ADF-Type-85
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ADF-Type-85
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| National Origin | {{{origin}}} | ||||
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| Used By | Sahrland
Former operators : Arcadia (briefly) |
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The ADF-Type-85-Kallibri is a single seat multirole fighter of the Sahren Republican Air-corp. Originally an interceptor, the aircraft proved impossible to replace and adopted close air support roles.
Development
The Type-85 Kallibri was entered as Alkan Tractor Company's submission to the "1582 interceptor program" (named such because Sahrland hadn't yet swapped to the same year calender the rest of kerbin uses)competing with the "Astrakhan" from Abzalev Design Bereau. The Kallibri was designed with the theory that the best fighter would be one which fit the largest amount of power into the smallest airframe possible, based on experiences during the war of the Egercias. It was found that with such a sufficiently small cockpit, the centre of lift was too far rear for the performance expected, so the wings were lengthened forward past the cockpit, effectively making the fighter into a small flying wing design. Concerns over this rose as the pilot was given effectively no room to see the enemy and could not leave the aricraft in a quick manner. Additionally the aircraft was not capable of holding much fuel, but this wasn't an issue because it was not intended to fly for long periods of time yet. Despite concerns about the cockpit and fuel capacity, the Kallibri handily outperformed the much larger Astrakhan in air superiority roles and was adopted in the year 2120, or 1585 by the calenders at the time, hence "Type-85".
Operational History
Operation Kerosene
The first major employment of the Type-85 was in the 2141 first pozhar rebellion. The Sahren Democrat-Socialist-Worker-Party (DSWP) had not seized many anti-air or aircraft to significantly challenge junta air superiority, leaving the sahren-air-corp to wreak havoc on DSWP positions. Operation Kerosene called for an amphibious assault across the lakes leading to khosa with air-land coordination, giving birth to the Type-85-B/41 loadout, which featured a targetting camera in the nose and a possible 6 air to ground missiles or several bombs. This marked a redesignation from interceptor to multirole fighter.
War of the Aontan Straits
The first few months of the war of the Aontan straits saw no action until 2144 which saw a strike on the sahren navy from the ophirian air force. The sahren-army-air-crop was severely outnumbered only slightly bolstered in number from a handful of phoenian fighters. Given the circumstances the Type-85's and Super Swift's performed adequately but were outmatched in sheer number and entirely erradicated, leaving the SN Khosa to sink in port.
Civil War
The factions of the sahren civil war used different aircraft but all used to some degree captured junta Type-85's. Post civil war attempts were made by the Republican Guard Air Corp to modernise the fighters. These included rebalancing of weapon loadouts, landing gear, and modifications to the engine shrouds to function as airbrakes, formally known as the ADF-Type-85-"Kallibri"-/46.
Imperial Reclaimation
Sahrland sent forces to both sides of the Imperial Reclaimation, with a significant amount of land forces in the joint Aonta brigade, and a Sahrland sponsored force of Type-85 Kallibris. The Arcadian aircraft were then intercepted on route to arcadia by Zokesian aircraft in Schrschnelle. 50 Type-85's battled 60 of several different Zokesian aircraft and were destroyed giving minimal casualties to the Zokesian aircraft. The battle prompted the Sahren-Republican-Guard-Air-Corp to negotiate a deal with Zokesia to liscence produce Z-80s, which were designated type-48 by the SRGAC.
Varients
ADF-Type-85-"Kallibri"
The ADF-Type-85-"Kallibri" is the original Type-85 featuring two radar guided missiles, four heat guided missiles, and two 20mm cannons.
ADF-Type-85-"Kallibri"-B/41
The B/41 varient was modified to be able to mount several types of bombs and missiles depending on the target. The only consistant B/41 varient feature is a targetting camera mounted in a hollow cylinder that would slide onto the nose and be secured.
ADF-Type-85-"Kallibri"-/46
The /46 varient made one of the 20mm cannons fire armour piercing incindiary and the other fire high explosive rounds. The shrouds over the engines that acted as elevators were modified to spread out as an airbrake as one of the complaints in the civil war were a difficulty landing on especially small airfields.
Tsar-85
Alkan tractor company sold all it's assets and dissolved in 2161. The remaining Type-85s still needed maintenance and rework, as the Air-corp wished to convert them into a close air support platform, as producing the parts for two air superiority fighters was costly, and the Z-80 had already proven superior. The existing conversion proposal ADF-type-61 was considered unsatisfcatory. The newly reformed Tsaregorodtsev aviation was tasked with producing a replacement that existing airframes could easily be converted into. The recessed cockpit was replaced with a single seat bubble canopy, and the nose was completely redesigned to permanantly feature a targetting laser and further embedded 20mm cannons. The previous domestically produced Alkan-Type-2172 engines were in short supply, therefor replacements had to be aquired. A tekkian export model was chosen as it had similar performance at far lower costs. This had the side effect of making the already heavier airframe underpowered, but this did not matter as interception roles were not intended anymore. The first tests of low altitude supercruise resulted in the discovery that any yaw application whatsoever would send the aircraft into a deadly spin, which almost killed the test pilot of the prototype. Increases in mass and drastic reduction in engine power were blamed.
Compared to other dedicated close air support models the Tsar-85 had still an incredible amount of propulsion and a minimal payload capacity, effectively creating a fighter that could not perform air superiority roles well, and a bomber that could not perform close air support roles well. Regardless the Tsar-85 was rushed into production and models were converted hastily.
