//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: First Flight // Story: Viper: Uprising // by Kitsune_Kenshi //------------------------------// The bootcamp, the most feared place for rookies, with instructors roaring your ears off every single day, cold water poured on your face every morning, a ten kilometers run with full gears run, anti-vertigo training that spins the living crap outta you, and some other fearsome trainings. because this is the "Hell Week" Training. With Tempest, which made it harder for Gallus to believe that he made the right choice. The only event that Gallus truly enjoyed is the Simulated Aerial Combat; where the rookies would go on a VR simulation based on real-life Aerial Combats. You can feel pain from extreme G-Forces, Stamina, black-out, and other stuff that'll happen during an extreme G-Force maneuver; though you won't die from it, but everyone is smart enough not to perform a negative G-Force dive. And if you gets shot down, you have to eject or face the painful 'death'. Other than that, pretty sure no one can survive this Hell Week Training. Pretty, sure. At the end of the week, only 12 out of 50 rookies were left for further trainings, luckily, Gallus's new friends were still 'alive' with him. Now there's Gallus, Glenda, Wildfire, Whirlwind, four former Wonderbolts, three Changelings, and hippogriff. After three days of rests and breaks, Tempest decided it's time for these rookies to get a hold of air. "We're flying a jet?!" Glenda blurted with her bubbly voice. "Hell not, yet," Tempest said, "each of you will get an instructor to partner up. Then you'll fly with them in the T-38s." She waved them off, but kept Gallus in place. "I promised Silverstream to keep you alive," Temepst said sternly, "so don't do anything stupid up there, you'll be flying with me." "Yes ma'am." Gallus sighed a bit, his marefriend can be a bit overprotective sometimes... --------------------------------------------------------- Outside at the airfield, 4 Talon jets were lined up on the runway, in the cockpits were the instructors and the rookies, of course the instructors are the ones flying the jet. The four instructors are going to take four rookies to the skies at a time, then they'll repeat the steps. Each T-38s formed a certain amount of spaces between each other to prevent collision; Tempest's callsign during this flight is Talon 4, Glenda's instructor is Talon 1, Wildfire's instructor is Talon 3, and Whirlwind's instructor is Talon 2. As for the orders of taking off, it's shown clearly by their callsigns. "Talon 1 you're clear for the runway, attitude restriction lifted, happy flying." There comes the flight tower, Gallus, in the T-38 piloted by Tempest, watches Talon 1 slowly glided its way to the runway and lined it up. Then he saw the flames shot out of the T-38's twin engines, going full afterburn, it slowly gained speed and lifted itself upward, then airborne. The Talns went by their callsigns, finally, is Tempest and Gallus's turn. "Nervous there?" Tempest asked, noticing Gallus's expression. (He haven't wore the mask yet) "Uh... No ma'am." Tempest raised an eyebrow, "I mean... A bit ma'am." "Well, suit yourself, and put on that mask, cuz we're going above 30,000 feet, you're going to suffocate at that height." Tempest said, ignoring Gallus's nervous gulp. Though he did went in high attitude before, but that's only around 3,000 feet, now going straight up to 30,000, he wasn't sure if he's going to take this as 'fun'. Plus the tight spaces in the cockpit is making his nervousness worse, but he's going to be a pilot, and he'd have to dump his fear aside. "Talon 4 this is flight tower," the mission command's voice popped from the radio, "the runway is clear, good for take off. Attitude restriction lifted, good luck." "Talon 4 copy." Tempest simply replied before checking the flaps, tail, engines, GPS, and radar systems. Lastly she slowly pushed the speed valve to max, the entire jet began to rumble due to the afterburner, it started to glide forward. More speeds were gained, the flaps are in take-off, when the speed reaches the right amount, Tempest lifted the jets nose upward as they went airborne. "Gallus, don't panic, breathe normally. Brace yourself cuz we're gonna go for some high-G maneuvers." Tempest spoke through the radio towards the blue Griffon, who's both excited and a bit uncomfortable, "And also, enjoy the view." Gallus however, wasn't use to full G-forces; though he did felt them during simulation trainings, but the real-life G-Force overload is way tougher than he'd expected. As tempest pulled in a hard turn to the left, Gallus felt like tons of weight slowly crushing him against his seats, he began to breathe harder. His sight began to fade in black, Gallus knew he had a Black-out, pretty normal during G-Forces Overload, Tempest too, seemed to noticed this as she stopped maneuvering and flew straight again. After gaining his vision back, Gallus is slowly getting used to the High-G maneuvers. "Alright, your good?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "Sit tight, we're doing it again." The T-38 Talon began to pull up, then performing a High Yo-Yo, back flip, barrel roll, and other maneuvers. At first Gallus is suffering a headache of feeling the world around him spinning like hell, but eh shook his head and went on with it. I'm gonna need some more anti-vertigo simulations... The Talon Squadron then quickly formed a parade formation in the order of their callsigns, "Pay attention to this part rookies," Tempest said firmly through the radio to all of the rookies, "those maneuvers, High-Gs, and Formations were needed during your solo-flight, which is about a month later. Remember these moves." Aw shit "This is Talon 4 to Flight Tower, requesting landing." Tempest said as she turned the jet towards the airfield, as well as lowering air speed, putting air brakes up, setting the flaps, and dropping the landing gears. "Talon 4, request granted, RTB." came the Flight Control's reply. "What a one helluva of flight..." Gallus murmured mostly to himself, but... he forget the fact that Tempest has good ears. "One helluva of flight?" she smirked deviously, "Seems like someone's gonna have to put up some more intense maneuvers." --------------------------------------------------------- (Gallus POV) It was 8:30 in the night, the lights will be shut off at nine, Glenda couldn't stop talking about her flight with Talon 1, got used to it already? I'm impressed. Whirlwind hasn't said a word since he got back onto the ground, I guess his mind is still thirty-thousand feet up. Wildfire, surprisingly, is quite talkative today, his chatting with Glenda, and form the facial reaction from Glenda, I think those two would be great partners. Ahem! I know what others were thinking right now. No, they're friends, and that's all. Welp, not gonna waste my time chatting with them, I promised Silver that I'll write her letters every Mondays. Dear Silver, Hey there Silv, how have you been? Missed me like sick I suppose? Yeah, me too. Cap Tempest took me to my first flight, must say, I'm both excited and nervous, well that's before my flight. Let just use one word to describe that feeling; AWESOME! I know you're both happy and worried for me, glad your happy, but no worries, I'm fine and I'll always be. By the way say hi to the others for me, tell them that I missed them as well. But mots importantly, I missed you the most, I missed your smell, your feathers' softness, and your sweet voice. It's near nine, I promise I'll be writing to you every Monday. Until next time my sweet angel! Yours and loved, Gallus.