Just like it's IRL counterpart, the Mig-31 - chasing after Blackbirds.
A single-seat modification of the RF-155-E, taking a battlesteel spaceframe, a pair of brutally complex engines with a little 'special sauce' in them.
Many have tried to beat Midnight at her game. Most think they can succeed. Mackie's just another one in a long line of wannabees aiming for the crown. [ref]Meta, naturally, he comes up short, but it's a valiant effort[/ref]
==The Base Jet
Rebecca Brown (Taking it's name from a 'heroine' within a recent subfiction of the Supers) was born out of an aborted project by SHIELD to try adapt the RF-155-E series to their own needs. Two were finished as more conventia kinds(Taylor Hebert and Theresa Richter), three were designed and proposed, and construction on Rebecca Brown begun before the administrator of the project was promoted to another office [ref]With less responsibilities and greatly lowered access to restricted materials it seems[/ref]. SHIELD pulled the plug and everyone at Asagiri were left holding the premature baby they'd busted a nut on what looked to be their big break with a major faction.
Otherwise, it's a fairly standard Mig-31-type spaceframe. It has a refined variant of the CGI IDAR that might actually be useable by a human being - but probably not. It has those distinctive phased sensor arrays fitted on each winglet for 360x360 targeting, and could conceiveably mount up to 12 standard missiles, with some help from a pair of 30mm rotary cannon for BRRRRTTT fun when you're down to stick and stones.
All told, if it ever got completed, it'd be bloody quick, bloody smart, and bloody hard hitting while being able to tank hits in return.
It'll also probably follow the usual Asagiri practice of being very choosey about which users it makes friends with. Sure they can build things capable of astonishing performance in the right pair of hands, but becoming the right pair of hands just takes so much more effort, practice and training than anyone who can afford a Blackbird/Talon/VF-9 and an Expert system would ever bother with.
== The Main Core.
It's never been a secret that Mackie's engine cores are a derviative of Roughrider designs, being something of the turbocharged 4-banger compared to the thrumming V8. It must run on something with a little more 'kick' than conventional fuel. It's the same basic core as the Kulbit fighter and standard RF-155-E
Exactly what deltalloy is, is something of a 'trade secret'.
=== Like a Blackbird, but the exact opposite.
Everyone knows how the inlet spikes on a Blackbird work, right? You're not here if you don't. The tip of the spike produces a shockwave which is held at the lip of the engine inlet to decelerate incoming media to subsonic velocities which the turbomachinery can swallow. The majority of this air is then bypassed around the core to the ejector where it's burned in the afterburner area - functioning as a sort of hybrid ramjet. Ultimately, the only limit on the 'bird's speed was the ability of the spike to trap that shock. Eventually it hit its travel limit and the engine unstarted. The airframe was good until Much higher.
Becky moves most of this inside the engine inlet, trapping the same shock between a pair of semi-aerolastic ramps, in combination with a pitching inlet lip, extending the engine limits further. In theory, she hits her limit somewhere around Mach 4 - the old Mikoyan airframe really not designed to get higher to the Hypersonic regime. In practice, what usually happened was a hard unstart at high-speed - in one case destroying a turbine and forcing an emergency landing on Mars. The project ended before the issue could be fully solved.
She's apparently one of only four aerospacecraft that can sustain full conventional aerodynamic flight in Mars atmosphere (Blackbird Class, Woodmsan and F/A-37, IIRC).
In space, Mackie's aiming to get over the magical .2 - given the original RF-155-E could nudge .185 with more conventional engines and a lot of additional cooling - he might have a chance.[Ref].183C seems to be the suggested max from some of the more interested Minds with the brainspace to simulate these things, mind[/ref]
== Guns Guns Guns.
Okay. So her armament exists only on paper at the moment. 12 missile hardpoints. 2 GSH-30-6 cannon with 200 rounds apiece. A proper brute, with a real strike capability. [ref]Hence, the name[/ref]. She lacks much in the way of exotic weaponry with most of her power systems being hooked in to the interwave core and IDAR array. [ref]That said, the Flechette design study from the same series was nuts.... 75mm railcannon on a fighter, nuts[/ref]
== Crew Comforts.
