Juumanistra
08-09-2007, 05:52
The Annals of Aeronautics and Aviation
Shooting Down Rival Trade Rags Since 1829!
Volume 87, Issue 3, July 1914 Edition
The Horse’s Empennage
By: Sojirou Yamanaka
A black shape careens through the night skies, unseen by both men and machines, destroying any and all aircraft that dare to oppose it. Such is, at the very least, the image of the TF-70 Falsetto that the Tyrandis Precision Machine Import/Export Corporation has dutifully cultivated in the minds of both industry experts and laymen the world over as the aircraft has, they regale all who shall listen, taken on the world and won.
It is, as well, a complete and total load.
Now I’m sure more than a few readers are questioning my sanity: Sojirou, how can you question a 13,000:0 kill ratio? Familiarity, I suppose, breeds contempt: Having spent ten years with TPMI/EC’s design bureau, I’ve developed a Pavlovian disbelief in all that the corporation sends through its PR department. Personal biases aside, there is the little matter of what’s omitted from that wonderful kill ratio: Who, precisely, it’s been scored against. One would think that TPMI/EC would be trumpeting just what has been killed, as well, as part of its drive to whip up even more business for its export-dependent operations. Unless, of course, that this omission is because acknowledging who, and what, has been shot down would damage the credibility of the kill ratio.
And, wouldn’t you know it, the list reads rather like who’s-who of the world’s most daringly incompetent and terminally ineffective air forces.
Without question the most (in)famous of the names on this List of the Damned is Kahanistan, a nation whose armed forces seem to exist only to tug at the heart-strings of liberal nations and then squander the resultant sympathy through their criminal stupidity and incompetence, with some 5,000 Kahanistani aircraft, mostly of Macabeean design, lost to the Falsetto. The faults of the Kahanistani Air Force – poor training, insane procurement policies, faulty doctrine, ineffective leadership, questionable tactics, and a complete disregard to aerial combined arms – cannot hope to be addressed sufficiently in this article, so it is merely sufficient to mention that the KAF was one of the world’s most dysfunctional air forces in the world before the Doomani appeared overhead and the KAF’s central command imploded. Under the circumstances in which Doomani pilots found themselves – with the KAF forfeiting the initiative and an enemy with little, if any, airborne logistics capabilities – finishing school students in rusting Ni-27 Wasps could have just as easily obliterated Kahanistan’s aerial warfare capabilities as ACID lackeys in aircraft that can best be described as flying coffins.
Much of the rest of the list, which constitute the vast, vast majority of the 8,000 or so outstanding Falsetto kills, can roughly be attributed to the “Allied Liberation Forces” of ViZion, a hodgepodge of ViZionian, Jarridian, Xeraphite, and myriad middling and minor powers who were devastated by Doomani and Pwnagean air power during the War of ViZionian Freedom. “Allied” is, of course, a gross misnomer: There was no central command of the sort normally associated with such things, which was one of the major reasons for their complete and utter routing in the skies. The other, of course, was the quality of their aircraft and the tactics used by them: Swarms of uncoordinated MiG-21s and late-model Flanker knock-offs, with no airborne command and control and for the most part without beyond visual range engagement capabilities might as well be a fighter pilot’s wet dream, provided he’s got a modern aircraft with proper stand-off engagement capabilities. TPMI/EC might as well simply fire missiles at drones on a test range in Tyrandis: It would, after all, be a truer reflection on the Falsetto’s capabilities than its capability to destroy museum pieces in the hands of doctrinally- and organizationally-challenged Neanderthals.
So, there you have it, the truth laid bare: The TF-70 does, indeed, have a kill ratio the likes of which the world has rarely seen. But it has come about through the mutilation of fifth-rate aerial powers and the destruction of airframes better consigned to the Boneyard than combat. As such, the TF-70 remains patently untested against foes that are both capable and possess modern weapons. A question, I suspect, that keeps more than a few executives at TPMI/EC awake at night, for fear that they shan’t like the answer.
Shojirou Yamanaka is the magazine’s Engineering Affairs Editor, a Tyrandisian expatriate, and former ten year veteran of TPMI/EC’s engineering and design bureaus.
