Author's Note

Yo sup people!!! I'm new here and it's my first fic!!! I've been reading some guys' fighter jet fics and I finally decided to make my own! By the way this fic contains some movie or game references from ones like Maverick, Red tails, Ace Combat, R2B, etc.

If anyone sees something to criticize, please do! I'll need lots of improvement! By the way feel free to share any ideas down the comments below, I enjoy accepting new ideas as well as some story plots!

If you're reading this then thank you very much!

(By the way some parts of this 'Raven' are made up; actually the entire 'Raven was made up so... Don't judge too much on 'Raven' please...)

Here's the YF-44 Raven
Lego version of her. (PS. Built her outta random bricks, took me a while on her extendable wings.)

(Anthro version of Raven; found this relatable on the internet; it doesn't belong to me! But it sure fit Raven well!)

Prologue: Prototype YF-44 'Raven'

EVENT: FINAL TEST FLIGHT
SUBJECT: YF-44 PROTOTYPE 'RAVEN'
OBJECTIVE: AIRSPEED MACH 8, ATTITUDE 60,000 FT
SECONDARY: BVR COMBAT SYSTEM FINAL EXAMINATION
TEST PILOT: LT. MARK 'BUZZIN' WILLOCK
PILOT CALLSIGN: SKYWOLF

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Edward AFB, California
10-27-2029
16:25 PM

Mark was never a obedience pilot, and this the reason why he became the test pilot. After graduating from university, 24 year-old Mark Willock immediately enlisted for service in the USAF; Mark, to be honest never had a single thought about becoming a fighter pilot, nor flying a plane; which too his father, Nathan Willock's dismay. Mark's great-grandfather was a pilot in the first world war flying for the RAF, his grandfather flew with the Flying Tigers against the Japanese in China during the second world war, as for his father, flew during Operation Desert Storm in 91, before his retire, Nathan's wish is to see his son in the air as well. However, as an average 18 year-old, Mark has other ideas, Nathan was pissed when he found out that his son wasted his career on nothing.

The father and son got into a huge fight about this, and it ended badly, with Nathan being in cold war with Mark...

Until the young man hit his 20; Later that day, after his graduation, Mark was at the bar with his fellow buddies when he got an emergency call from his mother... Two weeks ago, Nathan was suddenly recalled by his unit, the mission is classified. Mark, who's still in the cold war with Nathan, obviously ignored this. However, from that day on, Mark lost his father forever...

Nathan's death was never declassified, during the funeral, Mark was both pissed in Nathan... And himself.

His grandfather passed away when he was 10, his last desire was hoping Mark would one day be in the air...

Mark, after about 3 months of cooling down his mind, finally made a decision that would forever alter his life,

The thing is, genetic memory is not a joke. Mark was among the elite list with his fellow classmates in the Air Force academy, after that he was invited to the USAF, however Mark nearly got himself kicked out by pulling a nine G break. The daredevil's fine, but then the Talon suffered a right engine failure, although Mark succeed in gliding the Talon down to the runway, his almost lost his balls when he got beat the shit out of by a really pissed instructor.

Mark got his nickname 'Buzzin' when he went buzzin pass the tower in his Super Hornet. The instructors weren't pissed, wait till some day Mark's gonna down a Raptor by pulling a 10 G cobra. Mark got his first kill during his last active patrol mission over the South Pacific, when he and his wingman Pete 'Turner' McConner detected an unidentified aircraft at the edge of their airspace.

Turned out it was a whole squadron of Russian Sea Flankers.

The fight was intense, Mark and Pete all together downed three Sea Flankers, one of the escaped though. Unfortunately, Pete was shot down; killed instantly with an Alamo straight to his face. Mark would never forget the face of that Russian dog. After a merge with the Sea Flanker, Super Hornet went nose high towards the Sea Flanker, the first Sidewinder did not track well, pre-flaring filled the skies; And even worst for Mark, the Sea Flanker is now at his 3 o'clock. The Archer zoomed passed him, exploding on one of the flares, which truly made Mark jumped outta his skin.

However, during his vertical dive, Mark's Super Hornet gained enough speed to ditch the Sea Flanker's nose, as the Sea Flanker struggled to keep up. Mark saw it coming, and as soon as his got the tone, he set another Sidewinder off, Sea Flanker lacked reaction time and was splashed. Although he gained his first two kills, but Mark knew what'd costed him...

Mark never expected another invitation would came; this time it was a classified file. As Mark guessed, he became a test pilot, and his testing subject, is the USAF's newest stealth bird, hears that lady here took traits from both the SR-71 and the F-22, combing speed and stealth. Her name is YF-44, nickname 'Raven'.

What's truly attractive about this sexy lady here is that she's got some good lookin....

Engines.

Those twin XA-8000A5 Scramjet engine which can also perform some awesome maneuvers with some thrust vectors, this lady here is built to engage the Chinese J-20s, J-31s, Russian Su-57s and their Super Flankers. The internal weapon bay underneath the belly is capable of arming herself with eight AMRAAMs and four Sidewinders, as well as some Mavericks, Laster-guided bombs, Hydras, and all other beautiful motherfakas. However, the guns aren't as great as the ranged arrangements; a 25mm Gatling gun, although 'Raven' has the potential of putting on a 35mm gun on her.

Today's Raven's final test flight, if this goes well then Raven would begin her production.

