Flight Simulator Extreme
In Equestria, Rainbow Dash had always wanted to be one of the greatest flyers ever, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise to Starlight Glimmer that the Lego World’s Rainbow Dash would also be just as enthusiastic for flight. Of course, unlike the pegasus Starlight knew in Equestria, this world’s Rainbow Dash didn’t have wings — at least, not usually, or so Rainbow claimed — so she often expressed her greatest desire by piloting all kinds of aircraft and spacecraft. So naturally, Starlight knew her time with this Rainbow Dash would involve some form of piloting lessons, but she had to admit that what exactly that turned out to be was not quite what she had expected.
“So, uh… what exactly is this?” asked Starlight. She and Rainbow Dash were in a very large room and were currently looking at some kind of large pod that was held up above the floor by a series of hydraulic pistons and hoses. They were standing at the base of a stairway that led up to an open door on the side of the strange white pod.
“It’s a flight simulator!” answered Rainbow Dash proudly. “This will allow you to learn how to fly something without having to worry about getting hurt if you make any mistakes.” She turned to Starlight and smirked. “What, you actually thought we were gonna practice with the real deal?”
Starlight nervously rubbed the back of her head and confessed, “Uh… kinda?”
Rainbow burst out laughing, then playfully remarked, “I may be reckless, but I’m not stupid!” She patted Starlight on the back as she continued, “Trust me, all amateurs like you will need some practice here before you’re ready for the real deal, but don’t expect that to happen anytime soon. I’ve honestly lost count of how many times my run on this thing ended by crashing and burning.”
“And there goes any confidence I had about flying…” muttered Starlight.
“Hey, relax,” assured Rainbow. “This is exactly why we’re using the simulator. You’ll never have to worry about getting hurt if you make any mistakes. Even if you do crash and burn, all you have to do is hit the reset button and you’re good to go again. It’s kinda like playing a video game.”
Starlight raised an eyebrow and asked, “A what game?”
“Seriously?” asked Rainbow incredulously. “Is Equestria really that primitive? Have you ever even seen a spaceship?”
“Just once,” replied Starlight. “It was actually the very first night I spent in Princess Twilight’s castle after she made me her personal student. I heard this weird loud noise outside like a dragon’s roar, so I looked out the window and I saw this big blue and grey thing fly right by and shooting fire out the rear of it. I had no idea what it was at the time, but after Princess Twilight made a visit to this world soon after, I found out that it was actually you flying a spaceship through one of those dimensional tears that Midnight Sparkle had ripped open.”
Rainbow Dash blinked once before she slowly mumbled, “Huh… interesting…” She then shook her head a little and said, “Alright, enough talk. Let’s climb inside this thing and get right to it.” She then stepped forward and began climbing up the stairway.
“Now that, I can agree with,” remarked Starlight as she followed Rainbow up the stairs.
Once they reached the top of the stairs, Rainbow walked up to a display panel next to the door and tapped a few buttons. “I’m setting you up with a small propeller-driven airplane,” she explained. “It’s one of the simplest aircraft there is, so you won’t have to worry about any extra stuff like how to raise the landing gear or when to use the autopilot.”
“Sounds good to me,” agreed Starlight.
“Awesome! Let’s get started!” declared Rainbow as she stepped through the doorway into the simulator. Once Starlight followed her inside, she then shut the door.
As soon as the door was closed, the simulator automatically set itself up to begin the simulation. As the stairway retracted away, the pod was slowly lifted upwards on its series of pistons.
Inside the pod, Rainbow gestured for Starlight to sit down in the pilot’s seat, while she sat down in the copilot’s seat right next to it. Once they were both seated behind the flight controls, Rainbow gestured up at where the windows would be in a real aircraft and explained, “These display screens will show us everything we would see out the windows of a real plane, so the simulation will begin as soon as they come on.”
Within a few seconds, the display screens turned on to show the middle of an airport runway with part of the simulated airplane’s propeller visible in the middle of the front. The simulation even displayed the weather conditions, which in this case was a heavy rainfall, strong winds, and dense fog that made it difficult to see very far. A sudden flash of lightning followed by a boom of thunder startled the two girls in the simulator.
“Huh… not what I was expecting…” muttered Rainbow Dash. She then shrugged and said, “Eh, whatever. We’ll just roll with it.”
“So what should I do first?” asked Starlight.
“Before we switch on the engine, let me quickly show you how to control the plane,” explained Rainbow. “Go ahead and grab those flight controls right in front of you.”
Starlight glanced down and saw what looked like half of a steering wheel, so she grabbed onto it.
