BAe F.3 Night Owl
Image scanned from Philip Castle's "Airshow"
Designed after the Euro-Wars, the F.3 Night Owl is a multi-role combat aircraft. With intelligence gleaned from various sources, the designers chose to opt for a forward swept design, rather than a conventional wing arrangement. This arramgement allows the Night Owl to make tighter and crisper turns, while keeping wing load low. The forward canards that flank the rear of the cockpit add stability on low-level missions, as well as adding considerable agility. The electronics suite of the aircraft is the most current electronics fielded, featuring a Marconi wide angle HUD, and a Ferranti HMS (Helmet Mounted Sight, necessary for close combat). Mounted on the underside of the nose and directly below the pilot is a laser designator system, mounted on a sensor turret, allowing the Night Owl to self designate laser guided weapons of it's own, and downloading the targets via the FDDM system. Rigger capability is also present, allowing those with the cybernetic enhancements utilize this aircraft to the fullest capability. This also comes with self diagnostic equipment and software, allowing the pilot to fix problems if possible without having to end his mission. Included is an internal retractable refuelling probe to extend the range of the aircraft.
The airframe includes some stealth characteristics, to reduce some of it's signature, with the large intake recieving the majority of radar absorbing materials. It is mated to a ceramic frame, keeping strength, while not adding weight of the aircraft. Unlike most planes, some sections are bonded, rather than welded, as welding a section could rapidly deteriorate during high G loadings, particularly in air to air combat. Also mounted are three dimensional engines, able to "vector" the thrust, allowing a multitude of maneuvers the Nightowl can perform. The airframe also has forward swept wings, combined with a tandem triplane layout, with drive-by-wire, allows the Night Owl to perform comparable to the Su-44 "Flashback".
The number of tasks the Night Owl is limitless, with two hardpoints on the intakes, plus two overwing missile mounts allowing the Night Owl to carry self defence missiles without reducing capability, plus six more mounts on the wings for an impressive combat load. A centerline hardpoint is mounted, with a CelsiusTech dispenser mounted integrally. An internal hardpoint allows customers to customize it's loadout further. Gunnery Recoil Adjusters are mounted to offset some of the recoil that the mounted weapon may generate. Dedicated ammunition space is also included. Some examples of the types of missions the Night Owl can perform are:
*Close Air Support: The Night Owl can carry any rocket pods currently produced, with some modifications required.
*Interception: The Night Owl has eight stations for air to air missiles, providing a cheap, low-cost interceptor for any military, corporate or government. It can carry the famed Ares "Dragon's Breath" long range AAMs with no loss in capability.
*Strike: The Night Owl can perform precision strikes in any weather, at anytime, with no loss in capability.
Defensive systems include integral Marconi ECM and ECCM jammers, plus mounting for 320 tubes for chaff and flares.
Handling
Speed
Accel
Body
Armor
Signature
Autonav
Cost
2
150/4,000*
200
4
10
7
4
22,402,050¥
Seating: 1 bucket ejection seat Access: 1 canopy Economy: .3 km per liter Cargo: 2 underseat Fuel: Jet (7,500 liters) Sensors: Military I (8) ECM/ECCM: Military I (8)/Military I (8) Other Features: Forward Swept Wing, Datajack Port, Rigger Control Gear, Drive-By-Wire (1), Battletac FDDM, Sensor Turret w/Laser Designator, Tandem Triplane Layout, Retractable Probe (internal), Three-Dimensional Thrust Vectoring, Engine Modification (Load 1), 320 chaff/flare tubes, Radar Absorbing Materials (2). Armament: One internal hardpoint with 1 CF dedicated ammo space and Level 4 Gunnery Recoil Adjusters. One centerline hardpoint with 6 CF capacity, and 40 chaff/flare tubes, and two intake mounted hardpoints with 5 CF capacity. Six missile mounts underwing (300 kg capacity), and two overwing (300 kg capacity), and has a weapon load of 8,331 kilograms.
*Increase speed to 5,000kph on afterburner, and Economy increases to 25 liters per km
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Fresh Productions, 1997, 1999, 2000. The items on this page are purely fictional, and should not be considered real. Any relation to any real life item is purely coincedental, and should not be construed as fact.