//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Practice Run // Story: On a Wing and a Prayer // by White Comet //------------------------------// Spark Igniter looked himself over once again in the mirror. He was all dressed up and ready to go. He wore his usual combination of the blue-grey uniform of the ERAF along with the flying jacket, but with the additional equipment he needed while up in the air. His flying helmet held his goggles above his head, ready to be slid down at a moments notice. His oxygen mask dangled lazily from the left side of it, again ready to be worn when needed. He looked himself in the eyes through the mirror. This was it. He was about to take command for the first time. He couldn’t kid himself, he was nervous as hell. He was just doing an excellent job at controlling it...so far anyway… His attention was drawn by the sound of the door to his shared room creaking open. “Sorry to interrupt Spark, but we still haven’t found Kobalt.” Spark blinked and looked over at Slingshot standing in the doorway, sporting the same uniform as him. His lips curled upwards slightly at the sight. He always found it funny that Slingshot was always as tall as the door itself. It was a miracle he even managed to fit in the plane… “As I’ve heard,” Spark replied, “But it’s not our job to babysit him, I trust him to turn up. Continue as planned, I’ll be there in a minute.” Slingshot nodded and walked away, closing the door behind him. Spark turned back to the mirror. “You got this…” he said to himself, holding a stare into his eyes for several seconds before releasing a sigh. As ready as he would ever be, he left his room. He walked to the outside of the big hut that made up their operations building, where he found several crews already beginning to walk towards the hangers. But his team were still waiting. Astute, Snapshot, Slingshot, Barber and Melody all looked raring to go and immediately spotted him as he approached. “No Kobalt?” He asked as he approached his crew. “Nothing,” Astute answered, shaking his head. “Alright, let’s go,” Spark commanded in a semi-frustrated tone, beginning to walk in the direction of the hangers. “We can’t be late.” Spark and his crew trotted along the taxiway in relative silence, only passing comments about the weather. Small talk in any other scenario, but quite crucial for aircrews. Luckily it was reasonably clear skies, allowing the sun to glisten off the ground. Given the time of year, it was still quite cold, but at least there would be no rain to deal with. The activity around the hangers was high, with plenty of maintenance crews performing their final checks and rolling the bombers out ready for their practice flights. Spark found something enjoyable about watching the engineers go about what was to them just their daily business. But watching them get the planes ready got him hyped up. He liked using it as motivation. When he got to their plane, the Mystic Mare...well, that answered where Kobalt had been. The engineers looked like they were just getting ready to roll the aircraft out of the hanger, while Kobalt was standing on the wing chatting to one of the engineers. From the way he pointed, it looked like they were discussing one of the engines. “Kobalt!” Sparky’s voice drew Kobalt’s attention, seeing his crew suited and booted approaching the plane. He quickly glanced back at the engineer. “We’re out of time, but re-balance it before the next flight.” He spoke his final instructions before vanishing in a light blue flash of magic. He reappeared directly in front of Sparky, startling him. “Sir!” He greeted with a salute. “Geez, don’t do that so close,” Sparky complained, rubbing his forehead. “Where have you been?” “Making sure the plane is ready, Sir,” Kobalt replied. “Is my job no?” “Yeah, but…” he noticed the black patches of oil stains on Kobalt's navy blue fur…looked like he was doing some pretty serious work… “Have you been up all night?” Kobalt shook his head, “Only for a few hours.” "A few hours?! It's not even eight AM yet,” Spark explained. “I’ll be fine if that’s what you’re wondering,” Kobalt replied, his horn lighting up and floating a well-stained mug of coffee over to himself, taking a generous sip to finish it off. Sparky rolled his eyes, “Whatever, but we’re about to take off. So get yourself geared up and in that cabin pronto.” “Aye, sir!” Kobalt nodded then turned quickly back over to a workbench near the side of the hanger. He grabbed a towel with his magic and promptly used it to rub all the oil and grease out of his coat before picking up his uniform and flight gear that he’d