As you all know the International Space Elevator, also known as ISEV, will play a major role
in Ace Combat 7 but perhaps more important than the elevator itself is the Arsenal Bird,
also known as the giant and badass aircraft capable of carrying shitloads of UAVs -
80 of them to be more precise.
Since the Arsenal Bird will be so important, let's talk more about it and its role in
Ace Combat 7 from what we know and what we can expect.
Let's start with an analysis of the Arsenal Bird itself.
The Arsenal Bird was designed by Masato Kanno who is the current art director of Ace Combat 7
and who has also worked on previous Ace Combat games.
Kanno is the one responsible for the design of both Stonehenge from Ace Combat 04 and
the Arkbird from Ace Combat 5 and I believe we can both see how the Arsenal Bird’s design
bears resemblance with the Arkbird’s.
However, unlike the Arkbird which is a spacecraft and therefore is able to maintain a high speed
with its engines and boosters, the Arsenal Bird is a rather slow aircraft powered by
8 contra-rotating sets of propellers and notice that I said contra and not counter.
Contra-rotating propellers refer to when one engine contains two sets of propellers and
each set rotates opposite to the other, meanwhile counter-rotating propellers means that each
engine has one set of propellers that turn to the opposite direction compared to another engine.
Advantages of a contra-propeller propulsion system include higher speed and higher efficiency,
the reason why this system is found on the Tupolev-95 Bear bomber and its civilian version,
the Tupolev 144 - which is one of the fastest propeller driven aircraft ever made.
On the downside, the contra-propeller system might add some extra to the airframe and as
you may be aware due to the Bear bomber’s reputation, this type of setup is incredibly
loud - which shouldn’t even be a problem since the Arsenal Bird looks like unmanned aircraft.
Design-wise the Arsenal Bird obviously follows the flying wing design being similar to the
Northrop YB-35 concept back from the days of WWII, but I’ve found another aircraft
that has more resemblance to it and it's probably closer more well known by Project Aces:
the Rostock heavy bomber featured in the Sky Crawlers movie, and I say more well known by Project
Aces since they made the Sky Crawlers game for the Wii.
The Rostock bomber, where Rostock is the name of the faction that operates the bomber since
I don't even know if this aircraft has its own name, looks smaller than the Arsenal Bird
packing only 6 contra-propelled engine setups.
Another similarity between the aircraft is the existence of vertical stabilisers, unlike
in the Northrop YB-35, however the Rostock bomber has three vertical stabilisers, a large
downward-going one located on the centreline of the aircraft and two smaller upward-going
stabilisers located between the centre and the edge of the aircraft, and the Arsenal Bird
has two medium sized down-going stabilisers close to the centreline.
Despite their similarities, the Arsenal Bird and the Rostock bomber are extremely different
when it comes to armaments.
While the Rostock bomber carries its bombs internally and has several gunner positions
for its defense, the arsenal bird’s primary defense is the 80 UAVs it can carry.
These UAVs will try to intercept enemy aircraft but they will also sacrifice themselves by
crashing into missiles bound to the Arsenal Bird - like if they were mobile shields to
the drone carrier.
Apart from UAVs, the Arsenal Bird has several ports for Air-to-Air Missiles, or AAMs, over its wings.
I wasn’t able to get an exact number of missile ports but we’ll sure see a lot of
missiles coming from the Arsenal Bird.
It must be noted however that the Arsenal Bird and the Arkbird share a very interesting
detail - this circle on top of its fuselage, which at least for the Arkbird is home for
a laser firing unit as demonstrated in the game Ace Combat 5.
Whereas the Arsenal Bird will feature the same or a variant of the laser unit we still
don’t know, however if it does we can clearly note that this laser unit would only be able
to hit targets flying higher than the Arsenal Bird - something that did not happen in the
first Ace Combat 7 trailer since the F-22 was under and not higher than the Arsenal Bird.
Before we talk about the UAVs featured on the Arsenal Bird let’s talk about another
similarity between it and the Arkbird, but not a obvious one.