“Okay,” continued Rainbow, “there are three types of directions for controlling an airplane: pitch, roll, and yaw. Pitch is how you move up or down while you’re going forward. Pulling that steering control back will make the plane go up, and pushing it forward will make the plane go down.”
Starlight carefully pulled and pushed the flight controls in her hands to show she understood what she was told.
“Roll,” continued Rainbow, “is the side to side direction along the length of the plane. Turning the steering control left will roll the plane to the left, and turning it to the right will roll the plane to the right.”
Starlight slowly turned the steering portion of the flight controls left and right to confirm she understood that part.
“Yaw,” continued Rainbow, “is the left and right direction, kinda like steering a car on the ground, except the controls for it on an airplane are very different. You may have noticed two pedals on the floor near your feet. Stepping on the left pedal will turn the plane left, and stepping on the right pedal will turn the plane right.”
Starlight demonstrated her understanding by stepping on the two pedals one after the other. She then turned to Rainbow and asked, “If the pedals are used for steering, then how do I make the airplane go forward or slow down?”
“See this lever between our seats?” said Rainbow with a grin as she gestured at the control in question. “That’s what I consider to be my favorite flight control of all: thrust. Just push that lever forward for more thrust, and pull it back for less thrust. You’ll notice that it’s currently pulled back, which means that once we start the engine, the propeller won’t be spinning fast enough to even move the plane at all.”
“Okay, I know how to steer in three dimensions and how to accelerate,” muttered Starlight to herself confidently. “I think I’m ready to give it a try.” Another flash of lightning and boom of thunder from the simulation’s thunderstorm startled her again, and also brought her confidence right back down. She turned to Rainbow and asked, “Should we even be doing this in this kind of weather?”
“Realistically, no,” acknowledged Rainbow Dash. She then shrugged and added, “But this is a simulation, so it’s not like we have to actually worry for our lives. Go ahead and fire up the engine. You’ll find the starter switch on the front of the console.”
Starlight glanced over the various switches and buttons on the console and soon found a large switch. She turned it and in the simulation, she began to hear the noise of an engine while the propeller up ahead began to rapidly spin. Once the engine and propeller were operating at a steady rate, she turned to Rainbow Dash.
“Go ahead, Starlight,” encouraged Rainbow. “It’s all you now.”
Starlight nodded in acknowledgement, then turned her attention forward. She reached over towards the trust lever and began to gradually push it forward. As the simulated propeller spun faster, the plane began to roll forward along the simulated runway.
“Give it some more thrust,” advised Rainbow. “We need enough speed to get up in the air before we reach the end of the runway.”
Starlight pushed the thrust lever further forward. She was a little hesitant about going too fast due to the fog conditions in the simulation, but with those conditions making it impossible to see the end of the runway, she realized that she should’ve been more concerned with going too slow.
A few seconds later, Rainbow spoke up, “Okay, this looks good. Start bringing the plane up.”
Remembering which control movement was needed to turn the airplane upwards, Starlight carefully pulled back on the controls in her hands. On the display screens, the runway began to drop away below. At the same time, they also felt the simulator begin the tilt backwards. “Whoa…” muttered Starlight as she was briefly caught off guard by the slight shift in gravity.
“Remember seeing all those pistons underneath the simulator?” explained Rainbow. “Right now, they’re moving this thing around to make it feel like we’re flying the real deal.”
Starlight let out a sigh of relief and remarked, “That’s good to know. For second there, I was worried something wasn’t right with this— Whoa!”
In the simulation, a sudden gust of wind pushed the airplane sideways to the left.
“Uh oh, turbulence!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash worriedly. She turned to Starlight and quickly instructed, “Go right! Go right! Roll and turn!”
Starlight immediately turned the steering control to the right and stepped on the right pedal, causing the simulated airplane to turn right until it was facing directly against the wind.
“Okay, straighten it out now!” Rainbow quickly instructed.
Starlight let up on the pedal and straightened out the flight controls. Although they could still feel some shaking around from the strong winds of the simulated thunderstorm, at least the airplane was no longer tumbling out of control.
Starlight let out a sigh of relief and muttered, “I’m glad that’s over with.” She turned to Rainbow and spoke up, “Thanks for helping me out there.”
“To be honest, it took me a while to figure out how to fight turbulence like that,” admitted Rainbow Dash. “You’re doing pretty awesome already.”
“Yeah, well, I just hope that’s the worst thing I’ll have to deal with here,” remarked Starlight.
The smiles on their faces didn’t last long, because just a few seconds later, the fog cleared up to reveal a massive tornado heading directly towards them.
“Really?” grumbled Rainbow in disbelief.
“Uh, Rainbow?” asked Starlight nervously. “What should I do?”
