Fighter Aircraft · 5:16am Nov 11th, 2013
One of the more common types of human-in-Equestria stories is pilot-in-Equestria, usually at the controls of some sort of military aircraft. As such, it irks me when people get things wrong. Let's fix that.
So, you want fighter jets in Equestria. Sounds good to me. Let’s make it happen!
First, you have to pick a plane. Almost any will do. But wait, what do you know about this aircraft? What is it designed to do? How many variants do they make? What branch of the military flies it? Fear not, the internet is full of information. Just make sure you do your research before guys like me read the story. If I see an F-16 on an aircraft carrier, I will not be happy. Know the data on the model of airplane you decide to go with.
This situation gets a little more complicated when you realize that some aircraft have incredible differences just between variants. For example, the F/A-18 Hornet. An F/A-18A is an old aircraft that is no longer in front line service. F/A-18B is a two-seat model used for training. F/A-18C is a front line aircraft used by the Navy and Marines. F/A-18D is a two-seat front line aircraft used only by the Marines. The F/A-18E is the “Super Hornet” – about 20% larger and higher-tech. The F/A-18F is the two-seat Super Hornet.
Generally, if you don’t know the exact variant (usually designated by a letter code after the number) then just don’t mention it in your story. This is better than getting one wrong.
With a solid grip on your plane, you can begin. Make sure you know the controls if you’re going to be describing the pilot sitting in the cockpit. Almost all fighters have the throttle on the left. Most fighters have the control stick in the center. Some, however, have nothing between the pilot’s legs. Uh, gender notwithstanding, in this case the controls are actually on the right. This is called a side stick and is used most notably with the F-16 and F-35.
Think about the mission your pilot is on. You won’t carry a full load of air-to-air missiles over Afghanistan because there simply aren’t any enemy airplanes in the area. You might, however, carry just a few missiles for just in case self-defense. Rarely will a fighter go out completely unarmed unless it’s for a test, training, or maybe photo reconnaissance - warplanes are for employing weapons. Since most fighters can't carry weapons internally, they hang them on the wings with hardpoints. Other useful things to carry on hardpoints include, but are not limited to, extra fuel tanks for longer range and targeting/photo pods.
If the object in question can't attach directly to the aircraft, it needs a pylon between it and the hardpoint. Pylons are like adaptors to help things fit to the airplane. (Admittedly, this is probably information you don’t need to know about pylons. I just like teaching people new things.)
Of course, some hardpoints are limited in what they can carry. For example, the fighter in the picture above, the F/A-18F Super Hornet, can only carry AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles on its wingtips. It can only carry fuel tanks on the hardpoints that have fuel tank hookups.
Okay, so we’ve got the part about carrying weapons down. Now, how to use them. These days, with the kind of warfare that is currently going on, the vast majority of fighters are used for attack: bombing targets on the ground. Here’s another F/A-18F carrying bombs. Note the use of multiple ejector racks to carry more than one bomb per hardpoint.
Of course, the original purpose of fighters was to shoot other airplanes down. If the movie Top Gun has taught us anything, air-to-air combat is the cool thing to do. While bombing is largely an issue of how much weight, and therefore weapons, you can carry, dogfighting is about maneuverability.
Did I say dogfighting? That’s a largely inaccurate term. Most modern engagements will see missiles fired from dozens of miles away, before the aircraft can even get within visual range of each other. Still, the possibility exists to get into a situation that is too close for missiles - switching to guns.
Let’s compare two airplanes.
The MiG-29 Fulcrum climbs faster, goes faster, and while I don’t have exact numbers to show, I know that it turns faster, too. On paper, the Fulcrum is much better at air-to-air combat.
But notice the difference in range. The Fulcrum carries about 30% less fuel. If you add several thousand pounds of gas in external tanks to make the Fulcrum equal to the Hornet, there goes the Fulcrum’s performance advantage. Plus, you’ve used at least one hardpoint for an external fuel tank, leaving the Fulcrum to carry even fewer weapons.
