Cargoships - Rune Company

Rune's first cargoship, the Rune09-037 and the RuneX9-037 (space version) have been used by all major companies who preferred air transport of their goods. Next to a spacious and luxurous bridge in the upper levl of the cockpit, the lower level could hold up to 20 passengers in -such was Rune's trademark- equally luxurous conditions to make their stay onboard the cargo ship as pleasant as possible no matter how short their trip was.

The Rune09-037 is optimised for operation in Earth's atmopshere. Dimensions : Height = 17,8 metres (58,4 feet), width = 47,4 metres (155,5 feet), length = 64,8 metres (212,6 feet), cargo space = 8.800 cubic metres (310.000 cubic feet), max load = 65 tons (29.500 lbs). Max speed = 1.150 km per hour (715 mph), max range = 6.500 km (4050 miles). Equipped with three heavy engines and 4 wings to keep it in the air. Sometimes 2 of the engines and several fuel tanks were removed so the ship could carry more cargo, since this modification lowered the ship's speed, thrust, lift and maximum range, this version of the ship was only used for short cargo runs, mostly within the range of one city - a fast and cheap way to transport up to 90 tons (41.000 lbs) of materials.



The RuneX9-037 is optimised for operation in space, the unarmed version has basically the same dimensions as the Earth version, the main difference is the engines, as it's equipped with 2 FP engines. The FP engines, created by Rune were the only engines that could rival with the Warbird engines, but they had limited use. FPs did not require as much space as conventional engines, but to have the same power as normal engines these had a greater surface and thus could only be used on bigger ships, the advantage for a cargo ship is obvious : since the engines no longer take up space, more space was left to hold cargo : the RuneX9-037 had 11.000 cubic metres (390.000 cubic feet) cargo space and with the additional cargo bay mounted on the hull the ship's cargo space increased to an impressive 12.500 cubic metres (440.000 cubic feet). The max load is far greater than any cargo ship on Earth could ever have as there are no limitations due to gravity in space, as long as the engines could handle the mass of the ship. The unarmed version could transport up to 350 tons (160.000 lbs). Max speed = 10.500 km per hour (6.500 mph), max range = 6.000.000 km (3.720.000 miles).

The armed version was introduced by the Earth Protection Alliance, to protect against alien pirates that, according to the EPA, surely existed. 50 tons (22.700 lbs) of cargo were sacrified to give the ship 4 front Pulse-lasers, a missile turret on top and 4 laser turrets on the belly of the hull. With all this firepower the ship was as dangerous as a Nagato, but lacked the speed, manouvrability and armor. Important cargo runs were often accompanied by one or two Vector-fighters, but the armed RuneX9-037 was perfectly capable of defending itself.



As space on the 4th Moon of Xyth was limited, no cargo ships were taken with it to Xyth, but the onboard engineers of both Rune and Alpha took all blueprints of their ships with them. The RuneX9-037 was eventually rebuilt and mostly used by the Miner Guild to transport small amounts of processed ore from their home base to the outposts, while the transport of newly mined ore from the asteroid field was at first done with Alpha's new cargo ship, the A009-FR01 as it was the first cargo ship built at Xyth.
As the Miner Guild preferred the more luxurous Rune ships, the A009-FR01 was only used until Rune started building new RuneX9-037s, but with the increasing amount of ores that needed to be transported the Miner Guild provided Rune with enough funds and resources to work on a heavier freighter...