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world-without-authors · 4 years

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The Vehicles of Wings of Canon: Planes

As you’ve like noticed, the current arc of The World Without Authors has a lot of focus on aerial dogfighting. As my fellow cowrite Aelit, my beta reader Doctorlit, and most of my readers (so pretty much everyone) aren’t much knowledgeable about fighter jets, I thought this is a good time to add some infos about the planes featured in the story so far.

I will mostly give some background info and add photos of real world examples for context (where applicable), as for the boring technical stats there’s always Wikipedia, that does a better job than I’ll ever do!

MCDONNELL DOUGLAS F-4E PHANTOM II

An USAF F-4E in the light grey air superiority livery, which as you can see from Chapter 1’s illustrations is actually different from the Strike Dove one. Johnson’s plane was likely mothballed while in this livery, but during Vietnam War service it likely had the SEA green and tan camouflage.

The F-4 Phantom II is an old third generation fighter jet from the Vietnam War era. Designed as an interceptor, it also saw use as a fighter-bomber. More than 5,000 were built in the real world, and it still being used by some countries though mostly in a reconnaissance role. (As it was sort-of-mentioned in the last chapter, Japan still had F-4EJ and RF-4EJs in service as of 2014, and they still have a few F-4EJ now though the last squadron is expected to switch to F-35s soon.)

While not exactly the best in class manoeuvrability-wise, it had an incredible amount of thrust for the time and was heavily armed, being able to carry up to eight missiles or a dozen bombs. Earlier version didn’t feature an internal cannon, but from the F-4E they were equipped with a M61 Vulcan 20mm rotary cannon in the “chin”.

Normally, a F-4 requires a pilot and a Radar Inteception Officer, but Johnson’s F-4E received an avionics upgrade while being restored to combat-ready condition including AIM-120 compatibility (which USAF Phantoms never carried AFAIK but some Greek F-4Es did) which, being an active radar homing missile instead of a semi-active one like the AIM-7 usually carried by the Phantoms, means that the single F-4E converted to Strike Dove specifications is combat-wise a single seat fighter, and as such the rear seat is mostly a passenger seat now. As a former USAF aircraft, its tail code followed their standards with just the alterations needed to denote it being a Strike Dove aircraft now. its full code is DV SD 14 364, which denotes an aircraft stationed at Strike Dove’s headquarters (DV, an abbreviation which AFAIK isn’t used by any USAF air base or carrier), owned by Strike Dove Inc. (SD), commissioned in 2014 (14) and its serial number ending in 364. For practical reasons, though, it is mostly referred as DV 364 or Phantom 364.

As of Chapter 4, it further received modification with parts from its Ace Combat equivalent, allowing it to carry the ridiculous amount of ordinance the series is known for.

NORTHROP F-5F TIGER II

A F-5F of the Swiss Air Force. While a bit lighter, the livery is very similar to Strike Dove’s one.

The F-5F Tiger II is a light fighter also from the Vietnam War era, though it didn’t serve during that war (earlier variants of the F-5 were deployed there instead) and, in fact, alongside the F-5E single seater version never saw combat with the USAF.

The F variant is the dual seater conversion trainer for the E variant, and as such it features flight controls for both occupants, usually a student pilot in front and an instructor in the back. As Johnson was planning to build up a fleet of F-5Es for Strike Dove, the single F-5F was meant to train new Strike Dove pilots on how to operate Tiger IIs.

All F-5 variants have a fairly limited ordinance carrying capacity, something slightly mitigated by the addition of wingtip rails for AIM-9 missiles in the E and F variants. On top of that, in order to make space for the avionics displaced by the second seat the the F-5F had to sacrifice one of the M39 20mm cannons and most of the ammo storage for the other, leaving it with only 140 rounds (and causing Sergio to run out of ammo in Chapter 2).

Like the Phantom, Strike Dove’s Tiger II received Ace Combat-verse pylons and equipment in Chapter 4 somewhat improving its capabilities, but after the rescue of Nikki and Razgriz Squadron it got relegated to second line as Strike Dove and its allies got hold of better aircraft.

The F-5F in Strike Dove service has tail code DV SD 14 027, usually abbreviated in DV 027.

GRUMMAN F-14A TOMCAT

A F-14A Tomcat. Even by today’s standards, it is a very sleek aircraft.