A baseline Fulcrum is more maneuverable than a baseline Hornet. But this doesn’t mean the Fulcrum wins outright. The Hornet probably has better pilots and maintenance. Plus, the Hornet has better ground attack capability and can land on an aircraft carrier.
The point I’m getting at is numbers don’t tell the whole story. In comparing two fighters in a “who will win” scenario, there is a lot of ambiguity (and loads of forums dedicated to arguing about it). Fulcrums are often employed by countries who need them for short range air defense. Fulcrums are air superiority fighters and work great for this. Hornets are often employed by the United States to drop bombs on things. Hornets are multirole jack-of-all-trades fighters and work great for this.
I used Hornet vs. Fulcrum as an example. Each aircraft is not designed to do quite the same thing, so keep that in mind when comparing airplanes.
Sidenote: Have you ever wondered how bad-guy fighters get their names? Fulcrum is an example of a NATO reporting name. It starts with F for fighter. It has two syllables because it’s jet powered. For another example, consider a Russian bomber called the Tu-95 Bear. B=bomber. One syllable=propeller engines. Most of the time, these reporting names are what we call them in English, and have little or nothing to do with what their home countries call them.
So once your pilot gets to Equestria, what then? Most jets don't like landing on grass. Remember that even a fairly lightweight fighter will still probably be at least 20,000 pounds. An F-22 weighs twice that. While it’s theoretically possible with a good enough prepared surface (and magic ponies to help), it’s also a huge risk to the jet engines if they suck up foreign object debris (FOD- a serious enough concern that they send hundreds of people out every morning at military air bases to sweep the runways for it) The Russians have done more experimenting with rough runways and their jets have some features to help them.
Or do like the US Navy Seabees did and build a runway out of aluminum – the "tinfoil" strip of Chu Lai Air Base
I could go into quite a bit more detail but this blog was only intended as a basic primer and is already rambling enough.
Got questions/comments? Talk to me, Goose.
Informative. I get very annoyed when people get things wrong about the military in their fics. I hope this will help to fix that
Could be worse they could be trying to get a 707 to take off from an open field just after a rain storm.
Pretty good lesson man, and one that is needed.
Can an AC-130 land on the unusually smooth plains of Equestria?
(My guess is: THAT THING IS TOO BIG!)
This is why I enjoy making my own worlds. People always saying "you did this wrong, or "its suppose to be like this". Making up your own worlds skips all of that B.S.
good read, I'm now tempted to do the same, just for tanks and firearms now....
1499015
a DHC-4 Caribou has, historically, landed and taken off in 'less than ideal' conditions
1499015 The C-130 platform is designed to operate from rough fields, if necessary.
1499059 google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=W669OFZONR-ExM&tbnid=7RsFwFsCxVd3jM:&ved=0CAMQjhw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.airliners.net%2Fphoto%2FAustralia---Air%2FDe-Havilland-Canada%2F1313886%2FL%2F&ei=JG-AUt9g6fbZBaGdgNAE&bvm=bv.56146854,d.aWc&psig=AFQjCNF2qpvDVY_k9jero6G67aZoOiNtGA&ust=1384235138472046 Like this?
(Preview wouldn't let me see what the picture looks like)
Older piston engine aircraft like the P-51 Mustang or an A1 Skyraider would be more suitable to landing on open grass strips. Not to mention the whole inventory of WWII and Korea era aircraft from light fighters and multi engined bombers all the way up to the early jet aircraft such as the MiG 15 and the F-86
1499065
A better example would be this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tq-wlspDb8
Trust me, it feels different from the inside!
This isn't a jab at the fact that I severely overloaded the TBMs in Flight 19, is it?
You know what else is really annoying? When people mistake a magazine, for a clip.
1499015 Hercules' are pretty resilient craft meant for combat landings. Hell, I've done a few landings on rough surfaces in the back of one. The gunship variant however, I'm not 100% sure. Pretty sure that yes, it would still be able to so long as you had about 300m of runway.
