Mitsubishi Intercraft 500R

Overview

The Mitsubishi Intercraft 500R is a small craft designed to carry 2 passengers and up to 4 cubic meters of cargo between surface and orbit.  Being targeted for the civilian/coreworld market, the craft comes loaded with standard features and is a popular corporate interface craft.  It also provides personal interface transportation to the wealthy.  Even so, it is among the least expensive of the small craft classified as "Landers".

Design

A truely small craft, the 500R measures only 12 meters in length and has a wingspan of 9 meters.  Equipped with Mitsubishi's own 500 kilowatt MHD turbine/thruster system, the 23 ton craft can make earth orbit in a matter of minutes with sufficient fuel to make two round-trips and still have plenty of cruising flight time.  It sports a fully streamlined, light weight synthetic hull that balances economy with safety.  The control surface design provides great stability and in atmospheric flight and can be handled quite easily by even less skilled pilots.  It's standard on-board computer auto-pilot feature allows the craft to take-off or set down "hands off" at any properly equipped air or space port, which includes just about all major Earth and Tirane facilities.

The 500R, like other members of Mitsubishi's 500 series, has a comfortable to-seat cockpit with standard 24 hour life support and 48 hour emergency back-up.  Standard options include automatic VidComm link with printout option to keep in touch with the office or friends while in flight, a full featured Nakajima music sound system, and inertial map display system with multi-chip capacity.  Available cockpit options include built-in sensupress and bug jammer for the corporate executive who demands the utmost in information security.

Game Notes

The Intercraft 500s will mostly be found at the coreworlds, operated by corporations and wealthy individuals.  Coreworlders and visitors will note Mitsubishi bombarding coreworlders with classy ads about their latest model of the 500 series (through use of electronic billboards in major cities), particularly in Japan, North America, and Europe.  A few show up among the colonies, but mostly at the more poulated, Earth-like worlds - more often than not, in the hands of coreworlders or those recently returned from the core.

Using relatively inexpensive ground base fuel sources, the craft can also make high-altitude/suborbital flights that allow it to make intercontinental hops in less than an hour's time at costs competative with conventional transportation.

Intercraft 500R Stats

• Streamlining: As Space Plane
• Sensor Package: Navigation Radar
• Workstations: 1 pilot, 1 co-pilot/passenger
• Additional Crew Recommendations: Impossible

General Information:

Warp Efficiency: n/a; Power Plant: 0.5 MW MHD Turbine; Fuel: 10 Tons, sufficient for 2 round trips to orbit plus 6.7 hours of operation, or 33 hours of operation; Range: n/a; Mass: 23.2 tons (unloaded); Cargo Capacity: 3.96 cubic meters; Comfort: 0; Emergency Power: Batteries, for 16 hours; Total Life Support: 2; Price:: Lv 170,000.

Ship Status Sheet Information:

Movement: 0; Screens: none; Passive Signature: 1; Radial Reflected Signature: ?; Lateral Reflected Signature: ?; Passive Sensors: none; Active Sensors: none; Armor: 0; Hull Hit Capacity: ?; Power Plant Hit Capacity: ?; Radial Target Profile: ?; Lateral Target Profile: ?; Crew Compliment: 2 ( pilot, co-pilot/passenger); Weapons: none; Targetting Computer: none.