flung over a chair earlier. Luckily with the use of magic, he was able to get himself changed quickly and soon enough, he was geared up and ready to rock. Sparky opened the hatch at the back of the plane and began clambering in. It was...surprisingly clean smelling. It still had that metallic-oily smell lingering, but that was never going away due to the nature of being inside what was basically a flying tin can. Kobalt must have cleaned it while he was working... After making his way through the plane, Spark climbed up into the pilots' seat. He got himself comfortable then strapped his helmet onto his head, securing the mask that provided his oxygen and microphone. A couple of lights flickered to life on his instrument panel, indicating that Kobalt had just flicked the power on. Confirming his radio was plugged in, he pressed in the button to speak. “Radio check.” “Tail gun looks good, Sir,” Slingshot replied over the radio. “Ready when you are,” Snapshot added. “Radio all tuned in,” Melody relayed. “Navigator ready,” Barber answered. “Engineer ready,” Kobalt copied. “Bombardier ready,” Astute finished. “Perfect. Alright Kobalt, let’s get pre-flight checks underway. How is it look--” “I’ve already done mine,” Kobalt cut Spark off. Spark was lucky that he was out of view of Kobalt. He felt himself twitch as his patience wore thinner and thinner with that stallion...but in Kobalt’s defence, he had just been working on the plane all morning. He must know it like the back of his hoof by now. “Okay...guess I’ll finish mine then. Melody, radio ground and get us tugged out.” As the plane was pulled out of the hanger, Spark coordinated with the rest of his crew to make sure everything was as expected. The aircraft was pulled far enough out of the hanger to freely manoeuvrer. Looking around, Spark saw plenty of other Halifaxes getting ready to go, some starting their engines. “Ready for starting,” he called on the radio. Back in the flight engineer's seat, Kobalt’s lips curled upwards at the sound of those very words. His magic worked in harmony with his hooves to flick all the required switches. Then with a final hold of a button, vibrations began to fill the aircraft as one of the propellers started turning. Sparky felt himself getting excited as the first engine whirred into life. He looked over his left shoulder as the next propeller began spinning. Then to his right for the final two until all four engines were idling. “How’s it looking, Kobalt?” “All engines are within tolerance,” Kobalt answered back over the radio. “Good enough for me,” Spark acknowledged. They were ready to go...all they had to do was wait for the planes ahead of them to go now. Which only took a few minutes. As the plane to the right of him started creeping forward, Spark took in a deep sigh and gently lowered his hoof onto the throttle quadrant; a block of four sticks which controlled the engine's power. He gently pushed forward and heard the engine noise increase in pitch. As the plane started creeping along, he pushed on the pedals with his right hind leg to twist the rudder to the right, making the plane turn and follow the others down the taxiway. He kept his distance from the plane in front, not daring to go any faster in fear of not being able to stop in time and slam into the back of it. That wouldn’t be an ideal start to his first time as CO of the plane...the train of a dozen planes crept along the taxiway towards the end of the runway, where they held awaiting further instructions. The lead plane performed some radio checks with the rest of the squadron just to confirm they could all hear each other when necessary. “We still good, Kobalt?” Spark asked. “Aye Sir, ready for takeoff,” Kobalt replied over the radio. “Good luck, Sparky!” Barber added. Spark smiled. At least his crew had confidence in him. He pulled his flight goggles down over his eyes and concentrated ahead. The flight lead was most likely just confirming takeoff clearance. It took a few moments, but at the end of the runway, Spark saw a bright green flare shoot upwards into the sky. He gulped, knowing that was clearance for takeoff. “Here we go…” he said to himself, hoof hovering over the throttle quadrant, ready to punch it. The roars of engines echoed all around them, albeit somewhat muffled by the headphones they were wearing. When the plane in front of them started moving, Spark pushed the throttle sticks all the way forward. The plane suddenly came to life, and he felt himself getting forced back a little in his seat. He gripped the steering yoke tight and felt the plane vibrate as it raced down the