The F-14A Tomcat is a carrier-based interceptor fighter designed for the US Navy in the late 60s and early 70s. It had barely entered service by the end of the Vietnam War, with its first aerial kills coming only in later incidents.

The aircraft was in service in the US Navy and is apparently is still in service today in Iran. As the two countries are pretty much sworn enemies now, this led to the fact that all surviving US aircraft are in permanently non-flyable conditions in museums as the US armed forces went through the trouble of shredding everything else related to the aircraft to simply force the Iranians to run out of spare parts for theirs.

Kind of a shame, for such an iconic and good-looking aircraft, but luckily that’s not the case in the Ace Combat universe, where it is built by different manifacturers and is in service with… well, pretty much every single air force in that world really. The most notable users are Wardog Squadron and its successor Razgriz Squadron, pilots from which feature as part of the extended cast of The World Without Authors, and so four Tomcats are with Strike Dove and the Wolfram now: airframes KT 007, KT 024 and KT 221 from Razgriz Squadron (flown by Nagase, Grimm and Snow) and airframe NZ 016 from Wardog Squadron (technically Blaze’s, but now flown by Davenport)

Tomcats are two seater jets, with a pilot in front and a RIO in the back, but the games never mention Wardog or Razgriz RIOs (as, depending on player choice, they could be flying anything between a single seat fighter to a four seat EA-6B Prowler), so I skated the issue by having all of them coming from situations in which it could be acceptable for the rear seat to be unoccupied, even finding a way of filling the plothole of the poor sod in Davenport’s back seat not being mentioned at all during the Journey Home mission.

We can assume that by the time Razgriz Squadron becomes a Strike Dove unit their planes were either fitted with a way to use their weaponry without a RIO, only fitted with ordinance that didn’t require one, or some people from the Wolfram and/or survivors from the Kumaneko were hastly trained to be their RIOs. The Razgriz planes retained their tailcodes, but Davenport’s has been resprayed in Razgriz livery and the tailcode changed into KT 008.

One last note, the F-14 was the main inspiration for the VF-1 Valkyrie from the Macross series, which will likely feature in the future.

LOCKHEED MARTIN F-22A RAPTOR

An USAF F-22A. In the real world, Raptors are only fielded by the Unites States due to a strict sales ban to protect the aicraft’s classified parts.

The F-22A Raptor is the current air superiority fighter of the USAF. It is the first aircraft of this type to be designed from the ground up as a stealth aircraft, and as such can carry most of its ordinance in internal bays.

Sergio commandeered one for his own use during a PPC mission, which remained in Corolla’s possession after his retirement but, luckily for him, she brought it along during the Unravel. As Strike Dove doesn’t have any other aircraft of this design, the Raptor can be considered to be Sergio’s signature aircraft. Something that already led Belkan pilots to be wary of the “Raptor with the white bird on the tail”.

Sergio’s Raptor came from an Ace Combat badfic, and as such it is already equipped with whatever allows the Ace Combat aircraft to carry dozens of missiles. It was originally fielded in a badfic copy of Heierlark Air Base (called Hierlark Air Base in the fic), and as such carried tailcode HK 032. After the repaint mentioned in Chapter 7, however, it received Strike Dove tailcode DV 001. As it was officially commissioned in Strike Dove after the Unravel, while Strike Dove doesn’t have an actual headquarter and people come from different years, the airbase and year markers were dropped, with DV becoming the identification code for Skystreaker Squadron as a way to pay respect to the Strike Dove personnel lost in the Unravel.

FB-22C SILENT RAPTOR

Corolla’s FB-22C, still with it old PPC markings.

The FB-22C Silent Raptor is a stealth strike aircraft Corolla made by modyfying a FB-22 Strike Raptor she claimed for herself during the same mission in which Sergio obtained his F-22A.

In the real world, the FB-22 Strike Raptor, a delta-winged derivative of the F-22A proposed for the strike bomber role, never left the drawing board, but it has been produced in limited quantities in the Ace Combat universe. Corolla modified the design by removing the vertical tails and revising the other control surfaces to compensate, sacrificing stability for better speed and stealth. (What did you expect from her, really?) thus obtaining her one-of-a-kind custom she christened the FB-22C Silent Raptor.

