What's the MOST Realistic Aircraft in Halo? 

Something to maybe note, the games have hornets regularly scrapping with banshees but in the expanded lore they're basically what you would reassign the wasp to. Hornets have weapons but they're often just hovering somewhere far away scanning the terrain and collecting information. The skids have also served as platforms for snipers.

My favorite is the Falcon. I spent way too long mastering that thing. But hey, it was worth being able to return a rocket to it's sender.

Of the 3, my favorite would have to be the Hornet. Easiest to handle and its weapons are the most satisfying to use. Best potential in capture the flag where you can quickly pick up a flag carrier and fly off, don’t think you could do that with even the Falcon.

It'd be interesting to see your take on some of the Halo Wars vehicles. Some of them are arguably better suited to some of the tasks that the vehicles in the main games are shoved into. Also, I'm not sure if the Hornet's landing skids are actually *meant* for passengers, or if they just kinda use it for it. Kinda like the way Marines ride on top of the track housings on the Scorpion, which is generally not a great idea to do in open combat for obvious reasons, and i'm pretty sure they say "no step" on them, but since when are Marines known to take anything like that seriously?

I'm surprised you don't see more dedicated jet/thruster craft/rocket engine craft for low atmosphere environments with the UNSC being a spacefaring military. I know it's from terraforming these planets to have more liveable atmospheres but you wouldn't expect every planet to be very hospitable places for traditional rotors. I know there's the pelican and the "sword family" of aircraft but it's just an observation I had. I've been loving the content and always happy to see a new video pop up.

I'd say the Falcon is the most realistic. Simply because we already possess a precursor in the sense of the Osprey

Crewing on a Falcon is the best way to meet friends on Xbox Live. I stand my case.

I definitely think of the wasp as an exploration and recon scout vehicle. Meant to be fast-ish, maneuverable, and had relatively reasonable defensive capabilities. I have to admit, for anyone that that’s familiar with the 7.62 family, it’s an odd choice but I imagine (if we were being realistic) that it’s weapon systems are only there to get you out of a pickle, not support an assault.

Having all three aircraft available for Big Team game modes would be awesome. Imagine playing CTF, using the Wasp to keep track of their flag carrier (if they pick yours up) or to recon their flag, using a hornet to prosecute vehicles, and using a falcon to ferry a small team to their base, and failing bringing the carrier back, at least being one more gun in the air to distract from the ground team.

The way I see it, the reason we only see Hornets and Wasps in the mainline games is because of their weight and sozee. Remember that these have to be crammed into a small hangar and Marines seem to favor fast and light deployments, so the Hornet's external pods make sense so it can go in, unload the troops, and get out or support. Love the content!

The Longsword Fighter is basically the B-2 Bomber in space, obviously major differences but the silhouette is similar.

wouldve loved to see the ac-220 "vulture" featured. its basically halos equivalent for the apache. a heavily armored vtol gunship armed to the teeth. basically a flying tank/artillery piece.

You forgot the Hawk, the Pelican Gunship, and the Vulture, still great video.

One thing I could see slightly improving the combat effectiveness of the Wasp are coilguns. Even though it isn't stated anywhere in the lore, I imagine that the barrels of the guns probably could or do have magnetic coils to reduce tumbling and increase velocity, despite it still being 7.62.

Dude your vids are awesome. Your application of the real-life battlefield analysis for Halo reminds me of Installation00's real-life scientific analysis of Halo. I'd love to see the two of you do a collab

This really is my new favourite halo channel. Keep it up man.

While I personally love the Falcon, as it personally had the best "physics" for any of the Halo Aircraft, the Hornet always felt the most "realistic" when it came to role. The Spec Op Littlebird and the hornet, imo, always felt really close in similarity, and with Soldiers like the ODST, and Spartans, the Hornet gives those special skilled soldiers crazy verticle and distance mobility and drop off to engagement zones with the close air support to clear the LZ if need be without being such a huge target a pelican would present itself to be. Imo, the V22 Osprey is more on par to the Halo Pelician, as it is more of a Troop "dropship", style role, to quicky get large amounts of assets into a battlezone at a given drop off. But it presents a huge target. The Falcon, imo, is a scaled down Black Hawk. Capable of providing close air support and a moderate amount of troops, and armaments on hand if the battle needs it, but can be used also as a medical evac as well. The Wasp, is a strange one imo, its role, imo, feels like it could be done by in the sci fi realm by just about ANY other vehicle, including the Drones seen in ODST for a few of the cutscenes way more efficiently and was only created to satisfy a "small lightwight easy to destroy attack aircraft for the UNSC" in Multiplayer Halo, vs a truely immersive Campaign/Lore addition.

