September 5
Four AM was no time to wake up. Miss Cherilyn's alarm work me up and the first thing she said when it went off was 'shit,' and I kinda agreed with her. I banged my head on the ceiling when I sat up and was rubbing a hoof against my ear when she stuck her head up over the edge to see if I was awake.
She asked if it was okay if she turned on the lights and I said that it was, and then she helped me get out of bed. And she put on pants and shoes and then sat on the bed with her head in her hands and said that it was too early and train schedules were dumb. And I agreed with her, train schedules were dumb.
She said that she needed a few minutes to wake up and she was going to find the shower and get properly dressed and told me to hold down the fort, which I guess meant to watch the room because we didn't have a fort, not even a pillow fort. So I said that I would and she got clean clothes out of her bag and went out of the room in search of the showers and I got out my Bible and sat on her bed and started reading from where I'd left off in Ezekiel.
God took Ezekiel to a valley of bones, and He made them come back to life, putting muscle and skin on them, and then He said that He would do the same for the people of Israel, and He said that He would make David king over all them. And then He said that He was going to get back at all the nations who had scattered His people and put them into slavery, and He said that the temple in Jerusalem would be rebuilt. He showed Ezekiel a vision of the city, and had a bronze man measure it out so that Ezekiel could tell everyone how big it was supposed to be.
Then after Ezekiel had seen all that, God told him how the priests must behave, and what they should do. And I hoped that they'd listen to Him and follow His rules. Then He described how the land would be given to the tribes once they had returned, and even where they could fish. And that was the end of Ezekiel, and the next book was Daniel, which started by saying that Babylon had besieged Jerusalem. Which confused me, but then when I got to the end I realized that it was taking place earlier, because King Nebuchadnezzar and King Cyrus had already been mentioned before.
I had just started reading about Nebuchadnezzar's dreams when Mister Salvatore came in, and he said he was checking on us and he had coffee from the dining car, which he set down on our little table and then he sat on her bed next to me and said he was sorry that we had to get off the train so early, but it would be worth it when we got where we were going. I wanted to know where that was but he wouldn't tell me.
He said that we'd pick up our rental car once we got to the train station and then we'd stop somewhere for a real breakfast, and tonight we'd get back on the train but it would be at a more reasonable time.
I asked if we were going back to Washington, DC, and he said we were, so I told him that when we got there if we had time I wanted to see the Air and Space museum, and he said that we could, because we had almost all day between trains.
Then Miss Cherilyn came in and she was kind of surprised to see him in our room, but she was really happy that he'd brought coffee.
Since it was the middle of the night, the conductor didn't announce the stop over the train's speakers, but he did come to our room to make sure that we were awake and ready to go, and he helped us carry all our bags to the door. Then he told us to stay back and he opened the door and leaned his head out and it was kind of hot and humid and I could faintly smell salt air, too.
He was kind of disappointed when he found out that we'd gotten an Equinox, but I liked it. It was kinda like Pastor Liz's Rav-4, and there was lots of room in the back for our luggage so I wouldn't have it all crowded around me.
We drove on a highway and stopped at a Waffle House for breakfast. Mister Salvatore said that was the best place to eat breakfast on a road trip, because there was lots of grease on everything and that gave you the energy you needed to get through the day.
Well, I wasn't sure I wanted to have lots of grease, so I just had waffles. I had one with pecans in it and one with peanut butter and those were both really good.
And then we didn't have anything to do for a while because it was so early and the sun was barely up. So he decided that we'd drive down to the harbor and I could fly out over the ocean if I wanted to.
I thought that would be a lot of fun, so we went back on the highway until it ended, then drove past a bunch of nice houses until we got to a park that was right on the shore, and he told me to not take too long.
Miss Cherilyn helped me put on my flight vest and he said that I should stay low and I wouldn't need to warn any airplanes, but I put on my radio anyway. I'd seen seaplanes at the Air Zoo, and I wouldn't want to be in the way if one of them wanted to land in the harbor.
It was a few miles out to the harbor entrance, and it didn't take me too long to cover the distance. I looked back a couple of times to make sure that I would know what landmarks to head for when I came back in, because what I'd thought was obvious on the way out might not be so obvious on the way back in.
There were already a few boats and one ship in the harbor as well, and I waved as I flew over a cargo ship that was on its way in. I had to gain a little bit more altitude as I went over it because the deckhouse in the back was so tall. It said No Smoking in big letters across the deckhouse but I don't think that was actually its name.