Like the regular Raptor, the Silent Raptor carries its ordinance internally, with a bigger main weapons bay than the Raptor (the proposed Strike Raptor was to carry thirty Small Diameter Bombs compared to the Raptor’s eight) and has a distinct advanage in speed and stealth, making it the fastest of the aircraft currently owned by Strike Dove.

The Silent Raptor originally carried the spurious tailcode PACS-0, which in Corolla’s mind was “PPC Air Command Squadron Zero”, but said squadron doesn’t officially exist in PPC records. Upon Corolla’s official switch to Strike Dove the tailcode was replaced with DV 003, reflecting her callsign Skystreaker 3 and leaving an open space in the numeration to allow Ami (Skystreaker 2) to claim DV 002 for her own aircraft in the future.

MITSUBISHI F-15J EAGLE

A F-15J from the Japan Air Self Defence Force, the sole user of the design

The F-15J is a variant of the McDonnell Douglas F-15C built by Mitsubishi for the JASDF. It is currently Japan’s air superiority fighter.

A F-15J in disrepair and originally slated for scrapping, airframe number 018, was assigned to Nikki during her brief stint as a Spare Squadron pilot. After her rescue, the aircraft was put in storage as DV 018. The tailcode was given only as a way to refer to the particular airframe on the ground, as it was deemed beyond repair by Corolla. The cockpit area is being converted into a simulator, while the rest is being dismantled in the hope some of its parts are still in decent enough condition to be overhauled as spares for the other Eagles in Strike Dove service.

MCDONNELL DOUGLAS F-15S/MTD

The sole F-15 STOL/MTD, with the engine configuation as featured in the Ace Combat games. The real aircraft was eventually fitted with round 3D thrust vectoring nozzles.

The F-15S/MTD is a development variant of the F-15 Eagle fitted with canards and thrust vectoring nozzles. While only one was built in real life, in the Ace Combat universe the design saw service with the Osean and Belkan air forces. The design never went in full adoption, with fielded examples retaining the instrumentation probe of the test variant.

Having been converted from a conversion trainer F-15B in real life, I’m not sure what the backseaters of the F-15S/MTDs actually do in Ace Combat – the F-15C and J air superiority versions are single seaters, and the F-15S/MTD is more geared towards being an air superiority fighter too. I guess it could be for a Weapon System Officer for strike missions, as the F-15E does have a seat for a WSO in the back. However, most of the functions of a WSO are done by the AWACS aircraft in Ace Combat-style warfare, so I guess the backseat of Strike Dove’s Eagles will be empty more often than not.

It has improved maneverability over the regulat F-15 variants, making it a favourite of several ace squadrons, and also earning Nikki’s appreciation after Strike Dove captured several Belkan Air Force ones.

Strike Dove currently has eleven F-15S/MTDs, but plans are to convert as many of them as possible to F-15J+ Kai Eagle Plus specs. So far, the only one I’ve confirmed the tail code for is the one Ami flew in Chapter 7, DV 005.

F-15J KAI EAGLE PLUS

A really nicely made scale model of an Eagle Plus.

The F-15J Kai Eagle Plus is a fictional upgrade of the F-15J that featured in Patlabor. With its enlarged control surfaces and F-22A Raptor-style thrust vectoring nozzles, the Eagle Plus looks like an improved S/MTD and I decided to consider it as such. I really like its design, and I decided to use its obscurity as a way to give Strike Dove a distinctive fighter for at least part of the Unravel arc.

Strike Dove currently owns two, captured from a Belkan Air Force base that had in turn captured them somewhere else. One was partially dismantled by the Belkans for study and is being reassembled, while the other has been already pressed into service with tail code DV 006, and is the one Nikki flew in Chapter 7.

Corolla has plans to convert the F-15S/MTDs to Eagle Plus specs, though it won’t be a perfect conversion as the Eagle Plus is a single seater while the S/MTD is a two seater. It is likely that a F-15DJ Kai Eagle Plus conversion trainer existed in the Patlabor universe, but again as I don’t know if the rear seat of the S/MTD had controls in the Ace Combat universe so that might not be a correct designation for it either. I guess I’ll come up with something once the converted planes start rolling out…

SUKHOI SU-47 BERKUT

The Su-47 demonstrator during an air show.

