Upon the release of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, the ADF-11F was unplayable, and was featured exclusively as an enemy unit during "Dark Blue," the game's final mission. On March 13, 2019, a player found leftover game data indicating the aircraft was originally intended to be playable, but was left incomplete by the time of the game's launch.[4]Bandai Namco later officially announced the Raven as the game's first DLC aircraft; it was later released on May 22, 2019 as the centerpiece of the ADF-11F Raven Set.[5]
The Raven's ADF-11 nose unit is capable of connecting to various other wing units to quickly switch specializations as required by the mission. The addendum of the letter "F" denotes the ADF-11 being connected to a RAW-F wing unit, designed for close-range air-to-air combat.
The nickname "Raven," meanwhile, is a reference to Norse mythology. The Norse god Odin is attested to have two ravens accompanying him, Huginn and Muninn, who travel the world and gather information for him. In Ace Combat 7, Erusea produced two ADF-11F Ravens—Hugin and Munin—and they attempted to transmit their battle data across Usea to create more drones in their image.[6]
The ADF-11F Raven is a combination of two other craft:
One ADF-11 nose unit. This can be either an undetachable manned cockpit for a human pilot or a detachable UAV. In manned units, the COFFIN data is sent to a helmet-mounted display.[1]
The RAW-F bears some similarities to the ADF-01 FALKEN, as both airframes feature twin thrust-vectoring engines with identical nacelles, and both feature a ventral stabilizer fin. The RAW-F features traditional cropped delta-shape wings, breaking the Advanced Dominance Fighter series' tradition of forward-swept wing designs. The RAW-F also lacks vertical stabilizers. Primarily designed for absolute air superiority, the RAW-F is equipped with a series of potent weapon systems like the characteristic Tactical Laser System and Quick Maneuver Air-to-Air Missiles.[1] The RAW-F is notable for the lack of a machine gun; instead, the nose unit is equipped with a single Pulse Laser cannon.[7] The wing unit provides stealth capabilities that will mask even attached ADF-11s from radar detection until the nose unit (in a UAV model) detaches itself.[6]
The combined ADF-11F features phenomenal performance, capable of pulling turns tighter and faster than most aircraft. This is despite its massive size—as the Raven measures in at 95 ft 5 in (29.083 m)[8] in length—and is partially made possible through the onboard Copro artificial intelligence, which is loaded with a wealth of combat data gathered by Mihaly A. Shilage during his service in the Erusean Air and Space Administration. For human pilots, Copro reduces the strain of high-G maneuvers using its machine-learning capabilities to create optimal flight conditions for its pilot whenever the situation demands it. The combined ADF-11F can also carry two UAVs, one under each wing, and deploy them to support the main craft. These can either be Weapon UAVs[6] or MQ-99s.[1]
Gründer Industries designed the ADF-11F Raven using the Erusean Air and Space Administration's concept for "the ultimate in survivability".[1] Gründer's chief researcher, Doctor Schroeder, gathered data on Mihaly A. Shilage's flight capabilities to advance the Zone of Endless[9] AI throughout the Lighthouse War. Near the end of the war, the flight data was equipped onto two unmanned Ravens, codenamed Hugin and Munin. Ionela A. Shilage, Mihaly's granddaughter, discovered Schroeder's plan and destroyed his data chip before he could upload it to the scores of drones being produced at a UAV factory near the base of the International Space Elevator, but was unable to prevent Hugin and Munin from receiving the data at the remote manufacturing plant where they were built.[10]
Hugin and Munin arrived over Gunther Bay at the conclusion of Operation Daredevil and quickly engaged the Osean and Erusean coalition forces,[11] causing massive casualties. The drones' objective was to transmit their data to drone manufacturing plants across the continent and perpetuate the war, potentially causing an AI uprising against humanity.[note 1][6] However, due to the efforts of Princess Rosa Cossette D'Elise and Avril Mead, the space elevator, which was the only place capable of wide-area data transmission following a massive satellite blackout, was offline.[11] This proved crucial in preventing the UAVs from using it as a transmission tower. They both flew around the space elevator for the next 16 hours, waiting for its transmission capabilities to come back online.[6]
The remaining coalition forces, including Strider, Sol, Rigel, Skoll, and Salamander Squadrons returned the next day and engaged the Ravens in a desperate final assault, aiming to prevent them from uploading their data. Despite suffering further losses, the coalition forces emerged victorious after Trigger inflicted heavy damage to both of the Ravens. Their cockpit ADF-11 units detached, but Trigger shot both of them down as well before any data was transmitted.[6]
"A large fighter created by North Osea Gründer Industries. The Erusean Air and Space Administration (EASA) planned to create a UAV-model and a few manned models; this aircraft is the latter. What makes the ADF-11F stand out is its ADF-11 nose unit and large wing unit, which can be changed to suit the operation at hand. It can be an air superiority fighter, an anti-surface bomber, an electronic surveillance aircraft, and more. The F-model wings, designed specifically for close-range combat, give the ADF-11F its name. Its nose is fitted with a small-bore laser cannon, while its wings are loaded with highly maneuverable anti-air missiles. Additionally, it is equipped with a high-output strategic laser system and a small, multipurpose UAV. The unmanned version's nose unit is capable of flying independently, whereas the manned version utilizes a cockpit instead. Originally, the aircraft was designed to be able to detach from its wings if damaged enough to allow it to retreat to a safe area in order to preserve the AI's combat experience. Its nickname is "Raven.""
The cockpit view of this craft uses a blue/red stereoscopic 3D filter which can be used with corresponding 3D glasses.
Ravens are one of a number of bird species that are capable of sound mimicry, including human speech; similarly, Hugin and Munin can both be observed transmitting radio static that appears to serve the same purpose as radio communications between humans.
The Raven, along with the ADF-01 FALKEN, appeared in the "It's Time to Play" PS4 ad.[12]
The ADF-11F's blueprints are based on the YF-23's blueprints.[13]
↑While the English briefing dialogue for "Dark Blue" makes reference to a war that "will never end," the Japanese dialogue instead says "This isn't just a war. We could be handing this planet over to something inhuman."
Thrust vectoring is the ability to change the direction of thrust emitted from an engine. Aircraft with thrust vector control can perform enhanced maneuvers not available to aircraft without it.
A nacelle is a streamlined container for aircraft parts, usually the engines.