I angled for the southern tip of land that separated the harbor from the ocean, and then I landed there and took off my radio so I could splash in the surf a little bit. Then I saw a sand crab, so I started digging in the sand until I'd caught a couple of them.
I would have liked to spend more time on the shore—Lake Michigan was nice, but it wasn't the same as a proper ocean.
The wind was coming off the land, so it took me a little bit longer to fly back in, and the city had definitely woken up by the time I landed. There were lots more boats leaving their docks, and there was more traffic on the road, too.
I landed on the little boardwalk and Miss Cherilyn helped me take off my vest and then I kicked the sand off my hooves and we got back in the Equinox and drove back the way we'd come.
There were lots of signs on the highway for an airport, and Mister Salvatore was going where they said, and I wasn't sure why he'd brought me to this airport when there were lots of airports which were closer, unless there was something very special here.
Well, instead of going to the airport itself, we went around back where there was a really, really big building that said Boeing on it, and he said that now that I'd seen how the little airplanes were made, I was going to get to see how the really big ones were. He said that the best part was that it was a holiday so I could see what I wanted without getting in anyone's way.
We were met in the lobby by a woman named Casey Singleton, who shook my hoof and then gave me a little history of Boeing. She said that their founder had first flown in Curtiss biplanes but after he crashed one and found out it would take months to get replacement parts, he realized that he could build his own airplane faster, so he did. And she said that in the early days, the airplanes were built mostly out of wood, which was why he had decided to have his company in Washington, because there was lots of wood there.
They had built training seaplanes, which were airplanes that could land on water, which they sold to the government in World War One. And then after the war there were a surplus of airplanes, so for a while they'd sold furniture, until they started to build fighter airplanes and mail airplanes.
She said that they'd next built passenger airplanes for their own airline, which was called United Airlines, and that was now the biggest airline in the world. She told us that Boeing didn't own them anymore, because the government had thought that Boeing's airplanes were too safe and reliable, which gave United an unfair advantage over the competition.
During World War Two, they had designed and built some of the best bombers, like the B-17 and the B-29, and after that they built B-47s and B-52s, which she said were still in service with the Air Force. And they'd started making better and better passenger jets, too, from the 707 all the way up to the 787 Dreamliner, which was what they built here.
It was the first passenger jet to be built out of composite materials instead of aluminum, which made it lighter and more efficient than other airplanes. She said it also had special engines, which used less fuel and made it quieter than other similar airplanes.
She said that the factory was special, too, because it was designed to not have any waste. She said that everything that could be recycled was, and that the roof was covered with solar panels that provided a fifth of all their electricity needs.
The room where they built the airplanes was huge, and it was hard to take it all in. It was a lot like the Cessna factory; they had big blue jigs that held things in place, but everything was so much larger it was unbelievable. There were scaffolding systems that went up and over the airplanes, and they had working platforms at different levels. I bet they would have liked to have a bunch of pegasuses helping them build the airplanes, 'cause then they wouldn't have needed as many scaffoldings.
Casey took us to what she said was the very beginning of construction, and it was a section of fuselage mounted on a giant machine. She showed me a machine which had rolls that looked like tape on it, and she said that the machine would rotate the fuselage and the other machine would put the tape on, which was special carbon fiber tape, and that was how they made it. Then it had to go in a big oven to be heated, which made it strong. She said that in principle, it was kind of like a clay pot.
Since nobody was working, I couldn't see it in action, but she showed me a video on her portable telephone of the fuselage being turned and having the tape put on, and I just couldn't imagine how you could do that with something so big.
Then she showed me where they put all the sections of the airplane together, and how the jigs would line everything up so that they could bolt it together just like a bunch of lengths of pipe. And there was also a big thing that looked like a bridge with wheels, which held the airplane's wings.
Casey told me that the wings came all the way from Japan, and they were carried inside an airplane called the Dreamlifter, which was a modified 747. I couldn't imagine how they could fit inside another airplane but she said that they did.
We went a little bit further along, and she showed me the engines, which had openings that were big enough I could have flown into them if they hadn't had covers. I suppose that they didn't want anybody or anything going into the engines that wasn't supposed to be there.
