Sir-Talen
Recruit
Okay, first time poster request, please be forgiving... 
The short version: A few months back I completed a sci-fi short story about a pair of alien pilots. One of the major set pieces in it was when they go up in a Harvard that had been bought and transported to their home world, which they take up flying. I dig some digging and found a nice first person description of flying a T-6 to use as a basis for the piece, but I'm Am Not a Pilot, so I was hoping if there any pilots with actual warbird flying experience (especially T-6's) would be willing to take a look at it.
The Characters: Ru-Ofanius "Rufus" Brushtail, a somewhat disreputable nobleman of his race, who had spent some years bumming around as a mercenary pilot, generally making a wreck of his life, before losing his arm in an enemy action and coming home.
Haz Elin "Hazel" Swiftfoot: A commoner and former naval pilot of the same race as Rufus, whom he's been romancing as she recovers from her own injury, having had her leg amputated after her starfighter cracked up due to an equipment malfunction. Subsequently she was cashiered after becoming addicted to painkillers.
* * *
"You're having too much fun being mysterious," Hazel said, a week later. She was sitting in the passenger seat of Rufus' ground car, dressed in a grey split skirt and a black tank top, eyes closed as they zoomed along the highway. She had been released from hospital three days ago, once the doctors had reassured themselves that the gangrene had been prevented from invading her body. Resting at home seemed to have done her good, for she looked relaxed even as they rocketed down the highway.
"It's not going to be much of a surprise if you can see where we're going," Rufus replied. He braked and turned down a service road, stopping in front of a fence to wave his passcard at an automated reader, which blipped and obediently rolled back the gate for him. He parked his card at the side of a large, whitewashed building and said, "All right, you can open your eyes now."
Hazel looked up at the blank steel wall in front of her. "Oh, a warehouse. You certainly know how to show a vixen a good time."
"Not a warehouse, a hanger," he said. He popped open the boot and pulled out her crutches, then helped her out of the car. She looked around, spotting the red and white towers of the visual guidance lights leading to the kilometer long, concrete runway.
"What is this? We're nowhere near the spaceport. Why's there a highway out there?"
"Runway," he corrected. "We're at the storage facility for the Vulpine Historical Aeronautics and Demonstration Society." She began to follow him as he walked around the side to the bay doors, her expression brightening.
"Oh, I saw them a couple of times when I was a little girl, flying recreations of the Greycoat flyers and such. You mean you're a member?"
"My family is a patron. It was my mother's idea, to indulge my fetish for flight while at least keeping me inside Vulpine Prime's atmosphere. I fear she only added fuel to the fire though." He scanned his keycard again and the doors began to trundle back.
"Look, Rufus, I appreciate the effort, but there's no real point," she began to say. "This like waving a four course meal in front of a starving… what is that?"
She was staring at what was, to a trained star pilot, surely a bizarre looking craft. Less than nine meters long, with a low wing, a radial piston engine with a propeller mounted on the front and tail-dragger landing gear, it was obviously more advanced than the simple, wood and fabric flyers of pre-Subjugation yore, but more primitive than the star fighters that Vulpine flyers had suddenly been placed in when their world had been conquered. The body was painted grey with the red silhouette of some kind of long eared, long tailed, hopping creature, encircled by a white and blue roundel on the sides and wings, while the tail displayed numbers and letters in a human alphabet.
"That's a Harvard, a variant of the T-6 Texan," Rufus said proudly. "They were used to train pilots almost seven centuries ago back on Earth, prior to the Varn Dominion's arrival there. The Society purchased her from a museum, shipped her to Vulpine Prime and restored her to flying condition."
She whistled in appreciation. "She's beautiful, it's a marvelous reproduction."
"Oh, no, she isn't a reproduction, that's an original airframe. We'll be taking her up today," he said told her.
"We're going to what?" she exclaimed. "But we can't!"
"Why not?"
"Pardon me, but I've got one leg and you've got one arm. What are we supposed to do, share the pilot's seat?"
"It's a trainer, dear. Dual controls, front and back. You can handle the stick and I'll mind the pedals and throttle."
