Flight and Flying [Thursday, July 12, 3rd period]

[sith_happened]

Anakin stood in front of the door of the flight shed and waited for the workshop students to arrive, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his dark robes.

"Welcome," he said, giving them a nod. "I'm Master Skywalker, and I'll be your instructor for flight this session. I'm from a space-based culture, so my expertise is primarily in those sorts of aircraft, but we'll also be working with the way people fly on this planet. We'll begin with simulators and if you convince me of your attention to detail and your ability not to die in stupid ways, you'll eventually be allowed to fly the real things." He pointed at Rory with a soft smile. "This is Rory Gilmore, and she'll be the TA for this workshop. Rory's from this planet and time period, and she took this workshop last year and is now familiar with most of the aircraft we'll be using." His smile took a turn for the teasing. "She's mostly here to make sure I don't make you all cry with my ridiculous expectations."

That was probably more true than he'd like to admit.

He waved a hand lazily at the doors and they slid open to reveal two podracing simulators sitting side-by-side.

"All right," he said, pointing at the controls, "everything you need to fly a podracer is located on the handlebars. You push them forward to go faster, pull back to slow down, and pull one or the other towards you to turn." He pointed at the buttons in the center of the console. "That controls the engines," he said. "You push the big button to light them up, and on these two models, you can push it again for an extra burst of speed." He looked at the class. "Which burns your fuel very, very quickly, so save that until you need it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Normally, these are attached to enormous engines--6 or 7 meter long engines--but these aren't real, and the simulator won't really give you the noise that's normally associated with the podracer. But the simulator has been programmed to go very, very quickly." He pointed to the simulator on the left-hand side. "This one, properly piloted, can get up to 950 kilometers an hour. The other can get up to 900. To fly a podracer at those kinds of speed requires iron nerves and split-second reflexes."

He clasped his hands in front of him. "Today you can take a turn learning how the simulators work, then pair up to fly against each other." He gave them a slightly predatory smile. "If you choose, you can fly against me. I built the real version of this podracer," he patted the left-hand simulator, "and used it to win a race when I was nine years old. And I won't give you a head start."

Comments

Sign in [July 12]

[sith_happened]

All nice and neat, please!

Re: Sign in [July 12]

[flamingbonehead.livejournal.com]

Johnny Blaze

Introductions!

[sith_happened]

Name, grade, and flying experience, please.

Re: Introductions!

[flamingbonehead.livejournal.com]

Johnny eyed the podracers up from across the room. He'd never seen anything like them before. They looked dangerous. They looked fun.

"Hey, 'm Johnny Blaze, an' I guess I'd be a sophomore. Never been flying before, but I do have a lot of experience with motorbikes, an' jumping them off stuff, for what it's worth."

Re: Introductions!

[imcalledandros.livejournal.com]

"I'm called Andros," Andros said, "I'm a freshman and my experience has mostly involved flying shuttlecraft but I've also learnt how to fly a space ship called the Astro Megaship (http://www.rovang.org/wg/astromegaship.htm),"

Re: Introductions!

[untouchableskin.livejournal.com]

"I'm Rogue... um, you probably have me down as Marie still," Rogue said, beginning to think this was a bad idea. "I'm a sophomore and I took this workshop last summer but I really want to improve my flying skills." So I don't kill anyone else she added mentally.

Re: Introductions!

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

"River Tam, senior," she replied. "Learning to Serenity, Midbulk transport, standard radion-accelerator core, classcode 03-K64, "Firefly". I also have a small, squirrel-built ship called the Acorn which I've tried flying occasionally." She tried not looking too proud over this, but might have failed.

Re: Introductions!

[orewahikari.livejournal.com]

Roxas has never seen anything like the podracers. Wouldn't even know what they were if Anakin hadn't said.

"Uh, I'm Roxas. I'm a junior, and I don't have any flight experience. Which would be why I'm here, I'spose. I'd like to learn."

Re: Introductions!

[death-of-hope.livejournal.com]

Anemone's eyes lit up at the sight of the podracers. Oooo...shiny!

"My name is Anemone, and I am a sophomore. I am fully trained and certified on all on the shuttles and various types of LFOs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Finding_Operation) used by the U.F. Force, and I spent the last few years as the special operations pilot for the LFO Nirvash type TheEND (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Finding_Operation#Nirvash_typeTheEND). My assignment as his pilot was terminated by his death a few months ago."

Re: Introductions!

[jedi-qui.livejournal.com]

"My name is Qui-Gon Jinn and I am a senior," Qui-Gon said. "I have some basic training on the more common ships and shuttles, but I will admit it's not an area where my strengths lie. I'm hoping to improve it with this class."

