by John Fleming

Drone 1-0 is a retired Red Eon starfighter converted to a drone fighter. It's main purpose is to give the enemy too many targets to focus on during battle. During that moment, as the enemy tries to figure out who's what, and so on, the piloted fighters can make their approach for maximum effect on either capital ships, or incoming fighters.

While the original starfighter, the Red Eon, designed by Cpt. Zooner (ret.), was a great success in past battles, new technologies and strategies left her behind. The airframes were still useful, and many made their way into other services, such as couriers, and ExecTrans, and a few fell into private hands. The rest were stripped for recycling, and converted to drone fighters. The main weapons systems were left in place, and could either be linked to a manned fighter, a fire control ship, or set to auto, where a complex program would allow it to "think" and decide when to shoot.

The original Red Eon was powered by 4 small Constant Gravity Wave drives. These were removed, and newer upgraded Pulsed Gravity Generators where mounted just outboard of the original engines.

Red Eon fighters were small compared to other fighters. The drones were a little smaller, as they did not need the cockpit bubble. The drones come it at a length of 42.5 feet, a width of 17.25 feet, and a height of only 7.2 feet. The Red Eon was a little taller at just shy of 9 feet.

The model is 1/72, and is built using resin parts, sheet plastic, and bondo. It is 7"L x 2.87"W x 1.2"H.

Image: Right side

Image: Right/rear view

Image: Rear view

Image: Right/front

Image: Right/rear, again

Image: Top

Image: Left/high