"You're mad. If that thing is as old as you say, it's a historical artifact! It should be in a museum. What if we crashed it?"
"It's been flying for nearly seven hundred years, and has belly landed at least three times that we can find in her records," Rufus said patiently, "I don't think we'll crack her up today."
"But, Rufus," she rubbed her muzzle in frustration. "I had my license revoked. I can't fly anything."
"Forgive me for prying but I checked into that. Your suspension was in relation to conventional aerospace craft. This Harvard is categorized as an experimental aircraft, given it doesn't fit with anything else these days. It's perfectly all right for you to fly it, so long as you're accompanied by a rated Instructor Pilot." He smiled. "Which I just happen to be."
"We can fly it, really fly it?" She had a look on her face that any junkie could recognize and a Need that had nothing to do with drugs.
"Yes, we can. Let me get you a set of flight coveralls and a helmet."
Ten minutes later he had helped her climb up onto the wing and seated her in the front of the cockpit. Rufus climbed back down and opened a pair of panels with a Dzus tool and started the pre-flight check. Everything looked in order, so he closed them up again, double-checked for cracks on the metal 'angles' that held the cowling to the engine, then climbed into the back seat and pulled on the straps of his parachute. "Testing, testing," he said over the helmet's microphone, "can you hear me all right?"
"Just fine," she called back. She was staring down at the bottom of the cockpit. "I couldn't help noticing that there isn't a floor here. I can see the cables for the controls right underneath my foot."
"Right. That's why we have to wear these coveralls. It would be quite bad if something dropped from your pockets and got jammed in there while we were in flight. Also, make sure you keep your toes clear of the cables as well. When it was built the assumption was that the person flying it would be wearing boots."
"I've lost quite enough body parts, thank you very much. Oh, before we go up, I just needed to know where the handles for the ejection seat are."
"It doesn't have one," he told her.
After a long pause she asked, "So what happens in case of an in flight emergency?"
"We pop open the cockpit and jump out. That's how they did it in the old days. Assuming, of course, that we've got enough altitude to have time to try that."
Another pause. "Humans flew this thing deliberately?"
He grinned. "I think the assumption was that if it didn't kill you during training, you were more than ready to fly an armed craft into combat."
"Oh. Wonderful."
"We could do something else, if you wish. I know a couple of nice restaurants…"
"Frell no. Activate the engine, I want to fly!"
"All right then. Take hold of the wobble pump, the handle on the left side, and start stroking it then. This is a two handed job."
She leaned over and grabbed the pump and started running the handle forward and back. After a six count Rufus unlatched the primer and pressed it down, then flipped on the batteries and pressed the starter. The big radial engine groaned and the prop began to turn. After the fourth blade passed he flipped the magnetos and the engine roared and began running on its own.
"Fire! We've got an engine fire!" Hazel called out as white smoke blew past the cockpit.
"Don't worry! That's normal!" Rufus called back. "See, it's already dissipated."
"Holy Den Mother, watch over we two fools," she prayed.
Rufus released the hand brake, then using the rudder pedals and individual wheel brakes, made a series of S turns down the taxiway to the end of the runway. "BTD Air Traffic Control, this is VH129 Experimental, requesting takeoff from VHS runway two-five straight out and clearance for training flight inside coordinates 111 by 324, range 10 klicks, max altitude 2,500 meters."
VH129 X, you are cleared for take off, VHS two-five, straight out. Takeoff permission is good for thirty minutes.
"Thank you, BTD ATC." He flipped back to the internal com channel. "All right, Hazel. I'll take us up. On my word, slowly bring the throttle up to 100% power." He brought the flaps down to takeoff position and released the brakes. "Throttle up!"
"Throttling up!"
The intense roar of the radial pistons increased and the Harvard began to roll forward. A few seconds later the tail lifted off the ground, then they were at takeoff speed. Rufus pulled back on the stick gently and the rumble of tires on tarmac disappeared, leaving only the wind underneath them to hold them in the air. He held the plane at a ten degree up angle until they had reached a comfortable five hundred meters, then leveled off.
"BTD ATC, this is VH129 X, we are airborne."