After she'd showed me all the other big parts of the airplane, we went over to one that was partially assembled so that I could see the inside of it. She said that I was allowed to go inside, but she would tell me where I had to walk and I couldn't touch anything and that Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn would have to stay outside. So I climbed up the stairs and let her go first. It looked a lot bigger inside than the airplane I'd flown on, which was because there wasn't anything on the inside yet.
We went all the way to the cockpit in front, and then back to the tail of the airplane where she showed me a big panel that she said was called the aft pressure bulkhead. She said that everything in front of it was pressurized and nothing behind it was.
We had to go back outside to go down to the cargo compartment, which was just as empty as the upstairs had been. Just like above, there were lots of wires running everywhere, and little compartments full of different electric machines.
I waited on the ground while Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn took a tour of it, one at a time. Then Casey came back down and said that we could all go and look at one further down that was nearly complete.
It looked a lot more like an airplane inside, because it had the walls and ceiling finished, and most of the seats were in it, too. She opened up the pilot's door and let me look around inside there, and after telling me not to touch anything, she said that I could sit in the pilot's seat.
Casey asked if I would mind having my picture taken, and I didn't mind at all, so she took a couple of pictures of me sitting there and then went around the scaffolding to the front of the airplane and took a picture through the windshield of me sitting at the controls.
Once Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn had also gotten their turn looking at the airplane, Casey said that we could fly the Dreamliner simulator if we wanted to, and then she asked me if I'd ever used one before. I said that I had at Cessna, and she said that this was going to be a completely different experience for me.
So she made a telephone call and Mister Salvatore convinced her to let him be the co-pilot and I wish I'd thought to bring my pilot's hat with me—it was out in the Equinox, but I didn't want to leave to go get it.
While we were waiting for the flight instructor to arrive, we had pizzas for lunch, and then it was time to go in the simulator.
This was just like the Cessna one, except that it was a lot bigger and there were lots more buttons and knobs. And the instructor, who was named Ted, along with Casey and Miss Cherilyn, all stood in the back.
The Dreamliner was slow and sluggish and I had to anticipate everything and then wait for it to happen. And Mister Salvatore was busy pushing buttons and turning knobs for me, and I was pretty sure I didn't have what it took to be a Dreamliner pilot. Maybe if I practiced a lot more I could.
Sailing ships were a lot like that, too. You had to anticipate things before you did them, or else you'd be caught with the sails in the wrong place or find yourself in a narrow channel with noplace to go but the rocks. So after I'd practiced some and he'd let me work the controls when I was way up in the imaginary sky and had time to recover, I sort of got an idea of how it was going to respond to me, but even so the airplane shook its control stick at me a few times and the computer voice kept warning me about airspeed and terrain and glideslope on my landing approach.
I did get it on the runway and stopped before the end, but Ted said that I'd probably bent the landing gear and taken down a few of the approach lights as well. I didn't think that was my fault; they shouldn't have put lights in the way of the airplane.
Mister Salvatore was looking a bit tired, too—he'd put a lot of effort into all of his controls, and all I'd really had to do was steer the airplane side to side and up and down.
We had some more of the pizza for dinner, and Ted promised that he would make sure that I got training credit on the Dreamliner simulator. He said that he'd never thought he'd be teaching a pegasus how to fly a commercial jet, and that he was really proud of how well I'd done. And Casey took my picture with him, too.
Well, I thought that before we left I ought to fly for them, because I was sure they'd like to see it. So we went outside to the parking lot and I knew that I had to stay pretty low because we were right next to the airport. So I flew straight up and then looked at where the runways were and there was one that was kind of pointed in our direction but off to the side, so I got up a bit higher and did some wing rolls and loops and then dove down and skimmed along the ground before pulling back up and looping back around to make another pass of the parking lot. I also went around some of the light posts, trying to get my wingtip as close to them as I could without actually touching them.
They both thought that was pretty amazing, and I thought about saying how I'd gotten a college degree just for flying in a wind tunnel, but that felt too much like bragging, so I didn't.
Before we left, Casey gave me a book about Boeing, another book about the Dreamliner that she said had cutaway views and showed how everything worked, plus a little model of the airplane and two pictures—one of me sitting in the cockpit of the airplane and one of me and Ted out in the parking lot. It wasn't the one she'd had me pose for, but it was of me stretching out my wing and him crouching down to look at it.
She asked me if I'd mind signing a couple of pictures, too, and I didn't mind at all. So she offered me more copies of the picture of me sitting in the Dreamliner's pilot seat and I signed them with a black felt-tip pen.
