Prologue
Early spring, 1964. Disheartened by the continued refusal of their proposal to be integrated in the sport of Sensha-dō, a group of members of the Japanese Sensha-dō Federation broke off from the organization to introduce to the world a new kind of vehicle sport. Instead of tanks, the battlefield has shifted to the place where no ground vehicle could ever touch: the sky. The JFS fiercely opposed its introduction, but the word of MEXT was enough to give the new sport a single chance to make a name for itself. A chance that the new organization was all too eager to seize. By the time the 1964 Olympics had arrived in Tokyo, the country had already been treated to its first taste of a sport that graced the blue of the heavens.
To those in the West, it is simply known as Fliegerfahren.
In the years following that first tournament in the summer of 1964, the sport had grown to be popular only second to Sensha-dō itself. Although, with all the participants being primarily from the Japanese home islands, the sport never really expanded beyond the Far East nation like its tankery counterpart. Over the next several years however, other nations began to take notice of the sport and began clamouring for expansion of entrants. In a compromise with JFS and MEXT, the running organization would be overhauled into a joint board with the exception that all future tournaments would remain being hosted in Japan and make use of the same ships and schools Sensha-dō was a part of. Despite the distance, nations spanning from the Americas to Eurasia would offer Fliegerfahren as a summer option for their students to partake in, and it paid off in spades. With each passing summer, the number of foreign students had grown to the point it almost always made up the majority of the teams. It seemed to be the beginning of a beautiful act.
Then came the one no one ever liked to speak of. On that fateful day, disaster struck.
What was supposed to be another exciting match of the tournament became forever marred with fatalities. Popularity dropped, participants entering plummeted, and the reputation was tarnished deep. The joint organization, unable to cope with the fallout, had no choice but to put an indefinite end to the sport of flying. In time, the international ties and relations built up were left to the wind. It seemed to many that the dream of flying for the gold would become a distant memory.
Until one day, the world would witness a second coming.
The advent of modern technology would help to propose a revival of the sport, one that could now utilize the utmost of safety to prevent a disaster on the level of that fateful day. Around the world the old participant nations, now awash with a new generation of students, saw their chance and demanded a return of the past event. The old joint organization was reactivated, and with assistance from the still ongoing Sensha-dō program and MEXT, the lost sport found its way back. Fliegerfahren would resume for the first time in over three decades, and with its revival came a new wave of young flyers, the knights of the sky eager for action and ready to recapture the gold laurels for their nations.
But in our tale, they came to gain more than just the glory of champions. For these pilots, it was not just about the art of flying. It was not just finding friendship, strength, perseverance, and guile. Those traits would never compare to the most prestigious of them all. To cherish and to give to one's heart.
These are their stories.