Flight- Monday- 3rd period

[solo_sword]

The students had been instructed to meet in the Danger Shop, where they'd find themselves in a large field with hot air balloons in front of them. They'd also find Jaina, who was back to her correct gender and was shielding like woah, because sdhsdhs, basically.

"I did tell you you'd by flying all sorts of craft, didn't I?" she began. "For those of you who don't know, this is a hot air balloon. People get in these, fly through the air, and let the wind take them where it will. I think it's crazy, personally, but as long as we're in the Danger Shop, that's sort of the place for crazy."

She gave them a short lecture on how to actually work the things- most importantly how to get down- and said, "I want you to pair up in twos or threes if you want and take one of these things up for a while. And please, no one push anyone else out of the baskets, that's just uncalled for."

Comments

Fly a hot air balloon!

[solo_sword]

Get in with someone and go flying through the air with no idea where you're gonna go. Not worrying at all.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[ultron_junior]

Victor stepped into a balloon and started doing all the pre-launch checks Jaina had shown them.

Not that there was much to check, really. "I'm not sure I understand how to steer this thing."

It wasn't electronic, so he couldn't cheat. Unfortunately.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Wish really hard?"

Cade was so helpful.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[ultron_junior]

"I was going to go with throw our weight against the side of the basket, but wishing's probably just about as good."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Well, if you fall out as we fling ourselves around, you probably won't really die," Cade offered.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[ultron_junior]

Victor rolled his eyes slightly, in part because the idea sounded a lot stupider in Cade's mouth and now he was embarrassed. Then again, he wasn't the one suggesting wishing.

"Hey, if you wanna jump out to test that, be my guest."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"No, thanks," Cade said, pulling the rope to take them off of the ground. "Kark, this is slow."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[ultron_junior]

Victor nodded emphatic agreement. "Maybe if I open the fuel valve more, it'll speed the whole thing up."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[makemyownway.livejournal.com]

"Open it up all the way," Cade urged. "Maybe we'll go fives of kilometers an hour."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[dollpocalypse]

"So, my idea is," Topher said, stepping into the basket of one of the balloons before walking backwards out again to verify that he liked the color of the balloon on top. "Good, I like green. My idea: we do not fly over the water because this sweater vest is dry-clean only and I'd rather not have to swim in the event that a leaf attacks us and we wind up falling."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Anakin was already examining the (really, really primitive) propulsion systems, but he had to stop and give Topher a disbelieving look. "This would be less of a problem if we could protect the balloon from leaves, but this thing probably can't generate enough power to spare for deflector shielding."

Anakin. Stop complaining.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[dollpocalypse]

"Yes, hence my concern," Topher replied. "If we had time or resources to actually play around with it, we could program it with super-powerful motion sensors so it could make that noise cars do when you're gonna reverse into some moron on a bike or something... but no."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, but first we'd have to install something better than these." Anakin made a face as he tapped one of the fuel tanks, then rolled his eyes. "If you're that worried about the leaves, I can try and Force-shield the balloon, at least. If we can't even go out over the water this will be too boring."

Yeah, yeah, probably a gratuitous and unnecessary use of the Force. Whatever.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[dollpocalypse]

"...You know, I think I'm worried," Topher decided. He really wasn't, but he really wanted to see Anakin's powers at work. "You should definitely shield the balloon."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot, Topher. Feed his family's fears.

"Are you?" asked Anakin, who could have tapped into the Force to find out for himself but hadn't; either way, he was mostly just asking to be a pain. "And are the leaves around here really that sharp?"

He'd do it anyway, just because.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[dollpocalypse]

"Uh, yeah, they're called sword leaves," Topher confirmed. "It's basic biology, duh."

...No...

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[reven8e.livejournal.com]

This was so lame.

At least Emily didn't have to worry about being shot down...Suddenly being up there didn't feel like such a good idea.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[genesishero]

"Right," Evan said, straightening his tie a little before turning to head toward the nearest balloon. "How about this one?"

Whelp. Now they were stuck for it.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[notacokeperson.livejournal.com]

Normally she liked Flight class!

... today was not a day where she was especially fond of it.

"It’s kinda bright," she observed, bemused that he’d actually straightened his tie before doing anything else. God, what a dork. "But okay. As long as it works."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[genesishero]

"It's a simulation," Evan pointed out. "If it's anything like the Danger Shop at my last school, it uses alien technology that--" And then he was biting his tongue. "I mean... there are failsafes built in so that we don't die or anything if we crash, just like the Flight Shed. It'll work fine."

Could he just... hide in the basket now and never come out? Could that be a thing he could do?

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[notacokeperson.livejournal.com]

How about he went up in the basket and she stayed on the ground? Would that get them full marks?

... Probably not, damn. Damn.

"My world doesn’t need alien technology to build a simulator," she shared. Because... how else was she supposed to cope with that? Aliens. God. And it was true anyway. So there. Okay, deep breath.

No, that didn’t really help. She shook her head. "Let’s just do this."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[genesishero]

Evan just kind of blinked at her for that. Was she trying to one-up him? But he hadn't been bragging, he'd just tried to explain how the Danger Shop... No. He wasn't going to dwell on that. He was just going to take another deep breath and then climb into the basket, offering her a hand if she wanted one.

Somehow, he didn't think she would.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[notacokeperson.livejournal.com]

She stared at the hand for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of taking it and then actually took his hand to get in. Karina didn’t need it, not even remotely.

But it was proof or whatever that while she had her problems with him, she wasn’t scared to touch him.

So, he’d thought wrong.

"This seems pretty simple," Karina said, dropping his hand as soon as she was in the basket and checking out the controls (such as they were). "Like she said, pretty much."

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[genesishero]

"It's all a simulation, but Professor Solo wouldn't want us to find a way to crash a balloon anyhow, I'm sure," Evan agreed, looking at the setup inside the balloon. "We should be able to handle this without any problems at all, I'm sure."

There was no way it could be more complicated than, say, rocket boots.

Re: Fly a hot air balloon!

[upmysleeve.livejournal.com]

Oh, please. Fire was involved in moving the things. Like Ace wouldn't read the instructions three times before the lecture was even finished and be jumping in the basket and ready to roar off as soon as somebody decided to join her? Assuming she waited that long.