D102 Owl

The D102 Insertion Craft, commonly known as an Owl, is a stealth insertion craft in service with the UNSC Navy following the Human-Covenant War.

Design details
The D102 was designed by the Office of Naval Intelligence and NAVSPECWAR as a possible successor to the long-running Pelican line of dropships, and was thus built with speed and stealth as major considerations. Despite being similar in operation, the Owl lacks the stealth coatings and countermeasures found on ONI subprowlers, but instead require far less specialised maintenance and operational training. The result is a craft much more suitable for widespread use across the United Nations Space Command than the or. Despite this, the Owl is considered to be stealth-capable, and is covered in a nanoblack biopolymer coating for this purpose, and features a cockpit made of aluminium oxynitride - a transparent aluminium ceramic that does not bend easily. Like most dropships, the Owl is hardened against electromagnetic pulses.

The D102 uses a double-cockpit design, with the co-pilot sat above and behind the pilot, with a bubble canopy covering each crewmember. The cockpits do not have any connection into the rear cargo bay. While transparent like glass, transparent aluminum is designed to withstand impacts from Covenant plasma cannons. One such canopy was strong enough to resist the efforts of a Spartan-II wearing MJOLNIR armor, though buckled and gave way under the combined efforts of two.

The crafts resemble a slightly smaller, lightly armored Pelican dropship, with the most notable difference being the Owl's cloud-gray finish and downward-curved wings. The Owl uses pivoting thrust nacelles to allow the craft to hover, and has a boarding ramp near its tail. The Owl's passenger cabin is cramped, with seats for a total of twenty passengers. Automatic crash harnesses ensure that passengers are safely secured within the Owl's seats. Aside from the ten inward-facing seats, the cabin contains a weapons locker at the forward bulkhead and enough space between the seats to hold at least two Mongoose quad bikes. Owls have no artificial gravity, and do not have interior lighting during daytime operations.

Armament
Although intended for stealth, the Owl is equipped with a few weapons for defensive purposes. They include six internally-stocked Argent V missiles on two missile launchers, two Anvil-II air-to-surface missile pods and a single retractable M370 autocannon mounted in under the craft's chin.

Identified Owls

 * - Owl used during Operation: JOVIAN WHISTLE.
 * - Owl attached to prowler, destroyed during Operation: WOLFE.

Operational history
The Owl project was active in the Human-Covenant War, as a possible successor to the ubiquitous Pelican dropship series. However, delays and resource reallocation meant that the Owl was not accessible through standard production channels until 2550, with only a handful of units having access to it at this time.

Owls were used during the conflict on the human Outer Colony of Gao. Admiral Tuwa's battle group attempted to reinforce the 717th Xeno-Materials Exploitation Battalion on the planet with Owls and Pelicans, but the crafts were attacked and either driven off or destroyed by the Gao Space Navy's fleet of patrol corvettes. An Owl, the, was later used to extract Blue Team, Veta Lopis, and a Forerunner ancilla on the planet just before a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon destroyed a local Forerunner installation.

Another Owl, the was used by Blue Team during Operation: WOLFE. During insertion, the ship was badly damaged while attempting to avoid a Seraph patrol and had to make a crash landing on the surface of Reach.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Last Light
 * Halo: Retribution
 * Halo: Shadows of Reach
 * Halo: Divine Wind
 * Halo: Outcasts