TC-975 Finch

**Weapon Systems**

None. Although there is a fold out mount on the wall near either hatch that a light machine gun can be mounted to.

**Airlords Aerodyne PLC TC-975 Finch**

The Finch is the main transport craft of the Pirate Guild’s Army troops and can move a squad of armored personnel quickly from place to place and is able to land easily in small confined places.

**History**

The Finch has served with Pirate Guild military forces since 5102 C.E and has been manufactured from that time to present. Older retired models can be found being used by various military and civilian agencies with large portions being sold off to Sargasso Deeps.

**Development**

Active research and development began in 5097 with the initial design taking place in early 5098 and was completed in mid-5099 with the first non-operable prototypes being manufactured in late 5100 and the first operable units in early 5101 with design/concept proofing taking place until mid-5101 when the vehicles final testing began with final approval occurring in late 5101 with production beginning shortly thereafter in 5102.

**Variants & Upgrades**

The TC-975 has three main variants –

975A – served with the Pirate Guild military from 5102-5532 C.E. and had lightweight titanium armor and frame and mounted AiAe-72-240 engines that were incapable of propelling the craft out of a planet’s atmosphere and only had a top-speed of 360 KPH and also only had six secondary engines.

975B – served with the Pirate Guild military from 5533-5963 C.E. replacing the 72-240 with the 144-480 engines and adding an additional six 72-60 engines.

975C – served with the Pirate Guild military from 5964 C.E. to present and had upgraded dimonotanium frame and armor as well as added machine gun mounts inside each door.

**Design**

The Finch has a narrow main fuselage with a tandem cockpit and a thin troop area with five seats on either side of the area. The Finch has a large rotating engine on either side of the main body and two large egress hatches to either side of the amidships fuselage to allow easy egress of troops with a large stabilizer tail in the rear and small rotating winglets on the engines.. The craft is powered by 25 HBT cells and has two AiAe-144-480 plasma shock expansion engine that also feeds various thrusters across the craft’s body as well as having twelve additional AiAe-72-60 engines for finer maneuvering.

The craft has a standard operating range of 625 hours during standard patrol profiles but this drops to approximately 155 hours during pursuit and situations where speed and maneuverability is required. The craft has a build in environmental system good for at least 330 hours.

The craft has a top speed of 720 KPH with everything being operated off of 25 standard HBT cells with five five-cell energizers mounted two in each main engine and one in the aft tail section.

Finally the craft uses an Anaheim Arms AS-5/7-43 Sensor & Communications package which includes Pulse Doppler Radar Array, Multi-Spectrum Digital Camera System, Laser Terrain Guidance System, a warning system, flare launchers, and a gravitic planetary guidance system, as well as a multi-band digital communications.

The craft has a crew of two seated side-by-side and the rear area has seating for ten hardsuited personnel and space for six metric tons of cargo.

**Armor**

The frame is 1mm thickness Dimonotanium Ceramatite with an overall plating thickness of 5mm of Dimonotanium Ceramatite which combined can shrug off up to 90 kJ of kinetic energy every round with the windscreen being 1mm thickness ceramo-glass and able to shrug off up to 15 kJ of kinetic energy.

The TC-975 Finch also has a force screen system powered by thirty-one AN-M01V particle shielding system able to shrug off an additional 125 kJ of kinetic energy with a refresh rate of every twelve seconds giving the vehicle an overall defensive rating of 215 kJ of resistance before critical failure to any one point.

**Armament**

The TC-975 Finch is unarmed save for its ability to mount light machine guns on door mounts.

**Operators**

The TC-975 is used exclusively by the Pirate Guild Military with anyone else using them generally as used craft.

**Other Troop Transport Craft**