Toucan Infantry Transport
Fixed Wing: Tech D
Crew: 2
Safe Thrust: 5
Max Thrust: 8
Chassis: 10 tons (VSTOL, Environmentally Sealed)
Engine: 7.5 tons
Armour (BAR 7 - 29 points): 1.5 tons (10 Nose, 7 Left Wing, 7 Right Wing, 5 Aft)
Jump Infantry Bay (4 doors): 6 tons
Named after a long-billed bird species from the tropical regions of Terra, the Toucan Infantry Transport was originally developed as a long-ranged special forces platoon carrier. Like its namesake, the aircraft had a long and prominent beaked fuselage, though in this case it housed 30 infantrymen and their gear in relative comfort. Jutting from the sides of the "beak" are two tilt-engines responsible for the craft's VSTOL capabilities. The cockpit, housing the pilot and navigator, sits just forward of the rear engines and at the top of the beak's end: its configuration almost resembles that of a toucan's beak, head, and neck were its wings attached to its mouth.
There were often more economic means of hauling troops on a planetary scale, especially with the numbers Hegemony worlds deployed, but the Toucan was favoured for its ruggedness and its flexibility that allowed to land on almost any clear terrain on nearly any world with a compatible atmospheric pressure. Still, it had limited applications in delivering special forces via drop or deploying jump troops in a rapid strike. In most cases, the former would be done via DropShip and the latter easily accomplished by a VTOL that could operate in the same environments the Toucan could.
Were it not for the Toucan's ruggedness (and the multiple applications such crafts had for those not-too-concerned with the law) it would have surely gone as extinct as its contemporaries. The fact that the vessel can "fold up" for transport in most DropShips' standard heavy vehicle bays has surely contributed to its longevity (not to mention that few Toucans ever saw direct combat).