Shooting Down Rival Trade Rags Since 1829!
Volume 87, Issue 3, July 1914 Edition
The Horse’s Empennage
By: Sojirou Yamanaka
A black shape careens through the night skies, unseen by both men and machines, destroying any and all aircraft that dare to oppose it. Such is, at the very least, the image of the TF-70 Falsetto that the Tyrandis Precision Machine Import/Export Corporation has dutifully cultivated in the minds of both industry experts and laymen the world over as the aircraft has, they regale all who shall listen, taken on the world and won.
It is, as well, a complete and total load.
Now I’m sure more than a few readers are questioning my sanity: Sojirou, how can you question a 13,000:0 kill ratio? Familiarity, I suppose, breeds contempt: Having spent ten years with TPMI/EC’s design bureau, I’ve developed a Pavlovian disbelief in all that the corporation sends through its PR department. Personal biases aside, there is the little matter of what’s omitted from that wonderful kill ratio: Who, precisely, it’s been scored against. One would think that TPMI/EC would be trumpeting just what has been killed, as well, as part of its drive to whip up even more business for its export-dependent operations. Unless, of course, that this omission is because acknowledging who, and what, has been shot down would damage the credibility of the kill ratio.
And, wouldn’t you know it, the list reads rather like who’s-who of the world’s most daringly incompetent and terminally ineffective air forces.
Without question the most (in)famous of the names on this List of the Damned is Kahanistan, a nation whose armed forces seem to exist only to tug at the heart-strings of liberal nations and then squander the resultant sympathy through their criminal stupidity and incompetence, with some 5,000 Kahanistani aircraft, mostly of Macabeean design, lost to the Falsetto. The faults of the Kahanistani Air Force – poor training, insane procurement policies, faulty doctrine, ineffective leadership, questionable tactics, and a complete disregard to aerial combined arms – cannot hope to be addressed sufficiently in this article, so it is merely sufficient to mention that the KAF was one of the world’s most dysfunctional air forces in the world before the Doomani appeared overhead and the KAF’s central command imploded. Under the circumstances in which Doomani pilots found themselves – with the KAF forfeiting the initiative and an enemy with little, if any, airborne logistics capabilities – finishing school students in rusting Ni-27 Wasps could have just as easily obliterated Kahanistan’s aerial warfare capabilities as ACID lackeys in aircraft that can best be described as flying coffins.
Much of the rest of the list, which constitute the vast, vast majority of the 8,000 or so outstanding Falsetto kills, can roughly be attributed to the “Allied Liberation Forces” of ViZion, a hodgepodge of ViZionian, Jarridian, Xeraphite, and myriad middling and minor powers who were devastated by Doomani and Pwnagean air power during the War of ViZionian Freedom. “Allied” is, of course, a gross misnomer: There was no central command of the sort normally associated with such things, which was one of the major reasons for their complete and utter routing in the skies. The other, of course, was the quality of their aircraft and the tactics used by them: Swarms of uncoordinated MiG-21s and late-model Flanker knock-offs, with no airborne command and control and for the most part without beyond visual range engagement capabilities might as well be a fighter pilot’s wet dream, provided he’s got a modern aircraft with proper stand-off engagement capabilities. TPMI/EC might as well simply fire missiles at drones on a test range in Tyrandis: It would, after all, be a truer reflection on the Falsetto’s capabilities than its capability to destroy museum pieces in the hands of doctrinally- and organizationally-challenged Neanderthals.
So, there you have it, the truth laid bare: The TF-70 does, indeed, have a kill ratio the likes of which the world has rarely seen. But it has come about through the mutilation of fifth-rate aerial powers and the destruction of airframes better consigned to the Boneyard than combat. As such, the TF-70 remains patently untested against foes that are both capable and possess modern weapons. A question, I suspect, that keeps more than a few executives at TPMI/EC awake at night, for fear that they shan’t like the answer.
Shojirou Yamanaka is the magazine’s Engineering Affairs Editor, a Tyrandisian expatriate, and former ten year veteran of TPMI/EC’s engineering and design bureaus.