Hello, thanks for clicking, hope you enjoy the plane!

Please note that this plane's FBW does depend on framerate, so use lower part versions given below if you get lag!

And big thanks to ThomasRoderick for helping with the design phase of this, AGAIN! (He didn't actually change anything, just suggest some changes to make the plane more grounded in reality.)

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ABOUT

The AS-10 "Ghost" Is an experimental version of Quechal's first Air Superiority fighter created in a rush to counteract the rising tension between Araucaria and Quechal. It Single handed-ly caused a peace treaty to be signed at the cost of a war hero who brought peace to the lands of Chiloa and Quechal before the war got to reach a global presence. It became an Allegory for the people of Quechal's independence and was honoured by the national Air force.

Top Speed : Mach 2.1
Takeoff speed : 270 Knots
Landing speed : 200 Knots

Alternate versions (click on the image to get re-directed)

MIDDLE FIDDLE (2,900 performance cost)

Batata ( 2500 Perfomance cost)

ALWAYS REMEMBER TO EAT YOUR 5

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Controls

• Pitch - Self explanatory
• Throttle : Self explanatory
• Roll : Self explanatory
• VTOL : Flap controls
• Trim : Self explanatory
  

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As For all the interactable Controls...

These are the weaponry controls. The Tool tips for each should be enough

These are the lighting controls. Once again, Tool tips will assist you here.

The centre controls. Same thing here, read the tool tips!

Some of the Tool tips also make references. See if you can find them all! Comment too if ye want lol

Also, in case you didn't want to read the whole thing properly, or just wanna see VEEDEO...

Click on the image above to get a 10 minute guide on everything ya need to know!

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Additional Details

Lots of lore related stuff like this... Francisco is the only dude who flew this thing. His callsign "Custard" also has a reason which you'll get to read below!

This plane is the first one to have earnt this emblem from the air force as a badge of honour. Again, lore related which will be below.

A magnetron powered Microwave emitter as a cheap solution to the lack of stealth for missile hardkill. In game, these just act as countermeasure, but lore-wise, this is actually an emitter that fries electronics on missiles.

HUGE THANKS TO hpgbproductions, ThomasRoderick, Noname918181818181818181 and overlord5453 For adding to the discussion leading up to this on This post!

Actually moving AOA Vanes. I really didn't want to add this just for the sake of doing detail work, so I ended making this an actual moving part!

Little details harkening back to the badge of honour this thing earned itself.

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One detail that I can't actually show visually is that The weaponry is actually loosely based on actual missiles, For example, the Multirole "WindRider" missile is based on the perfomance of an R-77 And AIM-9 but intentionally made more Bulbous in design for more than just aero purposes, as you'd have probably read. The air to ground missiles are also loosely based on the range and perfomance of a real Taurus KEPD-350. Even the gun was based on the GSh-30-1 When it comes to Size and stuff...

Then there is also a design and the INSANE amount of refining I did to the code... like... a MADDENING amount. You should NOT be able to pull more than 14 G's at ALL Which is a first for me! All my previous builds would cross 30G's but this? This just can't! (Unless you turn the limiter off, in which case, your fault not mine xD LEAVE ME ALONE)

and the design has done everything a real version would do...well, only a few nitpicks with the wing and Centre of mass placement is off by a few feet as Tom pointed out later in the build... But yeah...

We have Relaxed stability for starters. I SPENT HOURS OF MY LIFE WASTING IT ON GETTING THIS TO WORK RIGHT. AND THAT CODE... THAT DANG CODE IS A CODE I'VE BEEN WANTING TO DISCOVER FOR 3 YEARS NOW. 3 YEARS!

Anyway, we also have LERX as seen on F-18, F-16, SU-27, SU-47 and some other planes KNOWN for high alpha capabilities...

And if it wasn't obvious enough, the Fuselage is very heavily based on the SU-27 and MIG-29. I wanted to very intentionally keep the functionality there, but really make it look beautiful too. I personally think I did an okay job... I dunno, whaddya say?

Here is also the badge of honor that the Quechali Air force gives off to planes that reach a status of this level. Yes, that is Portugese. Arise my fellow Portugese brothers! (I have goan blood in me)

And just the flag without extra details.

