The pilot in the high-altitude reconnaissance plane chewed gum while watching the brutal dogfight raging above the distant battlefield.
The fighters the Federation had delivered to Gefra were upgraded models descended from the first generation.
In the past, they had been able to gain a certain performance advantage against the fighters Peng Joe used before.
But after the Peng Joe Empire had also upgraded its fighters, these Federation aircraft no longer held any obvious performance advantage.
Without a performance advantage, combat became much more brutal! Once an enemy got on their tails, it was difficult to shake them off with ease through the aircraft's performance alone. They could only try to escape the enemy's sights by performing more dangerous maneuvers or relying on teamwork.
At the same time, without that performance advantage, Gefra's pilots' weaknesses were exposed.
It was like someone who had always used a chainsaw to cut down trees. He would never feel that chopping down a large tree was particularly exhausting.
But if one day his chainsaw broke and he had to conquer a large tree with an axe or an ordinary saw, he would perform even worse than an average person! That was exactly the situation now. They were used to defeating the strong despite being weak, but when both sides were placed at almost the same level, they performed far worse than the Peng Joe pilots who had always been at a disadvantage.
The Peng Joe pilots had previously used copies of Blackstone Aviation's Export Type One. Their performance and specifications had been adjusted slightly, making them less impressive.
This had forced them to improve their fighter-piloting skills in order to increase their survival rate and combat record on the battlefield.
Those who had only wanted to muddle through had long since been shot down.