Kalran: Tales of the four nations/Airpad

The nature of DSDF air operations, as with so much of the rest of that group's operations, is highly decentralised. The Faunus aircraft, which are mainly ornithopters, are all capable of vertical take-off and landing, and in particular aircraft such as the Hawk may land on any solid terrain, so long as it is not too rough, with fuel not being an issue that to the efficiency of their spiral engines, as in it can take months before they need to refuel at a simple windtrap. This allows for aircraft squadrons to be dispersed widely, and eliminates the need for vulnerable airfield infrastructure. With hundreds of aircraft hidden all across Askrian.

However, though the Faunus can hide their aircrafts almost anywhere, when it comes to battle they still need to be resupplied, and this necessitates some sort of infrastructure. Most of the time, the task of supplying and supporting Faunus aircraft thus comes to prefabricated airpads that can be quickly constructed and torn down.

Though these airpads are primitive, consisting of little more than a landing pad capable of supporting a single aircraft, nevertheless they make resupply of all Faunus aircraft possible, from the manoeuvrable Hawks to the enormous Albatrosses. Given their simple construction, they can be constructed almost anywhere and in a very short time.

And in order to utilize their ways of guerilla warfare the Faunus uses ornithopters, which uses the motion of a birds wings to fly, in place of helicopters and planes. As their spiral engines allow them to achieve a wingbeat closer to, or even surpassing, a hummingbird with little weight added thanks to wood and canvas frames, they are significantly more quieter then a helicopter rotor or plane propeller, and from above and afar they look like birds. Meaning that as long as long as their aircraft are not in range of a detector or near enemies they are practically invisible to the enemy commanders.

Trivia

 * Their ornithopters, which replaces any helicopters they would have, are based of the aircrafts of the same name from dune.
 * All of their aircraft, with the exception of the Butterfly, are named after birds.