Silverwind VTOL Transport

The Silverwind is a tactical aerial transport capable of airlifting up to an entire infantry company at a time, or several vehicles and their occupants. If for ground forces the sight of a Hornet means "air support", the Silverwind translates as "reinforcements".

It has decent armour, and carries some missiles with which support the ground forces, but it's not supposed to risk itself unduly. Due to the high unit cost, the Silverwind may use its missiles in coordination with ground units, but should retreat as soon as possible.

Capacity
A typical load can be one single heavy vehicle such as a tank and a light vehicle such as a Badger or a Raccoon, two medium and a light one, one medium and two light or four light vehicles. These are for reference only, as motorcycle vehicles are much lighter and occupy one third or less of the space needed for a light vehicle, and the latter options are mostly due to limited internal space as the Silverwind might be able to lift more weight on suspension cables. Warning: due to aerodynamic pressure, the speed is limited to 0.5 Mach when carrying external loads.

Its rear loading ramp also allows the Silverwind to be used in fly-by air drops, be it paratroopers, vehicles or cargo.

Propulsion
Akras recent advances in heat disposal allowed it to rethink its paradigms. All Akras vehicles are now equipped with miniature Helium-3 fusion reactors thermally shielded by Heatsink Stone(TM) technology.

The Silverwind has two rows of two reactors on each DT-2500 turbine which expand and accelerate the air used as propellent mass to provide lift and propulsion. With two turbines in each pod, it makes a total of 16 reactors for both pods.

Armament
The Silverwind isn't designed to be an attack craft, and has a rather light armament: an Akras 35mm Autocannon nose turret as main armament and point defence. It also has a complement of four AA missiles for self-defence and and eight AT missiles on pylons to be fired in assistance to the ground forces before retreating.

Armour
The Silverwind has a 75mm lightweight composite sandwich armour of alloy platings, ten layers of layered titanium, plasteel, ceramic plates, ablative rubber and Kevlar weave. This armour is capable of resisting 35mm AP rounds and the detonation of proximity missiles.