EP-909 Spatha

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The is a mid-range patrol and electronic warfare craft of the UNSC Navy. The EP-909 is used for a variety of purposes, being capable of easily slipping into a wide ranges of roles, thanks to its flexible airframe and 'plug in' mission modules. One role, is that of Airborne Early Warning, being capable of long range threat scanning using a powerful active electronically scanned array in a radome on the top of the airframe. This allows it to detect threats, even stealth capable aircraft at extended range. With this, it can extend the sensor range of a E-456 Xiphos, extended the sensory and control capabilities. Its secondary role is that of long range patrol, being equipped with a slipspace capacitor. It can preform long range patrol, being capable of making short system jumps to patrol military and civilian targets. As such, it can preform adversary investigation, detecting enemy ships at long range and recording their movements, or observing regular civilian traffic for irregularities or hostile targets. It can also preform patrol missions against space stations and low to high altitude atmospheric patrol missions over land and water. Its final role is that of signals intelligence, gathering, collecting, translating and analysing enemy communications, sensor outputs, coordination, capabilities, positions and numbers.

The EP-909 is modified from a civilian airframe, with military grade armour, avionics, engines and defence systems. It possess multi-axis thrust vectored engines in a tilting format, allowing it to preform vertical take off and landing, reducing the need for runways. It is equipped with the standard sensor suite of UNSC aircraft, but also possesses two extra RADARs. One is a spinning AESA RADAR on the roof, mounted in a radome, scanning the space around the Skua in regular pulses ever 2-4 seconds. Mounted on the nose is a ground facing RADAR that monitors the area directly to it's front, monitoring to both the front down, thanks to its steerable antennae. This RADAR is capable of synthetic aperture and doppler pulse operations, and can track hundreds of ground based targets and report data on enemy positions, movement and capabilities. For signals intelligence gathering, it carries a trio of receivers to collect data across a wide variety of bands, including radio, microwave and most frequency.

On board, the Skua has a cock pit with four seats, for a pilot, co-pilot, electronic warfare officer and RADAR operator. In the crew room, there is a space for a mission control officer, then five plug in slots, allowing for the Skua is to be set up for different missions, or a mixture of missions. It can be set up with RADAR analyse systems, signals analyse systems and Combat Direction systems.

For defence, the Skua has the standard fare of shields, countermeasure launchers, point defence LASERs, anti-sensor coating, a AN/ALQ-57 VANGUARD jamming pod, an AN/ALQ-61 PACK RAT Countermeasures Pod and four medium weapon pylons, capable of mounting defensive missiles for protection against hostile fighters.