Friday morning: Jamie, Scott, and the flight simulator

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

Jamie has his first simulated flight experience. For a first try, it's not bad, but we're probably all glad they weren't in a real plane. Scott reminisces about some of his own flights, given the avidly receptive audience.



This was not a video game, Jamie reminded himself for possibly the fifteenth time. Even if the flight simulator kind of looked like one--at least, like the big enclosed arcade games he'd tried once on a family vacation.

Video game or not, though, it was everything he could do not to race for the blocky simulator module as soon as he and Scott entered the room. He'd been over and over and over all the reading and the navigation and the instrument diagrams and the videos, and now just about the only thing he wanted to do was get some real air under his wings. Or, well, virtual air. Close enough.

Scott told himself firmly not to laugh. Not even if Jamie started skipping on his way over to the simulator. He more than understood the impulse, after all. Actually... he was feeling kind of wistful about the whole thing. Maybe it was just the fatigue.

"We're going to start with something suitably basic," he told Jamie quietly, managing a bit of a smile. "Not quite training wheels, but close."

"Training wheels are just fine with me," Jamie chirped. "I mean, if man were meant to do barrel rolls his first time out, he wouldn't have had to invent his wings first . . ."

"This is very true." Scott was silent until they got themselves settled into the simulator; he'd taken the copilot's chair instinctively, and the wistful feeling didn't quite want to go away. This was silly. When he'd been in Alaska, Phillip had given him a very gentle lecture on not having gotten recertified again yet. His protests that there hadn't been much opportunity for that hadn't seemed to impress his grandfather, either. "This isn't the original flight simulator, actually," he said, calling up the program. "Charles upgraded it a few years back. It's a much shinier toy now."

"Well, you know how much I like the shiny toys, sir," Jamie replied with a grin as he oriented himself on the control console. It looked nearly identical to the Cessna cockpit he'd been studying, though of course not much like what he remembered from his few flights on the Blackbird. Baby steps, he reminded himself. He had a long way to go before Mr. Summers would let him break the sound barrier.

Scott gave him a sideways look. "Well," he said, "you're not looking panicked, so I'm guessing that what you were studying has stuck."

"Suspension of disbelief, sir." Jamie laughed. "I'm saving all my panic until we do this for real and I can actually crash and kill us all." He checked his belt again, and adjusted the seat a smidgen. "Okay, when do we start?"

Scott fastened his seatbelt as well, calling up the program he'd prepared from the console in front of him. "Anytime you're ready," he said, his voice firm but reassuring as the screen lit up with a view of a runway in front of them, surrounded by grassy fields on either side.

"Okay," Jamie said, more calmly than he really felt. "Preflight checklist." This part was familiar, at least, and he went down the list confidently. When he finally turned the key, the engine came to life with a gratifyingly realistic roar.

"It'll have a bit more kick than you expect," Scott warned quietly as he watched Jamie. It struck him to make some sort of comparison as to how much more kick the Blackbird would have, but no point in getting ahead of themselves.

"Gotcha." Jamie put the plane in gear and carefully released the brake, nudging it into a controlled taxi toward the runway. "Steers a little funky on the ground, too, compared to a car. The wings make the balance all different."

The fact that he already had a feel for the difference, even in a simulator, was a good sign, Scott thought with a sort of weary approval. "You haven't felt anything yet," he said. "Wait'll you get her off the 'ground'."

"That would be the next step, wouldn't it?" Jamie lined the plane up on the virtual runway, made his final checks, and eased the throttle forward, his grip on the lever perhaps a little white-knuckled. "Here we go, then."

"Breathe," Scott said, the smile coming back and growing just a little. There were times he really thought he'd missed his calling as a flight instructor. Seeing people do this, for the first time...

"Says you," Jamie managed, eyes glued to the simulator and the way the end of the runway was coming up really, really fast. He muttered something incomprehensible, checked his speed, and pulled the flap lever--just a bit too hard. The "engine" roared as the simulated Cessna leaped into the sky, pushing the two of them down into their seats, and Jamie let out a panicked yelp.

"You're at too sharp an angle," Scott said. "It's all right. Just take a deep breath and level us out." He eyed the console. "This is what I meant about it having more of a kick than you imagined," he continued, amiably, his voice utterly calm, as if they were having a conversation about the weather.

"You weren't kidding," Jamie replied breathlessly. "Guess it takes a while to get used to running out of road, huh?" He swallowed hard and adjusted the controls, and the engine roar subsided to something a bit less urgent-sounding. Finally, when the altimeter--and his nerves--steadied, Jamie even managed a bit of a grin. "I don't suppose we could call that trying to get an idea about what the vertical take-off part is like in the Bird?"