The sun was just ducking over the horizon when we got to the train station and we unpacked the Equinox and Mister Salvatore left the keys in it so that it could get picked up and returned now that we didn't need it any more.
I thought that we were taking the very same train back—that it had gotten to its destination and turned around, but the locomotives had different numbers on them, so it must have been a different train even though it had the same name as the first one.
This time I had my own room and Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn had theirs, too. He promised me that for the rest of our trip we'd be getting on and off trains at normal times, which was nice.
When the train had left the station, I had the conductor fold my bed down for me, and then I sat on the bed and wrote in my journal until my eyelids got heavy. It felt like it would be too much work to get up and turn the light off, so I just closed my eyes and went to sleep.
Did they visit the Boeing plant in South Carolina?
And I hoped that they'd listen to Him and follow His rules.
Not likely, human beings being what they are. We have this tendency to say, "This red button? Right here? It doesn't look like it's connected to anything. Are you sure we can't push it just a little? How about if I rest my hand on it, just to feel what it's like? Oops."
Now I've got this mental image of SG coming across this name and trying to figure out how to pronounce it.
Wait, is she just catching them for fun? Is she eating them raw?
in the
I'll have you know that SS No Smoking is a perfectly serviceable ship name!
... Just kidding.
Those pictures are going to be corporate bragging rights for a long time.
7705428
"Oh, a little sign lit up saying 'Please do not press this button again.'"
7705413
It would have to be -- Washington D.C. to Washington state is a four-day trip by train, so they can't be visiting the facilities in Everett or Renton.
7705443
Maybe it's actually easier for her to pronounce, depending on Equestrian phonemes.
Ah the 787 Dreamliner. Fuck that plane. No seriously, that beast is a bitch unless you have gear and a airport designed to handle them. When hurricane Matthew rolled thou Miami my airline pulled out our 787's from there and parked them at my airfield. We had to clear three gates to park that sucker to offload the passengers it's wing span was that large. Then when we tried to push it off it bent the push back bar and totaled the tug. We had to call the mechanics super tugs to get it out. I never want to work another 787 again if I can help it.
What about a book fort?
Oh side note, while United Airlines has the most number of destinations served American Airlines has the largest commercial fleet in the world at just under 1000 planes.
7705785 I've seen a similar experence when an a380 had to be diverted to McCarran a few years back. There were no open gates in Terminal 2 and there was no way to manoeuvre it through to the D gates due to Terminal 3 construction. They apparently had to put it on the cargo ramp.
A Bachelor's Degree in Feathered Arts, perhaps?
Meanwhile, the sand crabs are building a cargo cult civilisation based around that from above who left them a mysterious large black monolith which booms like the waves and lights like the lesser sun.
Silvers had fun in the Cessna and the Dreamliner simulators. Has the Air and Space museum managed to get hold of somthing that would drive her nuts.
You see this? medum passenger aircraft that takes 120 people? You know the Cessna responded slowly, and the Dreamliner was sluggish? How would you think this one, mid way in size would fly?
Mr Salvatore. You may go through the gate and trigger the afterburners.
I now have the picture of a Sailor pegasus in my head.
Said pegasus as copilot of a commercial flight, doing the greeting stuff and all.
The English routine is quite polite and nice, but then he does it a second time and all the mares cover their foals ears, because the copilot pegasus is swearing like a seapony in equestrian xD
All humans who understand it just laugh about it...
Some1 make this as a sidechapter happen!! Please!!
Also silver in a military simulator: "wow finally a plane that does what it should and when it should! Hey mister why does it stop turning when the number befor the little g becomes bigger than 9.5 on the glass?"
There's a space shuttle simulator at NASA Houston.
There's a Hornet simulator where you land on a carrier at the Lexington museum in Corpus Christie.
Oh hey, while they're in South Carolina, they can visit Yorktown.
Um... More like because the government caught Boeing and several others engaging in market rigging.
Plus fuel keeps leaking out of the wings before the engines can burn it.
Hmm. I wonder if Lockheed ever sent Boeing a memo suggesting the problem would be self correcting if they just flew their aircraft faster?
"We remove them before flight"
"Well that's just silly. You really don't want anything going in there when the airplane is flying."
