fandomhigh | Flight and Flying [Friday morning, Flight Club shed]

The flight simulator had been reconfigured again--this time to something that should seem a bit more familiar to Earth-based students: The F-16 Flying Falcon.

Anakin clasped his hands behind his back and began speaking when the students had assembled in front of him. "This is one of the aircraft used by the militaries of this world," he began. "It's good in air-to-air combat as well as air-to-surface attack, can go more than 850 kilometers before it needs to be refueled and can withstand up to nine G's--pretty high tech for this world's standards."

He opened the simulator door and gestured to the controls. "As you can see, it's configured differently than the systems we've been using in the last few weeks, but the joystick and the trigger button are located in the same place. The F-16 just isn't as sensitive as the starfighter--you'll have to yank harder at the joystick to get the same reaction."

He was completely oblivious to any kind of innuendo that might've been found in that statement. "You'll also be dealing with the Earth's gravity, so turns won't be as fast, and if you make the plane go up too quickly, the machine's been equipped to simulate G forces, so you might pass out. Please make sure to keep any cute but clingy kittens--or frogs--out of the cockpit, just in case."

He smiled at Cedric and Draco. "And for something different, Cedric and Draco have generously agreed to let you all ride on their brooms--the traditional form of flying where they come from. Again, please make sure the animals don't join you as you zip around the island." He glanced at the sky. "We seem to be having ~~conveniently handwavey~~ some breaks in the pudding-ing, so we should be okay for visibility."

He snapped his fingers. "Oh. Veronica Mars--she's teaching the photography seminar--and I have arranged a field trip for our workshops to Washington, DC next Sunday. It's an all day thing, we'll be leaving the island early in the morning and returning late in the evening. You don't have to come, but there's a very cool Air & Space Museum that I thought you might be interested in seeing."

He walked over to the simulator and turned it on. "You can take a practice run on the F-16, then there are two different exercises: an air-to-surface that will test your accuracy and an air-to-air one that will test your reflexes." He smiled. "Have fun."

[OOC: If you could RSVP for the field trip here, that would make V-mun and I very, very happy. Thanks!]

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Classic dogfighting. You are up against three airplanes that are heavier and less manueverable than you are, but they have longer-range weapons.

Try not to die.

Sam flashed Anakin a grin. "Can you reprogram it so we can fly against each other? I do better against a live person."

"Sure," Anakin said, shooting Sam a cocky smile. "I'd vape you where you fly, though. It wouldn't be fair for me to play."

"Yeah, you'd think so, flyboy," Sam teased, "but you're not used to the plane, and I know exactly what they can do. One minute you'll be dealing with the lack of thrust, and the next you'll be snorting ozone."

Even if she was a little out of practice.

"I can fly anything ever made," Anakin replied.

Sadly, not a boast.

With a grin, he went over to the controls and pushed a few buttons. The screen inside the cockpit now had a line down the middle and the instructor's chair had been activated.

"Let's go," he said.

[OOC: edited to make sense, yay!]

Sam took a split second to wonder if she was in over her head, but she'd been dying to see how good Anakin really was. This was the closest to evenly matched they'd ever get.

She climbed into the cockpit and strapped herself in, double checking the systems and getting a feel for the controls out of long habit. "Ready when you are."

Anakin strapped himself in as well, suddenly all business. He gave a quick glance at the controls, then pushed the button to activate the simulation.

The screen in front of both of them showed clouds and the ground about 30,000 feet below them. Anakin smiled and pushed the throttle forward, aiming for a head-to-head collision with Sam. He knew how fast his reflexes were--he wanted to see what she had.

Focused now, Sam shot forward, then banked hard left. Twenty seconds later and she'd have hit Anakin.

Anakin bit his lower lip as he concentrated.

He put the F-16 in a much sharper turn than it normally appreciated--he ignored the flashing lights for the moment--and went chasing after Sam.

Another two hundred feet and he'd be able to get off his first shot.

Peter couldn't keep himself from trying this one. He ducked and dodged for quite a while before taking out one of the adversaries. He thought he was closing in on the second, when he was blown out of the sky.

"Not bad," Anakin said. "It's hard to remember to look about three different directions at the same time."

"Especially considering I have only two eyes both in the front of my head," Peter replied.

"That's true," Anakin said, "but beings with more than one head tend to have problems fitting into fighter cockpits."

Peter tried to picture a being with more than one head and ended up thinking of the two headed calf he saw at a museum once.

"How do watch all the directions at once then?" he asked. "It's not like you can hearing them galloping up or the jingle of their armour. Just an awareness one develops over time?"

"You get a feel for it, yeah," Anakin said. "You start putting yourself into their heads, like you would for any battle situation. It becomes second nature, that if there are two planes in front of you the third is going to be sneaking up behind you, or below you. It's a chess match in three dimensions."

Strangely enough, Cameron held back until everyone else had had their go in the simulator before he finally crawled in again to try the second exercise.

It was clear that Cameron was enjoying himself and despite a few close calls, he took out two of the fighters. However, the third one was being a pain. So it would seem anyway. Until interestingly enough, Cameron had the perfect shot lined up and he just didn't take it. Maybe he reacted too slow, but five minutes later? Same thing happened again. Weird that.

Anakin watched Cam. "You planning to see how long you can dogfight before you run out of fuel? Because crashing through stupidity's kind of a dumb way to die."

He smiled. "Or just trying to get as much time out of the sim as possible? Because you've had a couple of shots that don't come around every day, and you didn't take either of them."

Cameron grinned as he pulled up the plane, putting space between himself on the other fighter. "A little bit of both? I'm sure it's important to know how long you can last," he pointed out.

"When the fuel gauge starts beeping? Believe it," Anakin said. "Taking the enemy out and still not making it home is stupid." He glanced at Cam's control panel. "But I'd say you probably have another ten minutes or so before it gets critical." He smiled. "Enjoy."

"The fun thing about a flight sim is that home isn't so far to walk," Cameron told Anakin and yes, he was going to use those ten minutes to their fullest.

It's actually pretty impressive that he managed to take out the third with 30 seconds to spare. And yes, he was a tiny bit woeful about those 30 seconds.

Anakin gave him a small round of applause. "Nice work," he said.

Cameron grinned as he crawled out of the sim. "Thanks. And yes, I will let you get out of her now."

This isn't even a problem. Used to the controls by now, Aeryn's able to work against all three planes mostly without a problem. If there's an issue, it's just that she's more used to flying a lighter craft.

Flight and Flying [Friday morning, Flight Club shed]

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