QS-255

The Genista QS-255 is a further development of the Sarmalionis **S.A.I-353**, a twin engine heavy fighter with a push-pull configuration. It was used by the United Federation of Zelinistan Air Force from A.A 127 to A.A 130 when the last few where phased out of service. From the outside, special care was taken to hide the changes perfectly, but under the surface, more than 40% of the components were replaced, and more the 60% modified.

## Design and development

The QS-255s started their lives as original, stock Sarmalionis S.A.I-353 airframes, bought in A.A 126, when Zelinistan was looking for a fast, long range and reliable heavy fighter that could keep up with other lighter fighters used in the UFZAF and UFZNAF, like the QS-205 (I-225), QS-35 CB-107K (Yak-3 VK107) or other imports.

The initial order consisted of up to 90 airframes without engines that would later be powered by Zelinistani power plants, altough only 42 were delivered when the Pan Tundra - Paltinau conflict burst and the remaining airframes that were going to be delivered were confiscated.

With the smaller number of airframes available and jet powered fighters on the rise, the project was given to Genista Aeronautics to study potential ways to push the S.A.I-353 beyond its original design limits, while jet engine development in Zelinistan would mature.

Decision was taken that the best way to improve the plane's flight characteristics would be to put it on a 'diet', the airframe was simply too heavy. Most of the wings panels were replaced with replicas of the original panels, but with Duraliumium with a much higher percentage of magnesium, or even Magnesium alloys, all manufactured by Saturnite.

Other parts like the fuel tanks were replaced with titanium tanks and panels, improving survivability aswell. Some structure of the plane was cut, welded, modifed quite extensively to maintain or improve rigidity while lowering weight.

This allowed a weight reduction of almost 220kg's, while the airframe was now about 5% stiffer.

Of course, Genista didn't stop there: there was enough available technologies that could be applied to improve the warbird more for very little budget. The radiators were replaced with Copper Beryllium alloy radiators for improved cooling, simply because the engines were outputting far more power and heat than the original engines.

Those engines, the *ZGF Powerplants CB-604 Super* were 44.52L behemoths that benefited from years of developement on the CB-600 series of engines, with fuel injection, high boost levels, fine tuned superchargers and water-meth injection.

The maximum WEP RPM could reach all the way up to 2900 RPM, and boost levels above 1.8 ata. The 255s had about 15 minutes of water-methanol injection range, which temporarily boosted power in case of need.

Take off power was about 2,200 horsepower to 2,350 for the QS-225X.

Finally, some aerodynamics were tweaked to improve airflow around the radiators, improve max speed and lower the coefficient of drag.

Those measures allowed the plane the reach a maximum speed of almost 790 km/h at altitude, an incredible number for an already outdated design and having reached the absolute limits of propeller powered planes.

Work on an hybrid variant with front piston engine and rear jet engine, with slimmer and slightly swept wings was undergoing but quickly abandoned when the plane was withdrawn from service, and the Genista teams having now moved to entirely jet powered designs.

## Operational history

The plane was used entirely during the Pan Tundra - Paltinau conflict, where it's long range, speed and armament proved effective to the few missions it was tasked with.

## Variants

Every plane being custom built and in limited numbers, each built airframe had differences, making it hard to discern variants, with only the QS-225X version coming as a version with uprated engines and aerodynamic tweaks compared to regular modified QS-225 versions.

## Surviving aircraft

A few warbirds survived, including 02-16 "Deathrattle" and are exposed in the Popeda Museum of Aviation and Space Exploration (now Ankaa Museum of Aviation and Space Exploration).

## Specifications (QS-225X)

**General characteristics**

* **Crew:** 1
* **Length:** 13.85 m
* **Wingspan:** 13.8 m
* **Height:** 5 m
* **Wing area:** 38.5 m2
* **Airfoil: root:** NACA 23018-630; **tip:** NACA 23012-635
* **Empty weight:** 7,040 kg (about 220kg lighter than original airframe)
* **Gross weight:** 9,380 kg
* **Powerplant:** 2 × *ZGF Powerplants CB-604 Super* V-12 inverted liquid-cooled piston engines (2,350hp @ takeoff)

**Performance**

* **Maximum speed:** 787 km/h
* **Range:** 1,495 km on full internal fuel at max. continuous power, 2,160 km at economical cruise power
* **Service ceiling:** 11,400 m
* **Rate of climb:** around 12 m/s

**Armament**

* **Guns:** 1 x *RK-103* 30mm canon, 2 x *RM-515* 20mm cannons

## Notable appearances in media

The QS-255 appears in the War Thunder game by Gaijin Entertainment as the fictional Do-335.