Hello everyone, after a long time not posting anything I started going through my older drawings and decided to to start updating them, I started with my first fighter design.
CAV C-12 Halcón (Hawk)
The CAV C-12 Halcón is a twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor fighter/fighter-bomber originally developed for the Venezuelan Air Force by Construcciones Aeronáuticas Venezolanas. It first entered service in 1965 with the Venezuelan Air Force. The Halcón is a large fighter with a top speed of over Mach 2.3. It can carry over 18,000 pounds (8,400 kg) of weapons on eight external hardpoints, including air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground missiles, and various bombs.
In 1949 after Nicaragua, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Cuba following a series of leftist uprisings merged to form the Peoples Republic of Central America they started a very close cooperation with the Soviet Union. In exchange for arms the soviets were allowed to place troops and hardware in central America. Among the equipment sent to the PRCA was a large number of aircraft. But it was in 1956 after the People’s Revolutionary Air Force received its first Tu-16’s that the Venezuelan Air Force presented requirements for a long range interceptor with a large payload that could counter the increasing number of enemy aircraft and especially the bombers.
Initially the Venezuelan government was reluctant to allow the development of such aircraft due to the fear that it would be too complicated and the costs would get out of control, so a request for information about interceptors was sent to the US government. The United States offered several aircraft, some of them were the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and the projected Delta Dart, Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and the Mcdonnell F-4 Phantom II. In 1960 a group of Venezuelan pilots were sent to the USA to test the aircraft under consideration. After several weeks of testing it was decided that the only candidate that came close to the requirements was the F-4 but the aircrafts faults concerned the pilots especially the stability problems. Taking this into account and that the US congress did not allow the Venezuelan Air Force to buy more than 140 airframes or to grant the production license, negotiations fell apart very quickly.
As a result of the inability of the air force to buy a foreign aircraft that could fulfil its requirements the Venezuelan Government granted funding for the project and proposals were requested to the industry.
Only two firms presented designs one was Construcciones Aeronáuticas Venezolanas with its Model 221 and VeneAvia with the Model 196. Eventually CAV’s design was chosen because it had more development potential, longer range and better manoeuvrability. The first prototype of the Model 221 took to the air for the first time on 31 April 1964 with 10 more development aircraft following shortly after. The aircraft showed exceptional performance proving to be superior to the phantom and it was immediately put into production and an order for 340 was placed by the air force and the aircraft designated as the C-12A Halcón (Hawk), with the first aircraft entering service in late 1965.
General characteristics:
• Crew: 1 or 2
• Length: 63 ft 0 in (18.92 m)
• Wingspan: 38 ft 4.5 in (11.2 m)
• Height: 16 ft 6 in (5.85 m)
• Wing area: 530.0 ft² (52.2 m²)
• Empty weight: 14,200 kg
• Loaded weight: 19.000 kg
• Max. takeoff weight: 29,000 kg
• Powerplant: 2 × VeneAvia TR-6-18A axial compressor turbojets, 12,900 lbf dry thrust , 18,800 lbf in afterburner each
• Fuel capacity: 1,994 U.S. gal (7,549 L) internal, 3,335 U.S. gal (12,627 L) with three external tanks (370 U.S. gal (1,420 L) tanks on the outer wing hardpoints and either a 600 or 610 U.S. gal (2,310 or 2,345 L) tank for the centerline station).
• Maximum landing weight: 16,700 kg
Performance
• Maximum speed: Mach 2.3 (2,477 km/h) at 40,000 ft (12,190 m)
• Cruise speed: 506 kn (585 mph, 940 km/h)
• Combat radius: 367 nmi (422 mi, 720 km)
• Ferry range: 3,000 km with 3 external fuel tanks
• Service ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,300 m)
• Rate of climb: 42,500 ft/min
• Takeoff roll: 1.120 m
• Landing roll: 1.000 m