The Hornet was the main Fortian fighter during the Conquest of Georgia and much of the Eastern Seaboard. Designed with USS assistance, the Hornet is directly based on the Housecat. A light and fast aircraft, it's creation was part of the need to phase out the expensive Stabbers still in service with a cheaper aircraft more capable of coping with the Floridian weather. A worthy sucessor to the autogyro, this airplane was nevertheless not quite armed well enough to deal with giant Eastern Seaboard aircraft.

The reason why the USS aided early Fortia was simple: they wanted to use them as a proxy to open up the region and set up a friendly power, but this eventually proved a bad idea: The USS expected Fortia to continue many of Nova Evropa's practices, including their unwillingness to engage in diplomacy and, as a result, would be easily taken out if they ever decided to turn on their backers. This was not the case, and Fortia quickly proved adept at both forming alliances (as was the case in Florida, where pretty much everyone hated God's Marines since much of the population there consisted of refugees from their own massacres) and fomenting regime changes in their favor, often siding with would-be aristocrats.