Flight and Flying (Friday, May 26, morning)

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

Anakin stood in front of the Flight Club shed with his hands hidden in the folds of his robe, looking every inch the confident Jedi.

He gave a short nod to the class as they assembled in front of him. "Welcome," he said. "My name is Anakin Skywalker. You can call me Anakin or Master Skywalker--I don't really care." Secretly he was hoping someone would call him Master Skywalker, but he wasn't going to mention that. He looked at the students and continued. "Today, we're going to fly podracers." He cleared his throat and opened the door. "Well, in a simulator, anyway." He gave a small smile to Rory and Sam. "The last one I built was made for, um, much smaller people."

Inside the shed were two 6 foot-long simulators sitting side by side. Anakin walked over to one with evident pride. "Okay," he said, pointing at the controls, "everything you need to fly a podracer is located on its 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 things are attached to giant engines--like 6 or 7 meter long engines--but these aren't real, and the simulator won't really give you the loudness that's normally associated with the podracer. But the simulator has been programmed to go very, very quickly." He pointed to the left-hand simulator. "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. "Okay. Today you can take a turn learning how the simulators work, then I've put you into pairs to fly against each other." He gave them a slightly predatory smile. "And if you'd like, after that you can fly against me. Fair warning, 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."

[OOC: Plz to wait for the amazing OCD... Done! Fly away!]

Oh, and in terms of simulator, mod yourself through whatever twists and turns you think you'd make, especially in the comment where you're by yourself. The modifications that Anakin has made cause the simulator on the left (the one that looks like his podracer) to be much more likely to spin into walls and down canyons and stuff if you don't have super-reflexes--but it's a sim, so you'd only get a "game over" type deal--no real damage.

ETA: He finally noticed that the sim was hinky. Both now work like they should, so you're on equal footing when you face off against each other.

Comments

Sign in {May 25)

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

Please reply to each other for exciting thread-collapsing-ness!

Re: Sign in {May 25)

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

Cameron signed in. He was wearing his cap backwards but pulled down far enough to hopefully cover most of his hair.

Introductions

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

"As I said, I'm Anakin Skywalker. I just graduated from Fandom and I've been flying since I could walk--both land and space-based vehicles."

He turned and pointed at random. "How about you?" he said. "Name, year in school, flying experience." He smiled. "And if you have one, your favorite thing to fly."

Re: Introductions

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

The cap? Not coming off.

"Cameron Mitchell, going to be senior in Fall. My exprience is limited to the flight simulator here. When I get out of here, I want to fly F-16s."

Re: Introductions

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"I'm Rory Gilmore, I'll be a senior, and I have flown on commercial jets. Usually in first class if my grandparents are paying, otherwise I'm fine in coach except my legs are kind of long and it gets all crampy. My favorite things to fly are...kites."

Yes, she was being a bit of a smartass. But it wasn't a bad answer, all things considered.

Re: Introductions

[once-a-king.livejournal.com]

I'm Peter Pevensie. I'd be a junior in the Fall. And my flight experience is limited to watching the Luftwaffe bomb London during the Blitz.

Re: Introductions

[chasingsnitches.livejournal.com]

"I'm Cedric Diggory, I'm a sophomore and I've got vast flying experience," he says. "Except, my flying experience is with a...broomstick."

Re: Introductions

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Oh, Sam had a ton of answers for this if she wanted to brag and completely blow her cover. Darn it.

"Sam Carter, Senior, and I've flown in an F-16."

Which wasn't a lie. It just didn't say she'd handled the controls.

Re: Introductions

[demonbelthazor]

"Belthazor, senior now, and I've never flown because why fly when you can shimmer," Bel said. "I'm in this class solely to mess with Anakin. Why, hello, Rory. But I figured what the hell, might be fun to try it out."

Re: Introductions

[pure-blooddraco.livejournal.com]

"I'm Draco Malfoy, junior." he says "I'm used to flying on brooms but I've had some experience on some other flight simulators."

