Assault on the Imperial Air Force

When you head to the Floating Continent for the first time, you're forced into a series of eight battles, the last two against bosses. To make things worse, you need to create a party of exactly three members, to leave room for Shadow to join after you land on the Floating Continent. Every character can be viable in these and future fights, but there are a few considerations to keep in mind. First, if Celes is not part of your party of three, she will join later on after the major boss battle on the Floating Continent. Having four characters isn't really necessary at that point, but it's a small advantage you can take. Second, there are are a variety of Lores Strago can learn from Monsters on the Floating Continent. He can learn all of them later as well, though. Beyond that, make sure your party is fully equipped and has Espers assigned. Everyone else will have their equipment removed after the next plot point anyway, so you may as well unequip them to keep your options open. If you have money to spare, you may want to invest in some Thrown Objects for Shadow.

The Imperial Air Force

You'll start this sequence by fighting a series of six battles. Each is a pincer attack against a Spit Fire and one or (more likely) two Sky Armors. Both are vulnerable to Thunder and Wind, and the Spit Fires are the tougher of the two. Both change their attack pattern when they're the last remaining foe, but Spit Fires actually do less damage in this case, so take out the Sky Armors first. They normally use a combination of Tek Laser and the Mute-inducing Backlash special. When alone, they'll add Missile to their arsenal. Spit Fires, on the other hand, normally attack with the powerful Propeller special and Absolute 0, a nasty Ice attack that hits the whole party. Alone they will instead rely on the weaker and Thunder-Elemental Diffuser, and they'll attack less often to boot. Remember to pace yourself, because there's a lot of fighting left to come. You have time to go to the menu and restore yourself between each of these fights until Ultros attacks.

Ultros and Chupon

Ultros promises this will be your final fight with him, and indeed it is. He uses a combination of basic attacks, a new version of Ink called OctopusInk which does the same thing (normal damage plus Dark), and Tentacle, which remains his most powerful offense. He is no longer vulnerable to Thunder, but remains vulnerable to Fire and has a new vulnerability to Poison. Your initial goal is to dish out 4,200 damage to Ultros, at which point he will call for his friend Chupon.

Chupon attacks and uses Fire Ball, neither of which is much of a threat. Unfortunately, it has wildly different weak points than Ultros. Chupon absorbs Fire and is weak against Ice and Water. Spells targeting their weak points should be used on one of the bosses at a time. When Chupon is defeated, it will use Sneeze to blow you off the Blackjack Deck. As you fall towards the Floating Continent, you'll be faced with one last boss fight.

Air Force

Air Force is structured similarly to Number 128, in that there are three different "Monsters" to target. The main body has 8,000 HP and shares the standard mechanical weaknesses to Thunder and Water with all of its parts. It won't attack at all until you defeat the MissileBay, at which point it will start to use the Thunder-Elemental Diffuser and Tek Laser Abilities. If you defeat the Laser Gun, Air Force summons a Speck that absorbs Spells like Celes's Runic Command, but never wears off. It only has 420 HP but very high defense, so a Defense-ignoring attack is the best way to take it out if it appears. Air Force will begin counting down from 6 when the Speck appears, and unleash the powerful WaveCannon attack when the countdown completes. This also removes the Speck.

The left target, MissileBay, appropriately uses Missile repeatedly. Once you decrease it to about about half of its 3,000 initial HP, it starts a sequence that leads to the user of Launcher a powerful attack. If you're particularly unlucky, it can do this twice. The Laser Gun on the right uses Atomic Ray and Tek Laser, and will also change up its attacks at low HP, replacing Atomic Ray with the less powerful Diffuser. This isn't necessarily an improvement, though, as it's less likely to use the single-target Tek Laser in this case.

There are two basic strategies that work here. You can defeat both the MissileBay and Laser Gun, deal with the Speck (or just ignore it and physically attack Air Force), heal up to prepare for WaveCannon, and take out the main Air Force. Or you can leave the Laser Gun in place, then pound Air Force with magic. The optimal path depends largely on your party's capabilities.

When the battle is won (which only requires defeat of the central Air Force Monster), your party will land safely on the Floating Continent. You'll earn a Czarina Ring for your troubles.