The illustration features a Three Wings aviatrix of the 1st Colonial Aero Corps at a forward archipelago airfield after returning from a successful strike sortie in the Pearl Islands Campaign. Her flight jacket and side cap are of typical tribal style and emblazoned with the hereditary unit patches and flight badges of her ancestral aerospace squadrons. Hereditary rank insignia is often worn in addition to tribal squadron affiliation, though taking a secondary precedence in prominence of display. Aviators of the Three Wings are accustomed to personalizing their flight jackets, flight gear, and headwear, with a great variety in flying goggles, tinted spectacles, neckties, silk scarves, and other accessories in evidence among all Three Wings pilots. Short trousers are the order of the day in both the arid training grounds of the Great Western Salt Flats and the sweltering humidity and heat of colonial campaigning, as long hours are often spent waiting on the flight line while squadron colonels and Kommersant military liaisons confer over pre-flight preparations in the shade of an operations tent or the bridge of a flattop gun-clipper.
The aviatrix carries a heavy ceramsteel survival knife of modern tribal origin in her utility belt and a six-shot Serrograd 7-series percussion revolver of Kommersant manufacture in her pistol holster. The survival knife is considered an essential element of the combat kit worn by Three Wings aviators, and due to its general utility as a convenient flat-bladed cutting tool, it is frequently worn on the ground as well. In comparison, the cap-and-ball Serrograd 7 percussion revolver is of rather limited utility, prized only for its relatively light weight for Three Wings pilots trying to cut every conceivable gram of excess gear from their takeoff weight. While performing adequately as a handy self-defense weapon during shore leaves in lawless colonial ports and frontier settlements, in combat over hostile territory the Serrograd 7 revolver serves as a fatal last resort for downed aviators facing the prospect of immediate capture by enemy ground or naval forces.
The aviatrix stands atop the port wing of her Rapier II, the latest generation model of turboprop fighter-bomber hand-fitted and assembled in the Great Western Salt Flats by General Avionics Reconstituted, the Three Wings consortium that oversees all Kommersant aviation manufacture. The semi swept-wing Rapier II fighter-bomber is scheduled to replace the aging gull-winged Comet-series of airframes in combat service, though currently only those forward-deployed squadrons in the colonial north have been reequipped and converted to the new attack craft. The Rapier II is powered by a high performance Zvesda-C steam turbine powerplant produced in the Kommersant construction yards of the New Vostok & Hyde Engineering Works. Burning a dry fuel-air mix of high-grade nanodust, Zvesda-C enables the Rapier II to reach a maximum altitude of 5000 meters and a maximum straightline cruising speed of 500 kph, though direct injection of pure nanodust fuel into the combustion reactor enables a limited maximum speed of 750 kph at the risk of rapid fuel depletion and engine damage. The duralum-ceramsteel composite alloy airframe of the Rapier II is crafted in separate wing and fuselage sections by the expert Kommersant forgemasters of Ulyanovsk Heavy Industries, and along with the pure duralum skin, are capable of shrugging off standard caliber ball rounds from conventional musketry and ground fire. Nevertheless, the airframe remains highly vulnerable to the standard anti-air incendiary canister shot employed by the better equipped military forces of the Djong-Kok and Red imperial states.
The Rapier II represents the premier fighter-bomber of the Three Wings battle squadrons not only in performance but in armaments as well. Each Rapier II is equipped with no less than sixteen M3 Windstorm .50 caliber revolver cannons. Mechanically actuated and linked to the primary power drive of the airframe's Zvesda-C steam turbine, the M3 Windstorm is the pinnacle of modern Kommersant automatic weapons design. Originally designed as crew-served weapons mounts aboard Kommersant gun-clippers, the M3 was initially thought by Kommersant tacticians to be of limited combat utility, as their requirement for an external power source prevented their forward deployment with kosmodesantniki in the field. However, once coupled to the high performance steam turbines that powered the fighter-bombers of the Three Wings, the M3 Windstorm was transformed from an auxiliary point-defense weapon with a modest automatic capability into a first-rate aerial cannon with a blisteringly high rate of fire. Although typically loaded with a general purpose mix of incendiary, armor piercing, and tracer rounds, the exact ratio of ammunition mix can be tailored by aviators to suit specific combat missions or preferences. Modular payload pylons on the underside of the Rapier II's wings allow for the deployment of several different classes of offensive systems, including a variety of unguided chemical rockets, nanodust fuel-air incendiary bombs, general purpose cluster explosives, and armor piercing bombs, all standard pattern and manufactured under contract by one of the many Kommersant weapons conglomerates.
The color scheme of the depicted Rapier II is typical of an airframe deployed in the northern hemisphere campaigns of the 1st Colonial Aero Corps, with the black-yellow-black stripes on rear fuselage, wingtip, and vertical stabilizer particular to those airframes participating in active combat operations. The blue and white engine cowling embellishment is indicative of a flight leader's airframe. The aviatrix's personal flight emblem is painted ahead of mission markings and aerial victory score. Each bomb case silhouette represents a successful strike mission, while each star marks an aerial victory scored against a tethered gun-kite or observation/signalling balloon. Aerial victories are increasingly uncommon as the Djong-Kok pirate clans and Red war fleets withdraw vulnerable aerial platforms from frontline service, making each star a highly prized trophy for the veteran combat pilots of the Three Wings. Personal and tribal airframe decorations were once ornate and highly florid affairs that decorated every exposed external surface, but in the century since the annexation of the Three Wings to the Kommersant, tribal squadron markings have been discouraged entirely and personal emblems reduced in size in order to improve the visibility of operational unit markings. The roundel painted on the rear fuselage of the airframe is unique to the 1st Colonial Air Corps and derived from the ancient emblem of the Interstellar Commerce Authority's North American Aerospace Force, symbolically acknowledging both the historical ties and modern day loyalty of the Three Wings to the ICA successor state embodied by the Kommersant.
