In the manga, when Mario describes the fighter pilots in Hoover's lineage, he notes that Hoover's father shot down 130 planes with his Messerschmidt during World War II. The manga conspicuously left out the fact that Adolph Kippenburg would have been fighting for Nazi Germany. By extension, depending on how old he was during the Third Reich, Hoover himself might have been a member of the Hitlerjugend as a child.
In the manga, the anti-government forces slaughter a Bedouin camp to punish them for giving succor to deserters. If the anti-government troops are willing to slaughter innocent noncombatants for trivial offenses, what other war crimes have they been committing in the meantime?
In the manga, readers learn that Hoover Kippenburg's father was a fighter pilot in World War II, and his grandfather flew in World War I. The theme that appears throughout the Kippenburg lineage is not ace fighter pilot status so much as shame. Karl Von Kippenburg fought for the losing side in World War I, and if he survived the war, he would have endured Germany's collective humiliation under the Treaty of Versailles. Adolph Kippenburg fought for Nazi Germany, which would have been a stain on his honor after the war. Hoover left the West German military after several pilots died in an accident during a training exercise he oversaw. Three generations of Kippenburgs ended their military careers in shame.
Why send a older, one-eyed man in an outdated carrier strike craft to lead the canyon mission in the 2004 OVA? Not only is Roundel a gifted pilot, his personal craft is a Blackburn Buccaneer. The Bucc is already a respectable ground attack aircraft, but it also has one other thing going for it: ridiculous maneuverability. In the Airstrike Impossible mission, his Buccaneer would have been better able to handle the twists and turns demanded of aircraft attempting to fly through the canyon than pretty much anything else in the squadron that flies with him. He flies point in the formation not only because he's the sort of man who would lead from the front, but he's completely assured that he'll make it and won't endanger his following subordinates, unlike many of the A-4 and F-4 pilots who either hit the walls or are shredded by debris from their fallen comrades.
Why are so the Skyhawks and Phantoms the Mook Mobile of choice for Red Shirt Area 88 pilots when some nameless mercenary pilot has to die? Not only are they fairly common Jack of All Stats designs, but their identifying codes respectively are the A-4 and the F-4, and Four Is Death!
In a flashback, readers see Mickey during the early days of his business career after returning from Vietnam. At first, he's completely out of his element at his father's company, despite coming from a family of high-powered businessmen. Later, in manga issues that didn't make it stateside, Mac recalls meeting Mickey at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. No wonder Mickey was so flustered when he joined the business world. He had no business training! He received his education at a military institution, not a business school.
Most of Area 88's pilots come from countries that were either involved in World War II (the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, Japan) or the Vietnam War (the U.S., Vietnam). Several characters either had older relatives who participated in one of those wars (Hoover), or participated themselves (Mickey, Nguyen). At the time of the manga's publication, these conflicts would have been fresh in readers' minds. The stealth message seems to be that even after major wars devastated so many nations, people from those nations haven't learned from the past and are still waging war.
The whole premise is somewhat silly. Conscripting foreign pilots against their will and then handing them fighter jets would be very, very stupid in real life. ("Hold your fire! I'll help you bomb the capital back into the stone age!")
Oddly enough, it's an easy way to ensure loyalty. You can limit fuel so that they can't fly beyond a certain distance, and disable mid-air refueling equipment so they can't top off. On top of that, you could have remotely triggered explosives that the commander can detonate if the pilot does attempt to flee.
Some of the planes that are seen at Area 88 are quite implausible for either mercenaries or for an small Arab kingdom that does not export its oil. After the Wolfpack ambush, Saki announced that Headquarters was sending ten replacement Kfirs. Kfir is an Israeli produced plane and it would be strange for an Arab kingdom to be using hardware purchased from Israel. In an earlier episode, Saki had a private F-15 lying around. Still later, Saki gets his hands on a B1 Lancer, another American plane. In manga issues that didn't make it stateside, McCoy secures a replacement F-14 for Mickey and an A-10 Thunderbolt (a state of the art aircraft at the time) for Greg. The corporations are either indifferent to Asran's refusal to deal with Western oil companies or were charging an exorbitant price. In the real world, America's Middle Eastern Allies were, to a large extent, given fleets of U.S. fighter jets as free gifts in exchange for access to their oil supplies.
The F-14 at least was said to have been en route to Iran and was impounded when the Iranian Revolution happened.
This, while implausible at first. This troper has seen all types of oddities in deployments, as has his family. He has seen Bulgarians with Modern Stingers, and two weeks ago (JUN 2020) came across a 3rd battalion unit (US army) with M 16 A 2's retrofitted with KAC rails, CCO's and PEQ 15's. In fiction any situation that is not standard, should be allowed to use the "no such thing" rule to it's use. The "no such thing" rule is that, while something may not make sense in most situations, there is exceptions that could cause things to exist outside the norm. AKA if someone tells you something never-ever-happened. That either A. They are a "fake-expert" or B. your claim is so ludicrous that it's physically impossible.
