Yooper posted:

A few of you have asked me to turn this into a novel. I'd like to do that. At the end of this post will be an interview with MR VC "Warmachine" about how Operation Goose went. The novel I'm going to write will be a retrospective set of interviews with the Hired Goons, opponents, staff, and characters. If you'd like, give me a short bio of your pilot or crew, at the least a "He (or she) served in the Air Force/Navy/Marines/British Navy and likes cake." I'll do what I can to work in your quirks.

Bacarruda posted:

Gentlemen, Operation First Impressions is a go!

Here is your briefing. We are wheels up in 30 minutes.

Bacarruda posted:

Gentlemen, Operation Black Diamond commences in one hour. Prepare to man your planes.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRVvRFlPxqg

Bacarruda posted:

Operation Gorgnard-Falafel Ranger has been approved. Stand by for your briefing



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiu3SWNrJgs

And some Moto Patches for our pilots. Someone with more talent is welcome to improve them.


1st Fighter Squadron "The Angola Aces"


2nd Fighter Squadron "The Phantom Phlyers"

Bacarruda posted:

Operation Golgotha has been approved, Hired Goons!

Briefing at 0600.


https://soundcloud.com/user-626960519/operation-golgotha-1
https://youtu.be/Om56tZTAvnc

e: fixed!

Bacarruda posted:

Operation Finest Hour is a go! Here is your briefing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh6cwET1Rns

And some theme music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFEXitPn1ko

Bacarruda posted:

Your briefing for the next operation!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqyfbPh4MPI

Bacarruda posted:

Mission briefing is up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuHBQtggiS4

Bacarruda posted:

Operation Dutch Harpoon is a go!
https://youtu.be/7j1v5EpyFxQ

Bacarruda posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJdPG_OpshI

The next chorus that gets into the ready room is going to be shot and poisoned...or maybe poisoned and shot.

New York Times posted:

Hâyard Günnes: Angola’s Air Mercenaries

BENGUELA – Their base is not much to look at. A weather-beaten collection of tents, containers, and hangars squat on the fringes of the dusty Angola airstrip. But this ragged settlement is the nerve center of the fastest-growing private air force in the world: Hâyard Günnes. Of course, everyone here calls prefer their more piratical nickname: Hired Goons.

In the dim glow of the Angolan morning, trucks and people scurry around the airfield, doing the million and one things needed to feed and fuel a modern fighter aircraft. Stripped to the waist to beat the oppressive heat, ground crews sweat and swear as they go about their work. They hoist ominous-looking smart bombs on hulking Phantoms, Vietnam-era jets still deadly after five decades of service. They fasten dagger-like missiles on sleek Gripens, sleek Swedish fighters that have already killed over thirty Angolan aircraft. And they pump JP5 jet fuel into the buglike SK60 trainers everyone here calls the Dragonslayers, commemorating the moment these primitive jets sttrafed a squadron of Chinese J-20 Dragon stealth fighters at Lhasa. Former warplanes from Israel, the United States, Sweden, Britain, France, and Italy are all represented here on the flight line, testifying to the Hired Goon’s stunningly-rapid expansion over the last few months.

Elsewhere on the base, a few pilots straggle into a rusty hangar. Light streams in through the bullet-scarred roof, reminders of the bloody battle between Angolan revolutionaries fought to capture this world from forces loyal to Angola dictator Delvanios Dos Santos. Around the hangar, a few dozen men and women slouch in folding chairs. Others stand in small circles, filling the air with the low murmur of their sleepy conversation. Occasionally, they break into muffled, weary laughter. It has been a long campaign for the Hired Goons, and everyone seems to be showing it. Nearly everyone wears a sweat-stained flight suit or rumpled fatigues that haven’t seen the inside of a washing machine for a month.

Still, everyone here carries themselves with the quiet confidence of professionals. A quick glance at their uniforms confirms their veterans. Nearly every pilot has patches with phrases like “Centurion,” “TOPGUN,” or “Phantom Phyler,” public professions of a lifetime of flying experience. The Hired Goons haven't been called the “Angolan Aces” for nothing.