1499076 Sorry, but i have that exact problem and i even saw a video about it.
(The clips and magazines)
1499074 That must be crazy inside! So can it fly upside-down in any way?
1499091
With enough room, most aircraft frames are strong enough to invert, whether by rolling or pitching up past 90 degrees . On approach to most commercial airports, many passenger aircraft will roll up to 40 degrees to align with the runway.
The question is... Why would you do that if you did not have to.
1499108 IDK. Just the fact that it can do vertical flight doesnt feed my curiousity
Meh just use an VTOL plane and you should be fine with landing on dirt well unless it's wet then you might have an issue!
1499109
Aircraft are initially designed for a specific purpose in mind. If you want to fly something that can go up, down and sideways... Get in the cockpit of an A-4, if you want to land on an unpaved airstrip, take the caribou.
Just don't use a helicopter!
1499123
Until you have an engine fail... Or if you are in a Harrier and you have only 1 engine!
1499168
Yeah that does suck though in my mind I'm more of thinking Sci-Fi VTOL, though those are still prone to going out of control when they loose an engine, pretty much every plane is!
1499091>>1499108 Any aircraft can potentially perform upside down maneuvers.
There's also this
1. The fact that the average pilot will not have a random m4a1 or m16a anything lying somewhere hidden on their plane. Maybe a pistol. AND definitely not an M249 with 900 rounds of reserve ammo (don't ask). Also, the pilot isn't going to have the gear of the average grunt.
2. The very heavy and large aircraft will sink into the grasslands of equestria where ever it landed. Like you said, they weigh more than a few pounds. When the ground is made of solid concrete, maybe.
3. The pilot will most likely hit a randomly flying pegasus or pegasuseses, pegasusasi, pegasusjdbis, whatever the plural of pegasus is, that is in the air because he/she is controlling the weather, getting somewhere, or delivering something. In some fics I've read, there is never a pegasus in the air when a jet is being flown. That's completely ridikulous (I know how its spelt) with how many what ever the plural is of pegasus is shown on screen like in Winter Wrap Up.
4. The average pilot won't be like Rambo even if they've been through SERE training. I don't care if you're in the military, that doesn't make you a hand to hand (hoof) god. If you do what I did and get three black belts, then you can be a CQC god.
5. A jet is not easily hidden from view just by being covered by branches or foliage. Even covered up, a jet has more than 1000 square feet of surface area and is more than ten feet off of the ground.
6. Rainbow Dash can't keep up with a damn jet. RD can break the sound barrier and that's it. Only Mach 1. Not Mach 2 but 1.
7. No pilot in the world is going to fly a jet without a tight flight suit. No one is that insane. I'm not even going to do that and I free climb up cliffs without any gear.
8. If the gun of a fighter jet is fired in the air, the bullets don't magically disappear. They will keep on flying and will have a chance of hitting something that is alive flying in the air or somethingon the ground (sorry Fluttershy).
9. The pilot is not the terminator. Stop making him survive well, everything!
10. Aircraft needs fuel. Even with a full tank and extra fuel pylons, The jet won't last more than a few hours in full speed flight.
11. Taking down a jet with magic. NO! JUST NO! NO! You can't land a low speed magic bolt/arrow or catch up to a jet going a Mach whatever.
That might be it. No wait, there's a bajillion other reasons but I don't want to spend another millenia on the moon ranting.
My only experience with military jet aircraft comes from playing Jetfighter III on Windows 95 almost ten years ago, so I'll just use some half-remembered gameplay stats and write myself a story about an F-15 pilot who crashed into the carrier seriously how the fuck do you even land this fucking thing and went to Equestria!
Holy shit, that's some good nostalgia, I should see if I can get that running again sometime.
Would you object to a B-25 Mitchell flown off an aricraft carrier? What about a B-17E with 19 .50 cal. machine guns, including a nose gun operated by the pilot?
1499892 Well, since that stuff actually happened...
1500037 i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/masonry/000/538/955/4a3.png
Also, you mentioned that you know how to operate a fleet boat. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?!!? (In one of the threads on Battleships.)