A seat. Asagiri's fortified suit, and somewhere to put your stuff beneath. Nothing else. No cabins. No quarters. Not something for your weekend holiday. Or if you're in any way modest.
== Quirks.
The Air-Battleship: The original Soviet Airforce didn't call them the Air-Battleship for nothering. It probably takes to maneuvering like the Titanic. The majority of its structure is welded steel. On a 'fighter'......
Faster to go Faster: The main engines lack power and efficiency at low speeds - she needs to go faster to start building more thrust. Mackie may have removed the fan-stage from the engine, so she now functions closer to an ideal turboramjet. If she's slowed down in combat, it takes her time to regain that speed and energy.
'Buggy': One wonders if the engine's breathing issues aren't a particularly ironic quirk, given the name.
If it's anything like its sister's, it'll be prone to getting 'dirty' in that vague and scruffy way, like a post-winter salt Lancia. It's not particularly sleek or exciting to look at. It has never achieved any major victories, nor carried a signature character from a series. If it didn't exist tomorrow, you wouldn't mourn it.
'Cheap': No really, hear me out. The base airframe is welded steel. Machine-welded haephestan battlesteel. Heat critical items are in Lunar titanium. Anything else that can be is rivetted aluminium. No cermet composites. No carbotanium weave. It's a big, heavy hunk of metal with space inside for big enough engines. Where it gets expensive is in all the addons like electronics.....powerful engines....
-----
I've been struggling to put together a proper plot for the Melancholy of Mackie Chan - but I think this brute of a thing might help. At least, there might be some hints as to what might be going on in the description of the thing. (Which might also tie in to the previous Riding Hi-Streamer story - who was the Raven again?) Deltalloy is Plutonium 240 (It'll run on weapons-grade 239 just as happily, but a lot of 240 in it makes it impossible to use in a bomb)
From a meta standpoint, she can't beat Midnight. But she may just get a weapons lock on her. Just like the original Mig-25/31.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
A single-seat modification of the RF-155-E, taking a battlesteel spaceframe, a pair of brutally complex engines with a little 'special sauce' in them.
Many have tried to beat Midnight at her game. Most think they can succeed. Mackie's just another one in a long line of wannabees aiming for the crown. [ref]Meta, naturally, he comes up short, but it's a valiant effort[/ref]
==The Base Jet
Rebecca Brown (Taking it's name from a 'heroine' within a recent subfiction of the Supers) was born out of an aborted project by SHIELD to try adapt the RF-155-E series to their own needs. Two were finished as more conventia kinds(Taylor Hebert and Theresa Richter), three were designed and proposed, and construction on Rebecca Brown begun before the administrator of the project was promoted to another office [ref]With less responsibilities and greatly lowered access to restricted materials it seems[/ref]. SHIELD pulled the plug and everyone at Asagiri were left holding the premature baby they'd busted a nut on what looked to be their big break with a major faction.
Otherwise, it's a fairly standard Mig-31-type spaceframe. It has a refined variant of the CGI IDAR that might actually be useable by a human being - but probably not. It has those distinctive phased sensor arrays fitted on each winglet for 360x360 targeting, and could conceiveably mount up to 12 standard missiles, with some help from a pair of 30mm rotary cannon for BRRRRTTT fun when you're down to stick and stones.
All told, if it ever got completed, it'd be bloody quick, bloody smart, and bloody hard hitting while being able to tank hits in return.
It'll also probably follow the usual Asagiri practice of being very choosey about which users it makes friends with. Sure they can build things capable of astonishing performance in the right pair of hands, but becoming the right pair of hands just takes so much more effort, practice and training than anyone who can afford a Blackbird/Talon/VF-9 and an Expert system would ever bother with.
== The Main Core.
It's never been a secret that Mackie's engine cores are a derviative of Roughrider designs, being something of the turbocharged 4-banger compared to the thrumming V8. It must run on something with a little more 'kick' than conventional fuel. It's the same basic core as the Kulbit fighter and standard RF-155-E
Exactly what deltalloy is, is something of a 'trade secret'.
