The Island Defender

The K-18 is a purpose built 4th Gen Navel Air Superiority Fighter; the most successful fighter ever built by the Ku Aeronautical Corporation, with over 1000 built, the true numbers being classified. It has been exported world wide, and has become the primary fighter of half a dozen nations. It is currently the primary fighter of the Archipelago of Krakobloa, being used as a Muilti-role Fighter, with over 300 in service.

However, and ironically, this wildly successful aircraft was saved via the purchasing of the project and prototypes built by an inexperienced company to be submitted for a new Air Superiority Fighter in the nation of (classified), and failed to beat the competition. It's original designation was YF-14 A115, with it being tasked the same role the current K-18 holds today. The original design failed in various aspect to produce a competitive Air Superiority Fighter, including slow turn rate, below average high altitude performance, erratic and unpredictable movement at low speed, high fuel consumption, and very short range. However, Ku Aerospace Corporation (KAC) saw great potential in the airframe, and also seeked to experiment with a variable sweep wing design, which the YF-14 possesses. The KAC bought the program, blueprint, and the prototypes from the (classified) and commenced development. The YF-14 was redesigned with a new wing, bigger and more optimized inlets, a new cockpit, new landing gear system, new avionics system, new armor, new tail, new horizontal stabilizers, and a new engine. Thus the K-18 was born.

Flight performance commentary

This is an Air Superiority Fighter, therefore it is built to be extremely maneuverable. Although not able to pull PSM, it can do a wide range of maneuvers to get on someone's 6. It has an extremely impressive horizontal turn rate, and it is decent at vertical manuvers... if u have the energy for it; the aircraft does lack in energy retention. It accelerates quite nicely to decent speed, and if allowed the distance, it is able to accelerate to it's full speed quite quickly. The aircraft remains quite stable during maneuvers, thanks to it's pair of vertical stabilizers. However, yaw authority tend to be lackluster, keep that in mind in high wind conditions.

The flaps, although does not feel quite responsive, it makes a great difference performance wise. The combat flaps setting boosting the aircraft's turn rate by a good margin.

The Airbrakes is one of the shining features of this aircraft, being extremely strong, and can take the aircraft from it's max speed to stall speed in mere seconds, decelerating the plane with 10G of force. Needless to say, it is extremely advised to use the Airbrakes to your advantage when dog fighting, to easily pull reversals against the enemy plane.

Weaponry

This Aircraft, in it's current configuration, carries 16 KSRAAM MK.4 missiles, and 8 KRAAMS MK.5 Missiles. It is also armed internally with a pair of KMG 20mm MK.3 Gatling cannons, one gun firing smart fuse air burst munition, and one firing traditional Anti-Air HE shells. All Missiles can be ejected by pressing AG4. Feel free to swap the weapons with whatever you fancy using the existing hard points. Note that because this is a variable sweep wing aircraft, one cannot attach anything to the main wing itself.

Controls

1. NAV, Strobe, Position, and Anti Collision lights
2. AF and sweep wing
3. Fold wing for storage
4. eject all missiles
5. eject all fuel tanks
6. Formation lights
7. Arresting hook
8. none

VTOL 33%: combat flaps
VTOL 66%: take off flaps
VTOL 100%: Landing Flaps

HUD instructions:

Top left to right: Speedometer in IAS and MPH---Heading---Altimeter
The big dial/needle in the top middle of the HUD: Tilt/roll indicator.
Small dial/needle at middle left: Veriometer/climb indicator, each notch=10m/s, max indication=+-50m/s
Small dial/needle at middle right: Pitch indicator, max indication=+-45 degrees
Bottom row, from left to right:
Bottom left: Mach meter
left most orange light: Landing Gear indicator
left middle light: stall warning
left right light: G overload warning
middle indicator: target distance indicator, in miles.
right left light: low fuel warning
right middle light: low altitude warning
right right orange light: danger light, lights up when hostile target is detected to be in the rare of the aircraft.
right most digits: G counter.

Stats
Designation: Navel Air Superiority/ Navel Defense fighter
Max speed: Mach 2.5 at 45-65 thousand feet, full AF; Mach 1.3 at sea level, no AF
Do not exceed speed: 1300 MPH IAS
Turn rate: 21 degrees per second, at ~450 MPH IAS, at sea level, no external load
Maximum altitude: 70,000 feet
Stall speed: 160 MPH, min fuel
Climb rate: 450m/s, 0-50,000 feet in 40 seconds
MTOW~45,000 lbs
MLW~40,000 lbs
Fuel load: 1500 gallons internal, 1500 gallons on 3 external tanks
Ferry range: 3900KM
Combat radius: 1300 KM
Escort range: 3000KM, at Mach 0.9, at 37,000 feet, with 3 external tanks
Crew: 1

notes
1. Under heavy load, the left gear seems to vibrate profusely, and idk how to solve that. This problem is eliminated once one has ejected all payload.
2. This plane is uncontrollable by built in auto pilot.
3. If anyone would like an custom tailored export version of the plane, such as custom livery, weaponry, performance, etc, to fit for their Air Force or personnel use, pls contact me on discord via ku#7193
4. credit to Insertnamehere001 for the original airframe design