Whew, I'm right on the limit of time again - college isn't being so kind, but I was able to finally finish this! In my infinite laziness, I started by reusing the cockpit from my previous Swordfish... But ended up completely re-making it into a functional cockpit. Welp.

This was quite the interesting build to make - except for the canards, all control surfaces have funky trees inputs. This allowed me to do proper elevons, essential for a delta wing aircraft, and also allowed me to make automatic maneuver slats which deploy when pitching up and drop further when VTOL is commanded. The inboard elevons also drop an extra 10 degrees at full VTOL - basically, each one of these surfaces has a custom input tailored to increase the aircraft's controllability in all situations. I hope you find it to be a joy to fly!

Challenge note: There's an extra pylon in the middle, but that is not currently used. It's there just because I plan to make other versions of this plane in the future and an external tank will probably go there; as I understand, we are limited to 12 pylons used by weapons, a limitation this plane fits - there are in total 12 weapon stations in use.

I decided to not use the cannon part in order to have the good ol' tracers for air-to-air combat... this is made up for by the 28 fast-firing rockets packed in front of the external tanks (which is based on the JL-100 rocket launcher tanks carried by some Mirages), so don't jettison the fuel tanks so soon!

Well, as always this is one of my classical, extremely long descriptions. However, to make your life easier, I have marked the point up until where the actually important stuff goes, the rest is just lore. Most importantly of all, I hope you have fun flying this plane around, and enjoy! But before that, since this is the Area 88 Challenge, let's have a brief story time...

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Micky: "Oh, McCoy's back again. That's one weird Mirage he's brought with him..."
McCoy: "Hey Shin, me old boy! I heard you crashed your Tiger II on landing, that's too bad. Say, I've just shipped some new birds in for real cheap..."
Shin: "As lively as ever, aren't you McCoy. Cut to the deal, what is this plane? It looks like a Mirage, but I've never quite seen one like it before."
McCoy: "Glad you asked! This is an F-191 Arrow. These brand new babies arrived just today, shipped fresh from South America.
Micky: "These folks make planes? I'll be damned. Mind if I take a look at the cockpit?"
McCoy: "Of course! What kind of businessman would I be if I didn't let my good costumers sample the product?
Micky: suspicious "Hey, this radar display looks familiar..."
McCoy: "Naturally it'd be! Why, do you think the lazy Brazilian who designed this thing would develop a new one? The radar is American, the engine is British, the guns are French and the radios are German! It's an amalgamation of off-the-shelf hardware!"
Micky: "And why the hell would anyone buy this knock-off of a Mirage then?"
McCoy: Grins "It's twice as cheap."
Shin: rests hand on chin "Hmmmm... Half the cost... It's a bit sketchy, but it does sound like a good deal."
Micky: "Oi, oi, Shin. Hold on. You can't be serious about this."
McCoy: Rubs hands "How about this, buy one now and I'll give ya four Sidewinders free of charge."
Shin: "We have a deal then."
McCoy: Smug, counting dollars "Always a pleasure doing business with ya."
......
Micky: "Shin, are you out of your mind? Don't you remember what happened last time you bought Sidewinders from that old hustler?"
Shin: "I'll swap them out for other weapons, that's for sure. Don't worry."
Micky: "That's not the only problem, though... Man, I've got a bad feeling about this. I don't trust that plane."
Shin: "It does look solid, though. It's got responsive controls, the avionics are great for the price.
Micky: "Yeah, but will they hold out in combat?"
Shin: smirks "Guess there's only one way to find out."

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Controls, Features, Warnings and Operational Notes (IMPORTANT)

ACTIVATION GROUPS, VTOL, TRIM:

AG 1: Deploy Drag Chute
AG 2: Afterburner On/Off
AG 3: Jettison External Fuel Tank (fuel tank has rocket launchers embedded)
AG 4: EMER JETT (Jettisons all Air-To-Ground ordnance)
AG 5: Airbrakes
AG 6: Air-To-Air Missiles ARM ON + Gunsight set to Air-to-Air Mode
AG 7: Arresting Hook
AG 8: Nav Lights On/Off
VTOL UP: Flaps Down
TRIM: Not hard to guess
Countermeasures: Chaff/Flare dispensers with 50 rounds.