runway. It was a glorious feeling, one that he had been looking forward to for a long time. Now all he had to do was not fuck up… He kept his eyes peeled down the runway, only occasionally glancing to look down at his airspeed indicator, steadily rising. At least he had a few planes width between him and the planes in front, giving him room for error. It felt a little nerve-racking now being the least experienced CO in the squadron, but the adrenaline he was getting quickly overrode any feeling of doubt. When the required airspeed was reached, Spark gently pulled back on the stick and felt his body being forced into his seat. This was it. He was doing it. He quickly glanced around to make sure he wasn’t on a collision course with any of his squadmates, then glanced down at the instrument cluster to make sure his rate of climb was good enough. Confirming it was, he pulled on the landing gear lever to bring the landing gear into its stored position for flight. “Congrats on the first takeoff, Sparky!” Astute called over the radio. “First landing would be a better call for celebration in my opinion…” Astute replied sarcastically. “I’ll remember that if you miss our practice target,” Sparky fired back, earning a few chuckles over the radio. Once they were in formation and flying straight and level, Spark found himself starting to relax a little. Maybe this wouldn’t be as stressful as he first thought. His spacing looked correct from where he sat, and being a pegasus himself, he was so tempted to fly out the window just to check out what it looked like from a bird's eye view. Barber navigated the plane perfectly along with the rest of the squadron, directing Sparky to make the necessary turns. The formation held perfectly, and the flight so far was going perfectly. Spark looked over at the lead plane in the formation, piloted by Hailstorm. Their old pilot, now squadron leader. That old stallion had been such a great teacher to Sparky. He only hoped that he didn’t mess up in front of him. “Making final approach,” Spark heard Hailstorm over the radio from the lead plane. “You heard the stallion, Astute,” Spark instructed, gently banking the plane to the left to make the turn. “Dummy bombs are ready, opening bomb bay doors,” Astute replied, pulling a lever on the panel to the side of where he was laying. He shuffled forward to a scope that made up the bombsight. He rested his head so that his right eye was staring down the sight while he could still see the control panel to the left of him out of his peripheral vision with his left eye. Whenever he needed a better view of either of them, he could close one of his eyes to focus. He adjusted the sight until he had his target in sight. An empty field that stretched for miles with several circles marked out in thick paint marking the target like an archery board. Perfect for target practice, nothing for them to accidentally hit should there be any screw-ups. The circles were painted in white paint that overlapped each other to help determine how accurate they were. Astute kept an eye on the target while adjusting some of the settings on the control panel with his magic. When he was happy with the settings, he pushed a final button which began a countdown. “Solution calculated,” He announced over the radio. “Relaying,” Melody replied. The formation of planes flew towards the target, Astute kept his eye on the timer counting down. Despite the noise of everything else, he was almost sure he could hear it ticking. When it hit zero, he pulled a big lever. “Bombs away!” He called over the radio. He could feel the clicks on his belly as the practice bombs dropped one by one and fell towards their target. It was just unfortunate that he wouldn’t be able to see them hit from his forward-facing position. The only pony that got a good view was Slingshot in the rear gunners' position. And since they weren’t actual bombs filled with explosives, all he saw was a small flurry of dust that got kicked up as the bombs landed. Even then it looked like specks of dust from their altitude, and he couldn’t tell exactly when one was them. But judging by the majority landing within the target, he didn’t doubt that they made their mark. Their practice run complete, the formation turned to head back to base. “What do you reckon, Astute?” Spark asked. “Feeling confident, Sparky!” Astute replied, “We were on target for sure!” “Willing to bet on it?” Snapshot asked. “Absolutely,” Astute sounded confident, “First round of cider is on you if we were on target.” “You’re on. Same for you if it wasn’t,” Snapshot retorted. Spark grinned from ear to ear