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Nuclear aircraft

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val:
Hello,
I have a suggestion to make. Waitaminute, this is the feature requests board, of course this is a suggestion.
Anywho, I've been looking around the forums and the online ufopedia, and there is no hint or suggestion of a long endurance(Thinking days, weeks maybe) aircraft anywhere, despite how useful this might be to Phalanx and anyone shipping/watching anything in general.  Two prototypes of nuclear aircraft were developed by the US during the Cold War, a manned bomber and a strategic cruise missile, were capable of endurance measured in months.
I think it would be implemented like this:

*It's big. No one's using fusion practically in the game, otherwise Phalanx would be using it. So it's critical/subcritical fission, and that means reactor shielding and coolant. So, it's large, not at all agile, and probably fixed winged.

*It's fast, with insane amounts of "fuel". The cruise missile in question, Project Pluto, was theoretically capable of supercruise(supersonic cruising) for months before hitting a target.

*Because it uses a nuclear reactor and is big to begin with, it can carry a lot of stuff you wouldn't trust to UN shipping. Stuff like antimatter.

*It can use bigger/better/more exotic equipment, for same reasons as above. Like antimatter missiles or base radar.

*It can be upgraded to antimatter easily. It's already built with a large, high thrust engine in mind, so adding an antimatter engine is a matter of reinforcing the plane.

*Because it's using nuclear/antimatter propulsion, it might be capable of lifting it's self into orbit.
This is the one thing I'm not sure about; might be cool to have an early space interceptor as a stopgap, but possibly game breaking for being able to nail the carriers in orbit early.

That's what I got. Comments?

val:
Another note:
The bomber in question was the Convair NB-36. It used electricity from a nuclear reactor to power it's self
The USSR tried the same thing with the TU-95LAL.

val:
ANother thing: actual nuclear propulsion was attempted via the Convair X-6. That was the bomber I meant, not the NB-36.

geever:
Thanks for the suggestion, but I think we won't add it.

What if such an airplane is shot down? It makes the land inhabitable for 100 years?

There are some conflicts in your suggestion also:
* big, heavy vs. fast
* big, fixed winged vs. size of the hangars, and the fact planes must be VTOL capable.

-geever

val:
Those are some pretty nice 3 points you have there.

Would be a shame if anything happened to them. :D
Anywho:
*The subcritical reactor Phalanx uses in bases turns off at the flick of the particle accelerator switch and makes waste that only lasts weeks. Use that.
*In this case, it's not that it isn't fast(it's VERY FAST), it's not at all agile. In addition to the normal g-force issues, it's a heavy plane by necessity; cooling and reactor shielding, you know?
*It probably couldn't land on anything but water, really. Like you said, it's too big, and asking the designers of such a plane to make it VTOL would probably result in a flat no. Maybe a new off base installation, build-able only offshore, to refuel the planes?

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