KA-1 Stormbringer

[Elranyar]

I realize this isn't a very exciting vehicle by the standards of this forum, but I'm very happy with it.  Many of the aircraft I've designed have flown well but have been ugly, or have been sharp-looking but have not flown well.  This one looks (to me at least) cool as all get-out, and flies very well indeed.  Although I know that KSP has no military content at all, and no way (normally) to arm vehicles, I retired after spending more than 35 years in military service (part of that time in the US Air Force and part as a Department of Defense civilian).  This design was inspired by both the US A-10 Thunderbolt II (affectionately nicknamed the Warthog) and by the Russian Sukhoi Su-25 (NATO reporting name Frogfoot), both of which are heavily-armed, slow-flying ground-attack aircraft.

The KA-1 Stormbringer is a single-seat fixed-wing STOL aircraft powered by a single turbofan engine.  It has a generous wing area for its size, giving it good lift and allowing it to operate from short runways.  Its robust landing gear and sturdy construction allow it to operate from unimproved surfaces.  It carries ten KAS-3 300-mm unguided (but gyrostabilized) air-to-surface rockets which it can fire in pairs.

Whether loaded with rockets or after they've been fired, this aircraft handles magnificently, at least by my inexperienced standards.  I can literally roll 90 degrees, pull back on the controls, and change my heading by 180 degrees with almost no effort and without pieces of my aircraft falling off.  Or I can make the same heading change by performing an Immelmann or Split-S maneuver, at speed, with maximum control input, without my aircraft disintegrating.

I have both of the expansion packs installed, and this designs makes extensive use of the TweakScale mod.  I was unable to find a way to decouple the rockets when firing that didn't leave part of the decoupling mechanism on the rocket; if anyone has suggestions for this, I would love to hear them.