INSTRUCTIONS:
1 – Fold/unfold wings
2 – Arrestor hook
Everything else works as usual

And here comes BAI! This time we once again decided to step away from all that ultra-modern stuff and turned to the classics – we created a fully classic attack aircraft, the A-9 “BananaBoar”! But of course, not without quirks – at the very least, it’s carrier-capable!

BACKGROUND:
As strange as it may sound for Banana Aerospace Industries, the goal here was actually quite down-to-earth and practical. First, private ground forces needed an aircraft that wouldn’t be a pity to send digging around in trenches, while still being well-equipped and armed enough to be effective. The UA-5 is too light and too weakly armored, not to mention heavily stripped down in avionics, while machines like the “Bananihilator” and “Ultraelban” are simply too valuable to be sent into such dirty and dangerous work – besides, they have no armor and aren’t true attack aircraft anyway.
The Marine Corps, together with the Navy, faced a similar problem after recently acquiring their own aircraft carrier: the “Bananajackal” isn’t suitable for carrier operations and is again too light, while the F-1000s don’t fit the classic attack role. If they hit ground targets, it’s usually with large bombs in the near rear, smashing fortifications and sometimes, unfortunately, the property of our respectable allies.
So, something had to be done urgently. And after downing a quarter-liter souvenir vodka bottle from Mother Russia – brought back during the purchase of “Admiral Kuznetsov” – the chief engineers got to sketching a new bird. Unsurprisingly, their main source of inspiration was the venerable A-10, but adapted to the designers’ tastes, while the wing-folding mechanism was borrowed from the E-2. Then, as usual – the sacred scribbles of our great designers were passed to the assembly shop, where the monkeys quickly put together the first prototype, tested it right away, and then got to mass production.

SPECIFICATIONS:
As mentioned in the background, this is essentially a slightly modified and scaled-down “Thunderbolt II” with wings like the “Hawkeye.” Some might say this is an anachronism for our time – and they’d be partly right. But BAI wouldn’t be BAI if we didn’t cram in some of our own technologies.
For example, the engines – BananaFan-1. While they are basically classical turbofan engines, they incorporate plenty of tech borrowed from our newest fifth-generation aircraft engines, the BananaJet-1. This makes them relatively light and efficient, while the fan itself has a significantly reduced RCS compared to older counterparts. The aircraft also carries modern avionics, sensors, and other systems. On top of that, the “brightest” RCS hotspots were covered with radar-absorbent material, similar to what coats the F-1000, which greatly improves the survivability of the A-9 on the battlefield without significantly increasing maintenance complexity or cost.
But of course, the most interesting part is the weapons. Beneath the fuselage sits a unique BAI-designed gun: a 30 mm triple-barrel Gatling autocannon, something like a “little sister” to the monstrous GAU-8 – still extremely dangerous. Its ammo load is about 540 rounds. On external hardpoints it carries:
Four pods with seven unguided rockets each, for area suppression
Six Mk.82 bombs, for destroying enemy fortifications and troop concentrations
Twelve light Inferno missiles, for precision strikes against moving and heavily armored targets like tanks
Four multipurpose Guardian missiles, for self-defense against enemy fighters and SAM systems (since their range is greater than Infernos)

P.S. Plushie Teto and a can of Baltika are still in the cockpit!