“Okay… we’ve checked everything” was heard in the hangar. The voice belonged to one of the mechanics, that seemed to have finished some seconds ago on his task and was reporting to his superior.

“Good, I hope this test works” the alluded superior, who was the lead mechanic in the hangar, said towards the lower-ranked worker. He was going to say something else, but then he spotted an officer walk towards them both, and he quickly nodded towards his companion so he could leave.

“Buongiorno comandante” the lead mechanic said towards the lieutenant , the latter giving him a polite nod and replying the salute “Buongiorno Serafino”, giving him a smile and then proceeding to take a gander at the elephant in the room… or well… the plone in the hangar (Ok that wasn’t a pun or a joke I swear).

Said plone was there, standing passively and trying not to move, as the mechanics went to and fro, finishing their respective duties and starting to give her space. They moved ladders and blowtorches away, some of them carrying toolboxes, wrenches, hammers, etcetera, things you would normally see on a hardware store. It was like an orchestra at the end of the show, when they put back the instruments to their respective places and bring back the music stands to where they belong.

“What were your results? Do you think we can proceed to testing phase?” the officer said, admiring the large plane pony on the hangar, which gently started walking forwards, towards the exit. She was beautiful mare, and a beautiful machine… but not exactly a beautiful flyer.

“Um… si, signore” The lead mechanic said with certain uncertainty on his voice. He was clearly not too sure about his own replies, but he tried to be as confident as possible towards his officer. “We can try and test, and if it fails, we’ll learn from it and see what else we can do” he said, admitting partly his lack of certainness.

“Good, now, should we go to the control room Serafino? I imagine that will give you a better view of her when she takes off” The lieutenant said, smiling towards the lead mechanic, as they both started walking to the car that brought the officer to the hangar, the soldier in the driver seat looking at them both and smiling. “Joyride comandante?”

A little later, there she was, the plane pony, standing at the end of the runway, or at the start, depending of what was your perspective, in any case she was about to do what she wanted to since the start of the day; try her hardest to fly. She did fly sometimes, truth be told, but, considering how these flights went (Most of them emergency landings), she actually wanted to fly, be in the air like any other plone, maybe do some stunts, and then finish with a nice landing. But so far she actually never got to fly stable for atleast 10 minutes, and there always seemed to be an issue that popped up at random, and while that discouraged her a bit, her dream was to fly just like the rest, and she wasn’t going to give up on that anytime soon. She smiled to herself as she stood, waiting for authorization from the control tower and idly tapped her hoof on the concrete runway, a bit impatient. There was nobody else in the runway but her, though some micro ponies were out of the runway, to the sides, waiting for her.

Finally, she received the order from ATC, which said something along the lines of “Ba-88, authorized to take off from Runway 5, good luck”. She pranced slightly on her spot, happy to start, and afterwards she turned on her engines, the ambient ‘Vrrrr’ starting noise signaling that the engines were working correctly as the blades started to spin, slowly at first, but then gradually rotating faster and faster and faster, until all it was seen was a circle instead of the three blades from before. She made sure that both engines were working correctly, and also tested her flaps and ailerons.

After she found herself comfortable to takeoff, she started. Her engines at maximum as she started walking on the runway, a walking that soon became trotting, and much later becoming a full galloping as the plane pony took speed to take off, just like the rest of plane ponies did. She was hopeful this take off was going to be it; this was going to be the time she flew at last, the various engineers at the sides of the runway looking at the admittedly beautiful figure of the mare whizzing past, with a determined expression. At the control tower was the lead mechanic with a prismatic the lieutenant donned to him. It might look like it was only the plone that wanted to fly, but actually everyone, from the lowest mechanic to the highest officer, looked at her expectantly, hoping for the best for the poor Breda.

Meanwhile, the plane pony kept on galloping; pounding the concrete runway with her green and beige hooves, a camouflage pattern that somewhat fit her, then, when she started generating lift, she stopped galloping and gave a big jump, the wings now doing their part and letting her fly, fly at last…

But destiny had other plans, as the plane pony soon found out when she ‘took off’. It was unclear what was happening, and she herself didn’t know, but she felt underpowered for her weight. She tried her damnedest to keep flying and in the air, hoping that when she took altitude it would fare better for her. However, despite her best efforts, she still felt too heavy for takeoff, and that translated to her starting to lower in altitude, though she wasn’t quite high to begin with.

