Fandom High School

"Next week is your final exam," Anakin said, "part of which will definitely be you surviving flying several different vehicles. So today you have free rein of the simulator--practice the ones you aren't good at, or the ones you are because they're fun and you don't care about failing an exam. I'm not in charge of your choices and this isn't Ethics class."

He would still judge you, just not for a grade.

"Don't break anything."

Field trip today, kids!

"Welcome to TRACON," Anakin said, gesturing around the expansive room they were standing in. "The primary responsibility of the New York TRACON is the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of arrival, departure, and en-route traffic. this air traffic control center is responsible for three major airports, all located within the same New York airspace: John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, and LaGuardia Airport. Additionally, TRACON is responsible for dozens of smaller but busy fields, including Long Island MacArthur Airport, Teterboro Airport, Tweed New Haven Regional Airport, and Republic Airport. This center also controls the large number of private aircraft that fly through the New York Class B airspace every day." He smiled. "As you might imagine, this is the busiest chunk of airspace in the United States, seeing roughly 3,000 aircraft landing in any of those airports in a day--and that doesn't count the planes that are flying through this area to land somewhere else.

"So today, your job is to watch this air traffic controllers, see what they do and absorb how impressive their job is to the safety of flight in this nation." He smiled. "We'll try it back in the simulator where real lives aren't on the line."

"Right, so all of the bottom cushions on the chairs in the flight shed are missing," Anakin said, loitering outside the Flight Shed when the students arrived, "which is irritating."

If you thought that was going to stop Anakin from making you sit in those chairs, you were, sadly, Quite Wrong.

"But pilots have to deal with worse problems, which you will also discover on your dogfighting run today!"

Didn't that sound like mechanical failures, kids? You were getting so good at this.

"Good morning and welcome back from your break," Anakin said as the class arrived in a room full of dowels, twine, hot glue and various kinds of paper. "One of the most important aspects of flying is to understand the way thurst, drag, weight, and lift affect it."

He gestured to the art supplies. "So we will make kites. There are four basic designs: diamond, delta, box, winged box, and sled. The most familiar and easiest to create is the diamond pattern, but I have faith that you are intelligent enough to attempt something slightly more complicated. After you are finished, we'll take them outside and see if they are light enough to get off the ground and sturdy enough not to fall apart in mid-air."

"Well," Anakin said dryly, "I had planned on something utilizing the flight shed today but--" he waved his hand at the shed door, currently blocked by a giant block of carbonite 8 feet high helpfully lableled "ACTIVELY HOMICIDAL FOR DECADES," "--we're a little blocked out and I don't want to subject delicate equipment to falling luggage."

He ran his hand through his hair as a small suitcase neatly labeled "CAN NEVER BE WRONG" fell at his feet. "What a fun day this is," he muttered. "So. Since falling projectiles and flying are a terrible combination, let's sit out here and discuss what sort of protections should be built into aircraft to stop them from falling out of the sky if they get hit by things." He smiled. "Did you know they actually check engines to be sure they don't seize up if they suck up a bird?"

Thank you for that, Anakin.

"Good morning," Anakin said, smiling at the students arrived. "Hopefully this is not your first time emerging from your rooms this week. As a reward--" well, Anakin thought it was a reward, but your mileage might vary, "--podracing! I raced when I was nine, so it's very easy."

It was not very easy.

"I won't even make you create your own engines," Anakin continued. "A podracer is a tiny, one-being gravity-affected landcraft that gets dragged behind a couple of giant engines," he said pulling up a holo image. Totally doesn't look like a death trap at all, huh, kids? "It's a big racing sport in the Outer Rim, with bets placed on the winner. It's a bit like auto races or horses races, but with more explosions. So I've uploaded different podracers into the system for you to choose from, then and we'll have a race and most of you will probably blow up," he said. "But that's fine. It's not real."

With those reassuring words of wisdom, Anakin waved his hand at the various simulators for the students to pick from.

The Flight Shed, filled with several versions of flight simulation equipment as well as desks and a whiteboard, was gleamingly clean this morning after years of dissuse. Anakin had harrassed Fosse into given the place a special, deep cleaning over the weekend.

"Good day, class," he said, sweeping into the room with a tiny smile on his face. In Anakin, that meant he was almost giddy with excitement. "Today we shall begin exploring flight and flying, as the name of the class tells you. We'll do introductions first--I am interested in any flying experience you have, either planet-bound crafts, spaceships, or if you can fly without the assistance of machinery."

Anakin would love to be able to just fly without assistance.

"And then we'll go for a spin in the simulator to get you acclimated."

