Custom UNSC UH-288B Dragonfly Heavy-Lift Quad Rotor Helicopter- Copter Build-off Entry!

Build completed and originally published on SBF August 2013. This build owes a huge shout-out to Goodwill Hunter. It was inspired by his awesome custom UH-288A Dragonfly copter build published on SBF in June 2012 but became different enough that I felt it was worth publishing on its own merits. However, if this entry should win I would clearly have to share at least half the credit with Rich for the awesome concept and the perfect vehicle names, both of which I shamelessly borrowed. ***While this vehicle is most definitely not true to Halo canon, the existence of such a vehicle in the Halo 'verse doesn't take much of a leap of imagination. There were clearly a number of UNSC military ground vehicles which would be too large to be ferried beneath a Pelican. At the same time, the much larger exo-atmospheric D-96 Albatross shuttle/transport vehicle wouldn't always be a sensible or practical alternative due to both its huge size and it's typical role of transporting troops and heavy gear to and from fleet ships in orbit. I don't doubt GWH reached the same conclusion and justification for his original Dragonfly heli. Again the Dragonfly sharing many common airframe components with the UH-144 Falcon also makes sense as they would be built by the same manufacturer with the quad rotor UH-288 being an offshoot of the twin rotor UH-144 program. My latest "B-variant" of the Dragonfly is both up-armed and up-armored over GWH's original defenseless "A-variant" and the vehicle's central spine was reduced in width slimming the vehicle's silhouette and thus making it a smaller target for ground fire. The two man cockpit and all key engine, fuel, hydraulic, and electric systems have been sufficiently armored so as to shrug off human or Covenant small arms fire. These upgrades improved vehicle and crew survivability while allowing for the insertion and exfiltration of small to medium sized heavily armored ground vehicles (anything smaller than an Elephant), the salvage of downed aircraft, or the ferrying of large freight payloads in or out of hot landing zones behind enemy lines. Like the Falcon, the Dragonfly's avionics allow the pilot to put the aircraft into an autopilot stabilized hover over a payload. The magnetized grappling hooks and winches are largely automated permitting the flight crew to focus on defending the aircraft if need be during the loading or deployment of a payload.