Just before the air campaign on Commandoria began a pair of C-27J Spartans flew out of the sunset and landed unannounced on the Warburg mega-carrier USS Atlas. Eight crates were unloaded by the crew and rushed down into the bowels of the ship. Not one person on board thought anything of it. Little did they know but they had just witnessed the arrival of a new covert operations group, the Flying Dolphins.
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The next day, just before dawn, two aircraft buzzed towards the island fortress, apparently a duo of vulnerable ancient cropdusters. Flying at 120mph at twelve feet above the waves the pair split up as they droned over the beach, climbing to twenty feet. Flying under the radar, the Flying Dolphins cut their engines and dived upon an airfield. Suddenly the underside of their fuselages belched smoke and flame and flashes of turquoise hurled themselves into the ground, ripping the little aerodrome to shreads. As chaos reigned on the ground the two cropdusters had disappeared from sight, skimming the sea with their tailwheels as they made their way back to the carrier.
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The "cropdusters" were in fact highly modified Gloster Freives, with electronic warfare and intelligence gathering equipment packed into the rear fuselage. They had increased engine power, modified wingtips that allowed them to literally "skim the waves", a semi-nuclear cannon mounted on the underside of the fuselage and an air intake positioned on a funnel, which let the pilots restart the engine if they crashed into the sea.
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The Flying Dolphins often carried out pre- and post-raid reconnaissance, as well as making attacks of their own. Their low speed and very low altitude allowed them to penetrate under the radar to strike targets precisely and with almost no warning. On one occasion a Brotherhood of Chaos F-5 Tiger II attempted to intercept a Freive, but stalled and crashed into the sea after slowing to 102 mph to stay with the slow-moving Gloster.
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Eight aircraft are operational, flown by a specialist group of ten pilots. They are highy-secret, with only 23 personnel knowing their true purpose. They swear allegiance to the monarch of the Saltwater Carrier Nation, but are separate from the air force and often fly in the markings of other allied nations to confuse their targets as to their true identity if they are ever shot down.
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AG1 lowers the arrestor hook.
AG8 enables tailwheel steering.
Credit must go to Tonnkatu500 for the original airframe.