floating base to crash, although Powerglide managed to rescue Astoria and redirect the base onto the Decepticons' underwater headquarters. After the two parted ways following their adventure, Powerglide revealed in secrecy that the circuits inside his chest lit up in the shape of a heart.

He did not appear in The Transformers: The Movie, but did appear in several episodes of the television series set after the movie. His last appearance was in " The Ghost In The Machine".

The animation model for Powerglide is shown alongside Skyfire being destroyed in Dark Awakening. It's almost certain that those models were used as inspiration for generic Autobot aircraft, as the footage is accidentally used twice and given the fact that the size of the destroyed models is much bigger than Powerglide.

Interestingly, Powerglide is never seen in the any of the episodes that feature the Aerialbots.