Confirm, VH 129. Good flying. BTD ATC out.
The short version: A few months back I completed a sci-fi short story about a pair of alien pilots. One of the major set pieces in it was when they go up in a Harvard that had been bought and transported to their home world, which they take up flying. I dig some digging and found a nice first person description of flying a T-6 to use as a basis for the piece, but I'm Am Not a Pilot, so I was hoping if there any pilots with actual warbird flying experience (especially T-6's) would be willing to take a look at it.
The Characters: Ru-Ofanius "Rufus" Brushtail, a somewhat disreputable nobleman of his race, who had spent some years bumming around as a mercenary pilot, generally making a wreck of his life, before losing his arm in an enemy action and coming home.
Haz Elin "Hazel" Swiftfoot: A commoner and former naval pilot of the same race as Rufus, whom he's been romancing as she recovers from her own injury, having had her leg amputated after her starfighter cracked up due to an equipment malfunction. Subsequently she was cashiered after becoming addicted to painkillers.
* * *
"You're having too much fun being mysterious," Hazel said, a week later. She was sitting in the passenger seat of Rufus' ground car, dressed in a grey split skirt and a black tank top, eyes closed as they zoomed along the highway. She had been released from hospital three days ago, once the doctors had reassured themselves that the gangrene had been prevented from invading her body. Resting at home seemed to have done her good, for she looked relaxed even as they rocketed down the highway.
"It's not going to be much of a surprise if you can see where we're going," Rufus replied. He braked and turned down a service road, stopping in front of a fence to wave his passcard at an automated reader, which blipped and obediently rolled back the gate for him. He parked his card at the side of a large, whitewashed building and said, "All right, you can open your eyes now."
Hazel looked up at the blank steel wall in front of her. "Oh, a warehouse. You certainly know how to show a vixen a good time."
"Not a warehouse, a hanger," he said. He popped open the boot and pulled out her crutches, then helped her out of the car. She looked around, spotting the red and white towers of the visual guidance lights leading to the kilometer long, concrete runway.
"What is this? We're nowhere near the spaceport. Why's there a highway out there?"
"Runway," he corrected. "We're at the storage facility for the Vulpine Historical Aeronautics and Demonstration Society." She began to follow him as he walked around the side to the bay doors, her expression brightening.
"Oh, I saw them a couple of times when I was a little girl, flying recreations of the Greycoat flyers and such. You mean you're a member?"
"My family is a patron. It was my mother's idea, to indulge my fetish for flight while at least keeping me inside Vulpine Prime's atmosphere. I fear she only added fuel to the fire though." He scanned his keycard again and the doors began to trundle back.
"Look, Rufus, I appreciate the effort, but there's no real point," she began to say. "This like waving a four course meal in front of a starving… what is that?"
She was staring at what was, to a trained star pilot, surely a bizarre looking craft. Less than nine meters long, with a low wing, a radial piston engine with a propeller mounted on the front and tail-dragger landing gear, it was obviously more advanced than the simple, wood and fabric flyers of pre-Subjugation yore, but more primitive than the star fighters that Vulpine flyers had suddenly been placed in when their world had been conquered. The body was painted grey with the red silhouette of some kind of long eared, long tailed, hopping creature, encircled by a white and blue roundel on the sides and wings, while the tail displayed numbers and letters in a human alphabet.
"That's a Harvard, a variant of the T-6 Texan," Rufus said proudly. "They were used to train pilots almost seven centuries ago back on Earth, prior to the Varn Dominion's arrival there. The Society purchased her from a museum, shipped her to Vulpine Prime and restored her to flying condition."
She whistled in appreciation. "She's beautiful, it's a marvelous reproduction."
"Oh, no, she isn't a reproduction, that's an original airframe. We'll be taking her up today," he said told her.
"We're going to what?" she exclaimed. "But we can't!"
"Why not?"
"Pardon me, but I've got one leg and you've got one arm. What are we supposed to do, share the pilot's seat?"
"It's a trainer, dear. Dual controls, front and back. You can handle the stick and I'll mind the pedals and throttle."
"You're mad. If that thing is as old as you say, it's a historical artifact! It should be in a museum. What if we crashed it?"
