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| Courtesy of ArtAnon Studios |
Model number: YFS-100
Classification: Experimental atmospheric entry capable fighter
Manufacturer: Browning Engineering Corporation
Operator: Human Liberation Organization
First deployment: CY 20
Crew: 1 pilot and 1 gunner/navigator in standard cockpit
Length: 17 meters, wingspan 16.70 meters
Weight: 101 metric tons
Armor type: “1D” carbyne laminar armor
Propulsion: rocket thrusters: 5x 16,800 kg, 2x 32,600 kg, 4x 35,200 kg, 2x 22,500kg; top speed 4180 kph; maneuvering thrusters: 25
Sensors: radar, thermal, optical array; main binocular cameras mounted in cockpit canopy; Vercingetorix laser targeting system
Fixed armaments: x2 plasma cannon, power rated at 1.27 MW, mounted under wings
As the Systems Overterrestrial Coalition tightened its grip on earth, combat frame guru Tesla Browning cemented his engineering company’s position as the Earth Sphere’s leading military supplier. By CY 20, Browning Corp held eighty percent of Coalition Defense Force contracts–all according to the great inventor’s plan.
Behind the scenes, BEC sponsored an underground freedom fighter group known as the Human Liberation Organization. Kazoku War aces Jean-Claude du Lione and Zane Dellister founded the HLO after going into hiding on Browning’s satellite headquarters. There, they meticulously devised plans for casting off the SOC’s yoke.
The windfall that the HLO needed came when Browning found blueprints for a superweapon commissioned by Sekaino Megami herself. Designed to operate in tandem with the original XSeed, Megami had intended her destroyer to eradicate human life on Earth. Instead, Browning and the HLO reworked her plans to liberate the world instead of destroying it.
Browning understood that the destroyer’s ability to strike from outside the enemy’s sensor range was more crucial than ever. To that end, he labored with du Lione and Dellister to create a new XSeed as the superweapon’s remote targeting module. To accomplish its mission, such a unit would have to be a supreme weapon in its own right. Browning realized that a breakthrough in energy production was needed to power the next-generation XSeed.
The necessary advances in basic theory and materials engineering took almost twenty years to realize, but by CY 20, Browning and his team had produced the first viable One-series XSeed design–so called since it was the first stable mass-production platform for CFs superior to the original “Series Zero” XSeeds.
Dellister pointed out that the job was only half done, since a means of covertly targeting Earth-based Soc installations was needed. While Jean-Claude pursued a complex dynamic cloaking solution, Zane took a simpler, more direct route. A reentry-capable craft equipped with a Vercingetorix targeting module and carbyne armor could slip into the atmosphere from space and relay telemetry to an orbiting destroyer undetected. Browning greenlighted the project.
Zane fell back on his usual M.O. of Frankensteining extant technologies into a new whole greater than the sum of its parts. He started with the schematics for Max Darving’s old Thor Prototype, added “1D” carbyne armor, and installed the Vercingetorix targeting module. In accordance with his policy of never leaving home without energy weapons, Zane armed the new fighter with a pair of plasma cannons fed by Browning’s revolutionary One-series reactor.
The result, dubbed the YFS-100, proved Zane’s concept beyond the shadow of a doubt. Its stealth air frame coated in laminar carbyne not only rendered the fighter invisible to all current sensors, they enabled it to enter the atmosphere and feed targeting data to a Vercingetorix-class destroyer in space. Deployed in combination with a YFS-100, the destroyer could annihilate earthbound targets with its 60 gigawatt laser and axial railgun while keeping the Socs oblivious until it was too late.
One major drawback beset the YSF-100. While it could enter the atmosphere under its own power, the fighter was incapable of returning to space unaided. Coalition control of all major spaceports made any mission to Earth a one-way trip, as was demonstrated when the fighter was sent after a crashed HLO transport carrying experimental materials in CY 20.
Calculating the weight and thrust, I'd argue that it ought to be able to escape Earth's gravity, especially by doing the "fly super high, then leave" trick that Stratolaunch and Virgin Galactic do–climb as high as wings will allow, then fire the thrusters. A greater than 3:1 thrust-to-weight ratio should help, though I will admit that carrying enough fuel would likely be a struggle, so escaping Earth would likely only work if it could immediately find a tanker or drift off in space for a while.
I notice that the lasers eat up most of the power. Does it have ultracapacitors to store energy between pulses? That would really help with energy needs and keep the reactor humming at a constant output instead of trying to change it based on demand, which I imagine would be slow or difficult.
Interesting. It's not designed for space launch, but pushing machines beyond their design specs offers much potential for fun 🙂
Yes, the plasma cannons utilize folded graphene capacitors.