UAV Challenge by Sumatra (Unofficialy)

The CQ-16 Reformation was this chunky drone built by the UNP (United Nations IRL) or whatever, mainly to spy on and kinda poke around conflict zones around the world. Weighs like 3 tons empty, and can haul about 800 kilos of weapons, both for defense and for blowing stuff up. It basically became UNP’s go-to surveillance bot by the late '90s. Powered by two JTT-220 Tactical Turbofan engines, this bad boy could hit up to 1200 km/h and fly up to 3600 km before needing a break. It carried four medium dumb bombs it could yeet up to 25 km away, four ground-attack missiles, and two air-to-air missiles just in case something tried to mess with it.

First took off in ‘96, and right away people knew it was gonna be a big deal in international spy games. They used it to watch over demilitarized zones, babysit ceasefire borders, and keep an eye out for human rights screw-ups. When the Sharond Republic and the Otsumokuri Empire went at it in 2000, the CQ-16 got thrown in the middle to try and be all "neutral." Of course, Otsumokuri wasn’t buying it — they thought the drones were just helping Sharond by snooping around.

Then in 1999, Otsumokuri dropped their first-gen electromagnetic jammers. At first, they only worked at short range and mostly screwed up the small drones. But after a few years, those jammers got crazy good — by 2002, they could mess with big boys like the CQ-16 from way farther out. Pretty soon, drones started crashing and ghosting all over the place near Otsumokuri territory. Even though the CQ-16 had backup autopilot and emergency stuff, not every drone made it back.

By 2004, it got real bad. Early that year, CQ-16s were dropping like flies. Every month, like a dozen UAVs just disappeared or nosedived. Then in August, boom — on the 31st alone, over 45 CQ-16s got fried by new Otsumokuri jammers. After that disaster, UNP basically threw up their hands and pulled the plug in September 2004, grounding the whole fleet for good.

During its run, the CQ-16 clocked thousands of flight hours and was a pretty big deal in keeping the info flow balanced in conflict zones. It stopped some wars from getting worse just by being around and caught a bunch of war crimes on camera too. But yeah... those jammers were its kryptonite, and there wasn’t much it could do about it in the end. Wrecked CQ-16s got scooped up all over the place, and Otsumokuri even used the pieces to build better anti-drone tech.

There’s still one CQ-16 that made it back in one piece — now chilling on display at the Solaris International Aviation Museum in Elysium City. It stands there like a ghost from the early days of unmanned warfare, reminding everyone that air superiority isn’t just about being fast or strong — you gotta survive the invisible battles too.