I'm a little surprised they didn't ask Silver about her own experiences flying in a passenger jet. If her experience is typical for pegasi I think Boeing would be concerned and very interested in seeing if they could do anything to mitigate that.
Hah! Casey Singleton. Ted. Biscuit, I love you even more for this now. Michael could certainly tell a story.
Side note, Silver Glow's Journal is my morning newspaper now. Coffee and Biscuit. Keep it coming!
I expect that, at some point during the simulation, Mr. Salvatore said, "What's our clearance, Clarence? What's our vector, Victor?" I would be disappointed if that wasn't the case.
7706391
I mean, if she works for Boeing she's probably going to tell the story her way.
7706711
Yes. Except with more horse puns.
7706487
I like to put the new chapter on my e-reader every morning so I can read on the train.
7706125
With a dual into Meteorological Engineering, probably. She's such an overachiever.
I don't think I will ever forget the sound of a B-52 as it flies over...very distinct sound.
7705413
Yes, that's the one.
7705428
Yeah, we're not the best at following rules, even if they are pretty simple rules. Also, for the record, I would almost certainly push a red button just to see what happened.
7705443
I'm not sure that I can pronounce it correctly, so Silver Glow is probably in trouble. And it's not even the weirdest name in the Bible, either.
She's eating them raw. They're best that way.
Correction made; thank you!
7705513
That probably wouldn't be the weirdest boat name ever. At least it's not Boaty McBoatface.
7705549
Of course they are. And potentially a PR windfall. Casey knows what she's doing, and she's probably been thinking about that picture since the very moment Mister Salvatore asked if Silver Glow could tour the facility.
7705632
Which, of course, would make you want to push the button again to see what it did the next time.
7705733
Yeah, the only way to Amtrak from Kansas to Washington state is to either go by way of LA or Chicago, and that's three days at best. Train schedules were not arranged for Silver Glow's convenience.
7705753
That's possible, but not very likely. Odds are that every human language is a bit of a challenge for her.
7705785
At least it's not one of those monster Airbuses. The one that's got two decks.
7705812
No book forts, either. Silver Glow is completely fort-less.
7705813
Obviously, American ought to buy more airplanes to get to a thousand.
7705838
I wonder how you even load and unload one of those things? Do they use more than one jetway, or do the passengers in the cheap seats have to wait forever until it's their turn?
7706125
7706138
And one day, in the distant future, they will speak of the feathered goddess who takes the unworthy and leaves the true believers behind.
What they really need to build is the pegasus simulator, so that people can fly like a pegasus. And then they can program in a scenario where you try to fly in a supercell.
7706193
Heh, I doubt that the fighter jet simulators are good enough to make you black out if you turn too fast, but it would be awesome if they did.
7706285
The Hornet simulator would be fun for her to try. She'd probably crash it a few times while she was figuring it out. Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if the Boeing simulator would let you land on an aircraft carrier? That would actually be a pretty cool thing for the software designers to put in, even if every attempt led to the plane going off the front of the carrier and crashing into the ocean.
7706391
Well, it's not like a Boeing representative is going to brag about that on the tour. I'm sure that when Volkswagen offers tours of their factory, they don't mention Hitler.
That's a minor detail.
I wonder if anybody has thought about putting screens in front of the engines? I'm sure that the screens would be a bigger risk, since they might break off and be ingested, but I have to imagine that some designer somewhere considred it.
I don't know if they could. 'Opening some windows to let the air in' might be good for pegasi passengers, but not anyone else aboard the airplane.
7706487
He could, and Airframe is one of my favorites. I also have a fondness for A Case of Need, since I was once diagnosed for a potential subdural hematoma, and thanks to the novel, I knew what that was and what my symptoms might be if I had one. Luckily, I didn't.
7706711
We'll say that he did, because he totally would have.
7706972
Exactly!
7723594
"I got a Bachelors of Feathered Arts, and a Masters of Stormology, and all I had to do was fly in a wind tunnel and fight a couple of storms. Earth college is so easy."
7724017
That's an airplane I've never had the privilege of hearing fly.
Why was the conductor disappointed that Equestria has equinox?
8341797
That was kind of poorly worded. Mister Salvatore was disappointed that the vehicle that was there for him to drive was a Chevy Equinox, and not something cool like a Jeep or a Suburban or a Dodge Ram.
The perk of not being the one doing the driving, once you're in the car, you can pass right the fuck back out.
Sleepy pony sleepy, and adorable.