Literally based on the Yin and Yang concept. Heck, it's even called the duality of man. It portrays well how both sides are needed in a shield to balance each other out.

Once again, I've made a lot of references to movies and games throughout and I wonder if you can find them all. Good luck!

And yes, if it wasn't already obvious enough, this is based on DrakonDynamic's roleplaye world called Novaran(?) and it's a fighter made in the late 90's, similar to the time of the IRL F-22 or a little later than the F-15 and SU-27 programmes IRL. Here is the map.

The development programme for the fighter started as a result of heightened tensions between Araucaria, Quechal and Chiloa due to dispute based on past territories. Because it was rushed out, a single fighter was enough to slip the tides of the native war before it became a global threat (Allied parties)

this post was special enough to me that I had to go and make a them track and a Video for it. Either of which I request to not be tallied into the counts for the challenge because it's a bit unfair to use non-simpleplanes material as an advantage. These are made purely for fun and I hope people checking them out like them, but I think that only the fighter jet matters for the challenge.

Link to the teaser video
Link to the song. This is one of my more valued works, so you can use it wherever, but I hope I'm not asking for too much if I ask for credit on this.

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Gallery

And of course... My personal favourite style...

Let me know which one is your favourite, I would love to know!

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Lore time...

Alright.... Sit back, hold tight, and put on some nice music that would work for a melancholic story... Because I'm about to really go hard with this.

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In the Dark Skies, our ghost lies.

Monday... August 6th, 1996...
Drones allegedly from the Araucaria airspace were spotted by radars on the border of Quechal and Araucaria. Confidential communications took place to determine whether retaliation was even needed. For so many years, it seemed peace was finally something within our grasps... But the new political parties within Araucaria seemed to have separate ideas. Quechal had long since won independence and was recognised as a nation in the 50's, but it had separated on unsteady terms... Peace treaties with loopholes everywhere. We were lucky at the time to have generous governors ruling during the separation... But our mistakes are shining through now. They've already openly declared that they want their territory back in Chiloa... And people were dying. At this rate, we were next.

Their air force is strong, near unbeatable. Investments in stealth technology was also an alleged rumor at the time, which proved to be true later.... We were really not on good terms... But at the rate of which things were going, and being in a position where we weren't allowed to open fire on the drones meant we were deep in shit already...

We had to future proof ourselves... But there weren't many options. Of course, we were the only option for the Quechali republic, despite our obvious issue that Astarika as a company was going down. Lack of investments or funding. We needed a bloody miracle to happen. A literal guardian angel to come save us before we became part of the Araucarians again... Our people, atleast the ones who knew, were trembling in fear. There was literally nothing left to save us... And the happy place on the outside... Children playing, parents smiling... That happy life was to turn to ashes soon... There was... Nothing... That we could do at the time... But pray... Pray that something would happen

As the situation tensed up further, more drone sightings occured and entire unarmed fighters seemed to be taking sorties over restricted airspace, communication between the two governments had begun openly. Worries were there publicly, but they hadn't fully realised the stakes at hand. By the next year, Astarika's board decided to gamble it all. There wasn't much money left for R&D. This one decision was to decide between whether we had a bright future or a grim collapse as a company. They Pushes every last penny we had into a fighter programme. We hired a lot of engineers with backgrounds in military or related fields... One of them was Francisco Cruz.

A good man, him. Was a strike fighter pilot who flew sorties in the early days of quechal. Had a wife and little girl he'd often bring to work. We all called her little pickle. Her joyous giggles always filled out place with glee, I tell ya. She was a smart little one. She once pranked her father by making him sit on a plate of custard. It was brown, made us all laugh that day... But Francisco never got angry, in fact, he always laughed with her. The little one would always make everyone happy just with her little smile and wit when she played around. Francisco really loved her too. He'd tell me a lot of times about how beautiful she is and how's glad to have found such a loving woman to live and have kids with. He was a really... Really happy man. He'd very often also help us cheer up and aided a lot in the programme. But... He saw something in us that we didn't. He too knew... That the future of the Republic of Quechal rides on us... But... He knew something... More... It felt like he was holding a personal grudge.