At times, the diversity can be a little bewildering. One goon is wearing a brightly-patterned woolen sweater that seems completely out of place in Angola. A memento of his Michigan hometown, maybe? There’s an Irish officer hotly debating the merits of the Typhoon fighter against the Gripen. Another pilot in a “Save the Whales” T-shirt wanders around the room misquoting Marx to anyone who will listen, seemingly unconcerned by the fact he is working for one of the most ravenously capitalistic companies on the planet. A young man sits in the corner of the room, flipping through a stack of tank silhouettes, a stubby Kalashnikov cradled in his lap. One Polish aviator amuses his friends with a surprisingly good Hulk Hogan impression. And everyone has an outlandish callsign. In the space of thirty seconds, you can meet “Scoper,” “Sonic Assassin,” “Potoo,” “Meat,” and “Unicorn.”

Suddenly, someone clears his throat. The conversation dies and everyone heads to their seats. The few lights in the hangar die and small projector flickers to life, projecting a map of Angola onto the wall.

“Good morning, Hired Goons.” Major Bac limps to the front of the room, gritting his teeth. A few weeks ago, an Angola missile broke his Phantom’s back. His ejection seat had broken his. His arm is in a sling and angry burns scar his hands, painful souvenirs of the violent ejection.

“Shouldn’t you be in the hospital, Bac?” one pilot yells, only half-joking.

Bac grins. “Ugly nurses and no booze. Would you have stayed?”

The assembled goons chuckle.

“Alright gentlemen, here’s the briefing for Operation Finest Hour…”

Hired Goons, Interlude posted:

The Major ran his hand over the Gripen's smooth metal skin, feeling the familiar contours of rivets against his fingertips. Each part was right where he remembered it. Pylons, antennas, flaps and plexiglass. Each one sleeping, waiting to be called to action.

Beneath his fingertips, he felt her beautiful imperfections. The smudge of Angolan mud there. The fleck of Chinese shrapnel here. Paint chipped by Siberian hail. Each mark told a story only a few men had remembered. Only fewer could now tell it…

Closing his eyes, the sounds came back to him. The whine of the awakening engines. The humming of far-off anti-aircraft guns. The incessant warnings of Bitching Betty. The shouts of “Fox 3!” and “break!” The sounds of returning helicopters and the momentary surge of hope. The more he heard, the more he could see... Ventura looking out from that canopy and flashing him a thumbs-up before diving into the hellfire of Lhasa. The smoky lances of missiles sprinting from the Gripens. Man-made meteors criss-crossing the Angolan skies to end their journey in distant prinpricks of light. Watching the six take off into that grim northern sky. Watching only one come back.

Opening his eyes, he looked up at the small grey fighter. A sad smile spread across his face, tightening the corners of his scarred features. “She’s last one,” he murmured to himself. “The last one.”

Like the wild geese of past centuries, she’d wandered far from home. She’d found the wars of others. She’d done so much more than anyone had ever imagined possible. She’d gone up with her sisters. And only she had returned. The only one left to tell their story.

On the far edge of the nameless airstrip, the new arrivals stood in a boastful line, their new paint still drying. In a few minutes the ground crews would be here to drag her off to join them. She’d get new black boxes, new engines, and new eyes. They’d wash off the Angolan mud, pick out the Chinese shrapnel, and paint over the Siberian dents.

But they’d never be able to cover up what she’d done. Gripens are the Hired Goons. And she wouldn’t let them forget it.

A Hired Goon posted:

“This place smells like poo poo,” Bac muttered to himself.