"Not even close," Scott said, then looked thoughtful. "This is like a bucking pony. The Blackbird's like... Secretariat."

"Really looking forward to finding out." Jamie adjusted his heading, following the prescribed course for the exercise. "Not that this isn't cool, and even cooler when I do it for real, but . . . man oh man."

"I remember the first time I flew her. I was scared out of my wits that I was going to break something, even with all the time I'd spent in the simulator, but that lasted... oh, about ten minutes. And then it was just..." He still hadn't ever found the right words to describe that first flight. He wasn't a poet, after all.

"So did you learn to fly it by yourself, or what?" The simulator threw them a little turbulence, and Jamie tried to compensate--hesitantly at first, then more confidently as the plane responded. "I mean, I didn't think you could do that, really, not with something like a Blackbird."

"I had an instructor. Ex-Air Force, actually - one of the Professor's many contacts. You're doing very well," Scott added as the plane leveled out. "He always used to chide me for being too overcautious." He chuckled softly. "He should have seen me in Libya back in the fall."

"The Professor just knows everybody, I think." Jamie shot Scott a sidelong look, and added invitingly "So, Libya, huh? I hear they aren't amazingly happy about stealth jets showing up uninvited in their airspace . . ."

"No, not happy at all." His mood improved as he remembered that day. "Outflying MIGs was fun."

Jamie's eyes widened. "Especially in a Blackbird. Souped up or not, it's still a lot heavier than a MIG."

"I had telekinetics blowing up missiles for me." Was an open file, after all, to the trainees. "And a cargo hold full of children. Call me highly motivated. I just had to stay out of guns range."

"Yeah, 'just.'" Jamie shook his head admiringly. "Still a hell of a job. I don't suppose there's a tape, or anything, I could watch?"

"Sadly, no. Although," Scott said with another soft laugh, "I suppose I could always make a simulator program for you based on that. Something for a little down the road..."

"That sounds incredibly fun and amazingly terrifying all at the same time." Jamie grinned. "Sign me up. But first . . . figuring out how to land this thing. Y'know, you wouldn't think getting down would be the hard part."

"You don't want to know how many times I crashed in the simulator. Or maybe you do. A couple of months from now, when it's good for your ego."

"Your words do not fill me with glee, sir. This is me, sans glee." Jamie took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes. If we die, I promise I'll say something nice at the funeral."

Jamie lined the plane up on the simulated runway and began his descent, keeping an anxious eye on his airspeed and altimeter. The numbers seemed to be scrolling by awfully fast, and Jamie tried to correct his angle as the ground leaped up--but the plane slammed down with a jolt that shook the wheel out of Jamie's hands as they bounced back up into the air. With a yelp, he grabbed for it; the plane drifted over the left edge of the runway, and hit the ground again. A loud crunch-and-skid filled the cockpit as one of the landing gear collapsed.

After a chaotic few moments that seemed like an eternity, the plane slid to a halt half-in, half-out of a ditch, the simulator doing an uncomfortably realistic portrayal of the little craft's awkward tilt. Jamie cracked one eye open, trying desperately to catch his breath. "Awk. Okay. So glad that wasn't real. Um. Okay. Are we dead?"

"Possibly just mangled in the wreckage," Scott said. "At least we didn't burst into flames. That's always heartily embarassing. Hank used to make me... well, you don't want to know what I had to do every time I blew up a plane in the simulator."

Curiosity blazed up in Jamie's eyes as he started to calm down. "If I ask what it was will I have to do it too?"

"I'm neither that cruel nor that dumb, Jamie. Sorry," Scott said, and then leaned forward to the console. "Did we want to try that again?" he asked as heartily as he could. "Or at least the landing..."

"Once I stop twitching, sure." Jamie flexed his fingers sheepishly. "Really makes me wonder how many times this gadget's paid for itself in saved repair costs for actual planes, though."

"Oodles," Scott said firmly. "I like to think that the savings represented by the simulator contribute to the 'Bird's development budget. It's a happy little circle."

"So does every crash in the simulator mean a new toy for the 'Bird?" Jamie asked, rolling his neck and waiting for the program to restart. "Because if it does, let me just say here, my entire learning process is at your disposal."

"Don't I wish. Here we go," Scott said as the program booted up again, complete with a couple of brand new complications. Just because he was a sadist.