- "If Sigmund Freud could see this baby, he'd s--- his pants..."
- —Beat 1 upon first seeing his assigned aircraft
The F/A1L-18 "Horndog" was a license-built variation on the F/A-18 Hornet series produced by Mandrake HEavy Industries. It is also known as the Compensator for its distinctive, ridiculously long nose, which is not just an odd cosmetic feature: it's a weapon in its own right.
Development[]
Following the success of the F/A-18C in Osean and Belkan service during the Baka War of 1995, McDonnel Douglas recieved orders from several Air Forces around the world for their multirole, carrier-based fighter, along with some offers of license production. One such company to offer to produce the aircraft came from an unlikely source: Mandrake Heavy Industries (formerly Macintyre Applicance Co.), which although was an appliance manufacturer had a brief stint in the defense industry in the 1970s with the Macintyre 689 Supa Wave Toatser Oven and in the aviation industry during the 1940s with the XP-96 Sparrow-Hawk, both of which were generally considered failures, but nevertheless, the tempting offer of 90% of the profits as royalties to McDonnel-Douglas was too much to pass up, and so they were granted a license. However, there was a catch:
They had only paid for the license to the airframe, but not to the avionics, electronics, control systems, landing gear, weaponry or engines, and due to the cost of the license taking up most of the budget allotted to the venture, this meant that the company had to manufacture its own equipment. In this case, the added equipment were mostly variations on Mandrake's successful line of appliances; for instance, the engines were repurposed from from their 9001-Series Industrial Toaster Ovens, and while not as powerful as a traditional jet engine had one advantage: they were so cheap that instead of maintaining it, you could just uninstall it, throw it away and put a new one in its place and STILL save money AND time. Needless to say, for the Air Force on a budget that at least wanted to LOOK professional, this was the plane for them.
Combat Service[]
The largest use of this aircraft was in the USEA Teen Rebellion of 1998, with squadrons on both sides being equipped with it. The most well-known user of the aircraft was Beat Squadron, a rebel ace squadron formed from a dance troupe. The aircraft performed terribly against REAL combat aircraft such as Scabface Squadron's Su-35s. Even so, its cheap price and ease of maintenance (you didn't maintain it; you threw it away when it stopped working and bought a new one for 200 zollars, not to mention the "buy one, get three free" promotion Mandrake was running on ALL of their products at the time), ensure that it remained in production until 20,000 were built, and remained in service in various roles until 2045.
In addition, some were modified with "Tactical Bass Drop Units" to become the "Groper" ECM variant, but that's not all:
For its poor performance when flown by HUMAN pilots, the F/A1L-18 performed not half-bad when one of them was being controlled by the Zone of Ego A.I, and in fact could almost match Scabface One, but alas, the nose-heavy design of the aircraft ensured that its performance suffered, and so this aircraft was forced to retreat after sustaining minor damage.
Notable Squadrons[]
Specifications (F/A1L-18A)[]
Speed: Half the Speed of Smell
Mobility: Turns as wide as its nose is long
Defense: Tissue Paper
Stability: Front-Heavy
Air-to-Air: Flying Bananas
Air-to-Ground: Appliances
Spility (WTF!?): No, I don't know what this means either
Weapons: The NOSE, 1 x MHI 689B Toast Launcher (aircraft-mounted version of the Macintyre 689 Supa Wave Toatser Oven), 2 x F-Bombs
Notes[]
- A certain Usean Teen Rebel ace uses one of these as a dild-*whipped* OW!!! (Unnamed Voice: So YOU'RE the one who was peaking into my hangar! You'll pay for that!)
- This aircraft holds the record as the world's largest lawn dart, taking the record previously held by another Mandrake (formerly Macintyre) product: the F-One-Oh-Fart S---fighter (their version of the F-104 Starfighter).