Come to think of it, most hangars smell like poo poo. Spilled fuel, leaking hydraulics, and sweaty mechanics aren't a winning combination. Amongst all the industrial odors, Bac got a whiff of 100-proof. Sergei must be running that still again…

The crumbling concrete bunker reverberated with a hundred and one noises. One Russian mechanic was giving a start cart alternating rounds of physical and verbal abuse, to little effect. Someone knocked over a toolbox with a world-ending crash that echoed through the bunker. More profanity.

The dying light of the sun outside was replaced with the portable floodlights the ground crews had dragged into the bunker. Here are there, a flashlight flickered as crews made last-minute checks of landing gear and bombloads. With all the Gripens, Tornadoes, Reapers, and Nighthawks packed into the old Albanian bunker, there was barely enough room for the men and women swarming around them. Maintainers and ammo men bumped into each other. Shouted profanity.

A knot of grease-covered Italians muscled an engine into a largely-disassembled Tornado. Two pilots in pristine flight suits kibitzed nearby, unhelpfully asking “we gonna be ready soon?” Incomprehensible Italian flew their direction. Probably profanity.

Some baby-faced Albanian absent-mindedly pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. A second later, an enraged crew chief decked him with a punch and a stream of Glaswegian oaths.

“Another day at the office?” Fungus appeared at Bac’s side, with a grin and two mugs of coffee.

“You’re a goddamn lifesaver,” the bleary-eye Major grunted, taking the proffered cup. Caffeine made everything better, especially morning missions.

The two aviators sipped their coffee for a moment. This wasn’t their first cup of bad coffee at bad hours. Like most of the Hired Goons, they wore their careers on their flight suits. Both pilots had thousand-hour patches. Bac earned his over Nellis and Syria in the back hole of a Strike Eagle. Fungus had won his driving the tiny Saab 105. By now, both were patch-wearing members of the Martin-Baker Club. There’d been that sortie in Alaska...and now that dogfight in Angola. Bac still had nightmares about the Flanker that broke his Phantom’s back. He still ached from the ejection that had broken his. Fungus had joined the Club’s Angolan chapter on the same mission. It had taken Mbeki’s Rangers two days before they’d found him, still dangling from a tree in his shredded chute.

Downing the last of the coffee, Bac set the chipped cup on a toolbox. Grinning, he pulled a pair of crisp checklists from his thigh-pocket and handed one to Fungus. “Ready?”

Fungus grabbed the checklist and pulled a penlight from his pocket. “Let’s go.”

With their flashlights and experienced hands, the two aviators went through the familiar pre-flight motions. Kick the tires. “Tire pressure ok.” Shake the canards and ailerons. “Control surfaces ok.” Inspect the needlelike air-to-air missiles roosting on their hardpoints. They had over ten million dollars worth of missiles aboard tonight. And all it took was one bent fin and that $1.6 million Meteor would become a lawn dart. “Fangs sharp.”

Their walkaround complete, they clambered into the cockpit and started another set of checklists.

“Fuel Master?”

“On.”

“EPU switch?”

“Normal.”

A squat aircraft tractor driven trundled in front of the Gripen. The greasy-faced driver dismounted and hitched a town at to the Gripen’s front landing gear. Fungus and the driver exchanged a thumbs-up. A moment later, the Gripen was being towed out of the bunker and onto the taxiway. Job done, the harried driver unhooked the Gripen and sped back to the bunker to gather his next charge.

“Main power switch?”
“On.”

“Hydraulics and oil pressure.”
“Good...and good.”

“Ok, go for engine light.”

Fungus flicked a switch and eased the throttles forward slowly. The GE F414-400 slowly rumbled to life, putting out just a fraction of the 22,000 pounds of thrust it had to offer.

“Griff 1-1 to Gjader Departure, requesting clearance for Package Alpha taxi to Runway 2.”

The reply crackled in Bac’s helmet: “Departure to Griff 1-1, Package Alpha cleared.”

Fungus smiled and shoved the throttles further forward. “Showtime.”

Quinntan posted:

How's this for Hayard-Gunnes colours?

Yooper posted:

That's right. I'm Charles Bronson motherfuckers.