"We could get out and stretch, and so I did." I just, how is her phrasing of things like this so cute?
Mr. Salvatore, don't encourage the Pony, she totally would just grab some logs, make a raft, and see where the current takes her!
Silly pony, but shows just how ingrained magic being common and a regular part of everything is that even knowing Humans don't have magic, she still assumes something in the magic show is enchanted. As to Magic Shows in Equestria, yeah I can totally see those being a thing, even beyond Trixie. Except in them, it's less 'Oh wow, how did they do that?' type magic, and more "Oh wow, that is cool!' and more about just putting on a good, exciting show.
Pony knows whose in charge here, that door isn't to keep tabs on her, it's so she can make sure her servants are ready to serve her when she wakes up.
And then we get to the part of the bible that was clearly someone letting their fetishes slip in... just a bit. The Old Testament, if it's not God being a massive asshole to people for little good reason, it's porn.
No, no Silver, Meghan is a very firm Ponysexual.
'Hopefully everyone learned their lesson and would follow his rules.' Oh... Oh Silver, you poor, sweet, optimistic, innocent little cinnamon roll.
And so sweet, willing to do things yourself, but worried if the person whose job it is to do them would be mad about it. Just, I love the way she thinks.
8343739
Twilight must never see The Matrix. You know she'd try to build a device to just upload whole libraries into her head at once.
Pony sliding in the shower as the train turns... ALL THE CUTELARITY!
"Into WV, which was almost the same as MD" Just with more inbreeding.
Yes, but going straight lets the train go faster, which saves more money in the long run.
Yeah.. random object flying right at the Capitol building would not go over well.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the President has met the Princesses a few times. One of the perks of being in charge. Still be hilarious if Silver wanted to go in, and just gave the sad pony eyes and was let right through. But yes, security around ponies has to be a massive nightmare, and that's assuming they don't know about Luna's dreamwalking ability. Add in that, and well, nightmare become both oddly appropriate, and a massive understatement. Hell, Twi's tours have to be a headache, with her suddenly teleporting over to any new shiny thing she sees and wants to check out.
Mr, Salvatore, stop being awesome and trying to get your pony to show the stuffed suits what you think about them in ways that can't come back on you.
7737513
Trying to land an airplane on a carrier..... oh great, thanks for bringing up THOSE horrible, traumatizing memories. No not of being on a carrier, of trying to play Top Gun.... oh the fucking landings after a level.....
No,ll the no.....that would be, beyond stupid. At that point, you are better off just trying to land on the surface of the ocean itself.
Also the thought of pegasi and Carriers, led to the thought of Equestria's first carrier, where the catapults to get the plane in the air, are literal catapults that toss pegasi up.
Exterior seating? "Stewardess, there's some... thing onthewing!" "Oh, that's just our pegasus passengers, they like it better when they can feel the air.
But doubt the whole 'pegasi don't do well in aircraft' has percolated up at all, since Silver is one of the first to do it, so outside the Pony Watchers Beureua, not really common knowledge, am guessing they passed that bit up the chain going by the bus for the storm breakers. And yeha, best option is 'take a train/bus till they have time to get used to the idea."
Or some asshole gets impatient and pops the emergency slide. Which has happened before
4AM, a time too early even for Silver Glow to wake up.
Silver should have taken that literally, and built a pillow/blanket fort while she was gone to watch.
"King Nebuchadnezzar" Fucking asshole. Right up there with Pocahutli. Nothing makes them happy, hell Atilla and Ghengis Khan are better then them, unless you start right next to them at least. But those dudes are pretty chill. Sure, you have Montezuma to deal with, but he's less 'asshole' and more 'omnicidal maniac' He just wants to kill you and sacrifice your heart to his gods, the first two, they just want to bitch at you about everything. And there's Gandhi.... that dude is just plain nuts. (This makes sense if you play Civilization)
YAY! Take Pony to best museum for Pegasus!
Coffee forgives all things!
Waffles, best pony fuel. Also why do I have a feeling there was an epic 'war' in the past between the waffle and pancake factions?
Silly cute pony, yes, it is not named 'No Smoking'
THE BLOODLUST HAS CONSUMED HER! SHE IS SLAUGHTERING INNOCENT CREATURES TO SATE HER HUNGER!
She would freaking LOVE watching 'How It's Made'. Gotta start her with the best of course, the Plumbus
Yay Anti-trust laws... and also companies fucking up big enough to ruin it for everyone... hwo's that going EA?
