No. There is more to it than just air combat. E.g. the DLC provides the foundation for the passenger modules.
My advice: just ignore the air combat completely. Personally I fight the flyers only during the first appearance of the Behemoth. Rather than investing research and then manufacturing time for combat modules I focus on winning the game earlier.

Originally posted by mar.sch:

No. There is more to it than just air combat. E.g. the DLC provides the foundation for the passenger modules.
My advice: just ignore the air combat completely. Personally I fight the flyers only during the first appearance of the Behemoth. Rather than investing research and then manufacturing time for combat modules I focus on winning the game earlier.

Won't I be in a disadvantageous position if I let the flyers do damage though? I like to take time with my game since I like to grind in games where I can build and kit out a squad.

If a Flyer isn’t intercepted by you or the faction this will trigger the Behemoth to visit the haven and IIRC harvest half of the population. This may lead to a haven loss. So what. You should be able to defeat the Behemoth after about 3 appearances.
About grinding: IMHO January is the most interesting part. February is beelining to victory. Getting everything and be able to do 4 different endings is about mid March.

Originally posted by mar.sch:

If a Flyer isn’t intercepted by you or the faction this will trigger the Behemoth to visit the haven and IIRC harvest half of the population. This may lead to a haven loss. So what. You should be able to defeat the Behemoth after about 3 appearances.
About grinding: IMHO January is the most interesting part. February is beelining to victory. Getting everything and be able to do 4 different endings is about mid March.

Is the behemoth fight itself a normal ground squad battle?

Yes. But ground = back of Big B. 8 soldiers split into 2 teams. In TFTV you are able to choose who will be in team A and who will be in team B. All hail Voland!
Prerequisites to be able to manufacture a Masked Manticore: Virophage Weapons research + Node research.

Oh okay. Still wish there was an option to just never have the Hammerfall event happen so I wouldn't have to deal with this. The rest of the mod is superb so far.

Wait, can we play this mod if we don't even own Festering Skies?

All DLCs are needed.