Re: Introductions!

[likethegun]

"I'm Sam Winchester," he said, more to the rest of the class than to Anakin, "and I'm a sophomore. I don't really have any flying experience, but it seems like something that would be useful to have. And I figure if Dean survived this class, so can I."

Re: Introductions!

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

"Marco, I'm going to be a sophomore, and I play a lot of video games that involve flying things. Oh, and I've been in a few er, space ships that I've almost been allowed to fly."

Re: Introductions!

[the_merriest]

"Hiya," Rikku said. "I'm Rikku, gonna be a junior in the fall, and Pops has an airship. Kinda a big old clunky one, it handles slow and all that and things keep breaking so you gotta hope you can fix it before it falls out of the sky. My brother usually pilots it and Pops just stands there and yells, but I was doing some of the navigating, and I totally got to take the wheel a few times. Not really often, though."

Individual flights

[sith_happened]

Anakin has cut you absolutely no slack on the first simulation. It's set for the way he raced it years ago--and for reflexes no other human in his galaxy ever had. Which means you'll last about three seconds.

Seriously. Three seconds.

He's making a point--listen to his instructions or die ugly.

The second run-through has been slowed down and set for more normal reaction times.

Re: Individual flights: Yelling "Yippee!"

[sith_happened]

...if you must.

Re: Individual flights

[flamingbonehead.livejournal.com]

Johnny tested out the controls of the podracer a couple of times. They were different than what he was used to, but seemingly simple to figure out. After testing out the controls a couple of times and seeming to get the hang of it, he took a deep breath and started the course.

The first turn veered up suddenly, and a sudden canon wall sped towards him at a speed that made it seem like a sudden mass of colour. He leaned hard on the controls, and managed to barely turn in time, scraping the bottom of the pod racer against the solid rock face.

And then a second, unexpected hairpin turn loomed up suddenly from the other direction. Johnny wasn't expecting it, and hit the wall full-on in the middle of a second turn. The podracer exploded in a spectacularly fiery mess.

Yep, about three seconds.

Re: Individual flights

[untouchableskin.livejournal.com]

After such spectacular failure on her first individual run, Rogue wondered if maybe she should not have signed up for this workshop and if it was too late to switch into something else.

She sat at the controls, shaking a little, and debating if she wanted to try the second time.

Re: Individual flights

[orewahikari.livejournal.com]

Have we mentioned that Roxas has never seen anything like this before? But he's good with the reactions - he's clumsy enough on his own two feet, but he's damned good on a skateboard. Which would probably be why he manages to last all of two seconds. The first corner's easy enough to take - the second one... not so much.

Boom is pretty much an understatement.

Re: Individual flights

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

River approached the simulators with enthusiasm and determination. After the first attempt there was only determination with added stubborness left.

Re: Individual flights

[imcalledandros.livejournal.com]

Andros failed on his first attempt at the run-through but he was determined to have another go.

Fly against each other

[sith_happened]

Pick a partner and race against each other. Feel free to mod canyon walls and Tuskan Raiders shooting at you. First one across the finish line wins. Cheat if you like--it's pretty much traditional.

Re: Fly against each other

[death-of-hope.livejournal.com]

Anemone looked around eagerly for someone to race. This was going to be fun!

General chatting

[sith_happened]

There's only two sims and a full class. Feel free to spend the time you have waiting around to meet your classmates.

Re: General chatting

[orewahikari.livejournal.com]

Before and after waiting for his turn on a simulator, he leans completely casually against a wall. He makes casual look like an art form, sometimes.

Talk to the TA!

[sith_happened]

She's here to translate from Anakin into Sane Person.

Re: Talk to the TA!

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

Rory was here, and she'd brought enough coffee for the entire class.

She'd be happy to share, but just as content if no one else drank it, really.

Talk to Anakin

[sith_happened]

He's here before and after class.

Re: Talk to Anakin

[solo_sword]

Jaina wasn't sure exactly why she was here, especially when she hadn't even been able to tell Luke yet that everything was okay. But after- or maybe despite- her talk with Mara, she thought she should at least try a little.

"I leave for a couple months and you replace us with a new class?" she greeted him. "Tsk."

OOC

[sith_happened]

I think this class has been OCDed enough, but maybe another five or ten comments...

Re: OOC

[flamingbonehead.livejournal.com]

Pfft, you don't have nearly enough threads up yet. Where am I supposed to go to yell "yippee!" or hit on small children?