Under both aircraft we can see the EXACT SAME module that was attached to the Arkbird via
the SSTO (single-stage-to-orbit) vehicle from Ace Combat 5.
This means two things, first the shape under the Arsenal Bird follows the same design and
is compatible to the addition of a module, second: if need be, or at least how it was
done in Ace Combat 5, the module has the capability of holding another laser unit and other UAVs
- reminding you that these capabilities were not featured in the original Arkbird design
but rather added later when the module docked to the Arkbird.
With that being said, the Arsenal Bird might still have some tricks up its sleeves - but
we will see about that once the game is released.
Talking about the UAVs now, the Arsenal Bird can carry up to 80 of them under its winds.
The release mechanism is very simple, the UAVs are released and fall with the help of
gravity and while they’re falling they unfold their wings while gaining the necessary airspeed
in order to fly.
The UAVs in question, as they are named in Ace Combat 7, are the MQ-101.
The MQ-101s are a Strangereal version of the real life Northrop Grumman X-47B, a drone
currently in development to be used by the United States Navy aboard its aircraft carriers.
In real life these drones are able to have their wings folded in order to save some space
while on the carriers, a feature we can also see in the game, and they are able to perform
aerial refuelings.
I must also point out that these drones have a somewhat similar design when compared to
the Vogel, the UAV that was used by the Arkbird while under control of the Belkans.
Now that we know some more about the Arsenal Bird and its UAVs let’s talk more about
its role in the conflict between Erusea and Osea.
First things first, the most important thing to know about the Arsenal Bird is its mission.
As answered by Ace Combat producer, Kazutoki Kono, on the December 10th edition of Famitsu:
Its purpose is a drone carrier.
Since the space elevator is a very vulnerable building, it acts as a guardian angel and patrols it.
And that's his own words.
With his statement we can raise two important
questions about the origin of the Arsenal Bird: Who built it?
And who operates it?
As I pointed out earlier there are several similarities between the Arsenal Bird and
the Arkbird.
It has been confirmed on the E3 demo gameplay that it was Osea who actually developed and
manufactured the drone carriers.
As to whether who operates, or who controls, the Arsenal Bird the question is a bit more complicated.
After manufacturing them, Osea sent the Arsenal Birds to the Space Elevator and it is unknown
who was the one controlling them at that point - Osea or the administration of the space elevator.
What matter is that somehow, and then again this is confirmed from the E3 demo, Erusea
got a hold of the Arsenal Birds and equipped it with the MQ-101 drone.
But Erusea’s control on the Arsenal Birds might not last too long, as we were hinted
by this post on Ace Combat’s Facebook page, we MIGHT - WE JUST MIGHT - fight together
with the Arsenal Bird as an ally later on in the game.
Anyways, besides talking about who controls the Arsenal Bird we should also talk about
how many of them are there because it seems like there’s more than one.
So far I’ve identified that the Arsenal Bird appears in two different locations, one
being the space elevator and the other being the jungle area by the river.
Assuming that the player is able to destroy one Arsenal Bird there must be another one,
and unlike heavy command cruisers like the XB-0 or the Aigaion, the Arsenal Bird seems
relatively small to the point where you could build more than one.
Looking at the map that involves the radius around the space elevator, which I believe
is related to the Arsenal Bird, you can see three small aircraft around the ring - which
I assume are the Arsenal Birds.
One on the bottom, one on the top and one on the right side - so I believe there are
at least 3 Arsenal Birds but if you want to make things proportional since the three are
divided by 90 degrees from each other, we could assume a fourth one on the
left side of the ring which would be outside of the screen.
Anyways, these were my thoughts on the Arsenal Bird and its role in the story of Ace Combat 7.
Of course there still is plenty that we don’t know about this drone carrier but hopefully
we will find out more about it soon as more information is released or when the game comes out.
This was Ace Combat Fan and I hope you have enjoyed the content of this video and as always,
stay tuned to the channel for more Ace Combat!