After staring in shock at the tornado for a moment, Rainbow glanced down at the navigational readings on the console, then replied, “I don’t know if we can safely turn away from it without getting tossed around, so I think the best thing to do… is to fly straight through the center of it.”
Starlight turned to Rainbow and exclaimed, “Are you nuts?!”
“Just do it!” argued Rainbow Dash. “Trust me, it’ll work!”
Starlight shook her head and grumbled, “If you’re so sure about it…” She gently manipulated the flight controls to steer the simulated airplane directly at the center of the tornado.
Within a few seconds, the airplane flew right into the heart of the massive tornado. As the airplane passed through, it was buffeted by strong wind and bits of debris — such as bikes, cars, cows, and even whole houses — from the left, then the same thing from the right before finally emerging from the fearsome funnel. Despite the intense thunderstorm still raging all around, the airplane continued to fly straight ahead.
Starlight and Rainbow Dash both let out a sigh of relief. “I think we’ve just seen the worst,” muttered Starlight.
But again, their relief was short lived, because the next thing they saw in the simulation was an alien flying saucer suddenly hover into view in front of the airplane. The odd spacecraft just hovered in place for a few seconds, then it suddenly began to fire laser bolts in the general direction of the airplane.
Starlight yelped and immediately began wildly moving the flight controls around in a desperate effort to avoid getting hit by any of those lasers.
“Okay, this is just getting ridiculous!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “Something’s definitely not right!”
After flying past the alien flying saucer, Starlight continued to wildly move the airplane around until she was sure there were no more laser bolts flying past them. As she leveled out the airplane as best as she could through the fog and thunderstorm, she grumbled, “Do I even wanna know what’s next?”
Just a few seconds later, Starlight got her answer anyway. This time, emerging though the fog directly ahead was the jagged rocky surface of a massive cliff, and they were heading straight towards it.
“Pull up! Pull up!” Rainbow suddenly shouted.
Starlight immediately yanked back on the flight controls as hard as she could. The engine roared loudly as the airplane began to sharply turn upwards, but it wasn’t enough and the airplane was doomed to slam into that cliff.
However, right at the very instant when the airplane was about to hit the rocky cliff, the simulation suddenly froze. All noise suddenly fell silent, and the display screens began flashing back and forth between the simulation’s final instant and a bright red background with the word “FAIL” in big black letters.
Starlight had her eyes closed when she braced for impact, and it took a few seconds of the unexpected stillness and silence before she finally opened her eyes to see what was now being shown on the display screens. “What just happened?” asked Starlight, still in shock.
Rainbow Dash sighed and slumped in her seat. “We just crashed and burned,” she grumbled.
After a few more seconds, the display screens switched off and a faint mechanical noise was heard outside as the simulator was gradually leveled out and brought back down. Once the simulator pod was back to its idle position, the door automatically opened.
With the simulation now over, Rainbow Dash got up out of her seat and said, “I’m gonna go check the settings again. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t how it was supposed to go.” She then walked out the door and began to inspect the settings panel just outside.
Meanwhile, Starlight just sat completely still in her seat. There was no question in her mind that what she had just went though was arguably one of the most intense experiences she ever had. Sure, it was only a simulation and thus nowhere near as life-threatening as, say, messing around with time travel, but that didn’t take away from just how terrifying it was. As much as she liked the fact she was a unicorn, this was the first time she found herself thankful that she wasn’t born as a pegasus.
“Ah ha! There’s your problem!” Rainbow Dash suddenly spoke up outside. “Whoever last used this thing had left the difficulty setting on ‘Absurdly Extreme’.”
Starlight glanced back at the door, then turned forward again with a blank expression on her face. She then slowly remarked, “Huh… suddenly, it all makes sense.”
“You got that right,” quipped Rainbow Dash. A few seconds later, she returned into the simulator and shut the door. As she sat back down in the empty seat, she explained, “I just reset the difficulty to ‘Basic Beginner’. Clear skies, no wind, flat terrain, literally the only thing you’ll have to worry about this time is how close you are to the ground.”
Starlight smiled and remarked, “I think I can handle that.”
The simulation started up again. This time, the display screens showed a clear and sunny day with an almost featureless terrain all around. Conditions this time were so excellent that it was very easy to see the end of the runway far off in the distance.
“Okay, let’s try this again,” stated Rainbow Dash with a smile. She turned to Starlight and instructed, “Go ahead and start up the engine.”
Starlight continued to smile as she reached over the console and turned the switch to start the engine in the simulation. She certainly had no intentions of becoming a professional pilot, but with renewed confidence, she figured she wouldn’t mind learning a few basics about operating a flying vehicle.