Much of the Clone Star Empire is, to be honest, fairly unimportant. These worlds are known as "secondary planets" in the empire, they do not have the mineral wealth of say Lomar or the strategic importance of a Randalf 74 but they are planets in the empire and thus need defending.
Usually air defence is handled by a few squadrons of F-40s however now the HCSAF is considering a small cheap light fighter to protect the airspace over these planets. The rationale being that these planets tend to be protected by older F-40s which are more expensive to run and a single engined light fighter would yield considerable running cost savings.
The state military aircraft manufacturer CAC has been tasked with designing a light fighter, probably to be known as the F-47, which will be designed for these secondary planets and be cheap to buy and run (though will still be a decent warplane). A finalised design specification could be presented by the Summer. The HCSAF aims to buy 1000 of these aircraft to replace the oldest F-40s, this would also enable the forthcoming F-45C purchase to be reduced by 100-150 aircraft. Another considerable cost saving.
