Orca aircraft

The ORCA series of aircraft was first introduced in the later parts of the First Tiberium war, in the form of an ORCA Assault Craft. The main feature of the system was the abandonment of the classic rotary wing propulsion with twin jet engines on articulate mounts, a perfect VTOL aircraft.

The first model (upper left image) was exceptionally fast and lightly armoured, with ten Dragon TOW missiles in it's side-mounted rocket pods and a chin-mounted large caliber minigun. It's speed allowed it to outrun most surface-to-air rockets and quickly hit armoured units and unprotected buildings with surgical precision. The first ORCA Assault Craft was also compact enough to be transported and deployed from special cargo trailers.

During the gap between the two Tiberium Wars, GDI perfected the ORCA technology, adopting the acronym as codename for the series of the powerful VTOL aircraft. In addition to perfecting the technology and upgrading the original ORCA Assault Craft (middle left image), several specialized variants were developed, including a mighty Orca Bomber (lower left), carrying highly destructive explosive munitions designed to wreak havoc against buildings and armor alike, although at the expense of their speed. Another variant was the Orca Transport (lower right), a long, lightly armoured air transport craft, designed to move people and light equipment over vast distances fast. For hauling heavy military ordnance two aircraft were designed - the Orca Carry-All (middle right), a large flying crane, with engines powerful enough to airlift even the immense, prototypical Mammoth Mk. IIs, and the Orca Dropship (upper right), which could ferry large amounts of battle walkers onto the battlefield.

Another variant, the Orca Command, was designed and manufactured. These aircraft would serve as mobile command centers for GDI commanders world-wide. One of the more famous, designated 3A and code-named Kodiak, served as GDI's field commander McNeil's command vessel.

The main disadvantage of the Orca technology was it's susceptibility to electromagnetic interference from Ion Storms, which almost proved to be the cause of Kodiak's destruction, as it was grounded during such a storm and ambushed by Nod forces. Following the conclusion fo the Second Tiberium War, the Kodiak was shielded against such interference, allowing it to secure the Tacitus at the Cairo site. However, it's design wasn't resistant to Ion Storm lightnings, which destroyed one of it's engines and caused it to crash-land in north Africa.

Links

 * ORCA Assault Craft
 * Orca Fighter
 * Orca Bomber
 * Orca Transport
 * Orca Dropship
 * Orca Command