Think they all do there specific jobs splendidly. The wasp is a gunship, the falcon is a troop transport, Spartan/ODST fire team transport, and the hornet acts like the little bird does IRL. Can carry 4-6 troops, and can be armed for close air support. IE gunship. Choosing witch is best is like trying to find the one aircraft that can do anything and everything. It just doesn't exist.

Love these halo videos mate very interesting and enjoyable to learn about things in the halo universe in these bite size videos.

Recently I was thinking about the naming conventions of the UNSC aircraft and after a chain of thought. I came up with something I called the mud dobber which would be a variant of the hornet or wasp ment to quickly get in and drop fortifications, vehicles, supplies, and anything else for that matter. It would just be more specialized than the hornet or wasp.

I liked your ideas for the purposes these flying type of vehicles should have versus what some of the writers decided on because they don't fully understand what the functions they would have for would be more useful in a military setting. My favorite out of these was the Hornet. It's really a pity and a shame they never put the Hornet back into being a playable vehicle. Oh by the way Titanfall has a pretty cool dropship which though not as durable and lacks heavy weapon systems as the Pelican does is very fast and agile in certain situations like quick drop in and get out transportation. Titanfall 2 showed these drops ships the most and it is a great game I remember fondly playing. It is a gameplay masterpiece modern gaming forsakened.

Your description of the hornet was basically the hawk

Not to mention the pelican is a kinda a combo between the those such as the V280 and the osprey, has rotatable thrusters it’s defenses are 20-30mm cannon, spartan laser ,2 ANVIL-II ASM pods and sometimes a spare turret in the back . It’s capable of carrying 1-2 mongooses and I believe around 20-30 troops in the cargo bay is capable of carrying any vehicle,cargo,portable bridge and weapon pods using the cargo length is 110.9ft width is 82.9 and height is 36.5 . Can be used in air/ground support and is able for limited space travel .it’s cousin the condor on the other hand is equipped with a slip space drive . More capable of holding more troops it’s length is 140.4 ft width is 82.6 and height is 42.5 and it’s armaments are 1 Ballista mini MAC and 5 twin pulse laser turrets (edit) would like to see what these two compare with what we have irl

Very informative. Falcon was one criminally underused aircraft. Along with the sparrowhawk.

I love the multistage Sabre system.

I agree with the UNSC vehicles you chose and which ones are for what purpose. The smallest weighs as much as a small car, even. But you left out a huge VTOL aircraft, both literally and figuratively in the franchise. The Pelican, measuring in at about the same size as a C-130, was the first non-space designated aircraft, and your input would have been very interesting given what it was up against.

I simply love this Chanel

With regards to the wasp and your new use for it I feel like the unsc would already use it that way considering how modular their other vehicular like the warthog are

The Falcon is kind of interesting. Never flew the Wasp in Halo 5. Personally, I’ve always loved the design of the Hornet. I’ve always been dlcurisous if any of these, specifically Hornet, have ever actually been made for real life use, and if so, how much fuel/mileage do they use/get?…..

Something like the wasp would never be capable of weighing that light. 9 or 10 tons makes more sense yet that’s lower then what something like that should be.

Wish the Falcon and Wasp were in Halo wars 2.

Personally I like all 3 and would like to see them all in one game.

The Wasp's shield was removed in Infinite (probably for balancing reason) but it's got to be taken into account lore-wise.

I love vertical take off and landing aircrafts

"The first one to occur chronologically is Reach" Sparrowhawk: ?

I agree, fucking wasp is too fragile for close assault purposes, it’s more suited for hit and run tactics

Wasp is essential a weaker, slower, UNSC banshee. Not very creative if you ask me, it does look cool atleast but from a sandbox design perspective there isn't a need for it. Falcon serves the role of transportation very well, one of the most useful vehicles in the franchise when used properly. The turrets give it some combat potential but the coordination of drivers and passengers (not to mention requirement of passengers) make it not only useful but very fun. Hornet is the hybrid of the other two and *screams* UNSC to me. It's got amazing combat utility and can be used as transport, but instead of turrets the passengers could use any weapon they want.

