UN Heavy Fighter Jet VTOL

Two large jets mounted at the wings let this craft hover, pivot, and dart between positions, backed by smaller nozzles set into either side of the tail. Slim, elongated pods with blue accents run along each flank to stow the landing gear, while dome fairings on the fuselage appear to carry radar or communications equipment. A pitot tube sits between the paired pilot canopies, intakes line the hull, and a short antenna rises just ahead of the tail.

Liveries vary by service. United Nations machines wear gray broken up by orange and blue trim, with amber-tinted glazing over the cockpit. NERV airframes trade the UN roundel for the agency's own emblem and stretch the canopy over what looks like extra internal capacity.

The type serves as an attack platform against Angels. Hardpoints under each wing accept weapons or mission equipment, with rocket pods the loadout seen most often. Its combat record starts in Episode 01, where a formation bombards Sachiel to no lasting effect, and the aircraft reappears regularly across the television run. The End of Evangelion introduces a JSSDF variant coated in olive drab camouflage for the assault on NERV.

Three organizations field the design: the United Nations, NERV, and Japan's Strategic Self Defense Force. According to Evangelion Chronicle, fans have speculated that the twin lift engines take conceptual cues from the Soviet Yakovlev Yak-38.