Quickdraw

Lightweight air superiority fighter produced by the Kuat Consortium. With powerful thrust-vectoring engines, this fighter has near vertical takeoff capability, supersonic speed, and excellent maneuverability. Typically equipped with twin vulcan cannon and the latest-generation of Kuat heatseeking missiles, the Quickdraw excels at short ranges as a dogfighter.

The Quickdraw is extremely popular, becoming one of the most common atmospheric fighters in the Web, used by Eblan, Tasnica, and other countries throughout the Web. It is a reliable design with excellent maneuverability. Its affordable price makes it possible for countries to acquire significant numbers of aircraft without breaking the bank, as modern Web powers prefer to spend their R&D budgets on spacecraft, mecha, and other projects rather than waste money on something "boring" like developing a new atmospheric fighter. Indeed, there has been political pressure for the Luftwaffe to save money by purchasing Quickdraws as its the LF5 Tornado has been criticized as an over-costed "flying turkey" and the Cyclonus aerial combat mecha has been plagued with development difficulties. It's all the same to Kuat, as its the prime contractor for all GA aircraft.

Typical avionics package includes specialized versions of Kuat software, including SmartlinkAir and (for an extra cost) PACOAir.

Like many Kuat products, the Quickdraw has many variants depending on the customer. The most common variant is the Quickstrike, which has a larger fuselage and wingspan to give the aircraft longer flight range and increased payload, though at the cost of its VSTOL capability and some of its maneuverability. Nonetheless, this improves the the ground attack capability of the basic Quickdraw, while still retaining good air-to-air capability.

Although the idea of "aerospace" fighters, which are equally capable in an atmosphere and the void, has been very popular in certain circles, only a handful of designs have truly lived up to the hype, most famously the Epoch. Such "dual-use" craft tend to be prohibitively expensive for non-Great Power militaries. For the majority of end-users, putting a large number of planes into the air is more important than shelling out for voidgoing capability.