I wouldn't count to hard with how we handle passengers during gameplay in the halo games, if we're going by realism. A lot of the vehicles have passengers on the outsides and even if that exists in the real world as well once they are in combat they should get off and fight separatly like how they would do in reality. Instead of doing like in the games and acting as extra firepower while sitting on the vehicle, unless they are Spartans it should be basically impossible to aim anything anyway. I think the same can be said about how the hornets would use their passengers IRL. The hornets are very nimble so swoop in low with the passengers and then immediatly after dropping them off start providing some pretty heavy gunship support. However you would not be able to use it as a gunship as long as the passengers are onboard, I wouldn't want to sit on those pylons once rockets start being fired. I feel that could easily lead to something of a crispy situation. The Wasp is like an AH/6 Little bird helicopter even if the 7.62mm guns are in the smaller size. The sheer under-armament on the Wasp saddens me because I really love it's style. It has a really mean look that is ruined by the fact that it's lesser armed than the smallest gunships in the world. I really agree with your take though that the Falcon is the most realistic and in a real world version I would love the look of a Blackhawk helicopter also sporting an underbelly 20mm autocannon

One that I always see get looked over that I think would be the best is the sparrow hawk from halo wars I know it isnt in the main games and isn't in the multiplayer, but I think it makes in all the things you knocked the wasp and hornet for at least from what I have played of halo wars

How powerful would you say a OPD super mac gun are in destructive yields? And could a Covenant Assault Carrier survive one shot of it?

You could never pay me enough to ride a Hornet!

You forgot to include the Sparrowhawk and Vulture.

I wish sci-fi series didn't shy away from using traditional helicopters. If it moves like a helicopter, and does the same thing, just use a helicopter. They are cool.

You forgot the Hawk. Really had a cool design and was really mobile. Wish we could have actually seen it in one of the other games.

Falcon for sure. Best aircraft in the series and probably the most realistic

I’m not even subbed to this channel and yet I keep seeing the new videos. But it’s not bad

The Wasp is like a poor man version of the Buzzard. While the Hornet is like the Buzzard but with terrible seats for infantry. The Wasp should have been the bridge between jets and a helo, it should be faster then the Falcon and Hornet and have a mini gun instead of the 2 cannons it do have that does shit damage to Banshee.

I wanna hear your take on the larger vehicles like the elephant.

Realistically speaking I'd say the pelican is the best aircraft. High speed, Somehow is damn near indistructible, has rockets, missiles, guns, and cargo compasity, vtol capability. It's like a ch53 on steroids

Get this man a discord server already

Hornet first, it’s basically as close to a Apache the unsc has Second the falcon was fun in the story and I kinda wish there was bigger maps for it to shine in the multiplayer Third The wasp feels like it was supposed to be a cop out for what the sparrow hawk would of been but balance I guess

I think you are confusing the lightweight vs light-weight. Lightweight attack aircraft means Soft targets, cars, people, gun emplacements and other things where light firepower and high speed is needed. Light-weight means it dost weight a lot. Like in real life we had Light attack aircraft, medium attack aircraft, and heavy attack aircraft. now in modern day we just have attack aircraft.

Halo infinite needs a air transport vehicle to match the razorback. 2 passengers would be fine without making the razorback useless by comparison.

Wasp is too small to be useful. IRL they probably can only be used for 1 strafe run before having to refuel. I think they shouldn't exist. Hornet, I think, is equivalent to MH-6 Littlebird. Big enough to carry rockets. But the guns at the wings aren't useful - remember the UNSC literally uses 7. 62 bullets as assault rifle bullets. I think if the Hornet's armament is a single Vulcan cannon at the nose it's good. Falcon, they are good but they should use jets (fusion turbofan?) Like Hornets. This is to make them faster and more reliable.

What about the hawk from halo wars?

I always believe the falcon and pelican were probably the most realistic ones, the hornet doesn't seem realistic to have VTOL jets Consididring how small it is

Let's be honest here... Is the hornet your favorite because it's Bungie OG, or because it's not 343? Because I've seen several of y'all explain why the hornet actually kinda sucks and then still say it's your favorite lol.

Falcon all the way

Sparrowhawk ?

SparrowHawk

What about the pelican?

Falcon all the way! 💚

Hello there

The v-280 bell is gonna be a pos. Ever heard of a osprey?