For a good few days... He wasn't coming to work as per usual. He'd have shown up once or twice every week and that caused him to have a lot of pressure from the higher ups, which seemed to have piled up onto how much he was already working on... Whatever it was he was working on... He'd have bags under his eyes and his eyes would often get watery while staring off onto his drawing sheets while tears would run down his dark circles... Which he would often not notice until it reaches his cheek as a result of his stoic attitude to everything.

We were the reason why he'd not yet gone insane with how pressured he was getting, but it all started to make sense... September 4th, I think it was... Of 1997... He came to work... With this... This really big sheet. He kept calling it they key to our problems... And a lot of us called him a lot of words... Even me. I was angry. I could not believe him and thought he was wasting our time despite knowing the stakes at hand...

Then he opened the paper... And inside it was design so beautiful, so well made that it was maddening how one man came up with it. The board saw it, and without any hesitation approved of it for further scaled model tests. Not many of our teams were able to come up with a completed design.

The design showed exceptional performance, Quite literally unlike any other the industry has seen. It featured a revolutionary hard kill system, one that set the basis for modern day solutions. A MASER Emitter with three points from which it would emit microwaves. it truly was a testament to our desperation at the time. A design so advanced that it was a requirement for it to have a new classification for fighters for how well it performed.... A near 1:1 P/W, insane G'S and variable mission application... And we were therefore given the go ahead. Testing of a full scale concept had begun in early March, 1998. It had no installed hardpoints, but had place for a gun.

But we were a little late to the party.... War had broken out. The lands burnt, screams and cries in a distant fire as people ran away from attacks at the border... Crushed under the feet of the giant that was the air force of Araucaria. Destruction brought sorrow, sorrow brought fear, fear brought anger, caused hunger and madness. Our entire republic was on the verge of giving up. I still remember going to work and experiencing new ways of grief each commute. People I thought I could love turned on me, hatred was apparent in the air. The image of Mrs.Little Pickle breaking down on her knees as she saw us screaming at each other has stuck with me. Arastarika was falling apart for obvious reasons. We didn't have a board committee anymore... There was nooney to have one. Bombing attacks started extending to central Quechal and our capital was hit.

And as if to add insult to injury, the prototype had disappeared. Somehow, it aligned with Francisco going missing. It was haunting to see both his loved ones cry in front of us... But we were going equally insane. No idea what to do.

That very same month... March 21st... An unauthorised aircraft sat on the end of the runway. It was our fighter. Our lovechild that we literally poured blood, sweat and tears into. We rushed to go see what fool would dare to steal an confidential fighter, forget that added armoury that also seemed stolen and retrofitted in seemingly a hurry on the thing... But before we could get to him.. The afterburners roared to life... The acceleration was magnificent.... Within seconds, she was going down the runway at over 250 Miles per hour.

The mystery unfolded bit by bit and the skies became clearer to us... Francisco was seated in it. He, as he pulled the stick back, pushing a vertical... Said "Francisco in the air, folks.... Call me custard. Don't sweat it, I'm not doing something stupid."
He was doing something stupid...

But the moment he took the skies on that day... Every last one of us felt something in our hearts

... Beyond the magnificent perfomance of the fighter, still accelerating as it went straight up... Slowly vanishing into the depths of the horizon. It was as if the angels were singing to us. The miracle had come... The Ghost had claimed his sky.

It was unlike anything the Araucarians had seen. A divine being that popped into their radars out of seemingly thin air, too late to act upon it and fire back... For missiles were already hunting them down like hungry wolves scavenging for easy prey. Not a single bomb fell on the previously hopeless lands.... The peace had been restored for the night... But the skies? It was a circus show. A single prototype was driving away these interceptors and bombers as if it were child's play. Toying with them as it pulled large loads of G'S... Crossing insane thresholds as it were just another day at work. It was... Maddeningly beautiful. None of their fighters went back home... A single bomber survived after surrendering. The story had spread quickly... Araucarians were aware that we had an ace up our sleeves now... But that's exactly why the fate of Francisco was sealed.

When he came back down that day... And when we met, I first gave him a light punch... He groaned... Then tears welled up in my eyes, Knowing that he was still there. The warmth made it easy on me to let off some steam. I thought I wouldn't see him again. But he was in my arms. I was quick to tell Martina, his wife after a seeing him back down.

