The VB-02 VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) craft, codenamed Vertibird, is a pre-War military multipurpose Tiltwing aircraft extensively used by the Enclave in post-war America. It has a heavily armored fuselage and can be outfitted with a variety of offensive weapons and defensive countermeasures, the most common being a Gatling Laser and a missile rack. It is powered by an internal fission reactor, which has been known to detonate under heavy fire. They have a winch that can haul several tons of equipment - or a large cage carrying a Deathclaw.
The Vertibird was still in prototype phase when the Great War struck in 2077, preventing it from entering full military service (scheduled for 2085). However, the trial aircraft that were already produced and in the field were seized by Enclave members and loyalists and either transferred to their bases or secured in shelters. The Enclave began mass-producing the design in secret, and now the Vertibird is the general-purpose delivery vehicle of the Enclave's military forces. Capable of surgical insertions and extractions and close air support alike, the Vertibird is synonymous with the Enclave in general, and a good representative of its power as a whole.
There are two versions of the craft used by the Enclave:
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Vertibirds are mostly support craft, but they will attack you in a few circumstances, especially during the mission Take it Back! They are a significant threat for a wide array of reasons, but the biggest is that they pack an enormous amount of firepower on an extremely well-armored chassis. Their weapons include a nose-mounted Gatling Laser, a pair of Missile Launchers, and a bomb rack that can drop Mini Nukes. All of these weapons are threatening; the Missile Launcher deals heavy damage and can hurl you off high objects (such as bridges) to your untimely death. The Gatling Laser can deal a lot of damage from afar, and the Mini Nukes, used in airstrikes against heavy targets and emplaced defenses, can kill a player (or their party) instantaneously.
Fortunately, the Vertibirds you face are usually set for a specific assignment - either dropping Enclave troops off, or flying racetrack circles and providing fire support. Vertibirds on insertion/extraction duty are not capable of attacking, but their dropping off troops can be problematic, as Enclave Soldiers are one of the toughest hostile factions in the Capital Wasteland.
Vertibirds tasked with fire support are the biggest threat, as they eliminate engaging hostile forces to back up Enclave troops on the ground. These Vertibirds often perform bombing runs with small-level nuclear charges, and make several passes to eliminate any resistance in the area. Vertibirds on these support flights may open fire on you with their Missile Launchers or Gatling Lasers, though they do not use them as much as their Mini Nukes.
You can sometimes find parked Vertibirds. One noteworthy one is on the steps of the Capitol Building, and there's another a short distance northward of Vault 101. These can be destroyed too, much to the horror of any Enclave troops stationed nearby. Upon finding one of the parked Vertibirds, there should be a cage containing a Deathclaw inside. With this noted, make sure you take out the Enclave Officer nearest to the cage before taking on the rest, also a soldier may pick the key off their fallen commrade as then the soldier may release it, thus sending it after you.
There is a model in the Museum of Technology on the left after going through the Vault then through the door on the left. It is broken.
In Fallout 3 Vertibirds can be destroyed with heavy ordnance, though they cannot be targetted in V.A.T.S. Note that the explosion of military-grade fuel powering a Vertibird is significantly larger than the explosion of a car or truck - proximity to an exploding Vertibird guarantees critical injury or death. There is a great deal of scrap thrown into the air when a Vertibird is destroyed. Should you search the area afterward, you may see propellers and whatnot lying on the ground. You can find dead Enclave troops nearby the debris, though they are empty even though the have armor on them.
If the troops have already disembarked and are close enough when the Vertibird is destroyed, the resulting explosion will kill them. If they are still aboard, they will be destroyed along with any possible loot. However - the troops instantaneously appear about 1.5 seconds after the vehicle lands, after it throttles up to take off; if destroyed before this narrow window, the troops may appear on the ground completely unscathed. Wait for the "enemy" tags to appear on your radar to administer the killing blow - the Vertibird by itself will not make one.
The Fat Man, Plasma Rifle, Gatling Laser, and most other heavy weaponry can take down these machines with little difficulty; Nuka Grenades and Plasma Grenades can too, though this can be slightly more tricky. The Tesla Cannon can easily take out a Vertibird in one shot. As a benchmark, on Hard difficulty it takes exactly: 12 shots from A3-21's Plasma Rifle, or 2 Nuka Grenades, or 11 shots with Lincoln's Repeater to bring one down. The Tesla Cannon destroys attacking vertibirds in one shot, but not transport vertibirds [Confirmed PC] Given the very short window of opportunity to target it, a fast-firing weapon is recommended and only while firing at the engine's, firing at the fuselage won't work.
Note: It takes 4-5 hits from the Gauss Rifle from the Operation Anchorage DLC.
In Fallout 3, the largest concentration of Vertibirds the player will have to face is in the quest Take it Back!, and these will be automatically destroyed by Liberty Prime as it advances. This does not prevent the player from destroying them on their own, however, and Vertibirds are easier for the player to destroy during this quest as they tend to hover while engaging Liberty Prime instead of flying at full speed, and can even be dispatched by repeated hits with a laser pistol or rifle. At Adams Air Force Base in the Broken Steel add-on, the player can find a couple of parked Vertibirds in front of the hangars.
Vertibird range was at least 175 miles distance between the oil rig and Navarro. Accessible were Klamath[1], Redding, Gecko[2], New Reno and Vault 13. According to the Shi, Vertibirds flew over San Francisco on the way from Navarro to the oil rig.
The name "Vertibird" is the trademark for a toy helicopter playset popular in the 70's. Some design aspects of the unusual aircraft appear to be inspired by that hovering insect, the dragonfly. For example, the six legged landing gear and twin bulges in the forward fuselage.
The designation "VB-02" would, in real-world US military usage, indicate that it is a bomber aircraft. As the Vertibird's primary roles appear to be transport and ground attack, the "VB" prefix seems to be simply intended as an abbreviation of Vertibird. In post-1962 US Department of Defense nomenclature, the transport variation's designation would probably be CV-2, meaning "cargo/transport VTOL, design number 2", with the gunship variant being "A/CV-2", meaning "Attack Purposed, Cargo/Transport VTOL, design number 2".
In the Operation Anchorage DLC, a winterized prototype appears as support for American troops
In the Broken Steel add-on, you fly back to the Citadel in a Vertibird captured by the Brotherhood.
Vertibirds appear in Fallout 2 and Fallout 3.
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