"It's been flying for nearly seven hundred years, and has belly landed at least three times that we can find in her records," Rufus said patiently, "I don't think we'll crack her up today."
"But, Rufus," she rubbed her muzzle in frustration. "I had my license revoked. I can't fly anything."
"Forgive me for prying but I checked into that. Your suspension was in relation to conventional aerospace craft. This Harvard is categorized as an experimental aircraft, given it doesn't fit with anything else these days. It's perfectly all right for you to fly it, so long as you're accompanied by a rated Instructor Pilot." He smiled. "Which I just happen to be."
"We can fly it, really fly it?" She had a look on her face that any junkie could recognize and a Need that had nothing to do with drugs.
"Yes, we can. Let me get you a set of flight coveralls and a helmet."
Ten minutes later he had helped her climb up onto the wing and seated her in the front of the cockpit. Rufus climbed back down and opened a pair of panels with a Dzus tool and started the pre-flight check. Everything looked in order, so he closed them up again, double-checked for cracks on the metal 'angles' that held the cowling to the engine, then climbed into the back seat and pulled on the straps of his parachute. "Testing, testing," he said over the helmet's microphone, "can you hear me all right?"
"Just fine," she called back. She was staring down at the bottom of the cockpit. "I couldn't help noticing that there isn't a floor here. I can see the cables for the controls right underneath my foot."
"Right. That's why we have to wear these coveralls. It would be quite bad if something dropped from your pockets and got jammed in there while we were in flight. Also, make sure you keep your toes clear of the cables as well. When it was built the assumption was that the person flying it would be wearing boots."
"I've lost quite enough body parts, thank you very much. Oh, before we go up, I just needed to know where the handles for the ejection seat are."
"It doesn't have one," he told her.
After a long pause she asked, "So what happens in case of an in flight emergency?"
"We pop open the cockpit and jump out. That's how they did it in the old days. Assuming, of course, that we've got enough altitude to have time to try that."
Another pause. "Humans flew this thing deliberately?"
He grinned. "I think the assumption was that if it didn't kill you during training, you were more than ready to fly an armed craft into combat."
"Oh. Wonderful."
"We could do something else, if you wish. I know a couple of nice restaurants…"
"Frell no. Activate the engine, I want to fly!"
"All right then. Take hold of the wobble pump, the handle on the left side, and start stroking it then. This is a two handed job."
She leaned over and grabbed the pump and started running the handle forward and back. After a six count Rufus unlatched the primer and pressed it down, then flipped on the batteries and pressed the starter. The big radial engine groaned and the prop began to turn. After the fourth blade passed he flipped the magnetos and the engine roared and began running on its own.
"Fire! We've got an engine fire!" Hazel called out as white smoke blew past the cockpit.
"Don't worry! That's normal!" Rufus called back. "See, it's already dissipated."
"Holy Den Mother, watch over we two fools," she prayed.
Rufus released the hand brake, then using the rudder pedals and individual wheel brakes, made a series of S turns down the taxiway to the end of the runway. "BTD Air Traffic Control, this is VH129 Experimental, requesting takeoff from VHS runway two-five straight out and clearance for training flight inside coordinates 111 by 324, range 10 klicks, max altitude 2,500 meters."
VH129 X, you are cleared for take off, VHS two-five, straight out. Takeoff permission is good for thirty minutes.
"Thank you, BTD ATC." He flipped back to the internal com channel. "All right, Hazel. I'll take us up. On my word, slowly bring the throttle up to 100% power." He brought the flaps down to takeoff position and released the brakes. "Throttle up!"
"Throttling up!"
The intense roar of the radial pistons increased and the Harvard began to roll forward. A few seconds later the tail lifted off the ground, then they were at takeoff speed. Rufus pulled back on the stick gently and the rumble of tires on tarmac disappeared, leaving only the wind underneath them to hold them in the air. He held the plane at a ten degree up angle until they had reached a comfortable five hundred meters, then leveled off.
"BTD ATC, this is VH129 X, we are airborne."
Confirm, VH 129. Good flying. BTD ATC out.