1500117 I also know how to operate a EMD F40PH.
1500135 So do I, Thanks to a simulator. Is that how you learned to operate the sub, and the loco?
1500142 fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/280/a/9/tnab_troll_by_totallynotabronyfim-d5h1vrt.png
...that god I normally don't write anything this modern. All that information was super confusing to me!
I'll stick to my medieval weapons and warfare. I know plenty about that!
I also know how actual fights with those weapons work as well...that's always helpful.
It was quite interesting to learn about how aircraft get their reporting names. Do you know if helicopters get different syllable names for some reason?
1500550 They generally start with H but I haven't seen the difference between one and two syllables.
Yay, someone teaching idiots about planes! Someone with some pull around here.
Excellent. It's so annoying when people get stuff like this drastically wrong.
On a related note, could you put together something like this for civilian aircraft? Fighter jets are very different from Cessnas, which in turn are very different from airliners. I found a story once a long time ago where the aircraft flown into Equestria was not a fighter, but a very old passenger jet converted to a cargo plane due to efficiency and noise standards passing what it was capable of. The story did not excel either in writing or technical accuracy, but that's part of the reason I ask for this- so that at least the second half of that would be good.
Also, for both fighters and small civilian planes, there are places in Equestria where they could land and maybe even take off again- city roads. Even in Ponyville, the dirt roads are better than fields and wide enough for small aircraft, up to maybe a 50-seat regional jet on the wide main road. It wouldn't be as good as an actual runway and very dangerous for anyone on the road, but it probably wouldn't result in a huge firey explosion, and if the plane circled over the road a couple times before landing, they could probably get it to clear pretty quickly.
Very informative, thank you (never knew that about the connection between different engine numbers and syllables).
Also...
Volare: HELL YEAH, HORNET POWER!!!
Me:
1500614 Considering the Mi-8 Hip, Mi-24 Hind, Mi-26 Halo and Mi-28 Havoc, I probably should have figured out the "H" thing by now- but thanks for educating me of thi, regardless.
Is the "Goose" at the end bearing any meaning ?
Any in relation to this ?
1501746 I am disappoint
1501829
Yeaaah sorry, it didn't stick to me at all. Did it become some kind of meme ?
Maybe I should actually watch that movie (again ?), since it must be so long (and I might have been so young) that I don't even remember seeing it...
You're allowed to throw tomatoes (and assorted) to me, if you feel I deserve them.
Yes, this is good. Also, I feel that people get guns (specifically bullet-making) wrong.
Comments huh well here's what I got. I just love swing-wing planes F-14, B-1B, you know the works. why? They are just downright sexy beasts, but really I like almost all fighters other than the F-35 and the F-16, I just don't think they look good(yes I know the B1 isn't a fighter so lay off)
Aaaah gotta love the Seabees and their damn good creativity<3 I think all branches sort of respect the Seabees more than they do each other in a strange way
It's really the only job outside of Special Forces that meathead marines won't call you a pussy XD Construimus Batuimus! Can do!
Heh, interesting that I found this down here, I'm currently in the process of writing a fanfic of a DARPA test pilot testing a short-range teleporter device that was equipped into a Lockheed-Northrop A-22 (prototype hypersonic flying wing aircraft of an unknown role, so even though it has the same prefix used for aircraft specifically designed for ground attack roles, it's still going to be a long range interceptor and mid-to-long range advanced tactical joint strike fighter); the thing goes buggy and he ends up in Equestria, but not alone - that's part of a plot twist that I can honestly say that I don't think that any other author for an HiE fic has ever done on this site yet...
Here's a question. What about landing a modern fighter jet on snow?
2937487 My guess is not well. Most jets weigh 20,000+ plus on just four small tires.
2939660
Would it be survivable for the aircraft and or pilot, though?
2940371 Might depend on the depth of the snow. If it was deep enough to sink immediately, then the jet would probably come to a very sudden halt.
2942729
And if it wasn't? Or it skipped along the surface?
2944529 Depends on the surface underneath. Snow on concrete might slide. Snow on dirt could also dig in. Frozen dirt would be bumpy, but might support the weight.