Dw4

(WIP) The Dw-4 Rifter (reporting name Forktail) is a short range fighter-interceptor aircraft designed by Helena Weaver, Dryagin-Weaver's lead designer to fulfil the Broadheart's request for a rugged multirole combat aircraft with a high intercept speed.

## Info

The Rifter is used by the Broadheart for a variety of roles of which the most common are high speed reconnaissance, interception and bad weather/night combat. When it comes to it's performance it is generally praised by pilots for it's amazing acceleration and great handling at higher speeds though complaints about it's poor energy retention in sharper turns are not rare. Despite the poor sustained turn performance many squadrons choose to tune their Rifters to equalizers that allow for temporary aerodynamic instability as the short burst of agility is often a lifesaver.

The Rifter is a technologically sophisticated plane for Broadheart standards and there's no better example of that then the propeller and it's connection to the propshaft gearbox. The contra-rotating constant speed propeller has individual blade pitch controlled by a ringed system similar to that of most helicopter rotors allowing the engine's thrust to be asymmetrically distributed by the equalizer, allowing for greater low speed manoeuvrability. While the single Siren TC-212 III turbo compound engine powering it would usually limit it's speed to the high subsonic regime, a liquid rocket engine with ablative water cooling situated within it's heavily reinforced propshaft gearbox lets it easily break the sound barrier at higher altitudes and cruise at a supersonic speed for up to three and a half minutes. With the available wing-mounted booster hardpoints the Rifter is able to sustain a high intercept speed, even keeping up with slower fighters from the golden age, whether they be from the Surface or the Downfall itself.

Rifters are the Dryagin Weaver's second plane to employ an O/NAr breathing apparatus. While the design used to keep the pilots awake during high G turns is almost identical to that of the production variant Dw-8's one fatality did occur during a high speed taxiing test due to an unlucky failure of both the coupling on the oxygen valve and the mask's release clasp which suffocated the test pilot Grigor Zavin before he could exit the aircraft's cockpit. Despite this event lowering the confidence in breathing devices of this kind Rifter pilots had no recorded fatal accidents since and this system is believed to have saved more lives than it has taken due to it's benefits on higher speed planes like the Dw4.

## Development

First taking flight in 1970., the Rifter's first few prototypes and performance demonstrators were kept secret from the public for the whole of the following year. Though some sightings made waves in the public and a famous photograph brought a lot of attention to the still mostly unseen design, the aircraft still surprised many who had believed the previous evidence to be a hoax when it made it's public flight at a honorary airshow held over Pith.

## Trivia

* The Rifter has been renamed a few times. It was first changed from Riften to Riftern, due to the first name's similarity to skyrim's town of Riften. It was changed for a second time from Riftern to Rifter as the new name was easier to write lore for and just rolled of the tounge more.
* Early Rifter designs had two turbojet engines instead of the single integrated rocket motor. while the design was thus similar to the Ashen the turbojet engines on the Rifter had a reheat for extra thrust. The early Rifters also had an early answer device that's nose mounted wire antenna was kept retracted during flight. The early answer was integrated into the phaser radar's transmitter array in the new design as a warning system that was deployed after entering combat could not possibly warn you of an ambush.
* I realised this plane is surprisingly similar to it's bigger brother, the Dw-8. Not visually but just the general role and handling.