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Flying Armor
Unit
type: atmospheric subflight lifter By the third Universal Century, most defense analysts were more than content to argue that mobile suits lacking self-powered flight capability were essentially obsolescent - the rise of the Earth Union and its GN-powered mobile suits in the late UC 210s underscored this point better than any peer-reviewed bulletin. However, the simple fact remained that while obsolete by contemporary standards, innumerable "ground only" mobile weapons still existed on Earth, whether war veterans from the Guild conflict, archaic pre-Interregnum machines still functioning thanks to careful maintenance or a reliable design, or entirely new weapons that intentionally omitted airborne operations to reduce cost or complexity. Wanting to "cash in" on this new wave of popularity for airborne mobile suits, South Africa-based Kentron Dynamics produced an atmospheric support craft dubbed "Flying Armor". So named because it more closely resembles a mobile armor than a subflight lifter, the vehicle was first demonstrated at IDEX '29, and has been a hot seller ever since. Prime usage is in the hands of various military and militia forces operating from the South African Coalition, although examples have been found all over the world in numerous different operations. The Flying Armor takes a hint from ZAFT's Guul, albeit on a larger scale that allows the carrying of two standard-size mobile suits in a side-by-side arrangement. According to the manufacturer, a Flying Armor can be stowed on most vessels by occupying two positions for standard-size mobile suits - because of its relatively flat shape, a second Flying Armor can be stored on top of the first, making the lifters somewhat less selfish in terms of hangar space. The vehicle's raft-like fuselage profile is due to the both exterior edges being totally filled by very large engines with annular fuel tanks, giving the Flying Armor enough "go" to heft a pair of mobile suits skyward for meaningful combat sorties. External pylons are provided for attaching missiles for air-to-air combat or strafing attacks, and a turret-mounted antiaircraft beam cannon is attached to the Flying Armor's chin section. In order to keep costs low, the vehicle lacks a proper power supply for the mounted cannon - energy is siphoned from the embarked mobile suits via the hand plugs. The configuration is serviceable, but does mean that the gun is dead weight when mobile suits with insufficient generator power to arm their own beam weapons are deployed with it. As with the Guul, the Flying Armor is controlled by an onboard computer, and there is no provision for a crew of any sort. The vehicle can be flown manually by either of the embarked mobile suits or controlled remotely from a short distance away via laser communication.
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