#fighter planes

Dakota Kid II & Aleutian Tiger

American Lieutenant @justdavina with the British 26th Aero Squadron a WW1 Fighter Ace with 6 Kills!

"The Sky Belongs to Davina"

France, September 1918

The Sopwith Camel shuddered as Lieutenant Davina Kay yanked it into a brutal climb, the rotary engine snarling like a wounded lion. The early morning mist still clung to the Marne valley below, but up here, above 10,000 feet, the sky was blood-clear—and dangerous.

Her gloved hand danced on the stick, eyes scanning the horizon. She wasn't supposed to be here. Officially, American women didn’t fly combat missions. But Davina wasn’t one to wait for permission.

She had learned to fly in barnstorming shows back in California, slipping into a leather helmet and goggles before she ever slipped on a dress. When the Great War came, she lied about her identity, enlisted under her brother’s name—David Kay—and convinced the RAF she was just another hotshot Yank with something to prove.

And prove it, she did. By September, Lieutenant Davina “Killer Kay” had five confirmed kills, all in her battered but reliable Sopwith Camel. The men called her “Ghost Ace”—a mystery, a myth. She liked it that way.

But today wasn’t about legends.

Today, she had a score to settle.

Over Soissons, two days earlier, her wing man Nikki had gone down in flames under the guns of the Red Baron’s protégé—a cold-eyed ace in a scarlet-painted Fokker D.VII with a black falcon on its side. Davina had barely escaped with bullet holes stitched across her wing and the taste of smoke in her mouth.

Now she was hunting.

She spotted it first—a glint of crimson in the eastern light, slicing across the clouds like a hot knife. The Fokker was alone. Cocky. Waiting.

“Let’s dance,” she muttered, and nosed the Camel into a dive.

The wind screamed past her ears. The Camel bucked and kicked like an angry horse—just the way she liked it. She could feel the machine, every bolt and strut, alive in her hands.

The Fokker spotted her too late.

Her twin Vickers guns barked, spitting fire. Tracers lit the air between them. The German banked hard, trying to loop above her, but Davina anticipated the move. She cut throttle, stalled briefly, then kicked the rudder and came up beneath him, like a hawk striking from the underbrush.

Her second burst hit home.

The Fokker jerked, then spiraled downward, trailing smoke.

Davina followed, watching. No parachute. No movement.

She didn’t smile. Just exhaled.

“Nikki, that one was for you,” she whispered.

By the time she landed back at the muddy field near Reims, oil-streaked and bone-tired, the ground crew was already running out to meet her. Captain Rawlins, red-faced and blustery, stormed up.

“Kay! That’s Six. You’ve just passed Bishop himself!”

Davina pulled off her helmet, letting a cascade of dark curls fall free.

Rawlins froze. The crew stared.

“You’re… a woman,” he said dumbly.

Davina stepped past him, boots crunching the dirt, and said over her shoulder:

“No, Captain. I’m a pilot.”

How do they work!?

I put them between the ASFs/sticks/bases so the assembly is less fiddly. Just snaps itself into place. Also less likely to randomly come off during handling. Also they can now tilt. Also:

Behold, glowing thruster plumes!

Water medium + tiny bit of paint, you really don't need much, especially if you want to keep it translucent (which I do.) Let it dry partway before handling so it's thicker and easier to pull into points. This took several layers steadily building up a pointier shape.

How it looks when not backlit. Anyway the magnets were a little annoying to put together, and I was deathly afraid of gluing the wrong polarity.