Is Tails a good pilot?

[Fennec E Fox]

My immediate response to that question is to say "Yes. A very good pilot." I haven't gotten the chance to play many Sonic games and only have the flight sequences in Adventure to go by, but between those and the odd glimpse at what games I missed that the kit seems to have a track record that even Ace Combat protagonists would struggle to match, and those guys get up to some wild shenanigans of their own. That's my initial impression anyway.

However, the fox also seems to have very few proper landings under his belt, and usually either ends up crash landing or straight-up getting shot out of the sky. I'm sure there's more that I missed, but the only time I recall him managing a solid landing is at the end of Sonic 2 after Tails catches Sonic and proceeds to set down in a field. Considering landing is a fairly vital part of flying well, that puts my initial assessment into question.

Is he really a good pilot and just has profoundly bad luck landing, is Eggman just that good at shooting things down, or is he not as great as I'm thinking. Or some combination of the above?

[Douknodefox]

He's always experimenting with his plane. New power sources engines and adding the ability to turn it into a mech. Making him have to constantly get used to new things. Sometimes it malfunctions which causes many crashes. Add Eggman on top of that and it makes everything harder. So I'd say he's a pretty good pilot. Especially for like... A child.

[Fennec E Fox]

All that is true, and in addition to all that my experience with more realistic flight sims strongly suggests it takes significant skill to turn what would normally be an devastating crash into a crash landing. From what I've seen he manages it happens every time he has any semblance of control and isn't, say, missing an entire wing. So I suppose I feel pretty confident in my first answer. Just wanted a second opinion.

Hold on.

"and adding the ability to turn it into a mech."

So his SA2 mech is still the same plane as the one as far back as Sonic 2? They're not two distinct aircraft?

[Douknodefox]

Originally posted by Fennec E Fox:

All that is true, and in addition to all that my experience with more realistic flight sims strongly suggests it takes significant skill to turn what would normally be an devastating crash into a crash landing. From what I've seen he manages it happens every time he has any semblance of control and isn't, say, missing an entire wing. So I suppose I feel pretty confident in my first answer. Just wanted a second opinion.

Hold on.

"and adding the ability to turn it into a mech."

So his SA2 mech is still the same plane as the one as far back as Sonic 2? They're not two distinct aircraft?

I don't know. I think I remember an explanation of "He just painted it blue" from somewhere. My mind keeps going to Sonic X. Maybe it's from there I don't know.

[Unicorn furf]

Sonic 2, 3 and Adventure all feature the Tornado. Adventure and Adventure 2 have the Tornado II. I don't see any reason not to presume it's the same Tornado II.

As for Tails' piloting skills, he flies through an armada of Eggman's robots once in Sonic 2 and twice in Adventure, proving himself more capable than anything his own size in the air. Getting shot down by the anti-air guns or the main cannon of a much bigger ship isn't a detriment to his ability, it's something that can happen to anyone. Losing power in a test flight at the start of Adventure isn't a skill issue, it's a design problem. And as for crashing onto the Egg Carrier, I don't know, maybe the Tornado II needed to be in high speed mode to keep up at that point. It isn't clearly explained why Tails didn't transform it back, but that's design or judgement at fault, not piloting.

[Fennec E Fox]

I'm pretty sure Tails specifically states he forgot to install the landing gear, presumably because he was so wrapped up in making the plane fly again and do so even better. But yeah, it seems pretty clear he's a solid pilot.

Edit: Of course, that has to be at least a little bit of translation issue because without landing gear he couldn't get off the ground in the first place.

[Unicorn furf]

I'm playing it in Japanese right now. He says that it doesn't have landing gear in the transformed mode.

[NBOX21]

Also keep in mind that at the time the events of the game take place, while he is very skilled with machinery and technology, he's just a young boy so he's not as skilled as he could be and is bound to make mistakes. Which also explains how Tails got tricked so easily by Eggman into spilling the beans about the fake emerald in SA2.

[doctor pepe]

tails did 911

[Fennec E Fox]

You know just shy of three thousand people died that day, right? I know it's supposed to be a joke, but as someone who lived through that I don't see anything to laugh about.

[doctor pepe]

that's unfortunate

[Fennec E Fox]

Well, I mean, there's an entire generation of young adults now that didn't see it happen live and thus don't have the trauma, and a number of people of with darker senses of humor both before and after the fact that could joke about stuff like that and find it funny, so I can understand. Kind of.

It's just not something I personally could laugh at.

[Devsman]

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun

[combater56]

Originally posted by doctor pepe:

that's unfortunate

People try to have empathy challenge (failure)