Warning: This post contains spoilers for gen:LOCK Episode 1.

So in my previous post , I gushed about how much I loved the fighter jets in gen:LOCK. Everything from the design concept to the dogfights. So I thought I'd talk a bit about the design of the jets in detail. Now, I am by no means an expert on plane design. My background is in aviation business management, not aeronautics or aerospace engineering. I did take a couple courses on aeronautics principles and had a brief stint as a student pilot. Anyway, enough about me, let's talk gen:LOCK.





Let's start with the plane's design.

Ok, let me get some criticisms out of the way first. The design is not very aerodynamic. The wings and front canards do not have an airfoil side profile. It is too blocky, with a essentially flat leading edge (the front of the wing) and what looks like an equally flat trailing edge (the back of the wing), and without any noticeable curve in the wing's side profile. The reason this is a negative is that wings need the curve to generate lift, something that planes need in order to fly. Now, with fighter jets, the curve isn't very pronounced since the wings itself are not the only flight surface to generate lift. Instead the whole fuselage is used to do so, given that the wings on a fighter is significantly smaller than the surface area required to generate sufficient lift for the whole aircraft. Plus, at the speed that fighters can reach, thrust is what keeps the plane in the air. With that said, however, the aircraft will still need lift when travelling at lower speeds. So some minus points on that front.





Another issue I have with the design is the placement of missiles and missile pylons on the canard. Now, this normally wouldn't be an issue, although I don't know of any existing fighters that mounts missiles on the canards. The issue here is that the aircraft has variable wings, meaning the wings can sweep forward to join with the canards. This makes it a questionable decision to place missiles there. Perhaps the idea here is missiles will not be launched when the wings are swept to the front since that wing position will generally be used for long distance travel at high speeds. But personally, I don't think it's a good design decision to place it there.





Alright, with that out of the way, let me gush more about how much I love this jet.

Here you can visibly see the wings are forward swept as opposed to the more traditional delta wing found on almost every fighter jet in modern times. The only ones that come to mind are the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut and the Grumman X-29 , both of which never made it to mass production. Planes with wings in such a configuration are generally more unstable in flight, this instability is an advantage rather than a detriment as fighters would want to be able to manoeuvre quickly in dogfights and the instability allows for faster response from the plane, theoretically. In real life, this advantage can be replicated in delta winged aircraft through other means. But this isn't real life. This is gen:LOCK. This forward swept design makes for an awesome look and that's what matters here.





This increase in manoeuvrability is further augmented by the four propellers/turbofans on the wing and canards. Watching the episode, you can clearly see them angling to provide thrust vectoring to increase manoeuvrability and response. It also gives the aircraft some VTOL capabilities, allowing it to hover for some time. In real life, this design is insanely impractical but again, this is gen:LOCK. You may be asking why I'm accepting this insanely impractical design while criticising the arguably less impractical missile placement. My answer is: bite me. This looks awesome as hell.





In the episode, Chaser and Razzle had to engage the enemy in an urban jungle. Now, any sane pilot would tell you that that is an unbelievably stupid idea. Tight spaces and high speeds do not play well with each other. Doing so is akin to suicide. One wrong move and you've just crashed into a building. It's basically trying to drive a Formula One car in a go-kart track. So the hyper manoeuvrable jets are right in their element here. With top notch pilots crazy enough to engage in that arena, and jets that are twitchier than rabbits in mating season, we get a heart-pounding aerial chase scene in downtown Manhattan, or Brooklyn, or...I don't know, somewhere in NYC. I'm not from around there.

"You were in a 4G inverted dive with a Mig 28?" - Top Gun

As you can see in the screenshot above, the two fans on the wings are angled to keep the plane in the air and push it closer to the building while the fans on the canards are keeping it stable. That's attention to detail by the animators. Really good job. (It also reminded me of Top Gun. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you doing reading this? Go watch it now!)





Overall, minor nitpicks aside, I really love this fighter jet. I can see a lot of thought went into designing it and the mechanics behind it. I really hope to see this aircraft again in later episodes of gen:LOCK and would love to see the concept art for it.





Since there is no official name for it yet, I'm giving it the fan designation VF/X-15 Fjalar.

- VF - Variable Fighter , befitting of the variable wings

- X - Experimental , for the experimental nature of the design and also the gen:LOCK program

- 15 - 15 years of Rooster Teeth

- Fjalar - One of three roosters that signal the coming of Ragnarok)





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