For melojam's Ace Combat challenge. Join the challenge too!

Point Defense Interceptor: AF-34 Reaper II
The Reaper II is a point defense interceptor that can also fullfill the role of a short range fighter. It was developed fron the earlier F-29, using the same forward swept wings and canard layout. The Reaper II lacks an internal weapon bay, but it has a more advanced micromissile system, the same system found on the Reprisal. It is often compared to the Supermarine Spitfire because of its agility and relatively short range.

The Reaper II's design is pretty similar to the Scythe, with forward swept wings and canards. The forward swept wings resulted in amazing performance at high speeds, which was appropriate to its role as an interceptor. It has twin vertical stabilizers which are slanted inwards and a single experimental "Juno" jet engine, which produces a lot of power despite it's somewhat low weight, at the cost of terrible fuel efficiency. But this wasn't that important because of its role as a point defense interceptor. The Juno engine enabled the Reaper II to "climb like a rocket" and have an insane rate of acceleration. Aside from the jet engine, it also has a secondary engine to taxi and move around when the plane is on the ground.

For armament it has both air-to-air and air-to-ground micromissile systems with 40 anti-air missiles and 30 anti-ground missiles. It also has two "Cerberus" laser cannons, mounted under the nose. These cannons have good fire rates and damage, with enough spread to cover a small area. Due to the spread it can easily take out air targets at close range or rain destruction over a small ground area. However, the spread reduces the cannon's accuracy at long ranges. Due to this issue, some Reaper IIs were equipped with asymmetrical gun layouts, with combinations of a LWS600 Laser System, Cerberus cannon, or a XWS300 Railgun, eliminating the problem of long range accuracy. It also has 4 underwing pylons which are mostly used to carry extra fuel or sometimes, extra missiles or guns.

Due to its terrible performance at low speeds thanks to its unusual layout, many Reaper IIs were lost in crashes during landings. Throughout its service life it recieved upgrades to make it more safer to fly. This particular version had trim tabs and slats at the wing edges, which help with low speed maneuvering.

Instructions/Notes
AG1- brake chutes
AG2- discard drop tanks (about 26% fuel)
AG6- ground control (pitch and roll to move)
AG7- extra/display lights
AG8- navigation lights
Trim for trim
Change camera for nose camera
- due to the aforementioned low speed handling issue, be careful when landing. You don't want to be the first one to die in a Reaper II, right?
- equipped with flares so use them when needed, though I don't think you'll need them given the Reaper II's agility and speed.
- brake chutes can really help with slowing the plane down on a landing approach so use them if the need arises.
- the micromissiles fire rapidly if you hold the fire weapons button so use this option to your advantage.
- a cart to the side of the plane (pic #3) contains a XWS300 Railgun (gray) and a LWS600 Phantom (bluish green) core piece. You can use them to change the weapons on the plane's nose to you liking or save them in your subassemblies to use in other builds. They are free to use, no credit needed but tag me if you ever want to use them. Btw the guns on the cart are set to AG1 to avoid misfires.
* to change the plane's guns, remove the existing guns and drag the desired guns to the attachment points (tiny structural panels) and nudge them in using part transform tool, fine tuner or the built in nudge tool on the PC version. Don't worry about the guns hitting the plane, they have disabled collisions.
- has some pitch up issues at high speeds.
- display lights (AG7) look really good especially when flying through the night. Activate them and see for yourself!

Also comes with a Blue Impulse aerobatic team-like paintjob, based off from their F-86Fs.