My Final Build Before SP2!

Now with an anime drawing and blueprints!

This aircraft took me several months to complete after being in a bit of a builder's block for quite some time since the F4X-B Archangel. I had attempted to make a different version of this beauty before, but was dissatisfied with the outcome to say the least. Even after @ZerowithslashedO gave me a blueprinted version of the F-7X-B, just as he's done with this one.

But no matter! After all the effort I put into this build, today it's my utmost pleasure to present to you all...

The FA-7X-D Super Zenith!

The Fighter That can Do Anything!

I won't hold you up with too much exposition now; let's go over some features!

She can VTOL!

She can Perform PSM!

She can Supercruise!

She can be Used for the Air Force, Marines, or Navy!

She can Destroy Anything from Any Combat Range!

And There's Much More!

All you need to do is hop into the cockpit of a Super Zenith and see how she EARNS her name...

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With that being said, hope you like lore, because I made sure to dedicate this section of my build to the group roleplay run by @DrakonDynamics. Grab some popcorn and your favorite drink (mine's water) and enjoy the show!

Aircraft Backstory (Novara)

A Fighter That Can Do Anything!

Arionia: a desert wasteland with only 2 major rivers and mountains to supply these lands with limited water and rain, making farming heavily grueling and unforgiving.

This meant that the Arionans could barely afford to feed their population within the first few decades of this country's founding in 1886, and almost half of the country's 3 million people fled to other neighboring countries in search of better living conditions and farmland. This time which lasted until 1909 was known as "The Great National Exodus".

Some may look at an uninhabitable country like this and think there is no hope. However, what ended the Great National Exodus in 1909 was what the people of Arionia discovered the year before: a mass abundance in oil!

Almost immediately, the oil rush of Arionia took place, and within mere weeks, regular ordinary people became rich. But no player in this was quite as big as the Arionan Government.

You see, due to Arionia being nearly uninhabitable- minus the 2 rivers- and due to their population at the time being incredibly sparse, and thanks to the immense supply of oil beneath the sands, this nation's Government quickly realized that likely the only way they could build up this nation was to barter with other surrounding nations.

While they established smaller trade deals with countries to the South, their primary trader became the USL to the North, with their significantly more abundant food supply and military equipment. Thanks to Arionia's conditions and low population count at the time, they relied on the USL for food, equipment, and protection for several decades; all in exchange for oil and eventually glass.

This did more than bring Arionia from the brink of collapse: it caused the national population to skyrocket! From just under 2 million in the beginning of the 20th Century, to 65 million strong in the 21st! This great boom caused the economy and infrastructure of Arionia to steadily build up with its growth, to the point where now 5 major cities along both rivers stand firm in this nation; those cities being Muchald, Cloddock, Mahiga, Toraz, and the Capital City of Arionia: Adano.

With this rapid growth came also major companies and contractors to start supplying the military branches of this country, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, and their individual elite forces. Arionia's biggest major aerospace manufacturer- founded in 1966- was Finch Aerospace.

For decades, the engineers of Arionia have experimented with various aircraft and ground vehicles which the USL's sold to them, coming up with innovative inventions, such as the EOTS-operated 360-degree fighter radar and their own version of thrust-vectoring.

Finch Aerospace saw a few major issues with this method of advancing, some more obvious than others. For starters, the world of Novara was evolving ever more quickly, and the country needed to keep up, if not go further. Not only that, but it was difficult to manufacture spare parts of their own for so many different fighters, strike craft, bombers, etc.

That is why the Founder's son- Timothy Finch- proposed a new idea to the Arionan government in 1998. It was a radical new idea that proved extremely risky, but could reduce the need of protection from the USL, if not cancel it entirely. This would not only be a powerful weapon to protect the skies of Arionia with the growing threat of electronic warfare and stealth technology, but allow the nation to be more flexible with how they spend their oil supply.

That is, if it proved to be a major enough success.

Timothy Finch proposed a VTOL-capable, all-weather, supersonic fighter for the Air Force and Navy. A fighter that possessed both stealth technology and its own electronic warfare package. A fighter that can effectively fight at almost any speed it needed to be at. A fighter capable of supercruise. A fighter capable of taking on the role of Air-Superiority, Surgical Strike, Tactical Bombing, and more. A fighter that could take down aircraft in any condition, whether far away or close up, whether low altitude or several miles high, and whether the need to pull high G turns was necessary.

A fighter that can do anything!

And so, development of Project Zenith was underway, and went on for over 10 years, with various materials being manufactured and used, computers simulating the best designs, and data being collected to create what would soon become a monster of a fighter in the modern world.

Their initial prototype, the F-7X-B Zenith, made its maiden flight in March of 2012, equipped with 2 of the Hurricane 105 MkIII engines manufactured by Finch Aerospace. Due to unreliability issues of the engines and the frame having parasitic RCS under the fuselage, Finch Aerospace was forced to modify their prototype to accommodate for these issues, lest they lose their contract.

Just 1 year later, they finally did it.

They crafted a prototype for an aircraft that would dominate the skies of Arionia for likely generations to come.

A fighter that can do anything!

The FA-7X-D Super Zenith was like nothing the Arionans had ever seen or made. With a radar cross section the size of a golfball, the Super Zenith was able to fly over radars without being detected enough for a targeting solution. Her frame was beautifully and intricately crafted for aerodynamics and agility, especially with her experimental variable-angle V-tail which could shift her center of lift midflight!

Her engines this time were the Hurricane 105 MkV's, which gave her a thrust-to-weight ratio even greater than 2 when empty, meaning she would be capable of successfully rate-fighting any fighter she wanted to, or carry up to 10 tons worth of munitions!

She could also carry up to 6 BVR missiles and 4 close-combat missiles in her hidden weapons bay! The AIM-X-360F ARGAAM (Advanced Radar-Guided Air-to-Air Missile) could be switched between semi-active or active radar-guided, which means she could change targets while the missile is still in the air! And she can fire behind herself, thanks to her EOTS radar and thrust-vectoring short-range missiles, the AIM-X-20 Rapier!

Not to mention her 20mm rotary gun!

And for naval capabilities, she was also designed with an arrestor hook, catapult hook, and foldable wings!

This was everything that the newly elected President Zane Hawthorne of Arionia and the rest of the government could've asked for in a single package. Therefore, they invested in Finch Aerospace to manufacture a total of 200 of these fighters. While the manufacturing of even 1 of these proved to be very costly, President Hawthorne decided that it would be best to shoot for quality over quantity, with the following quote...

"I see the concept of quality over quantity the same way I compare God to the fake Gods that humans have created for millenia: you can make as many Gods as you'd like, but if none of them combined can beat the 1 and only true God, then they were never worth making in the first place."

The FA-7X-D Super Zenith still has not seen any combat to this day, but the best pilots of both the Air Force and Navy go through extensive training on these aircraft, as Arionia aims to replace all of their purchased and modified jets in their roles within the next 20 years.

In favor of a fighter that can do anything...

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Credits

Thank you, @RestlessGalaxies for the images and anime depiction of the Super Zenith!

Thank you, @ZerowithSlashedO for the blueprints!

Thank you, @GuyFolk for afterburner effect from F-35B!

And any others I might be forgetting.

Enjoy!