Avril Mead

"When I close my eyes, the sky in my dreams... is a deep, dark blue."

- Avril

Avril Mead is a mechanic stationed at the 444th Air Base. Her skill in restoring aircraft earned her the nickname "Scrap Queen".

Avril is one of the secondary protagonists in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown and narrates some of the game's cutscenes between missions.

Background
Avril is the latest in a family of pilots stemming back four generations. Her father and grandfather were both enlisted in the Osean Air Defense Force. Her father died in battle during the Circum-Pacific War, leading her grandfather to lose faith in the OADF and prevent Avril from joining the military as well.

Restoring an F-104
Avril's grandfather was close friends with the superintendent of an Osean scrapyard. The super granted him, Avril, and his war buddies full access to the entire yard. They decided to get to work on building their own aircraft, using the body of an F-104C Starfighter and spare parts from other aircraft in the yard. Avril was the only one of the group who had good vision and coordination, so she performed the manual labor while the older men helped guide her.

While performing flight training, Avril spotted a prototype drone flying over the area. She ridiculed it for looking "like a trash can with wings", but her grandfather reminded her that technology advances rapidly and "it'll leave [her] ass behind" if she didn't keep up with it.

Six years and eight months after starting the build, Avril managed to start the F-104's engine. A year and a half later, the airframe was balanced enough for flight, but her grandfather and his friends had passed away by this time.

Transfer to the 444th
In May 2019, Avril's F-104 was ready for a maiden flight. She took off from the scrapyard and, owing to the aircraft's great acceleration and rate of climb, broke the sound barrier soon after getting airborne.

At the same time, Erusea's MQ-99 drones began attacking Osean territory. Avril flew near one such drone, identified it as Erusean, and also spotted at least one OADF F-15C Eagle chasing the drone. The F-104's slender fuselage and short-span wings, features similar to those of the drone, led the Osean pilot to mistake Avril for another one of the drones, a situation further exacerbated by Avril's lack of a radio and an IFF transponder, preventing her from identifying as friendly. The F-15C subsequently shot her down.

She was, however, able to crash-land her stricken plane into a nearby Osean airbase and subsequently arrested for violating wartime aviation restrictions. As punishment, she was transferred to the 444th, where she was forced to continue restoring previously-mothballed aircraft, earning her the "Scrap Queen" nickname among her peers.

Stranded on Tyler Island
When Spare received orders to transfer to Tyler Island, Avril managed to discreetly reach out to old family friends in the OADF, learning that Spare's C.O, D. McKinsey planned to leave for a command on Usea while leaving the rest of the unit to fend for themselves. She attempted to blackmail McKinsey with this information, but was rebuffed. When Spare was disbanded, Tabloid chose to join her and the rest of Spare's support elements on Tyler Island while Count and Trigger were transferred to the Long Range Strategic Strike Group.

When Spare arrived, the fighting had been in a deadlock, but when the Usean satellite network collapsed, the Oseans were routed. Spare in particular was in danger, as false rumors of a mutiny put them at risk from other Osean forces as well as the Eruseans. It would be during this rout that Spare rescued Rosa Cossette D'Elise from a plane wreck. Despite Cossette's attempts to remain anonymous, Avril exposed her identity as the Erusean Princess. Despite this, Spare allowed her to join them.

When radical Erusean forces surrounded the group, Avril managed to contact planes from the LRSSG with a salvaged Erusean Air-Ground radio. When the Oseans lacked laser systems to mark the enemy Erusean armor, the Princess risked her life to do this with a flare. This act of bravery led to a friendship between the Princess and Avril, and allowed the group to travel to the International Space Elevator.

When they arrived, the group discovered EASA personnel trying to activate the Elevator's factories to produce ADF-11 UCAVs. They managed to take the EASA personnel into custody, but not before the UCAV factories were activated. Avirl, Tabloid, and Cossette took it upon themselves to sabotage the Elevator's defenses. Avril took control of the Elevator's communications capabilities and connect the Oseans and Eruseans working together. Thanks to their efforts, the Elevator's war-making potential was defanged, and allowed Osean forces to re-take it.