"We've been flying some real disasters the last few weeks," Anakin said. "Today we're going to fly something that's just plain fun."

He pulled up the holographic image of the T-38 Talon. "This is an Earth vessel," he said, "so you're still constrained by gravity, but it's also a supersonic airplane, able to go extremely quickly, as well as making fun spins and turns in the air. I've set up a couple of simulations for you to run the Talon through its paces. Hopefully you'll enjoy it."

Today the students were just outside the Flight Shed, looking at an array of moddable jetpacks from throughout the multiverse. "One the the very first dreams of beings who can't fly is to try," Anakin said. "The jetpack--to fly without wings or a huge piece of equipment surrounding us--is a lot tougher a piece of tech than it seems on the surface."

Anakin then gave them a fairly detailed explanation of how the combination of a jetpack and the limits of how a human body was designed had left this particular bit of aircraft in the realm of fiction for a large portion of the universe.

"Fortunately for us," he concluded, "it's not hypothetical in all universes. I have a variety out here. Give a few a try and tell me which you like best."

Anakin greeted the flight class wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses and a grin. "I feel the need...the need for speed."

Guess what movie had been on TV last night, kids? That's right.

"Today we'll be flying the slightly dated F-14 Tomcat," Anakin said, pulling a hologram of the plane up for the class to examine. "It was retired back in 2006, but it's still a lot of fun to fly. We'll have a simulation with dogfighting--plane against another plane, no dogs involved--and one where you can buzz the flight tower, which is flying way too close to it, way too fast, without landing." Anakin grinned. "And then we'll play volleyball, which my wife assures me is an extremely important part of the process of becoming a fighter pilot, at least according to the movie we watched."

"So it turns out that I'm teaching a class on flying," Anakin said, rubbing his hands together and grinning, "which is basically the best thing ever, so I was going through the setting and it has podracing! I did that when I was, like, nine, so it's super easy."

It was not super easy.

"I won't even make you create your own engines," Anakin continued. "A podracer is a tiny, one-being gravity-affected landcraft that gets dragged behind a couple of giant engines," he said pulling up a holo image.. Totally doesn't look like a death trap at all, huh, kids? "It's a big racing sport in the Outer Rim, with lots of bets placed on the winner. Like auto races or horses races, but with more explosions. So I put a bunch of different podracers into the system for you to choose from, then we'll have a race and most of you will probably blow up," he said. "But that's fine. It's not real."

With those reassuring words of wisdom, Anakin waved his hand at the various simulators for the students to pick from.

"Welcome back to Flight," Anakin said. "I hope you all enjoyed yourselves yesterday and that the gremlin poison has worn off for those of you who were bit. Today we're going to fly another spaceship, this time a YT-1300 freighter, which is kind of the...busted-up, broken-down car of my universe. This one comes complete with hidden compartments and plenty of other not-extremely-legal upgrades, including weaponry. It's also approximately three hundred years old, and is constantly in need of repairs. Sometimes that's the ship you can afford, though," Anakin concluded. "Most people don't get a brand new ship as their first one. So today you'll learn to fly a ship with some...quirks."

It's a good thing you're in a flight simulator, kids. Just sayin'.

Today the flight class was meeting on a large, grassy plain filled with hot air balloons. "For our final class," Anakin said with a slight smirk, "we're going to have a race."

“You may recognize this as a gas-filled balloon without a tether that you have to ride from a claustrophobic basket,” Jaina said helpfully. “In other words, a hot air balloon.”

"It'll be fun," Anakin said optimistically. "The first, chase balloon goes up in about three minutes, giving you plenty of time to familiarize yourself with the controls, such as they are. You will then chase the balloon and land as close as possible to the x it will place on the ground when it has traveled far enough."

While the class navigates via a pull rope to make the gas blow up into the balloon and hoping the wind didn't shift. Ha.

"Do your best, and we'll see where you end up," Jaina said. She did not add May the Force be with you, but she was thinking it.

Anakin was looking deeply dubious about this week's class, being held in the Danger Shop because of the school's extremely vigorous insurance policy. "Today we'll fly without the benefit of machines," he said. "This is called...trapeze."

Apparently.

"It's a practice wherein you swing on metal bars and fly through the air to be caught by other people, or to end up back on a metal bar, I guess," Jaina said. "It's pretty fun."

She'd totally been testing it.

"Really?" Anakin asked. "I thought you were overselling it to make me try."

"Try it, you'll love it," Jaina promised, and turned back to the class. "You're going to watch the demonstration, and then try to successfully fly off the trapeze and be caught by a nice man also on a trapeze. If you don't get it, wait for everyone else to go and you can try again."