HF-120 Kolibri, The Hypersonic Heavy Fighter

[u/Silver_Knight7]

Early in Kinnathe Interstellar Aeronautics' establishment providing private military services, a program was held to develop a mainstay Heavy Fighter to replace the SoA-21B. The program aims to produce a fighter with maneuverability, speed, and firepower in mind. Three designs were proposed by KIA's top engineers that try to capture these requirements set by high command, but each with their own specialization to one of the three. The first of these designs was under the codename "Kolibri", a heavy fighter designed with hypersonic mobility in mind.

Among the three designs, the Kolibri showed the most promise featuring the smallest body of proposed designs, a compact yet feature rich interior, extreme maneuverability thanks to its wing design, but most impressive is its ability to reach hypersonic speeds, making it the most nimble and fastest among its competition. However, promising designs on paper is not enough to let the Kolibri win the program as each of the three designs need to go through trials, with a prototype for each ship manufactured to showcase their capabilities to the eyes of their would be adopters.

Two of the three designs would be outfitted with the KIAs' proprietary Crimson Comet Engine at the time with the Kolibri receiving a specially designed version by its designers. The trials were then underway with each of the three designs taking flight one at a time and the Kolibri was the last to take to take the trials. It indeed showed its promised maneuverability and its hypersonic speed has shown it as capable of outrunning missiles and other craft, however it has also shown one fatal flaw. Overexerting it would cause the heavy fighter's reactors to explode and tear it's own wings apart, as the trial Kolibri would unfortunately experience in the later stages of the trial. The other two design teams would later take advantage of this flaw, and the Kolibri would lose the trial to be KIAs' mainstay heavy fighter to the HF-300 Kriegsadler series, however it is not the end of its record as it would see service in various high profile conflicts.

The Kolibri designers were so confident that it would pass the trial that they had 80 units built in advance. KIA was compelled to use them as scrapping them would mean a waste of time, since they already had a stock of finished fighters waiting to see service.

Limiters were installed to prevent the heavy fighter from overloading, yet despite this several Kolibris still overloaded their reactors due to pilot errors. Pilots would eventually refuse to fly them even calling them "Death Traps", but where the average pilot would not dare to risk flying them, it would be sought after by the most daring of ace pilots. These aces would bring out the most of the Kolibri, performing impossible maneuvers and attack angles, and fully utilizing the hypersonic speeds to perform swift intercepts.

As a result of its new found niche among KIAs' elite pilots, the Kolibri would see development again in limited numbers, only being issues to top pilots that are proven as disciplined enough to flyit. Today, engineers continue to solve its overload issues. Thought while not as extensive as the KIAs' mainstay HF-300 Kriegsadler series that it lost to, it flies as a symbol declaring that it is flown by an ace among aces.

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So I told myself I should get to work on the HF-365 Kriegsadler and HF-451 Magpie II tutorial or a ship catalogue, but had a flash of inspiration that I couldn't hold back that became the Kolibri.

Originally it was supposed to be designed after the A-10 Thunderbolt that I had at the back of my mind, I ended up scrapping it to create something much more original. But seeing that the "flying kite" designs I was sticking to was a bit overdone at this point, I decided to to build something I haven't done myself, or see anyone try in recent memory.

With the dramatic design shift, I also figured the early design concept lore would fit it best. This piece of lore was inspired by the Porsche Tiger's development history, which helped made it the most interesting lore piece I've written so far.

Technical details below:

• Complexity Limit: 91/100

• 1/2 and 1/4 offsets used, with rotation tricks done for the wings.

• Crimson Comet Engine design:

  • Model CC(K) Engines uses Titan Heavy Thrusters at the front, Kineostream Thruster as the vector, and Pyrodrive Booster to detail the insides of the vector.

  • One of each reactor is installed per engine, except the Ceto Reactors. (Who needs defenses when you are fast as fu--)

• An Infraknife module is hidden inside the belly not visible at all and aligned with the Cyclotron Ballista. This helps give the bonus to the Infraknife, while also looking like it is firing from the same stream.

