OB-5A "Banshee" Bomber - Alien Day 2023

Started this for Alien Day last year but never finished it in time, so I've been tinkering with it on and off since then. I've never done any fan designs from the second film, so I'm remedying that now!

I wanted to come up with a counterpart to the Colonial Marines' UD-4 Dropship - the Banshee is a strategic bomber spaceplane capable of carrying out both orbital and in-atmosphere strikes, depending on the response needed. It can deploy an array of payloads from nuclear warheads and kinetic projectiles to gravity bombs and CN-20 nerve gas canisters. The wings can be deployed for long-range sorties or retracted for spaceflight, reentry or hypersonic flight. It can also operate as a heavy transport and can accommodate two APCs, or around 135 troops or 10 standard cargo pallets or a mix of all three.

Propulsion systems include a hybrid turbojet/scramjet/rocket engine, forward-facing retrorockets for quick deceleration, VTOL jet nozzles for vertical/short takeoff + landing conditions and RCS thrusters for maneuvering in space.

Inspired by a few sources for this - main ones being the B52 Stratofortress and F4 Phantom (to keep it Vietnam-inspired) but also the C17 Globemaster, Avatar's Valkyrie (one of the coolest things ever designed), and the ships of Star Citizen. And of course Ron Cobb's original Dropship and Syd Mead's Sulaco :)

Thanks for looking, more images to come! Stay frosty :)