1. Condor 2. Vulture 3. Wasp 4. Hawk 5. Hornet 6. Falcon 7. Nightingale 😩👌

Hornet is the most realistic honestly it’s kinda like a tiny Osprey

definitely not infinite

I've always seen the Hornets troop carrying capabilities as a special forces thing, kind of like the real world Little Bird, or at the very least a way to ferry scout sniper teams or something similar into position without having to employ a larger more noticeable airframe lile the Falcon or Pelican, let's remember the UNSC was kitted out to fight Insurgents originally, Great video, I really enjoy your approach to Halo content

Your editing and video making skills are really on point and your research really shows! Im so glad to see Halo videos anytime I can and a video that doesnt just bash The Scorpion for having quad tracks is dwfinitely sometjing I can get behind! Have you thought about making videos on the Covenant vehicles? As is a lot of human stuff could still be made but it'd be cool!

From a gameplay perspective, my personal favorite is the Falcon. Though I may be biased since Reach is my favorite game.

I like the Wasp, but it'd be the Falcon if you could use the passenger seats and gun in Multiplayer.

These mainly only fit halo where the covenant doesn't have stuff like aa

Honestly I'd compare a wasp to those crop dusters sf use for cas. Small and cheap but still mobile. Its theoretically supposed to be able to switch into a flight mode to travel faster. Its also the only one of the three I'd say would be able to do inverted maneuvers. Basically just a tiny harrier mixed with a cas platform. It also seems well suited for recon.

The top would be: 1. Condor 2. Vulture 3. Hawk 😂👌

LETS GOOO, btw Cabezon, last video I meant to comment Modern World Military (countries working together) vs Bungie's UNSC Pre Spartans. In a way where they can't destroy our earth because they need it or something. Keep up the hustle! Feel free to debate in comments!

As a pilot hornet is best. As a passenger falcon wins out. And the wasp is meh

The hornet I always felt took inspiration from the little bird

I would like to see you do a comparison between UNSC arsenals to GDI's arsenal (Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Era).

I've always felt that Banshees and especially Seraphs are too OP when it comes to dogfighting hornets, pelicans, falcons, hawks, wasps etc. I think the UNSC would benefit from a AV-8/ F-35 style VTOL Jet. In the lore there's the Skyhawk which is literally a Sparrowhawk without a tail. And halo 4's cut Wasp is a VTOL. It can go from hover to flight like a Harrier or F-35. I honestly think halo 4's Wasp was a more interesting attempt at making another UNSC air vehicle.

I think the issue with videos like this is you compare it against MODERN craft. A better idea would to be to tackle the underlying mechanics, COMPARE them to modern machines and speculate IF they could ever exist if current tech evolved or what tech would need to be made feasible for these machines to enter large scale mass production.

I feel like the Falcon would serve much like the US Little Bird; a helicopter designed for special operations and recon. Spartan teams, and possible ODST, don't need a large bird for most of their missions, and the small yet lethal package the Falcon has can give Spartan teams versatility with the CAS and recon.

I would say the falcon is the most realistic followed second by the fan-lifts like the sparrowhawk and wasp. The hornet however would be a very inefficient aircraft in real life, two words disk loading.

I know this edit will get rid of the creator heart thing If you wanted to alter the hornet's combat role into more of an escort fighter, you'd have to redesign the fuselage. If you take the skids off then you need to replace them with wheels or something as well as finding somewhere to mount the missile pods. Now if you wanted a proper vtol fighter/escort craft then look to the Hawk from Halo War 1, the super unit of Anders and is essentially an evolution of the hornet. Looks like a hornet crossed with a falcon. Stats according to halopedia are as follows: Length: 54ft (16.5m) Width: 31ft (9.6m) Height: ? Top speed: 380mph (611kph) Crew: pilot, gunner Roles: Close air support, aerial escort for ground forces Armament: 2x20mm rotary cannons (same on the Hornet and Vulture gunship), chin-mounted laser cannon (upgraded version of spartan laser, potentially same one that appears on the Gremlin in HW1) Variant AV-22B - same armament though also comes with 2x3 air to ground missile racks

TurboShafts (Helicopters), Turbo Props, and Jets all use gas turbine generators and are equally susceptible to small foreign object debris. Some military helicopters get around this by having 2 or MORE engines. Jets are more susceptible to LARGE debris (vultures, hawks, seagulls) as they don't have a rotating prop to protect the air intake.

The Hornet wasn't intended to carry people on its skids. But humanity determined that two marines with rocket launchers, sniper rifles, or spartan lasers hitching a very unsecure ride drastically increases its firepower. Also a swarm of them can facillitate some very high risk troop insertions in hot zones that would see dedicated transports shot down (like say dropping marines or Spartans onto the deck of a scarab or two). You also didn't mention the AV-19 Skyhawk, AV-22 Sparrowhawk, or AC-220 Vulture.

