Why hello team members, and FOTG followers and fan, I am back with a new project.(dont worry my other projects are still alive, however I have no direction to go in with the dagger, as coming up with a texture design from scratch isnt exactly a skill of mine, and the scimitar is still having some issues with the cockpit area uv). so here is the story of my latest project, I began it last sunday after Thaeris gave me the idea after some conversation, the mesh now only needs a handful of defining repairs and details left(smoothing errors, some other stuff). The R-22 Spearhead is a Heavy interceptor, and reconasianse craft, its origins lie in the years following the clone wars, Hoersch-kessel drives had recently changed hands, this time into the hands of A group of entreunpenurs who had ties to the empire, and many smaller goverments in the outer and mid rim. The engineers at H&K needed a new product to market, they knew that caps were out of the question with memories of the war so fresh, so they decided to return to starfighters for a time, and market a product to militaries and civilians in the outer to mid rim, which was being ignored by Sienar with its newly minted Imp contracts, and Incom, working on the next big thing in multi-role fighters. What they decided on was an advanced fighter, that remained within imperial sanctions... almost, as it proved easy to upgrade, and maintian as it used a larger frame, with a more organized acess array, making maintence easy, and was equiped with a hyperdrive, though its primary purpose was ship and base defense. the Spearhead as it was called by its engineers proved to be a superb dogfighter, and became quite poplar, however it also proved to be somewhat more difficult to handle than the older Headhunters, and was far more expensive. When the Rebel Alliance was formed there were quite a few Spearheads in their ranks, also known to the pilots as A-wing due to thier distinctive shape. By the time of the battle of Yavin 4 General Dodonna had recognized the need for a fast light interceptor for the rebellion, and recognized the by now somewhat aged Spearhead could act as a base for such a craft. The R-22 was used as testbed for many of the advances used in the a-wing, a handful were eqquipped with the thrust focusers, and pivoting laser cannons used on the craft, and the design became a smaller, much futher streamlined version of the Spearhead. The spearhead continued to be used till a time after the instatement of the A-wing, and a handful of the 2-seater variation were kept as trainers for the A-wing, as they were easier to maintain, and get flight hours in than the high-maintence A-wing. By the battle of endor the rebellion had stopped using the R-22, but they were still common amoung independents, and occasionly pirates.
in case you were wondering the real story behind the R-22 is much simpler, it was created to retcon the fact that an A-wing like craft was in use before hoth. so if we port any x-wing series over, that had an a-wing in it prior to hoth, you will be flying one of these, not the A-wing, and despite the siilarites in design, the R-22 has a different set of traits, as a heavy interceptor compared to the A-wing as a light interceptor, but balance wise these will be up to the balancers. also, this design was based off the original A-wing concept art of Ralph Mcquarrie, and yes, Blue Squadron will be flying again
but now, you alll want pics, so here you go. (note these are all screenshots, so they arent super huge, but they should be sufficent)