The story had widespread resonance. One fighter prototype alone changed the outlook in the publics eyes, screams became roars. Horror became hope. Hatred turned into ambition.

Arastarika was quickly re-elected for a Modern Fighter programme and the prototype was put it into service despite lacking design refinement and radar antennae at the back. The doctrine that Francisco used of staying low to the ground before the missiles were in range was brilliant. A stroke of genius from a reckless, yet lovable man.

Money was coming in with huge amounts. The story single handedly caused global support for Quechal to arise out of nowhere. Before the story, it was only us.... After it, the entire world was against Araucaria.... [Side note, that's just advertisement money, there was no military involvement from any other country]

The fighter would go on to fly more sorties like that, still demonstrating it's unrivaled mastery of air. It would go on to make more and more stories...
"The Ghost strikes again" would often be a headline that would excite every last citizen of our land. For someone who's ancestry was primarily Araucaria, Francisco didn't seemed to give a shit about the despair he caused for what I would've thought is his homeland.

And to end his tale... He died a horrible, fiery death after 5 years of service... At the hands of his own bretherine. Just like that... After a 5 year long legacy... After winning a medal of Honor and having his most prized possesion stamped with an emblem of heroism... An angel flying forward forevermore was brought back down to earth in a horrid manner. The nation grieved.

For the moments leading up to it, the war was long over. Araucaria had lost a lot of bombers, which were the primary driving forces of their doctrine. The stories birthed countless war heros from our nation, so taking hold of our lands was a far fetched option, let alone one that Araucaria could afford in the state that they were.

But the hatred had shifted rigorously... It was no longer focused at us... But him. Truth be told, the sorties that he was on for his last two years with us were unnecessary. They were dogfights born purely out of hatred for him alone.

And one of the ambassadors of the hatred was his very own brother. July 6th, 2003, the weather was stormy. It was gloomy enough as it was.... But he told me something before he took off that day...

"Take care of my child, Hank. Tell her I love her. I'm going to finish a long running dispute today. I'm going to separate my past from my family. Tell Martina I love her."

And then he took off. Everything after that was standard procedure. After his last command cut off, I was trembling and crying. I knew what he meant. He wasn't going to use the ejection seat either. He wanted it to be over... For the sake of Martina... For me... For Quechal.

His brother too sat in the next generation of fighters for Araucaria, response to our building Fleet of AS-10's, which became the official designation for the first ever air superiority fighter. Both fighters showed incredible perfomance, none survived long enough to come back home.

After a tiring dogfight lasting 15 minutes after the merge in dull skies, a good few rounds clipped the wings of the mighty ghost... And she went down, but not without her last gift. Francisco has saved one last love letter for his brother as he whizzed by the falling AS-10 prototype. The Wind rider had hit. It completely destroyed his fighter.

A bittersweet end, no-one had really won... But... I... Always remember Custard. He was a brother to me... I...

{We should cut here. This is a little too heavy for merlin to-}

No..... No...... It's okay... I'm sorry... I just... I just need a kerchief.

...thank you... So um... Arastarika became well renowned since then. The AS-10 has constantly seen upgrades to its airframe. We've been pushing for laser hard kill systems as well and ever since... We've... We've learnt a lot from the fight too.... Francisco taught us a lot of beautiful things. His daughter is growing well too. She's working with us today. We're proud to have her. Martina lost her sanity over the years. She loved him dearly. It broke her completely. She had already had to accept it once, then see him alive, only to have to try and accept it again, but... She's in a mental asylum now. She's still well taken care of. I still visit her when possible but... She started blabbering a lot nonsense since then... Like Seeing eyes in boiling water or Blood all over her windows....

I believe that he's there with us still... Watching... Like a third man... His infectious smile is a memory that will never fail to brighten up my day. I'm glad he is the allegory for Quechal today. Ever since, we've signed a well structured peace treaty with Araucaria, and with him gone, there is no longer a source of conflict between the two countries... If anything, we're partnering nations now.... But if course, idiots on the internet are always ready to bring up the past to fill up their empty minds with something... So they bring up arguments.

But I am happy with today's world... It seems to be in a very peaceful state.

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There ya go! Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments. I'll also be sharing an "About my experience" as a separate post since I'm super tired now. Thank you everyone, love y'all!