XR-45 Cariburn

The XR-45 Cariburn is a fictional fighter aircraft first featured in Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception. One of the game's many original aircraft, the Cariburn has a unique forward-swept wing design, which when combined with high-powered, thrust vectoring engines give the XR-45 extreme maneuverability.

Design
The XR-45's airframe incorporates advanced flight technologies, which are inferred to originate from countries outside the south Osean region in the Skies of Deception timeline. The Cariburn can operate at extremely high altitudes, making it an extraordinary interceptor and dogfighter. The XR-45 cockpit is oddly structured, yet heavily reinforced. It is also equipped with a version of the COFFIN System, similar to that of the version 3 COFFIN. Its weapons are primarily air-to-air based, further pushing its role as a pure air combat machine.

The Cariburn uses two extremely powerful engines in cooperation with its reinforced forward swept wing configuration. The Cariburn also utilizes a vertical canard which is located beneath the aircraft, an extremely large air intake, and two 2-dimensional (pitch only) thrust vectoring nozzles to make it very maneuverable.

Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception
The XR-45 Cariburn is a fictional Fighter-class aircraft. In the Strangereal canon, it was developed in the 2020s by multinational aircraft manufacturing corporations as a testbed for experimental flight technologies. It was brought to the Republic of Aurelia during the Leasath-Aurelian War 2020 under unknown circumstances, leading to speculation that it was taken there for the purpose of collecting battle data.

As a player aircraft, the Cariburn is unlocked after completing either mission #08A ("Striking Point") or #09 ("Blitz"), costing $29,100 credits at the Hangar screen. The aircraft's unconventional forward swept wing design provides it with an unrivaled degree of mobility, and is equipped with relatively powerful engines. However, high maneuverability is achieved at the expense of light armor plating. Furthermore, its design as a high speed aircraft leaves it with low stability.

Paint schemes

 * Standard: Graphite black.
 * Leasath: Brown desert camouflage.
 * Special 1: Gray/light blue camouflage. Unlocked by completing Operation X.
 * Special 2: Deep blue.

Parts

 * Engine: Turbo Engine, Light Engine, Adv. Turbo Engine, Caudal Engine, RAMJet Engine, C-Cycle Engine
 * Wings: Adv. Trimtab, Extra V Canard, Extra Elron, Extra Canard, Sylph Wing (aircraft-exclusive), Adv. Actuator, Adv. Balance Tab, Adv. Anti-Balance Tab
 * Armor: Scale Armor, CFRP Conversion, Ceramic Armor, NERA Armor, TiAl Armor, Composite Armor
 * Weapons: Destructive Missile, Long Range Gun, Extra Hardpoint, Enhanced Special Homing Missile, Tracker Missile, High-Speed Ammunition
 * Cockpit: Emergency Auto-pilot, Raven, Terra Hammer, Hawk Eye, Automatic Machine Gun Fire Device, Tracer, Fenrir ECMS, Sniper OS, Argus, Salamander

Statistics

 * Speed: 75
 * Air-to-Air: 42
 * Air-to-Ground: 24
 * Mobility: 84
 * Stability: 48
 * Defense: 30

Paint schemes

 * C01: Graphite black.
 * C02: Desert brown camouflage.
 * C03: Gray/sky blue camouflage.
 * C04: Dark blue.
 * C05: Black w/ green.
 * C06: Black w/ white triangular patterns in the wings' flaps.

Trivia

 * The XR-45 Cariburn's airframe is possibly inspired by Super Sylph Yukikaze's FFR-41MR/FRX-00 "Mave" fighter. As well, the description of the "Sylph Wing" wing part says that the Cariburn-exclusive part provides maneuverability "beffiting of its name", alluding to the FFR-41MR's extreme maneuverability.
 * It is possible that the name of this aircraft is an erroneous localization of "Caliburn", a sword better known as Excalibur. This is due to the fact that "L" sounds do not exist in Japanese and are substituted with "R" sounds instead.