Who wouldn't love to have a bunch of ponies helping them?
So many pictures, they are so going up on ads and websites...
Yes, yes, you should have had you pilot's hat for this.
Yeah, too used to quick response times to pilot something slow like that. But also, would love to see her behind the stick of a fighter.
Ponies... just.. Ponies, make you do all kinds of odd things, like teach a birdy-on how to fly a jet.
Pfffft she is so proud of the wind tunnel degree.
And those signed pictures are going into that ladies retirement fund.
9140242
Exactly!
Pony trotting around and flapping around at the train station, much to the wonder of everyone there.
I guarantee you that there are ponies who do just that with their cloudhomes. <--shameless self-promotion
It’s the logical conclusion for an Equestrian. After all, Tank didn’t enchant his helicopter suit, and you can bet that Tank probably has about the same magical aptitude as a potato.
I think that would be the big difference in an Equestrian show. Ponies like Trixie probably have a disadvantage, since a unicorn summoning stuff with magic isn’t really all that remarkable to the audience, so their tricks and effects would have to be designed around that, and rely more on showmareship rather than (to Equestrians) boring stuff like pulling a rabbit out of hat.
Yeah, pretty much.
She is indeed.
Yeah, that’s really too much to hope for, both back in ancient Israel, and also in modern times.
It does make one wonder with modern society and automation, etc. I’m sure if you’re not hiding under a rock, you’ve heard plenty of discussion in the US about jobs lost, and of course the vast number of them haven’t gone overseas, they’ve been replaced by automation. I mean, here’s just one simple example I thought of at Bronycon--imagine if all elevators still had to have elevator operators? The Hyatt (which I stayed at) would have two shifts with four people each, I’d imagine, for the guest elevators, and maybe only one or two at night, when there’s less demand on the elevator. Plus I’m sure they have some freight elevators, too, and those would need operators . . . so that would be another dozen jobs at that hotel. Add in switchboard operators, which used to be a thing before automated systems. . . .
What’s a pony with an elevator-operating cutie mark to do if everypony pushes the elevator buttons on their own?
I do have a feeling that such a spell might exist in Equestria, and I can also imagine that casting it almost certainly causes insanity.
There was a fic way back in the early days where Luna accidentally downloaded the internet (at least the meme-ier parts of it) into her brain.
Speaking of Luna and dreamwalking and such, I bet it would be possible to have focused dreams, and dreams where a pony learns stuff.
If the shower had had metal floors, that would have been a good place to use her snowboarding magnet boots.
Honestly, the western parts of Maryland aren’t all that much different then West Virginia, IMHO.
It does, especially with the older tech that existed when that line was built.
Yet another thing that the Secret Service has to worry about now.
Oh, yeah, pony princesses have surely met with the President multiple times. And yeah, Silver could probably get in on a tour if she’d wanted to; after all, she’s got two Federal agents with her, which might be just as effective as the sad pony eyes (given that Secret Service agents are probably basically robots).
Assuming that the ponies are smart enough to not give away all their secrets, that’s one that they probably wouldn’t mention, and if asked directly would either deny or say that it didn’t work on humans (even if it did).
We know that there are magic-removing spells in Equestria, so there might be some sort of device in high-security locations to prevent that kind of thing.
He can’t help who he is. And most of them deserve it, anyway.
For all that, landing on a carrier isn’t the craziest thing that the military has come up with over the years. The early ships that had catapults for the biplanes, which would then (in theory) land in the water next to the ship and be winched back up aboard; aircraft launched from airships; even small airplanes meant to fly out of the bomb bays of bigger airplanes.
i1.wp.com/www.defensemedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/XF85-Goblin2.jpg
I can’t think off the top of my head of anyone successfully launching aircraft from submarines, but that was probably thought of, too.
ussstlouis.net/Images/St%20%20Louis%20Catapults.jpg
And the best part is that we know they have catapults in canon, and that they can launch RD pretty far.
Probably wouldn’t be a good idea on a modern passenger jet, but on some of those older prop planes you probably could have pony on-wing seating. Surely something that they might invent in Equestria.
