KerbalX

Description

During the height of the Korean war, Allied forces were scrambling to develop the next generation of fighter jets, utilizing every bit of cutting edge tech as possible. While the Canadian aces were flying modernized AU-400s, the French were still years behind the times with stealth fighters. Though the development started in 2090, France saw the imminent danger that was posed to western Europe, so as soon as the war began In 2097, Dassault sped up the development of a next generation fighter to surpass anything the Eastern Coalition could muster. The Reynard was the realization of the program, going in to production as soon as trials were completed in 2098. The Armée de l'Air ordered 150 examples right away and pressed them in to service as fast as possible. A following 300 were ordered in the following decade as well.

The Reynard was a revolutionary aircraft, featuring the first fully enclosed cockpit on a fighter craft, the pilot saw the world with 15 high resolution all aspect cameras, with the forward facing camera coming in at a whopping 550 megapixels in normal light, thermals as well as infrared. One of the most notable features of the plane, are it’s avionics. The flight helmet was one of the most advanced of its time, featuring a full HD VR headset, allowing the pilot to see the sky around him with perfect clarity in 3 different view modes with accompanying HUD elements, as well as the (then) Most advanced brain-computer interface in the world. Though the Reynard had standard flight controls, they were retracted unless the pilot opted for a more manual control mode, or if the brain interface failed to have a good connection. The BCI allowed for completely hands free control, including weapon selection, weapon firing, camera mode, radar mode, countermeasures, radio controls, and engine controls, giving the pilot a level of intuition with his plane that was unprecedented at the time.

Over the Reynard lifetime, it scored an impressive 211 air to air kills in several conflicts including, but not limited to, interceptions over Europe, and the Franco Algerian war of 2104 to 2111. Though none were lost in combat, there were 7 notable crashes stemming from known issues with the air-frame.

The first crash was during a landing in Sweden. As the aircraft has limited yaw capabilities once the landing gear is down, the plane crashed off the runway during strong headwinds. The pilot survived after ejecting but sustained serious injuries that would later prove fatal.

Several emergencies were declared in fight when the helmet lost connection with the pilot and didn’t engage the manual controls. After the second crash, the Reynard spent 6 weeks grounded, and when the Neural link systems were not deemed 100% reliable, the manual control layout was changed so that they were always present, rather than folding away when Neural control was online.

one more known issue with the aircraft, was that it could not land if the vertical stabilizers were deployed. When a landing was attempted, the stabs would strike first and cause a nose dive from considerable heights, likely killing the pilot. This was changed with later models however, with the addition of explosive bolts that would sever both vertical stabilizers, allowing for a successful belly landing.

The aircraft was officially retired by the French in 2145 after three major upgrade packages and saw no export.

PS: Land this thing softly so the vertical stabs dont strike the ground

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Dassault Reynard
CC: 224
RC: MK 2 cockpit
Produced by Dassault Aviation (FR)
Serial Production date: 2097 - 2120

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Special thanks to my good friends https://kerbalx.com/Xenome for letting me in on Minute to midnight, its a great project and i love doing it, and thanks to https://kerbalx.com/HolidayTheLeek for taking the pictures for me and for the forever war lore, that’s radical af too (for everyone reading that, i’ve got things on the way there as well)

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: aircraft
• Part Count: 224
• Pure Stock