An incomplete picture of all the characters in Flight Highschool. See entry below for a full list.
BEWARE OF NICHE GENRE
These comics may contain content normal people are unable to understand. If you understood all of the comics, I recommend you speak with a mental health expert.
These comics may contain content normal people are unable to understand. If you understood all of the comics, I recommend you speak with a mental health expert.
Flight Highschool is a Manhwa turned Korean Webcomic drawn by anyan
, taking place in a high school populated predominantly by Moe Anthropomorphised military aircraft as they go about their daily lives.
The students of the school are the personifications of American, European, Russian, Chinese, South Korean and Japanese military aircraft ranged from mid-Cold War era to the present day. Nearly everything you see and read in them is a reference or play on the planes themselves, the aviation industry, or current military aviation events.
Flight Highschool contains examples of:
- Amusing Injuries: Apparently, the only effect of a dogfight between F-35 and J-20 is some Instant Bandages on their face.
- Beach Episode: Chapter 19 is spent at the pool, complete with carrier-capable planes in swimsuits.
- Berserk Button: For J-20, it's making fun of China- something which shows that she can be just as immature and childish as F-35.
- Big Eater: F-14 is shown to be this.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Yak-38 warns Harrier that Predator is this, but Harrier doesn't believe her.
- Bratty Half-Pint: X-47B, in contrast to her friend, the sweet and innocent MQ-1 Predator.
- Breakout Character: According to
Word of God, the popular F-35 has become the closest thing the series has to a main character and usually appears at least once per chapter. - Butt-Monkey: Rafale
- Camera Fiend: U-2 always has her camera at the ready, looking for a scoop. This doesn't often sit well with others. SR-71 was this as well before she retired.
- Cast of Personifications: The comic is based around personifying military aircraft as high school girls and showing their antics. The students share design motifs of the aircraft they were based on, and the various armed forces of the world are personified as boys.
- Childhood Friends: Due to their common origins, Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale are portrayed as this.
- Color Failure: The reaction of the AWACS Student Council when C-5 Galaxy reveals that the "thing" she dropped is a...Minutemannote .
- Crazy-Prepared: Mild example. F-16 was thirsty, but when F/A-18 offers her some water, it was a probe-and-drogue strawnote . Luckily, F-16 came prepared with CARTS (Conformal Air Refueling Tank System). Cue F-16 downing the entire bottle.
- Cute, but Cacophonic: The Tu-95 and Tu-142. Those prop turbines mean... good luck trying to sneak. Or, just sitting still quietly when even a little excited, talking, yawning, writing or what have you. Despite that, they still sometimes manage to pop-up unexpectedly in the others homes.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: True to their inspirations note , F-104 and Yak-38 are quite clumsy.
- Cuteness Proximity: A... very odd case. Don't go into supersonic anywhere near the MiG-25. You will need to kick it up a notch to avoid the glomp. Mach speeds are apparently... cute.
- Delivery Stork: When Predator asks where baby planes come from, F-16 butts in and makes up a story in which planes start as models, then grow into 1:1 scale mock-ups, and then are born as prototypes.
- Ditzy Genius: F-35. She's pretty smart despite all appearances to the contrary.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Surprisingly many examples:
- The way the payload capacity of a plane is often treated to invoke Buxom Beauty Standard.
- On one hand, refueling is often represented as eating or drinking. However, the cover of Kama Sutra given to Rafale upon her successful Indian bid has "refueling" on it. Which means...
- The way Su-35 sneaks up, touches E-737's radomes inappropriately, and gets uncomfortably close is rather...suggestive, to be generous about it.
- However, as explained on the Flight Highschool Tumblr, this could also be a case of Su-35 picking out a victim, as the real-life Su-35 is equipped with missiles designed to take out support planes (also known as AWACS) such as the E-737.
- Here's the Wikipedia article on it. Notice it is nicknamed AWACS Killer.
- Even less subtle is when both PAK-FA and Su-27 ganged up on B-2, ending with her apparently covered with a blanket. Though apparently it's Played for Laughs.
- Dynamite Candle: Uh... MiG-29? Do people always need to have countermeasures on stand-by when you hand out birthday cakes? Or is the F-16 just special?
- Empty Quiver: Accurately titled "Broken Arrow", A-4 Skyhawk casually reveals to Harrier (AV-8B, that is, American Harrier) that she once accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb "maybe in this pool, maybe in the other pool". Harrier rightfully panics upon that revelation note .
- Expressive Hair: MiG-25 "Foxbat" has a hairstyle resembling ears which perks up when she gets excited.
- Extracurricular Enthusiast: F-16 is known for trying to help and participate in everything.
- Eye Beams: Somewhat reversed with YAL-1. It's not so much that she can shoot lasers out of her eyes but that she can see out of her laser turret.
- Fangirl: F-35 idolizes and wants to be like Harrier.
- The newest member of 5th Gen Club, ATD-X idolizes F-22 and look up to her.
- Friendly Rival: As in real life, there are several of these.
- F-22, J-20, and PAK-FA are all similar, but competing, planes.
- Yak-38 sees herself and Harrier as this. Although in her case it's more of a one-sided rivalry.
