Cartel air force Flying flea

[chrisonord]

The nick name given to this aircraft really does not portray its menacing abilities, or the thorn in the side of the Honduras air force. The aircraft came into being as a result of the aircraft engineers working for the Cartel, finding some blue prints brought over from Germany by one of the engineers Grandfathers. The said Grandfather fled Germany along with several other aircraft designers and engineers just before the Russians took Berlin at the end of WW2, with them they took several drawings and blueprints of future Luftwaffe fighter and bomber designs. The group of 5 Engineers ended up in Argentina but was soon on the move again as they were being hunted as Nazi war criminals, although the only wear they saw was through their office/workshop windows. The five men ended up settling in Nicaragua and setting up shop repairing and servicing light and middle weight civil transport planes, then the military got wind of who they were and seized them at gun point and forced them to work for them designing and working on existing aircraft. The engineers and their families were treated badly and this caused much resentment among the families of the engineers. As the years went by,some of the family members decided to do something about their wrongful captivity, and made a deal with the leader of a Nicaraguan revolutionary, and Cartel leader. The whole of the families involved agreed to go ahead with what ever they could secretly arrange with the Cartel and a plan was hatched to break them all free.
The compound was very low key where the families were kept so as to prevent any interest from prying eyes, so getting into the grounds and releasing the families, would be easy, especially as they had some inside information from 2 of the guards.
One night under the cover of darkness, 3 old US, Deuce and a half trucks came thundering up to the gates of the compound, the guards thought they were their own army vehicles at first as they had Nicaraguan insignia on their doors, and the drivers were in uniform too.
The guards were quietly dispatched, the alarm mechanism disabled and 2 cartel soldiers replaced the guards on the gates.
The trucks drew upto the accommodation billets,8 cartel troops got out of the back and silently took out 3 patrolling  guards, then broke open the billets, the cartel troops saw every single person dressed and loaded up with their belongings anxiously waiting to get out of their hell.
It was going to be a tight squeeze to get everyone and the luggage in but that was part of the agreement, as they had with them several valuable blueprints for aircraft and weapons with them. Just as the final truck was getting loaded an alarm went off and a search light lit up the court yard where they were parked. The search light stopped on the trucks, and a machine gun burst into life hitting a Cartel soldier and someone inside the truck. Within moments the searchlight and machine gun burst into flames and went with a huge bang, an RPG had been fired at the tower by a small group of Cartel troops watching from outside the compound. All hell had broke loose now, but the guards were picked off by Cartel snipers as they came out of their guard house, then that got hit by 2 RPG's.
The trucks relatively unscathed by driving through a gun battle were out like a shot,picking up yet more passengers on the way out, and were mercilessly hammered along the dark dirt roads to the Cartel stronghold. Mission accomplished.
On getting to the Cartel base the reality of that statement came to light, the person sat in the truck that got shot was killed, he was one of the 5  engineers, that had survived escaping from Germany and the "witch hunt" they were fleeing ever since they landed in South America.
The son of the engineer vowed his revenge on the Nicaraguan army and Government, and pledged his allegiance to the Cartel, to do what it took to bring those responsible down. The families were all given modest homes and work to do within the Cartel, many of the men learned the skills of aircraft and vehicle building, repair and maintenance, thus the Cartel having the air and land force it has today. Part of the revenge was realised on a Blueprint drawn and designed by the engineer who was killed, and his son and his 2 sons also made the aircraft into a reality, and then some.
The aircraft is the Fockewulf TA-183, built and modernised as much as possible by the engineers and armed with what ever they could get to work on such a small airframe. The Flying Flee as it was affectionately known was a flying tribute to its builders father, and as well as reaping revenge on Nicaraguan government and Army installations and their aircraft, was also used against Honduras aircraft that came too close to where the Flying flee was based. The flea accounted for 6 downed helicopters, 3 propeller driven aircraft and also shot down 2 Super Tucano's that it got into a dog fight with. The Flea is armed with 2 23 mm Russian sourced cannon 4 Chinese built AAM's and 2 Russian short range AAM's.
A pod has been retro fitted to the front lower fuselage which is believed to be a radar/targeting pod  for the missiles. The engine, as not of the original design, and appears to be a more modern turbo jet with similar configuration to that used in the MIG-21, but smaller in physical size.
The performance however is pretty astounding and has been heard breaking the sound barrier in level flight on several occasions. The aircraft is also very nimble and on 3 occasions has out manoeuvred itself away from both Mirage and F-5e fighters of the Honduras airforce, and 2 Nicaraguan Mig-23's.
The aircraft however got into an argument with a US marines F-20 on C.A.P and was shot down after a lengthy close in dog fight. The F-20 could not get a missile lock on it so had to use guns on it, nearly depleting all his ammo in the process.
Here is the wee beasty.





Cheers,
Chris.   

[Jschmus]

Very evil-looking, and predatory, with all those missile hanging off of it.

[pedrospe]

hi Chris, that would make a great ucav, even it's size is perfect for the ucav role.


regards


Pedro

[GTX]

hi Chris, that would make a great ucav, even it's size is perfect for the ucav role.


regards


Pedro

Pedro,

You might find some of the ideas here of interest.

regards,

Greg