Bacarruda posted:

Bacarruda posted:

Major "Bac" was a Strike Eagle backseater with a promising career in the Air Force. He'd just pinned on his oak leaves, done an exchange tour with the ROKAF, and was in line to attend the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis. All that ended in a horrific low-level accident at Red Flag Alaska that killed his pilot and left one leg shorter than the other. Medically discharged, he sunk into a downward spiral that only ended (some would say it continued) when he saw an ad in Playboy Presents: Aviation Week & Space Technology for the Hired Goons.

Yooper posted:

8 - SK60C "Dragon Slayers"

Yooper posted:

1. No airframe may be owned by a PMC that was produced, modified, remanufactured, or procured after December 31st, 1992.
   

CMANO-DB for the RQ-1A posted:

Commissioned: 1995

power crystals posted:

Does buying this immediately get us obliterated by F35s?

quote:

Klaus and Pedersen

4 - F-4E Phantom II
4 - AJ37 Viggen
8 - SK60C "Dragon Slayers"
1 - SH3W Sea King AEW

Yooper posted:

A few of you have asked me to turn this into a novel. I'd like to do that. At the end of this post will be an interview with MR VC "Warmachine" about how Operation Goose went. The novel I'm going to write will be a retrospective set of interviews with the Hired Goons, opponents, staff, and characters. If you'd like, give me a short bio of your pilot or crew, at the least a "He (or she) served in the Air Force/Navy/Marines/British Navy and likes cake." I'll do what I can to work in your quirks.

Yooper posted:

Choose One Supplier

Klaus and Pedersen

4 - F-4E Phantom II
4 - AJ37 Viggen
8 - SK60C "Dragon Slayers"
1 - SH3W Sea King AEW

Yooper posted:

4 Years Later

1. No airframe may be owned by a PMC that was produced, modified, remanufactured, or procured after December 31st, 1992.
   
2. No airframe, ground vehicle, sub-surface, or surface unit shall fire ordnance that is BVR. (20nm)
   
3. No ground radar may have been produced after Operation Desert Storm or it may only operate at 100nm or less of radar radius.
   
4. It is illegal to procure ordnance that is BVR, however possession is not illegal.
   
5. Any ordnance or equipment that is discovered during downtime inspections will be confiscated and destroyed.
   

Choose One Supplier

Klaus and Pedersen

4 - F-4E Phantom II
4 - AJ37 Viggen
8 - SK60C "Dragon Slayers"
1 - SH3W Sea King AEW

Ivanov Brothers

4 - MIG-23MLD Flogger K
4 - SU-25T Frogfoot A
8 - SU-17M2 Fitter D
1 - KA-31 Helix AEW

Broadstreet Ford, Lincoln, and Military

6 - F/A-18C Hornet
6 - OV-10D Bronco
1 - RQ-1A Predator

Wild Willies Plane Sales and Septic Field Services

6 - J-7II Fishbed
4 - Cheetah D
4 - A-4SU Super Skyhawk
6 - Lightning F.6
1 - Shackleton AEW.2

Yooper posted:

That one is OK as it is an unarmed support asset.

CoffeeQaddaffi posted:

I can not in good conscience vote for anything that doesn't include Phantoms.

Klaus

TheDemon posted:

Given the weapon restrictions Wild Willie is actually really good and has my vote. Those 6x Lightning F.6es have double the A2A range of any other option, it has an AEW (poor Broadstreet...), and it gives us 20 combat airframes which is more than any other option.


The shittiest option is, unfortunately, our old friends Klaus and Pedersen, because only having 8 A2A options in this world of heater dogfights will get us clowned on in any decently sized operation. Like, this Wild Willie force vs this K&P force the Wild Willie air force would go through K&P like uhhhh.... hot knife through butter is the wrong analogy but maybe like beans go through the digestive tract. Messily but the outcome is assured.

e: plus it's a god drat Avro Shackleton. It's WW2 vintage.