"Shit," Ski said, "I thought us grunts on the ground had it tough."

"You do, for sure. We're more exposed up in the sky, we have countermeasures that help a lot with missile threats, it's funny, kind of, we're almost back in WWII days, before guided missiles took over air combat. The stealth and countermeasures mean getting a reliable firing solution on the enemy isn't a lock that it is in air combat on Earth, a missile only gets a hit maybe fifteen, twenty percent of the time, the Kristang aren't telling us for certain. We're guessing at the twenty percent number based on the tactics we're taught." He laughed. "It's funny, they sent me out here because they figured a helicopter pilot would have an easier transition to flying a Chicken or a Buzzard. When they're in hover mode, sure, true enough. Thing is, a Chicken can go supersonic, and climb higher than our jets. I wasn't ready for that, last time I flew fixed wing was a little turboprop in training. My Chicken can out climb and outmaneuver an F22 easy, most of the time you're flying it, the thing is a jet, not a helo. A Buzzard is more similar to a V22 Osprey, it isn't supersonic." He shook his head. "The techniques we learned flying rotorwings on Earth don't apply here, I have to keep reminding myself not to worry about dynamic stress on the rotor blades, and I don't need to keep the tail rotor clear when I land, because we don't have one."

"Sir," Cornpone asked, "we only have aircraft, right, and the enemy has dropships that can go into space. Do we really stand a chance in combat up there?" He pointed to the sky.

"Oh, yeah. I get your point. Yes, we do, we actually have an advantage in air combat over dropships. Dropships are big and heavy, they handle like a pig when they're deep in an atmosphere. With stealth and countermeasures, if your first volley of missiles doesn't hit, you close the distance to the target real fast, and then you're in air combat maneuvering, using your guns. The key to air combat is kinetic energy; if you bleed off too much speed in a turn, you're dead. Energy means you can engage and disengage a dogfight as you need. Dropships are ultimately much faster than our aircraft, they can reach escape velocity, but they don't accelerate as fast. We can get up to speed much quicker." He went on for a while about tactics of air combat, the three of us were enthralled, at that moment, I thought he was the coolest guy who ever lived. I left my seat and got another hot dog for him, so he'd keep talking. The game ended, though, the British team won by two points, and a group of pilots came by, so he left.