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!