Image: Black plane's cockpit

Image: Camo plane's front

Image: Black plane's ordnance

Image: Top/rear view, black plane in flight

Image: Top/rear view, camo plane on ground

Image: Black plane with book

Scale: 1/144
Source: Count Zero, William Gibson.

This is my representation of the "multi-mission combat aircraft" described in chapters 7, 11, 14, 17, and 36 of William Gibson's Count Zero. Referred to in the book as "the jet" or "the plane," this aircraft was purchased from a San Diego arms dealer and used by the protagonist, Turner, to help a defecting scientist escape from the corporation that employed him.

The machine features an "articulated carbon fiber airframe" which adjusts to different flight attitudes and circumstances (p.96). The aircraft has the attributes of a jump jet, but is also capable of supersonic flight. Most impressively, the plane has rudimentary intelligence-- it is "smart as any dog" and can communicate with the pilot through an interface plug to the brain (p.125). With the pilot unconscious, the plane lands itself and employs "hard-wired instincts of concealment" to hide in a dense wood (p.125). The aircraft's skin is made of a "mimetic polycarbon" which can copy surrounding patterns and colors (p. 125).

I represented the plane in three configurations: subsonic flight, hovering near ground level, and concealed by its mimetic disguise. I kit-bashed various 1/144 scale aircraft kits: the fuselage weds a Mil-24D gunship to an A-10 tankbuster while the wings contain the A-10's engine nacelles and the sweep-wings from an F-14 fighter. An F-15's tailplanes and intakes round out the package.

I chose to paint the flying aircraft in satin black since Gibson describes the plane as an unlit black shadow while in flight (p.96). The concealed mode went through a number of paint schemes before I decided that the lozenge skin of a 1/72 scale WWI biplane was most appropriate.

Gibson's descriptions of the plane are detailed in the fine scale (the interior has the "new-car smell of long-chain monomers" and the airframe quivers like a live thing during take-off (p.98)), but he's short on overall descriptions of the plane's shape. I improvised and spent most of my creative vision on having the skeleton adjust to the demands of various missions and flight characteristics. I decided that weapons in Gibson's world would be more electronic and less ballistic, so I gave the plane only a small internal missile bay and an after-market gun-pod along the chin, but accentuated the machine's electronic warfare talent with a big ECM pod up front.

Ultimately, this is just a prototype for the 1/48 scale rendition I plan to build featuring fully hinged and positionable wings, tailplanes, and engines. It'll even have pilot and passenger figures tailored to the characters. Unfortunately, working mimetics are probably a long-way down the road...