Re: Introductions

[can_be_more]

"Aeryn Sun, I'll be a senior. I flew military fighter ships for four cycles." There.

Individual tries in the podracing simulators

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

You're going in a giant circle in the middle of a desolate desert planet. There are cliffs and canyons, angry natives shooting at you, and fellow (simulated, naturally) pilots trying to run you off the course.

And Anakin has accidentally forgotten to take the left-hand simulator off of the enhanced-senses setting, so those controls are way, way sensitive.

Re: Individual tries in the podracing simulators

[once-a-king.livejournal.com]

Peter's not a complete idiot. He stands back to watch some of the more experienced students go first before making his own attempts.

Re: Individual tries in the podracing simulators

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

Figuring it probably wasn't the best idea to go into a race against Aeryn without at least trying the podracer out first, Cameron headed into the simulator.

The simulation started up and Cameron tried to ignore that all the other racers had taken off without him already. Getting a hang of the controls was more important right now and he gently tried it out in the first straight stretch. A right turn and he was getting more comfortable and started to speed up. Another right turn and he pushed the speeder faster. Left turn and... The speeder responded a lot faster than it had with the right turns, Cameron tried to compensate but as he'd been going pretty fast he was too slow and crashed right into the wall.

"Whoa," he blinked as the simulator went blank.

Re: Individual tries in the podracing simulators

[demonbelthazor]

Bel immediately looked for the guns on the simulator and found none. Sad. But he settled in and tried to race, wobbly at first, then more steady. Once he got the hang of going straight, he tried to bump the racer to his left. He hit the racer, then spun out of control into the cavern wall. Ooops.

Re: Individual tries in the podracing simulators

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

Rory...had never flown anything like this. But she was a good driver, really, and figured this couldn't be that hard.

And it wasn't, as she made her way around the circle as steadily as she could.

Then she lightly bumped the left.

Hi, wall.

Re: Individual tries in the podracing simulators

[pure-blooddraco.livejournal.com]

Draco was sort of freaked out about the natives shooting at him at first. After some wobbling and confusion on which way was left Draco got the hang of the podracer.

He tried to do a fancy move to avoid getting hit by one of the other racers but ended up bumping into a wall.

Paired up race: Sam Carter and Rory Gilmore

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

...

Re: Paired up race: Sam Carter and Rory Gilmore

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam climbed back into the simulator and took her place behind the controls. "Ready, Gilmore?"

Paired up race: Aeryn Sun and Cam Mitchell

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

...

Re: Paired up race: Aeryn Sun and Cam Mitchell

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

Cameron tugged at his hat as he waited for Aeryn. For a second he considered that maybe he wouldn't get his ass kicked in this, but he soon got over that idea as he remembered how many times he'd crashed his podracer.

Paired up race: Cedric Diggory and Draco Malfoy

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

...

Re: Paired up race: Cedric Diggory and Draco Malfoy

[pure-blooddraco.livejournal.com]

Draco leaned against one of the podracers while he waited for Cedric. He shook his head. Just like Hogwarts.

Paired up race: Belthazor and Blair Sandburg

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

...

Re: Paired up race: Belthazor and Blair Sandburg

[demonbelthazor]

Bel waited for Blair to show up.

Paired up race: Peter Pevensie and Miles Vorkosigan

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

...

Re: Paired up race: Peter Pevensie and Miles Vorkosigan

[once-a-king.livejournal.com]

Peter looks around for Miles who he's not met yet and is fairly convinced will beat him handily.

Fly against Anakin

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

You know you want to...

Talk to Anakin

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

...if you must.

Re: Talk to Anakin

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

After class, Cameron approached Anakin. "Yo, man."

OOC

[emo-padawan.livejournal.com]

...to show that I am finished.

Re: OOC

[notstakedyet.livejournal.com]

I could kick your ass at podracing if I felt like it, Skywalker.