No doubt there are memos going back and forth, though. Obviously, Salvatore and Cherilyn know, and have also figured out that she doesn’t like enclosed elevators (or train tunnels [they may or may not know about the cave in Colorado]), and since so much of Silver Glow’s experiences are in fact intended to be useful lessons for future pegasi coming to Earth, that’s something that’s going to be kicking through most of the channels. In the case of the tornado ponies, the bus also does provide a good opportunity to give the weatherponies a crash course in FAA requirements, so it’s kind of a win/win.
I have to bet that any asshole that tries that gets a very stern talking to with all manner of unpleasant people at the airport. Besides the legal problems with doing that, I have to imagine that those emergency slides aren’t cheap, and I’m pretty sure you can’t just roll them back up, and I’d also bet that you’re not supposed to fly an airplane with a slide missing--the cost to the airline for inspection/replacement as needed, as well as lost flight time for that aircraft is probably enormous, and I have a feeling that they could at least attempt to recoup that loss with a bit, fat lawsuit.
Even our plucky pegasus has her limits.
She should have. Miss Cherilyn would have been impressed if she had.
Some of that probably depends on which side of his reign you’re on (he did build up a lot of stuff in Babylon, apparently, fixed temples, built a museum, etc.) Although at least in the Bible, the Israelites liked Cyrius a lot better than Nebuchadnezzar. Although I don’t really know that much about the old kings and rulers . . . learned some of that stuff in various history classes, and ultimately forgot most of it.
As for Ghandi, I did know about that bug where he’d got to a complete maniac at some point in the game. Played Civilization way back in the day (whatever version of the game was around in 1993) but it wasn't my favorite.
Imagine if they had a stuffed pegasus up in their hall of flight, too. Hopefully a ponykin, maybe wearing Wonderbolts flight gear.
It does indeed.
I could actually see that happening.
Sand crabs, a staple snack of sea pegasi, easier to catch than fish.
That video is NSFCW.
Yeah, there’s a long history of big companies screwing it up for everyone else, isn’t there? And of course we normally don’t see it coming until it’s too late. . . .
Everybody would love to have a bunch of ponies helping them, that’s just a fact.
Oh, yeah, totally. No question there.
If Mr. Salvatore is smart (which let’s face it, he is), he’s probably got little press packets all ready to go with her honors and qualifications, and he’s probably updating them regularly.
They’d have to be careful what they told her the fighter jet could do (and couldn’t do). First storm she sees, she’d fly right into it, and then the Air Force would learn that a F-18 can’t be flown through a tornado
Let’s be honest, if you were a trainer for the Dreamliner, wouldn’t you want to teach a pegaus how to fly it? In some ways, that’s teaching an aircraft to fly a bigger aircraft.
Hey, she’s the only pony who’s got one. That’s something to be proud of.
“Buy a brand-new Dreamliner, and we’ll give you a signed picture of a pegasus flying one.” They should have taken a flight in the real thing and let her operate the controls (at a safe altitude, of course).
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The Japanese did, actually building three submarine aircraft carriers, the I-400 class:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-400-class_submarine
Some movie, 2 characters are talking in a truck stop
"You've heard of the 'Graveyard of the Elephants'?"
"The mythical place that old elephants go to die? Sure"
"I swear that this restaurant is where old grease goes to die. Isn't there ANYTHING here that isn't drowned in gravy? A salad, perhaps?"
"There isn't much gravy on the strawberry shortcake...."
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Well, of course they did. Without having clicked on the link (yet), I’m betting that the moral is just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
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I was binge watching some clips from Gordon Ramsay and there was one where he got a grilled Cesar salad. Like, they grilled the lettuce.
To be fair, that was probably the show he devotes to seeking out failing restaurants. While there are presumably restaurants that fail for reasons other than their proprietors being bug insane, those aren't as entertaining for viewers.
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Yeah, it was. And you’re right, I’m sure the show was vetted and he largely went to ones that were failing due to bad management rather than other causes which are less entertaining for audiences. Gotta get those ratings.
I did write a half-finished Gordon Ramsay in Equestria story, which actually has a connection with this story.
My mother would never take us to Waffle House because she said "you may as well just drink a bucket of grease." It wasn't until late high school when I went to the one less than a mile from my house for the first time. Wasn't bad at all.
I've mentioned my brother used to work at one. He saw one person get fired in his time there, and it was for making a pancake.
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We just don't have them where I live. Gotta go an hour or so south to get a Waffle House.
The grease is what makes it good. Especially when you need a late-night burst of energy for whatever reason.