Rainbow Dash is a pegasus pony and one of the main characters of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She is responsible for keeping the skies clear in Ponyville. She is also a huge admirer of The Wonderbolts and dreams of joining their flying group, and possesses the element of Loyalty.
Rainbow Dash is shown to have a very boisterous attitude and often brags about her abilities. Other than that, she is loyal to her friends, which earned her the element of Loyalty.
Rainbow Dash is incredibly enthusiastic and athletic, but is surprisingly lazy, often shown or mentioned to be sleeping in, napping, or slacking off when she should be working with the other pegasus ponies to clear the sky. While she is often somewhat caustic and impatient with her friends, she enthusiastically boasts about her friends' unique talents.
Powers and abilities
Rainbow Dash is a very accomplished flyer, shown to be both skilled and fast in the air. She can clear the skies in Ponyville in ten seconds. She can fly fast enough to conjure up small tornadoes. Besides these practical abilities, she has spent much time honing impressive and flashy aerial acrobatic maneuvers, including the Super Speed Strut (during which she pantomimes running on the ground while flying at high speeds), the Fantastic Filly Flash (an impressive nose-dive followed by a swift recovery) and the Buccaneer Blaze (which is apparently far too amazing to show onscreen, and produces an incredible explosion of light somehow).
History
Rainbow Dash first appeared in episode 1, accidentally crashing into Twilight Sparkle. She then joined Twilight and the other ponies in episode 2, on the quest for the Elements of Harmony. On the way, Nightmare Moon took on the form of The Shadowbolts and tried to convince Dash into joining them and abandon her friends. Rainbow Dash declined the offer to help her friends, which earned her the element of Loyalty.
In The Ticket Master, she was one of several ponies pestering Twilight for the extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala. Dash's reason being a chance to audition for The Wonderbolts who would perform there.
In episode, Griffon the Brush-Off, she and Pinkie Pie decided to play pranks on others. Rainbow Dash was revealed to be friends with a griffon named Gilda who has apparently been friends with Dash since her days in the Junior Speedsters flight team. At the time when Gilda was visiting Ponyville, she was unaware that the griffon was acting mean and rude to the other ponies behind her back. After seeing how the griffon acted towards her new friends at Pinkie Pie's party in Gilda's honor, Rainbow Dash realized that Gilda isn't her true friend, and broke off their friendship.
Appearances
S1E1: Friendship is Magic (Part 1)
S1E2: Friendship is Magic (Part 2)
S1E3: The Ticket Master
S1E4: Applebuck Season
S1E5: Griffon the Brush Off
S1E6: Boast Busters
S1E7: Dragonshy
S1E9: Bridle Gossip
S1E10: Swarm of the Century
S1E11: Winter Wrap Up
S1E12: Call of the Cutie
S1E13: Fall Weather Friends
S1E14: Suited For Success
Trivia
Rainbow Dash is based on the G3 earth pony of the same name, but her personality resembles more of Firefly, an adventurous pegasus pony from the G1 line.
In Griffon the Brush-Off, while it was more evident that Pinkie Pie set up all the pranks at the party aimed for Gilda, Rainbow Dash revealed to Gilda that she was the one who set up all the party pranks after the griffon showed her mean nature at the ponies. It is possible that Rainbow Dash stood up for Pinkie Pie and the rest of her friends than leave Ponyville with a false friend like Gilda, as this act stays true to her wielding the element of Loyalty.
Also during Griffon the Brush-Off, we discover that Rainbow Dash lives in a permanent white cloud-house hanging low to the ground somewhere near Ponyville. It features not only a clearly defined door and cloud columns in a classical style but rainbow-colored curves and "stream." In Dragonshy, Dash is able to use the stream to make rainbow-colored "anti-glare/warrior" marks on her face.
In Call of the Cutie Rainbow Dash states that she was the first pony in her class to gain her cutie mark.