- Glory Days: F-14 is very vocal about how much she misses her popularity and status while in service.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: F-2 has to be physically held back or else she'll follow through.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Go ahead, make the A-10's day: peek on her girls. Double dare you when you see what's in her bag.
- High School
- Hikikomori: The Sukhoi family is worried that Su-47 will become this.
- Huge Schoolgirl: The large transport planes such as C-5 and An-225 tower over the majority of the girls.
- Idle Rich: As the "princess" of the Lockheed family, F-35 is quite rich and has no qualms spending her (or other's) money.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Su-47 and V-22 both have unique designs, but would prefer to be normal.
- Imagine Spot: The otherwise ground-borne F-22 imagines herself wearing a bikini so that she can swim (read: having a carrier-based variant). F-15E flatly tells her that it isn't happening.
- Innocently Insensitive: F-35 in a lot of ways.
- Interspecies Romance: As much as anthropomorphized space stations and aircraft count as different species anyway. When U-2 thinks the space shuttle Buran is An-225's daughter, she asks if the space station Mir is the father.
- Mama Bear: A-10 is violently protective of the girls in the school.
- Mistaken Identity: F-35 mistakes the British Harrier GR9 for the American Harrier AV-8B. She accuses GR9 of being a Doppelgänger.
- Mistaken for Pregnant: U-2 takes the "Son of Blackbird" moniker for the SR-72 as proof that SR-71 secretly got knocked up and naturally makes a scandalous news story out of it. SR-71 is not amused.
- Modesty Bedsheet: F-15SE is still wearing something under that sheet but since her payload capacity is still classified...
- Moe Anthropomorphism: All the characters are military aircraft as high school girls. The plane they represent is usually seen on their back to make it easier to figure out who's who as well as for the occasional visual gag.
- Not So Above It All: MiG-29 arguing with and trying to impress the drones, specifically X-47B.
- Oblivious to Hints: Tu-95 is blissfully unaware of the torment her "habit" causes others, no matter how much they try to tell her otherwise.
- Old Shame: AV-8B... and those Pepsi adverts. Don't remind her.
- One-Gender School: All the boys that have so far appeared in the series have been from other schools.
- A later strip◊ portrays air forces as boys, which puts a whole new spin on how plane procurement is viewed by the plane girls as being asked out.
- A later strip
- Parental Substitute: Buran apparently considers Mriya (An-225) her mother because she gives her piggyback rides every day.◊
- Perpetual Smiler: Despite losing the JSF competition, and despite YF-23's best efforts, X-32 remains cheerful and happy no matter what she's doing.
- Phenotype Stereotype: American, European and Russian planes are often depicted with blonde hair whilst Chinese and Japanese ones are more likely to have dark hair.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The 5th Gen Club doesn't do much other than hang out before and after school.
- The Resenter: YF-23 to F-22. She's still bitter about losing the ATF competition to her.
- Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Many of the aircraft with expensive programs are prone to this.
- F-35. "Expensive snacks are expensive for a reason!" sums up the issue nicely.
- The Rival: As in real life, there are several of these. Not all the planes are the friendly version of this.
- F/A-18 and F-16 antagonize each other quite a bit.
- MiG-29 also likes to pick fights with F-16.
- Within the 5th Gen club, let's just say that ATD-X and J-20 didn't have a good relationship with each others.
- Schoolgirl Series: But with planes!
- School Idol: F-22 is looked up to by many of the student body.
- Sentient Vehicle: Technically, they're humans who stand in for vehicles, but the basic idea is there.
- Shrinking Violet: Being the odd one out of the Sukhoi family, Su-47 is this.
- Shout-Out:
- The aircraft (or the avatar of the aircraft) that Su-47 is talking to over the internet is the similarly forward-swept winged ASF-X Shinden II from Ace Combat.
- In one strip, J-31 can be seen playing Battlefield 4 which she gets from F-35, with her commenting about J-20's appearance in the game. In the same chapter, J-10 also reminisces about her days in Battlefield 2.
- Shown Their Work: Too many examples to list all of them, but the artist has a very obvious interest in modern military aviation. Nearly everything in the comics from the situations that happen to the character design is a reference to the plane itself or current events in the industry. To name just a couple examples:
- Harrier's long braided twintails are a reference to the tall wingtip mounted gear.
- F-104 always has bandages and is tripping over things because the real life fighter was notoriously unreliable. It was nicknamed the "Lawn Dart"
- MiG-29's short and high pigtails are representative of the MiG's leading edge extensions.
- One of the jokes revolves around the different types of mid-air refueling systems in use and the planes that use them.
- The aircraft drawn on the characters' backs are often accurate enough to tell which variant of the aircraft they represent.
- The fighters often reference and use the missiles they would carry in real life as weapons.
- Spoiled Brat: Although mostly benign, F-35 does show shades of this.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: F-35 is initially distraught upon discovering that the new student, the Chinese J-31, looks nearly identical to her. Later she warms to her and starts proclaiming her to be her sister.
- The Talk: The Predator drone, after having asked MiG-29 on how "baby planes are made", is even more curious in a later strip. Unfortunately, F-16 isn't exactly well-versed herself...
- Team Chef: KC-767 always has food with her, looking for hungry planes to feed.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: After never having found a customer for years on end, Rafale finally wins the Indian MMRCA.
- Tomboy: Both ground attack planes: A-10 and Su-25.