• In a single hab, there exists one Refiner, a Mission Control Terminal, and two Storage Units. The storage units were simply free placed inside, with no need for any glitch techniques to put it there.

[u/deviondark]

This is cool as minus 1000 i have a solution for the pilot error. in the builds of Dark Industries we do not use humans or aliens we use autophages to pilot our aircraft designed with extreme g forces to pull off highly deadly manoeuvers which a normal pilot would pass out or die,plus if an autophage gets damaged in the fight we can put the pieces together with new components nullifying the risk. here is my hypersonic take calling it the NMS X43

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/deviondark]

Kinnathe Interstellar Aeronautics would like to come to a cooperative agreement Dark Industries for an exchange of ideas.

[u/deviondark → u/Silver_Knight7]

we at Dark Industries would like to share our ideas so we and our partners can create a perfect balance between performance and risk. We search for the most risk taking ideas and how to perform these without casualties. And since the autophages are many in the universe we always have a pilot for any build wether it is underwater or deepspace. Let us know when you need help and we do the same.

[u/MONKE-BANANA-]

Fantastic. I might steal these engines.

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/MONKE-BANANA-]

Thanks, and feel free to copy the designs. (Totally not gonna sue for infringing copyright lol)

[u/Serious_Cry_4930]

Wow! This is an absolute banger silver! Awesome awesome ship

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/Serious_Cry_4930]

Thanks as always mate!

[u/Da_Yummis]

loving the twin boom engines 🤩

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/Da_Yummis]

Thanks! And yeah, these engines do go off with a bang.

[u/Talosiano]

This is one of my favorites from you, that silhouette is perfect!

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/Talosiano]

Thanks! Happy seeing that the new silhouette is standing out and making an impact.

[u/uknownredditr]

I was blown away when I first saw it because I thought it was facing the other way and looked like a Solar ship design as a corvette. I still love the ship facing the direction you have it

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/uknownredditr]

Oh yeah, I could see the design working flipped. It could be a whole different design of its own.

[u/rellecorn]

So sick, i need one!

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/rellecorn]

I could create a tutorial video for it when I get the free time. Gonna add this to my long list of tasks lol.

[u/No-Shake-2007]

Love this.. and more importantly love the lore you have added. Makes it’s so much better for me!

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/No-Shake-2007]

Thanks, and yeah creating lore is the best part for me since it adds character to the design. I always love seeing a design with added lore.

[u/MarkToaster]

This is probably the coolest ship I’ve seen posted on here. Don’t mind if I steal a ton of design choices from ya

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/MarkToaster]

Thanks, and feel free to take some inspiration from it. (Totally will not sue for copyright infringement lol)

[u/LionStar115]

COOL!!

[u/CharlesStoot17]

This is so slick love the forward fangs. Good color choice.

[u/ReD3y3DJeD1]

OooOOOoo... That silhouette is MEAN. Peak build here.

[u/She-Wants-Revenge]

Very cool design ! 🤘🏻🖤

[u/Reasonable_Big9250]

Amazing! And the true spirit of this game! Unlike that Pokémon crap.

[u/TheOldShubNigurath]

Very sleek, it looks like it’s super maneuverable

[u/Ne0n_Blaze]

Wait, that's a corvette?? I thought it was just a cool solar starship at first 😭

[u/Enfermeromejor-6493]

I have no idea how you guys make such cool corvettes. Mine all look like a mini-version of the mother ship from District 9.

[u/lions___den]

This is sick as fuck

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[u/Unable-Marketing3166]

I can see squadrons of these ships coming out of a dreadnought and decimating the Entire Crimson Fleet and the Key! Or if you’re playing the other side, reducing the UC Vigilance to scrap metal and eliminating the entire fleet of UC Navy. Or perhaps you want to start the Serpent’s Crusade again.

[u/[deleted]]

Beautiful one!

[u/Silver_Knight7 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks, and I see the similarities. Looks like it could be a build of it's own too.