=== Like a Blackbird, but the exact opposite.
Everyone knows how the inlet spikes on a Blackbird work, right? You're not here if you don't. The tip of the spike produces a shockwave which is held at the lip of the engine inlet to decelerate incoming media to subsonic velocities which the turbomachinery can swallow. The majority of this air is then bypassed around the core to the ejector where it's burned in the afterburner area - functioning as a sort of hybrid ramjet. Ultimately, the only limit on the 'bird's speed was the ability of the spike to trap that shock. Eventually it hit its travel limit and the engine unstarted. The airframe was good until Much higher.
Becky moves most of this inside the engine inlet, trapping the same shock between a pair of semi-aerolastic ramps, in combination with a pitching inlet lip, extending the engine limits further. In theory, she hits her limit somewhere around Mach 4 - the old Mikoyan airframe really not designed to get higher to the Hypersonic regime. In practice, what usually happened was a hard unstart at high-speed - in one case destroying a turbine and forcing an emergency landing on Mars. The project ended before the issue could be fully solved.
She's apparently one of only four aerospacecraft that can sustain full conventional aerodynamic flight in Mars atmosphere (Blackbird Class, Woodmsan and F/A-37, IIRC).
In space, Mackie's aiming to get over the magical .2 - given the original RF-155-E could nudge .185 with more conventional engines and a lot of additional cooling - he might have a chance.[Ref].183C seems to be the suggested max from some of the more interested Minds with the brainspace to simulate these things, mind[/ref]
== Guns Guns Guns.
Okay. So her armament exists only on paper at the moment. 12 missile hardpoints. 2 GSH-30-6 cannon with 200 rounds apiece. A proper brute, with a real strike capability. [ref]Hence, the name[/ref]. She lacks much in the way of exotic weaponry with most of her power systems being hooked in to the interwave core and IDAR array. [ref]That said, the Flechette design study from the same series was nuts.... 75mm railcannon on a fighter, nuts[/ref]
== Crew Comforts.
A seat. Asagiri's fortified suit, and somewhere to put your stuff beneath. Nothing else. No cabins. No quarters. Not something for your weekend holiday. Or if you're in any way modest.
== Quirks.
The Air-Battleship: The original Soviet Airforce didn't call them the Air-Battleship for nothering. It probably takes to maneuvering like the Titanic. The majority of its structure is welded steel. On a 'fighter'......
Faster to go Faster: The main engines lack power and efficiency at low speeds - she needs to go faster to start building more thrust. Mackie may have removed the fan-stage from the engine, so she now functions closer to an ideal turboramjet. If she's slowed down in combat, it takes her time to regain that speed and energy.
'Buggy': One wonders if the engine's breathing issues aren't a particularly ironic quirk, given the name.
If it's anything like its sister's, it'll be prone to getting 'dirty' in that vague and scruffy way, like a post-winter salt Lancia. It's not particularly sleek or exciting to look at. It has never achieved any major victories, nor carried a signature character from a series. If it didn't exist tomorrow, you wouldn't mourn it.
'Cheap': No really, hear me out. The base airframe is welded steel. Machine-welded haephestan battlesteel. Heat critical items are in Lunar titanium. Anything else that can be is rivetted aluminium. No cermet composites. No carbotanium weave. It's a big, heavy hunk of metal with space inside for big enough engines. Where it gets expensive is in all the addons like electronics.....powerful engines....
-----
I've been struggling to put together a proper plot for the Melancholy of Mackie Chan - but I think this brute of a thing might help. At least, there might be some hints as to what might be going on in the description of the thing. (Which might also tie in to the previous Riding Hi-Streamer story - who was the Raven again?) Deltalloy is Plutonium 240 (It'll run on weapons-grade 239 just as happily, but a lot of 240 in it makes it impossible to use in a bomb)
From a meta standpoint, she can't beat Midnight. But she may just get a weapons lock on her. Just like the original Mig-25/31.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?