| While it's great to have
the sexy and fast Starhawks for space superiority, there should be ships
to do the dirtier atmospheric interception job. The requirements for such
a fighter are considerably lower than for a high-end, state-of-the-art
space interceptor. Thus, the Volvo/Saab JAS-496 "Phoenix". The Phoenix
is a fairly fast, agile and lightweight transorbital strike fighter/interceptor.
Everything was done to keep it as simple a design as possible, and as lightweight
as possible. An obvious downside to this is the ship's relatively weak
shielding and small payload. The plus is the agility and low drag coefficient
- a particularly useful feature for an atmospheric fighter. |