The Su-47 Berkut is, like the F-15S/MTD, an aircraft built only for development purposed in the real world that has been adapted as a fighter in the Ace Combat games. Known for its distinctive forward-swept wings, as per its fictional depictions it is a very agile aircraft and among the favourites of Ashley “Grabacr” Bernitz, who flew it during the Belkan War.

Technically, his squadron should’ve been equpped with S-32s, a fictional variant based on earlier development designs, as they were the aircraft they flew in the last mission of Ace Combat 5. However, the S-32 is obscure even by Ace Combat standards, having featured only in that game and the ones for hand-held consoles, so I don’t think it is much of a stretch to think Bernitz and the newly reformed Grabacr Squadron simply couldn’t get their hands on more S-32s and actually had to make do with the similar and easier to obtain Su-47 (which, again it is a design he actually flew)

TYPE II GADGET DRONE

A squadron of five Type II Gadget Drones. I’m sorry for the low quality, but there’s very few images of them around.

The Type II Gadget Drone is an autonomous combat drone that featured in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. While other Gadget Drones do feature some flying ability, the Type II is the only one that can be considered a proper aircraft.

Its armament consists in missiles and one oversized laser cannon under each wing. Combined with its plausible flying wing design, 444th Air Base’s higher command had no reason to suspect it was any different from aerial weapons that already existed in their world, leading to Spare Squadron getting slaughtered by them.

MIKOYAN-GUREVICH MIG-21

A MiG-21 in Soviet livery. It has seen better days.

The MiG-21, NATO reporting name “Fishbed”, is a Vietnam War era light fighter developed by the Soviet Union. While it was a sizeable threat back then, nowadays is a very obsolete aircraft that in the Ace Combat games is used as cannon fodder for the player in the early missions.

The ones featured in Chapter 7 were actually old airframes converted into drones with a flight control system reverse-engineerd from the Type II Gadget Drones to be used as disposable decoy fighters in big numbers to distract the JASDF and make them waste planes and ordinance before the real attack force sneaked in.

BM-335 LINDWURM

Fitting for its origin as a Belkan plane, the Bm-335 does look like something out of WWII Germany.

The Bm-335 Lindwurm is a Belkan bomber from the Ace Combat universe. It is a very old design, having entered service in the 50s, with a distinctive double fuselage necessary to house both its oversized night bombing radar and the similarly oversized nuclear bombs of the era.

An outdated design by the Belkan War in 1995, it was infamously used by the Belkan Air Force during the self-bombing of the Waldreich Mountains, in which seven nuclear bombs were detonated in Belkan soil.

As Belkan forces had more advanced aircraft available even in the world that formed after the Unravel, several Bm-335s were outfitted with the flight control system reverse-engineered from Type II Gadget Drones to act as a decoy disposable bomber force.

NORTHROP GRUMMAN B-2A SPIRIT

A B-2A Spirit. Note how it is individually named like a ship – not surprising, since they’re worth more than their weight in gold and only 21 were made.

The B-2A Spirit is a stealth bomber developed for the USAF. In the Ace Combat universe, Belka fielded several of them, and the two B-2A pilots featured in Chapter 7, Vulkan and Felsen, are actual pilots from Ace Combat 0. Presumably, the versions of them featured in the story are from before they defected to A World With No Boundaries.

During the failed attack on Tokyo in Chapter 7, B-2As were used as the actual bombing force, escorted by Sukhoi Sv-51s. Both aircraft featured strealth and radar jamming equipment, and were supposed to sneak by thanks to the confusion caused by the decoy drone MiG-21s and Bm-335s, but were discovered and either shot down or forced to retreat.

SUKHOI-IAI-DORNIER SV-51

A scale model of the Sv-51 in fighter mode.

The Sv-51 is the first Variable Fighter design to appear in World Without Authors (if you discount the static appearance of VF-25s and VF-31s), flown by Svafnir Squadron to escort two B-2As.

A very early Variable Fighter design, it was developed in the Macross universe by Anti-UN forces in the early 2000s, and as such doesn’t have some of the iconic features of Variable Fighters like thermonuclear turbines. While fairly obsolete by Macross standards, it is still a cutting edge machine compared to modern conventional fighter designs thanks to its three-modes trnasformation system and superior agility and engine power.

As no reporting name or nickname was ever given for it in the Macross shows, I took the liberty of having the NATO forces in the leftover world give it the reporting name “Flapper” inspired by how the wings fold up when changing modes.

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