[3e] Sadler Piranha

[Phaelen Bleux]

Sadler Piranha (TL7)
Based on the Vampire ultralight, the Sadler Piranha was designed to be a small, low-cost, low-maintenance, and low-skill air-to-ground support aircraft. It used an ordinary Chevrolet racing engine to power a push-propeller. Its design stresses simplicity, low cost, and minimal skill sets to operate, both on the part of the crew and the maintenance personnel of the aircraft. (Pilots can be trained to operate the aircraft in as little as 100 hours.) The wings fold, allowing it to be towed along the highway or even concealed in the bed of a truck. Once transported to the deployment area, the Piranha can be ready to fly in 10 minutes.
Weaponry consists of a 30mm cannon, mounted on the right of the fuselage, or two hardpoints with up to 500 lbs. or ordnance. If the Piranha only carries 200 rounds, it can carry up to 100 lbs. of external ordnance with no loss in performance. Two additional hardpoints can be added, but this sacrifices fuel (and the M230 cannon) for the additional ordnance (up to 1,000 lbs. of external payload, total).
As another alternative, the Piranha can be armed with two M60 machine guns, installed on the leading edges of each wing, with 500 to 1,000 rounds per gun. Options for hardpoint loads are a pair of 70mm 7-shot rocket pods, LAU-32 rocket pods, SUU-11 7.62mm Minigun pods, MK81 low-drag bombs, XM13 grenade launcher, and MK122 Fireye fire bombs.
Lastly, the Piranha is equipped with a vehicular parachute that allows it to safely descend to the ground if hit by enemy fire. An optional flare system can be installed for additional countermeasures.
The Piranha has a crew of one. It burns 16.8 gallons of gasoline per hour of routine usage, giving it an operating range of 690 miles.

Subassemblies: Body +2, two STOL wings with Folding option +0, three small retractable wheels -1.
Powertrain: 336-kW aerial propeller with 336-kW Improved Racing gasoline engine, 2,000-kWs lead acid battery.
Fuel: 50 gallons gasoline in Light Self-Sealing fuel tank (Fire 11).
Occupancy: 1 NCS.
Cargo: 30 cf. (see below).

Armor
All: 2/3
Pilot: +0/+5

Wqeaponry:
30mm Light Chain Gun/M230 [Body:F] (300 rounds)
or
500-1,000 lbs. ordnance (see above).

Equipment:
Body: Medium-range radio (30-mile), 1-man environmental control, navigation instruments, GPS, autopilot, 3,000-lb. vehicular parachute, compact fire suppression system, full stabilization for cannon. Wings: One 250-lb. hardpoint each.

Statistics:
Size: 18'x22'x4' Payload: 0.68 tons Lwt.: 1.4 tons
Volume: 116 cf. Maint.: 47 hours Price: $182,414

HT: 12. HPs: 188 Body, 88 each wing, 18 each Wheel.

aSpeed: 285 aAccel: 8 aDecel: 53 aMR: 13 aSR: 2
Stall Speed: 54. -35 aSpeed per pair of loaded hardpoints.
gSpeed: 260 gAccel: 13 gDecel: 10 gMR: 0.5 gSR: 2
Ground Pressure: Very High. 1/8 Off-Road speed.
Take Off Run: 167 yards. (with 500 lbs. of ordnance). Landing Run: 200 yards (with no ordnance).

Design Notes:
Body is 95 cf; wings are 10.6 cf each and wheels are 4.75 cf. Structure is Medium, Standard with Fair streamlining. Armor is expensive metal; armor for the pilot's station (58 sf) is expensive composite. Mechanical controls. Empty weight is 1,450 lbs.
Design loaded weight was 2,881 lbs.; this was lowered 1 lb. to the historical. The wing volume was reverse engineered from actual wing area (116 sf). Design aSpeed was 270 mph; design take-off run was 56 yards, design landing run was 73 yards; real-world values are shown above. The design contains 30 cf of empty space for an additional crew member (in the trainer) or additional military upgrades.

Variants:
A two-seat trainer model is available.