Oh, and keep in mind that Mark's a daredevil; although the test standard is Mach 8, but Raven's got more potential than that, Mark's guessing this lady here could go up to Mach 10 and can hold up to 10G+ maneuvers. And the consequence of trying these out would be the end of his career.

Mark looked towards the windows of the room, the direction of the hanger, towards the Raven; the G0suit he's wearing has done some improvements just in case of some extreme over G, although that's actually thought up by the engineers of Raven to prevent Mark wrecking her on her last test flight. An engineer got in front of Mark, looked him dead in the eyes, "Alright Mark, our standard speed requirement is Mach 8, not 8.1, not 8.2... MACH. EIGHT."

Mark patted his shoulder, "Chill man, I ain't gonna wreck this sexy lady on her graduation day."

The engineer sighed, "I don't like the sound of that tone."

"Welp, that's the only one I've got." Mark shrugged as they headed out towards the hanger.

Mark could swear in the name of god again, the Raven is larger than he thought; with the wingspan 60ft when swept and 37ft when unswept, about 4 meters off ground, and about 20 feet in length.

"What a big bird we got here," Mark murmured, as he climbed the steps into the cockpit. Upon into the seat, Mark took a deep breath of amusement as he examined the control panels displayed in front of him, "my god she's beautiful." Raven was then towed by a medium sized tractor, towards the runway. Mark watched as the aircraft stopped at the start of the runway, as the tractor drove away, he had completed the last checks as well.

"Tower this is Raven, do you read?" Mark turned on the radio.

"Raven, Tower reads," the preflight instructor responded, "confirming status; Raven, start your preflight report."

"APU system on," Mark said as he flicked a switch, the three screens in front of were lightened up, "HUD set on, now turning on right engine." Another flick and one side of the engine began to whirr before exploding into a growl, "Right engine go, turning on left engine," the left side responded the same as the right, "left engine go. Completing preflight status check; engines, go; fuel, go; electric, go; radar, go; control surfaces, go. Raven requesting premission for taxi."

"Raven, tower cleared for taxi."

"Raven copy." Mark smiled as he slowly pushed the thrustor lever forward, the twin engines' growl turned into roars as two bright jet of gases shot out of the nozzles, Raven was slowly gliding forward, within seconds the glide turned into a run. Upon seeing the speed meters above 120 knots, Mark pulled the centre stick backward, he felt some G forces against him as Raven began her climb.

"Raven, your objective attitude is 60,000 feet, switch to scramjet at 30,000 feet." Came in the tower's instructions.

"Copy." Mark could feel the air currents smashing onto Raven, and getting bounced away, Raven shook a little as she broke the sound barrier, "Alright so there's Mach 2, six more to go." He murmured to himself as the speed began to flood in.

About a 40 seconds later, Raven reached her first checkpoint, "Transitioning to scramjet." Mark smirked, "And the fun part begins." He lowered the thrustor lever before breaking it to the right, then he flicks the scramjet switch on. Inside the air intake, a seperators blocks the turbofan as the scramjet were exposed to the violent air current, the organge jet immediately exploded into bright blue. Mark on the other hand, was pushed backward as if a metal ball smashed onto his chest, his breathing started to strain a little from the 7 G forces.

"Mach 7.5, approaching to maxinum speed." Mark reported as he pushed the centre stick forward after reaching 60,000 feet. He felt quiet for a moment, then looked at the control panels, "Temperature rising, communication system still stable, I'm feelin good." Outside, above the clouds, were the sky; Dark, blue sky.

He's at the edge of the outer space itself.

He then looked at the right windshield, the sunset is amazing.

However, when the speed hit Mach 7.8, things Raven started to complain.

Mark noticed his left windshield is melting a little, he frowned, "Windshield heat caution, aircraft surface temperature's reaching maximum intake." Right after he said that Raven began to shake, "Not a great time to complain girl." Mark whispered, still frowning.

Then it hits Mach 7.9.

Raven is not happy about her current condition, waves of molten glass started to cover up the windshield, as the nose of the aircraft began to turn orange, "Com' on babe! Jus a little more!" Mark gritted his teeth, as he grabbed onto the centre stick; he's not planning for an ejection, plus upon ejection, the air current and the extreme G forces would kill him right away.

Now the entire nose is engulfed in flames, Raven's scramjet engines roared in fury, "Raven, this is what you're born for." Mark said under his breath, "Now let's hit it girl! Com' on!" The aircraft shook harder as Mach 7.9 is slowly tiltring towards Mach 8.

Finally, with a beep, Mach 8.

Tower erupted in cheers, as Mark released a huge breath he'd been holding back.

"Tow... sion... Cle... T..." Mark frowned again as the signal studdered, "Raven cannot read, please repeat over."

Suddenly, alarm began to rang as the HUD flashed red, "Caution! Right engine failure! Caution! Fire Warning! Caution! Airframe Overheat!" Raven finally give up, her right scramjet sceeched into a stop as the fuel poured out after one of the scraps blown off by the wind slashed the fuel tank, then it was in flame. "Shit! Raven don't you dare!" Mark's eyes widened in fear as the warning got more rapid, then the right engine was engulfed in a fireball, sending the entire aircraft into an destructive spin, air current found its target as it tore the airframe apart.

The last thing Mark saw was the flash of flames in the cockpit before darkness took his senses away.

However, unnoticed by him, a fiant spark of blue aura lightened on the damaged Raven before it was burned out...