If you want close air support than there are far better aircraft than the wasp in the Halo series, but you need to look at the Halo Wars spin-off RTS games. Ths Sparrow Hawk for exaample is a much more belivable and grounded vtol for that role. For exemple if find the usage of the spartan laser on that Vheicle simply PREFECT. It is capable of taking down an enemy tank with one or two shots with minimal recoli and very good range. Add 20mm autocannons and a nice array of misiles and you have something very capable on your hands.

out of the three 'playable' vtol aircraft, I hate the Hornet. Gameplay controls, not the lore. Everything about how the Hornet plays compared to even the Wasp and Falcon just fails. Plus how the Hornet looks vs the Falcon and Wasp, I have barely any love for the trash that 'every fan of halo 3 loves.'

The Falcon is also far more reasonable because a helicopter type aircraft with rotors is far more efficient than a VTOL jet aircraft. Helicopter rotors produce lift rather than just pure thrust, while something like the Hornet would have to be firing its jets at high power for almost the entirety of its flight time. This will burn a whole lot more fuel, and put a lot of strain on the engines. It's one of the reasons why we haven't gotten that jet-powered osprey we saw IN GI Joe

I think the wasp in multiplayer should have been more of a support vehicle, it is a very mobile and agile vehicle which kinda makes it unfair as an assault vehicle. The Banshee is sort of funky to drive and moves most effectively as a fly by assault vehicle which means you aren’t just hovering around shooting shit as effectively which makes it more fair in combat. While the hornet is very similar to the wasp it feels more balanced since it is a little more sluggish and the missiles move slower. The Falcon is probably the best in multiplayer since it is basically an aerial warthog that is most effective when having a team based effort also it is fun as hell to drive.

9:17 that's why you'd want to put the turbofans higher up like how the hornet is designed as opposed to the wasp having so low mounted intake fans..... the hornet would be more realistic in this case because it's higher mounted engines wouldn't suck up as much debri and maybe even non considering they are at the top of the vehicle. Also i'\m pretty sure from the looks of it the falcon uses turboprops which is a jet engine that turns larger propellers.

The problem with the Hornet is that the there are parts of the flight envelope where the jet wash would hit the pax. The wasp would be a lot more realistic if it were scaled up a little, and added a weapons/sensor officer and full forward flight mode, like the C&C Orca.

Falcon's equivalent would be a Black Hawk while the Hornet can be equated well to a Little Bird.

Man I miss the Falcon wished they brought it back.

and this is why we need all 3 in one halo game

Beautiful mate loved it 👍

I can imagine all three of these VTOLs used in an air assault brigade. Though they need to be specialized. The sparrow can function like the Kiowa; scouting ahead of formation, maybe using the missiles for SEAD roles, then gain some altitude and patrol the area for enemies. The Hornets will come in soften the LZ and provide support to the following Falcons disembarking the troops. Honestly what you said in regards to the video can make a good start to the TO&E of an air assault battalion. Hell even if the Hornet takes the role of a future Little Bird helicopter, the chin mounted 20mm of the falcon can be co-opted to a gunship role. Some UH-1s were fitted with gimbaled forward firing machine guns and rocket pods. My personal favorite is the falcon, flying around forge world, doing touch and go’s, maneuvering between obstacles was a good way of relaxing.

Keep making vids

I think that all of these have space in the universe, the falcon is kind of like a midsize vtol transport, maybe close to the a smaller Blackhawk or Huey, while the hornet is more like the little bird, giving quick dismount and close air, and the hawk is a focus on close air.

Nice video bro keep it up

The Sparrowhawk is. It uses jets for VTOL with large intakes on top and these jets can rotate in a wide range of directions allowing it to hover and to propel itself forward quickly. However, unlike the Hornet, it has engines positioned solely for forward thrust as well, meaning it can quickly move to other battlefields on a surface war instead of being restricted to a very small area. The fact combat on planets in Halo are worldwide is a strong reason for why the Hornet is the least realistic. The Falcon could at least logically rotate its engines forward more and combine the props with the large jet engines attached to them and I think has some engines on the top rear as well. The Hornet, on the other hand, is completely immobile from the small area it is deployed in without being transported by other large aircraft or by a ship, which is a huge waste of resources compared to it simply moving to other battlefields under its own power.