What ho! I’m Basil Karrinton-Smythe from the Imperial Navy and I’m here to show you salt of the earth, objective-securing soldiers the difference between our glorious aircraft and those flown by those filthy xenos, the Orks.

Silhouette

Whether it’s the nimble Thunderbolt Fighter or the splendid Marauder Destroyer, the planes of the Imperial Navy have perfect silhouettes, which are easy to recognise as they soar over your trenches on another vital mission for the glory of the Imperium.* Each one is the paragon of aerodynamic design. The Orks violate these beautiful shapes by sticking on more of their noisy, inaccurate weapons. Our planes are faultless, with the ideal number of weapons – if they were meant to have more guns then, by the Emperor, they would have more guns!

Vapour Trail

Thanks to the pre-flight consecrations, the machine spirits of our aircraft emit only a very light vapour trail behind them as they fly – you’ve probably seen our display team, the Blue Darts, using this to make pretty patterns during victory flybys.** Ork planes will throw out a thick black smoke due to the substandard fuel that they put into the tanks. Think it’s bad having to breathe this stuff in down there on the ground? Just imagine the horror of getting on the six of a junk-bag Ork Dakkajet and getting their tail soot all over your freshly starched navy uniform.

Colour

Our planes are painted in the glorious colours and heraldry*** of the Imperial Navy, and while the exact details may vary between fleets, the overall majesty is unmistakable. Orks, on the other hand, labour under the insane pretence that red planes are somehow able to fly faster. If anything, all it actually means is that they fall faster when one of our Imperial Navy heroes shoot one down.

Formation

When you look up and see the Imperial Navy flying, your hearts are no doubt filled with pride when you see our perfect formation flying. How do they manage to fly so quickly, so close together and execute such breathtaking manoeuvres with so few mid-air collisions? Luck? Well, yes, but also practise! Rather than the elegant V or finger-four formations that we use, Orks are most often seen in a straight line, each plane racing the others to get closer to their enemy.

If you see an Ork aircraft flying towards you guns blazing and bomb doors open, your duty is clear – by all means try and shoot it down with your Hydra flak tanks, but your first call should be to the Imperial Navy. We’ll scramble and shoot it down in a jiffy and with no need to mess around with anything slow and cumbersome like a Hydra flak tank. Don’t worry, Guardsmen – we’re always here to help out our little siblings on the ground.

++ Thought for the Day: Salvation comes on wings of cleansing flame ++

* Or just heading out to pick up a crate of finest amasec for the CO.

** Unfortunately, your Commissar says that you don’t have time to be watching airshows!

*** Usually a shade of grey.

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