NOTES:

• Do not use flaps for maneuvering. That will actually decrease your performance more often than not - the automatic slats already take the plane to peak turning performance.

• For takeoff and landings, flap usage is also not necessary, but it is recommended that they're used for landing.

• In order to give this aircraft the desired high supersonic speed, the afterburner is potent. On A/B and relatively clean (no weapons/only air-to-air) condition, the aircraft will accelerate very quickly, and throttle control is important if you need to keep your speed stable. Take note however - using afterburner drinks fuel like there's no tomorrow.

• Also note that since SP does not simulate compressibility on control surfaces, at very high speeds this plane might be a little too maneuverable when flying clean. However, its performance was tuned to give it the characteristic low speed handling of delta-canard aircraft.

• The missiles drop before firing to clear the aircraft. The delay before ignition is 0.5 seconds. As such, refrain from pulling negative G when firing, or firing missiles too close to terrain.

• the gyro gunsight is there mostly for fun and looks, it doesn't actually work for aiming. Trust your tracers. Remember: Press AG 6 to arm air-to-air missiles!

• Cockpit:
  

INSTRUMENT READING NOTES:

Angle of Attack Warning Lights:
Yellow means your AoA is relatively high. It is normal to see this when pulling hard maneuvers. When landing, this means take caution with your speed, you might be too slow.
Red means your AoA is very high/excessive. You may see this when pulling hard turns at very high speeds or attempting to maneuver at very low speeds. When landing, this means you're stalling.
Note the lights were calibrated with a "clean" aircraft, that is, carrying no weapons.

Altimeter: This one has three pointers: The long white one completes a turn each 100 feet. The thicker, stubbier one completes a turn each 1,000 feet, and finally the thin red one completes a turn each 10,000 feet. You can actually use this to have a very solid idea of what altitude you're in as long as you keep track of how many times the red pointer has completed a turn.

Airspeed indicator: It tops off at nearly a complete turn, meaning 600 KIAS (Knots Indicated Airspeed). When it gets close to that you probably want to be using the Machmeter instead.

Machmeter: Uses a very crudely approximated formula (I cannot stress this enough, it's very crude and I am slightly ashamed) to provide a makeshift mach number reading that should be decently approximated up to 10.000 meters (around 33k feet). Each large notch is 1 Mach, so this instrument reads all the way up to Mach 2.5.

(If anyone should be interested, I plotted some data in a graph and realized that in normal conditions, up to around 10.000 meters the relation between altitude and airspeed could be... crudely approximated to a linear relation, so I came up with this:)
TAS/(340 - (Altitude*(4/1000)))

I'd love if someone could check if I didn't make a grave mistake here - Of course, this isn't a very accurate measurement, it's just done for fun, and above 33k feet it might as well be useless, but it does look like it could use some refinement.

Weapons:

Now comes the fun part. In this particular aircraft, you have five different types of weapons at your disposal:

Guns
Two French DEFA 554 30mm guns.

MAA-3E IR Air-To-Air Missile x4
A short-range, infrared-guided missile with solid overall performance. an Interceptor missile was used to simulate the fire-and-forget characteristic of heatseekers. Press AG 6 to arm.

Mk 82 500lb Bomb x2
A heavy anti-ship missile with a potent warhead. Bombs drop in a 300 milisecond (0.3 second) ripple interval.

MAS-89D Terrier EO Air-To-Ground Missile x4
An electro-optically guided missile intended to destroy hostile armored vehicles.

70mm Rockets x28
Just your plain old unguided rockets, fitted in two UBT-14/200 rocket launcher + external fuel tank combination. Fires in a 100 milisecond (0.1 second) ripple interval.

Details on their specifics and backstory further ahead in the description under the "Backstory" section. This is just meant to be a quick guide for people who want to go and fly right off without reading too much, so they can better understand what they have at their disposal.

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RECOMMENDED OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES:

TAKEOFF:
- Afterburner ON (AG 2).

LANDING:
- Check landing gear down;
- OPTIONAL: Flaps down full (VTOL up);
- Airbrakes deployed (AG 5);
- Touch down with main wheels first;
- Apply brakes after all wheels have contacted ground and aircraft is stable.
- If a quicker stop is desired, deploy drag chute (AG 1).

