Super Hydra Mk.V!

Descending from the Super Hydra Mk.IV; a legend of the M-War, reborn to fight in the S-War.

Airframe instability bit the dust, but now- only with all suspended armaments dropped- you can do a full 360 degree horizontal turn in three seconds.

Despite just being an upgrade of the Super Hydra Mk.IV, the Mk.V has significant improvements from the Mk.IV. Starting with performance and functionality-based upgrades...

-Guns: Two of the Super Hydra's nose guns have reduced spread, trading "offset forgiveness" for accuracy. The other two nose guns are unchanged, though. The Super Hydra's wing guns- formerly attached to the missile pods- now are mounted in the wing(s), allowing the Super Hydra to sport a permanent 6 guns.

Play it right, and the Super Hydra can dodge, pursue, and shoot down missiles from the USS Beast Destroyer Escorts.

-Explosive Payload: The Super Hydra Mk.V sports three different types of explosive armaments, all of which are suspended under the wings. The first of these are missile pods, which have been changed to use the standard albeit infamous FRCM S-25M missiles. Said missile pods also carry four missiles, as opposed to the three bore by the Mk.IV. Next is the bombs. The Mk.V not only carries twelve 500-pound bombs, but the rails which the bombs are mounted on have small "legs" to help stop the bombs from exploding if the plane tips over on take-off or landing. They're not perfect, but it's better than nothing. Quick tip though: always drop the bombs at once; the Super Hydra is sensitive to weight changes, and hard pitching will be virtually impossible if imbalanced. And finally, you get the Fat Chungus torpedoes. They're great for taking out naval targets, but make sure you're at least a mile or two away from your target when it explodes.

One of the Fat Chungus torpedoes in action. Also worth noting; the torpedoes have individual cameras, which allowed this shot in the first place.

All suspended armaments can be dropped with Activation Groups 1-3. 1 drops the innermost armaments (missile pods), 2 drops the middle (bombs), and 3 drops the outermost (torpedoes).

-Arrestor Hook: The Mk.V is designed to be used anywhere, even in the Navy, so it comes with a unique arresting hook, allowing the Super Hydra to land on carriers with fair ease, although the airbrakes can still help too. The Arrestor hook can be activated via Activation Group 5.

Note the unique V-shape of the arresting hook. Turns out, only one arresting hook will catch the arresting cable on landing, so the deployed aesthetic of the V-hook might get messed up after a landing.

A side view providing a good look at the explosive armaments and arresting hook, as well as the rest of the plane.

-Engines: The engines are slightly stronger. In terms of performance, that's it.

-Control Surfaces: The wings were, on the Mk.IV, scaled down to 0.1. After studying the Super Hydra's flight performance, I deemed this a liability, and re-scaled the wings back to 1.0, allowing the Super Hydra to fly much better. I also changed the rotators on the control surfaces- since the Super Hydra flies on both an all-moving tail and canard- to make them less turning, but more stable. Lastly, for the control surfaces, the elevators have Trim, and the main-wing flaps are now VTOL-activated.

-Extra Countermeasures: The Mk.V sports not only more flares, but now also has chaff, making it nearly immune to most missiles.

Now, onto aesthetic upgrades...

-Smoothening: All of the rotators now have disableBaseMesh set to true, making the plane look a little better (this improvement is most noticeable on the airbrakes). The canopy has also been smoothened just a bit. There's also a new fuselage piece above the intakes, making the plane look a little more put-together.

-Engines: The engines are subject to both functional and aesthetic change, as they're not only stronger, but also shorter, since they looked really weird when they were long. The exhaust trail has also been made shorter.

-Overhauled Cockpit: The entirety of the cockpit has been redone, now featuring buttons for every functioning Activation Group, more instruments, levers, and bringing some use to the Electronics Systems Operator. Heck, you even get a heads-up display now! However, I count this as aesthetic, because it would be pretty hard to use the cockpit functions in VR (the price to pay for using an old design), and the Electronics Operator literally has no functions ingame. But, added some glass between the windshield (front), pilot, and ESO, the frontmost glass panel for the heads-up display, and the back one being for... I don't know honestly XD. Aaand I may have added a slight Easter Egg.

ESO View

Pilot View

Side view

That's all.

Enjoy and happy hunting!