<< Aaaand there he goes. Guys... I don't think we're gonna catch him.>>
<<What are you talking about? of course we can.>>
<<Not at mach 3 we can't.>>
- AWACS Occulus and Goshawk 2 after their first encounter with Griffon 1

The AF-12 is a hyper-advanced multirole aircraft built and designed by Phoenix Industries. The aircraft was built with the goal to be the most advanced aircraft ever produced, simply as a flex on the rest of the world. The AF-12 is very fast and agile, with substantial payload.

This is an AF-12 of the 76th "Goshawk" Tactical Fighter Squadron, based at the Blackwind Airbase, Accilian Air Force

History

The AF-12 was developed as an extremely top secret project initiated by Phoenix Industries independent of the Accilian government. Built to push the technological limit of the company's aircraft, it was going to be pitched to the AAF later for production.
As the program was entering the final stages, a terrorist organization known as The Cycle Must Continue managed to steal one of two prototypes stored at the Blackwind Test Facility, and gave it to the flight lead of the recently deserted 80th Interception "Griffon" Squadron.
Griffon 1 then used the aircraft to terribly harass the AAF throughout the TCMC Crisis, but never ended up being shot down.
This agony for the AAF's commanders continued until the final battle of the crisis, but by that time TCMC was fighting a losing battle, and threw the rest of its air power at a last ditch attempt at victory, an air raid of the Republic of Accila's capital, New Accilia.
Griffon 1, flying the AF-12, arrived at the battle late, carrying a thermobaric missile on his right wing, and intended to fire it at the Accilian Senate building to bring his former country to its knees.
Fortunately though, the heroes of the TCMC crisis, the 76th "Goshawk" Tac. Fighter Squadron was already there in order to try and stop Griffon's terrorism.
After a prolonged dogfight, Griffon 1 realized that his chances of victory were running very slim. He pulled his aircraft into a collision course to the building. This gave Goshawk 1 the opportunity he needed in order to shoot Griffon down, but with the AF-12's ECM being very thick, Goshawk 1 had to resort to use his AF-03's internal gun to shoot him down.
The AF-12 was destroyed in that incident, and Griffon 1 was killed along with his aircraft.
The aircraft's black box was recovered and given back to Phoenix Industries, and they set to work on immediately preparing a version for production. This production was greenlit by the Accilian Air Force, and put into production. In a move of irony, the AAF offered to train Goshawk squadron how to use the AF-12 so they could transfer aircraft, which they eventually did. Currently they and Vortex Squadron are the only units in the AAF to be equipped with this aircraft.
The AF-12A officially went into service in February 2022.

The AF-12 uses a redesigned and refurbished version of the ATFE-016 previously found on the AF-09. this high speed engine was given three dimensional thrust vectoring in the redesign, but still retains the impressive thrust figures of the original model. This makes the AF-12 faster than previous aircraft in the AF line, since those used the older ATFE-015 engines. Interestingly, the vectoring nozzles were ripped straight from the -015's TVN models and adapted for use on the -016 engine.

This aircraft possesses abnormally large wing area for an aircraft of its size, and results in a large amount of wing lift, but also makes the aircraft very stable.

The AF-12 also has a pair of canards forward of the main wing, which handle most of the aerodynamic control, since this aircraft uses no ailerons on the main wing. Thus, the AF-12's canards can move independently from one another as the onboard computer requires.

Mentioned in the previous section are a pair of thrust vectoring nozzles, which provide a boost to maneuverability at lower speeds, and allow for post-stall type maneuvers. This makes the AF-12 a formidable opponent in any dogfight.

There is a major catch to the agility of this aircraft though. There is no way to disable the computer-dictated limits of the aircraft. These systems are designed to maintain very strict aerial stability, and to disable such a limit could prove extremely dangerous to a pilot .

The weaponry load on the AF-12 is quite heavy compared to most conventional aircraft, having a total of 18 total hardpoints across the wings and fuselage. These have the ability to be loaded with a majority of Accilian weapons systems, including the Medium Range aIr-to-Air Missile system, the Medium Range air-to-Ground weapons system, and the Multi-Purpose Standard Missile system.

This specific aircraft mounts 8 MRAM and 4 MPSM missiles, but also 4 Long Range air-to-Air Missile (LRAM) and two thermobaric cruise missiles (THRM).

Internally mounted in the nose of the aircraft, two Model 014B Revolver Cannons occupy the aircraft's internal cannon requirement. the aircraft's long nose allows for these weapons to be mounted side-by-side in this position. Each gun has 800 rounds of ammunition, for a total of 1600 rounds of cannon ammunition.

The AF-12's incomplete prototype stage and completely overhauled interface mean that the aircraft's interface is quite unpolished with a couple of known issues.

One such issue being with the aircraft's HUD. The FPV is extremely sensitive to motion on the ground and often darts around the HUD uselessly when at a standstill.

The average unit cost for the AF-12A is approximately 145 million Accilian Dollars, which converts to about 187 million USD.

This extremely high cost means the AF-12A will have an extremely short production run, probably around 50-60 aircraft. This means it will not be replacing any current models in use by the Accilian AIr Force.

Currently the AF-12 is not being exported to any other country due to the extremely sensitive design and technologies.

==CONTROLS==
VTOL: Flaps and Slats

- This aircraft is definitely an Ace Combat style superplane. I'm not gonna try and pass this as realistic, it's simply my shot at something of the style.
- This aircraft is my first aircraft with a functioning cockpit, and all cockpit units are in Freedom Units.
- I decided to move away from the Ace Combat naming technique for my weapons, although only the names have changed. I haven't changed the missile performance from my AC weapons.
- (Narrative) This aircraft does not have any sort of stealth measures, so it relies on a complicated ECM system to scramble incoming radar locks in-universe.
- I am aware of the inaccuracy of the cockpit cross section, but I do not feel like fixing something like that on an aircraft this old.
- on that topic, this aircraft is about 6 months old in its current incarnation, but I never ended up posting it until now.
- I also have a version of the aircraft in Griffon Squadron and TCMC markings if anyone wants it.
- Yes, I am aware that the character I named this account after is now dead.
- The universe to which Accilia belongs has now been given a name, it is called A World With Boundaries (as a parody of the Ace Combat organization named A World Without Boundaries). hopefully I can get my buddies involved to start posting here so we can make a coherent universe.