Cartadanian Air Force

The Cartadanian Air Force (AC) is Cartadania's. Formed at the beginning of the Galician War on 9 March 1913, it is the oldest independent air force in the world, but the youngest of the three main branches of the Cartadanian Armed Forces. Since its formation, the AC has taken a significant role in Cartadanian military history. In particular, it played a large part in Cartadania's fight during the Great War. Cartadania's emphasis on air superiority has been especially evident since the 1960s, where it dialed back spending for its Army while increasing the Air Force budget, which has since been the most funded branch of the Armed Forces.

The Cartadanian Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force through the Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense and is appointed by the President. The highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who exercises supervision over Air Force units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As directed by the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Air Force, certain Air Force components are assigned to unified combatant commands. Combatant commanders are delegated operational authority of the forces assigned to them, while the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force retain administrative authority over their members.

Origins
The founding of the Aeronáutica Cartadaniana began in 1913, when the Cartadanian Secretary of War approved the purchase of an early plane to be outfitted for military operations. The following year, another four planes were added to the lone acquisition. On 17 December 1913, General Gabriel Seabra was appointed Inspector General of this aviation arm of the Armed Forces.

Great Wars era
The Air Force's involvement in the Great Wars is discontiguous and was largely concentrated to key areas where air support served the greatest advantage. Largely uninvoled in the first war, the Second Great War saw Cartadania's determination to utilize the full impact of its armed forces. After the annexation of the eastern states, the Department of Defense focused much of its efforts around the development of equipment to the western states of Triessa and Verona. Here, Angelico, Murena Defense, and many other contractors began increasing production, mobilizing a very large portion of the work force. The Air Force, especially, saw the greatest changes in this time period, as the Department of Defense began to focus heavily on air superiority and air-to-surface campaigns.

During the joint campaign between Cartadania and Pelaxia, the Air Force conducted a number of strikes in the eastern front. At the time, the Department of the Air Force and Department of Defense worked with Pelaxian Air Force to cross-train, supply, and plan out the operation of the conflict as much as possible. Sixteen years senior to the Caphirian counterpart, and with the Pelaxian force having a six year headstart along with the Cartadanian involvement, the Joint Force had time on its side, and ultimately, is one of the reasons the force was so successful in its operations.

Luso Wars
The Luso Wars, or more correctly, the Carto-Porlosi conflict, was a series of conflicts between Cartadania and Porlos in the 1930s, for which Cartadania was suzerain until late 1938. The war was primarily fought by the Cartadanian Army and stemmed from a rebel militia that had previously been present in the Porlosi capital city, Pacuí, storming the Ceylon-Porlosi border town of San Ysidro, where the toponymously named San Ysidro Army Base was located. Initially, the group of approximately 250 entered the town and began looting, assaulting, and causing civil unrest, and while the locality was quite small, with just over 8,000 inhabitants at the time, the community was largely military personnel, thus triggering a response from the Department of Defense.

Initially, military police began the response effort to curtail the rebellion by a series of arrests, but when the militia stormed the base itself, the Army mobilized in an effort to quell the rebellion altogether. In the coming days and weeks, the rebel militia, at this point known as Internal Liberal Party for Action and Defense (, PLIAD), had grown to well over a thousand people in the area, accounting for 1/8th of the bodycount in San Ysidro. The basis for the conflict was assumed to be independence, but due to Alahuela's grasp on the region, it was reluctant to let go, and as similar sentiments continued to form across Porlos, the military had to mobilize its other forces.

Because Porlos is largely inland, the Department of Defense relied mostly on army and air force support, and for the second time since its inception, the air force was mobilized to Crona. The conflict, more or less, went in favor of Alahuela, but due to the growing issues in Sarpedon around the First Great War, it was forced to end the campaign, and on 8 August 1938, the National Congress authorized Porlosi Autonomy Act, granting the people of Porlos the right to govern themselves. While the relationship with Ceylonia has always been amicable, the drawback of Cartadania from Porlos was so aggressive and abrupt, that it devastated the local economy as Alahuela nullified all operations in the country. The Air Force continued to patrol the airspace of Ceylonia and reconnaissance near the border showed the disarray in Porlos, not caused by the combat in San Ysidro, but by optimistic independence. The air reconnaissance served such a great purpose that Alahuela saw fit to explore tactic in greater detail for future missions and aircraft development.