The RDA Handgun, one of the two types of sidearms seen in Avatar, is the standard sidearm of RDA Security Operations (SecOps) personnel. It is a semi-automatic pistol designed and manufactured by Hirte & Fahl Arms Ltd., and produced on Pandora under license for SecOps' use. This weapon is favored by the RDA for its simplicity, durability and low production cost, though it is often regarded as insufficiently powerful by SecOps personnel.
This weapon is not to be confused with the Masa-Cirre WASP revolver, which Col. Miles Quaritch is seen to wield.
Design & Performance[]
The RDA Handgun is a slide-based, composite-framed semi-automatic pistol, similar to contemporary weapons. It bears a distinctive visual appearance due to its large trigger guard, enclosed slide, forward position of the grip relative to the slide, frame profile and its unique two-tone coloration.
The weapon is magazine-fed from a box magazine of unknown capacity located in the grip. It fires a proprietary 8mm cartridge. The power and effectiveness of this round is unknown (as are its ballistic properties and the projectile types used in SecOps service), but SecOps personnel typically consider it inadequate for defense against Pandoran predators and hostile Na'vi. Purchase of a non-standard sidearm (such as the WASP revolver) to replace this weapon was common among higher-ranking personnel, including Miles Quaritch. In the film, a door gunner on an Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson is seen firing at an attacking mountain banshee with this weapon, to little effect.
Appearances[]
- Trudy Chacón uses this weapon to threaten and force down a guard in the process of freeing Jake Sully, Grace Augustine and Norm Spellman from a detention cell after the Destruction of the Hometree. Pushing a serving cart, she remarks that the "tree-hugging traitors" don't deserve its contents of steak. When the guard bends down to inspect the cart, Trudy holds him at gunpoint, forces him to the ground and knocks him unconscious with the weapon.
- Jake and Norm also wield this pistol and cover the team's escape after their jailbreak. The weapons were likely taken from SecOps personnel subdued or captured in the escape. In a deleted scene, Jake uses the weapon to threaten and force down a SecOps soldier on the airfield who attempts to interfere with the team's escape.
- In a deleted scene, SecOps Cpl. Lyle Wainfleet uses this weapon to shoot and kill a stingbat that attacks new recruits leaving Valkyrie 16 and entering Hell's Gate.
- During the Battle for the Tree of Souls, the left door gunner on an Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson fires this weapon many times in self-defense at a mountain banshee after it tears the craft's other gunner from his post and attempts to reach the left gunner through the aircraft's cargo bay. He is then grabbed and thrown to his death by a second banshee. The fate of the banshee which received the fire is unknown, although the fire was largely ineffective at stopping the banshee's attacks.
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