ENTERING AIR-TO-GROUND COMBAT:
- Check nav lights off (AG 8);
- Do not jettison external tanks if possible. Remember your rockets are packed with them.
- Ensure correct weapon is selected. More details on "Weapons" section.
- Remember: Afterburner is toggled by AG 2, and airbrakes by AG 5.

ENTERING AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT:
- Jettison external fuel tanks + rockets (AG 3);
- Jettison air-to-ground stores (AG 4);
- Check nav lights off (AG 8);
- Toggle missile arm/Air-To-Air switch ON (AG 6). The cockpit missile arm indicator light will light up, and the gunsight will enter A-A mode.
- Remember: Afterburner is toggled by AG 2, and airbrakes by AG 5.

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Details and Backstory

Manufacturer: Socrux Indústria Aeroespacial Ltda. (Defense subdivision)

First Flight: January 1976

Introduction: March 1979

One of the earliest supersonic interceptors designed by Socrux was the S.F-190 Flecha (Arrow). Its effectiveness as an interceptor kept it in service for long years, and eventually when a replacement was sought, it was such a well-liked airplane that it was decided the only replacement for a Flecha was an updated Flecha. After a vast redesign process, despite sharing little with its predecessor except for the general layout, the new aircraft was baptized S.F-191 Flecha, keeping the name of the lineage.

Side view.

A sleek, streamlined, lightweight fighter, the S.F-191 suits its purpose as an interceptor with its fast rate of climb and powerful radar, but also fulfills more "down-to-business" fighter and strike roles superbly thanks to its excellent maneuverability and acceleration, good payload capacity, and stable weapons delivery. It is a pilot-favorite platform for strafing runs and rocket passes.

A prototype fires a rocket salvo at a test target.

The aircraft features a proeminent tail cone, which houses the drag chute. The aircraft is also fitted with an arresting hook for emergency stops, but it is rarely used.

A Flecha slows down with airbrakes and drag chute.

The cockpit layout is designed to be as pilot-friendly as possible, displaying radar information in a centralized panel below the gunsight display. The aircraft is equipped with a decent avionics suite for its category, including a look down-shoot down radar and a radar warning reciever.

The control surfaces consist of a pair of canards for pitch control, and in each wing a pair of maneuvering slats and elevons. The slats drop automatically to 50% upon pitch command, increasing the aircraft's maneuverability; upon commanding flaps, they drop to 100%. The elevons are responsible for roll control, but also aid in pitching - the inboard elevons also work as flaperons when flap is commanded, dropping an extra 10 degrees but otherwise retaining all its functionalities.

Slats being automatically deployed during a max performance turn.

The slender delta wings, coupled with the canards and slats, gives the Flecha excellent low-speed handling characteristics and an astounding roll rate. It can perform snap rolls quickly, barrel rolls aggressively and has a tight turning radius, max performance turns being rather hard on its pilots. It frequently beats much more powerful, larger air superiority fighters in WVR DACT exercises, and is regarded as a top-grade dogfighter in the theatres where it saw action.

Pre-production model gunning down a target drone.

The S.F-191P is an export version, built with more off-the-shelf avionics components to reduce costs and make the aircraft more attractive to Western costumers, nevertheless finding its main export market in the Middle East. Its rugedness, reliability, ease of maintenance and low cost, both of acquisition and operation, has rendered it a common sight in the hands of rather unexpected costumers: Private military contractors and mercenary forces. In use by such groups, it has proven to be a formidable weapon system in all sorts of roles, from combat air patrol and fighter sweep to interdiction and close air support, and has shown to adapt well to harsh desert environments.

It is marketed for export under its English name, "Arrow."

Among the weapons commonly seen in the S.F-191, perhaps the most ubiquitous is the MAA-3 air-to-air missile. In its E version, it was the first all-aspect heatseeker designed by Socrux, and is a rather capable weapon comparable to the best of its time. It is normally carried in the outboard pylons, either in single or double-rail configurations.

The UBT-14/200 rocket launcher/fuel tank combinations are a staple of the Flecha for ground attack missions. Combining both external fuel tanks and 70mm rockets in a single package, this versatile implement frees up more space for other weapons.

The MAS-89D Terrier air-to-ground missile was the last version of the "legacy" Terriers, marked by their longer fuselage. They are electro-optically guided air-to-ground missiles packing serious punch, intended to destroy enemy armored vehicles.

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How far to Paradise?