After a while, her tries to maintain altitude became desperate flailing of her hooves as she tried everything possible to stay in the air, but it was to no avail, though that whole flailing had an indirect effect; it made her unprepared for the landing that followed.

She managed to step with one of her hooves, and then the other one, but she couldn’t keep up the speed she was carrying, and she did some awkward sprint to try maintaining balance, failing to stay in the runway for some seconds. Workers and soldiers got out of the runway quickly, trying to stay far away to not get hurt, though the plane pony was sure she accidentally stepped on one of them as she kept on.

But the torque won, and she fell down forwards, almost at the end of the runway, her underside scrapping the concrete and shortly afterwards the softer ground after the runway, that was the only thing that made her brake, stopping some meters away from the concrete road that she was just trotting a few moments ago. Her yellow eyes looking at the sky as her face registered pain, which was soon proven by her “Oww…” expression afterwards. It was not much for this though plone, and she could actually handle it fine, but she was more disappointed that it was another failure again…

She stopped thinking about the failed take-off, and realized that some tiny ponies were stuck under her. She raised one of her hooves to free a certain micro that somehow got under her leg, while doing so gently tapping her hoof on the ground to unstuck another one, the one she stepped on while she was running in the runway. She felt some micros under her belly, and she groggily turned around, freeing the micros that were squished under her weight. After making sure she wasn’t bothering anybody, she apologized, still lying down on the ground. “Sorry… I’m really sorry…” she said softly towards the micros, most of them shrugging it off and looking at her with worried eyes. Nobody was hurt, thankfully, despite one of them being basically stomped on and the other two stuck under her figure.

The micros looked at her sad expression, as she looked down, tearful that another fail happened and she couldn’t even keep on flying for atleast one minute. Some approached her, and gave her different expressions of encouragement to make the plane pony happier, some of them being “It’s okay” “You’ll do it next time” “I believe in you”

Inside the control tower, everyone seemed disappointed and sad, another failure to the already long list of them. The lead mechanic was the most affected, since he was pretty much this plane pony’s best friend and he was also the one in charge of making her fly. He shrunk down figuratively, afraid of the lieutenant that was next to him, but to his surprise, he didn’t seem angry at him, he had some kind of hopeful façade that seemed awkward in the current events. Then, he spoke “Serafino, can we take off all her extra weight and remove all the military equipment? I think that’ll help”

“…We can try mio comandante” He said, then, after analyzing the request of the lieutenant, his expression also changed to a hopeful one. “That might reduce the wing loading and improve aerodynamics, and we can also use better engines…” He said, his comment coming out almost gleeful, as he started making plans on his head to work on the plane pony. The entire control room heard this conversation, and their hopes we’re renewed, the next week was going to be the day she was going to fly. One of the operators contacting with the green plane pony depressed on the runway “Breda, here Ground Control, er…. Go take some rest, you’ll need it. We’ll send some mechanics to help you relax; we’re already planning what to do next to make you fly.”

The plane pony stood up lazily, being careful of the micros that were around her (Though the tiny ponies themselves started backing up as they saw she was standing), she kicked a little dirt with one of her front hooves in an irritated gesture, and let out an annoyed neigh, starting to walk back to her hanger, some of the mechanics accompanying her. ‘The operator seemed gleeful… I hope the modifications let me fly next week…’ she said, slowly bringing her hopes up again as she considered the next opportunity. And soon, she was again the happy little plone she was at first, hoping excitedly for the next week, this mare wasn’t someone to feel down after such inconvenience. For now, it was just some chocolate-flavored oil, hoof massages, micros wanting her to relax, and explaining what happened to the lead mechanic, but she was certain that the next week she was going to make it.

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A little silly drawing and story based on the real life Breda Ba.88, this aircraft used in WW2 was… really terrible, not gonna lie. They test ones were a bit of a nice aircraft, but when you added military stuff, well… things went down the drain (Too bad, because I really like their streamlined shape)

In this case, this Breda Ba.88 is a plone, think of a Derpy Hooves of plane ponies. It’s a bit sad story, but I promise I’m gonna draw something happier with her D:


The camouflage pattern on her coat is based on the vast majority of reference pics I could find of the real aircraft, and the markings are not for any kind of promotion of viewpoints or whatever, but I just wanted to be sorta realistic with that. She has also yellow eyes like Derpy :D, but I think I won’t draw her cross eyed, I imagine it would look a bit odd on her.

This drawing took so long to post and to make a story, but in my defense I’m in college and I have very little time to do stuff XD.