as he listened over the radio. His crew were performing admirably, and they were getting on like a house on fire...well, apart from a certain somepony, but he would deal with that later… “Hey, fighters nine O’clock, check it out!” Snapshot observed. Spark turned his head left to glance out the window, and he saw it. About half a dozen planes...Hurricanes. And they were flying towards them. “Looks like we’re not the only ones practising out here,” He commented. “There’s planes with REAF and CEAF markings. I guess our pilots were doing some three on three training with pilots from the Crystal Empire,” Astute remarked. As the Hurricane formation got closer, the markings became easier to see. With the Equestrian planes sporting the sun and moon mark of the two sisters inside the roundels on their wings, the same as the bombers. But the aircraft from the Crystal Empire carried the purple snowflake symbol, the same as the flag of the Crystal Empire. The Hurricanes flashed their landing lights as a greeting to the bombers. Spark chuckled and tilted his wings from side to side in return. He couldn’t help but hear some clanging sounds creeping in around his headphones. “Geez, warn us next time you do that,” Snapshot called, “I just fell over, got up, then fell again.” “Heheh...sorry,” Sparky awkwardly apologised. The Hurricanes flew past at high speed over the top of their formation. Spark quickly saluted them as they passed over. Not that they would have been able to see him of course. About halfway home, Sparky heard a funny noise coming from the far left engine. Almost like a misfire. Although looking at it, he couldn’t see anything obviously wrong with it. “Hey Kobalt, does engine one sound funny to you?” Kobalt looked at the gauges on his instrument cluster to try and find the issue...which was relatively easy to find. The fuel pressure gauge was significantly lower and still dropping on that engine. “Does it look like it’s leaking?” He asked back. Spark looked at the engine again. His view wasn’t very clear, but he couldn’t see a trail of anything. “Nope, no trails apart from exhaust,” he replied. “Hmm…” Kobalt started twisting a few knobs on his instrument cluster, slowly bringing the needle back up on that gauge. He could hear himself that the engine began to sound a little more normal. “Better?” “Much better,” Spark replied, “What did you do?” “Re-routed the fuel. That pump must be broken. I’ll check it out when we land,” he assured. The rest of the flight was undramatic, and the runway was soon in sight. They began circling the airfield and awaited landing instructions, taking it in turns to land. When he finally got the radio call, Spark eased back on the throttle and dipped the nose of the plane down, tightening the turn to line up with the runway. He kept a bit of power on to prevent the plane from stalling and kept an eye on his vertical speed indicator, wanting to make his first landing as smooth as possible. The crosswind was gentle but enough to provide him with a bit of a challenge. Nothing that he couldn’t compensate for though. The biggest challenge was in this particular aircraft, he sat so high up, making it hard to judge where the wheels were on the bottom of the plane compared to where he was sitting. When he was hovering a few feet above the runway, he pulled the throttle all the way back to idle and let the plane gently fall toward the tarmac...slowly but surely… The plane jerked violently as a loud squeak echoed through the fuselage when the wheels made contact with the ground. Spark applied the brake, and the plane gently began slowing down, another squeaking noise coming from the brakes. “Touchdown!” Snapshot called. “Nice work, Sparky!” Astute added. Sparky breathed a sigh of relief as the plane reached a controllable speed. “Thanks, guys,” he replied, gently reducing the brake pressure to turn off one of the taxiways. He followed the directions of the ground crew and parked the plane in a line next to the rest of the flight, flicking the engines off and setting everything else into the off position. He sighed in relief as he pulled his goggles up onto his forehead and unclipped his mask. After disconnecting from the radio and oxygen, he twisted around. He stepped out of the pilot’s seat, looking towards Kobalt sitting in the flight engineer's position directly behind and below him. “What do you reckon that blip was, Kobalt?” Kobalt pulled his own mask off, “Probably a fuel pump, but I’ll have to investigate,” he answered, unplugging himself from the radio and oxygen connections. Before he could question further, Spark felt a hoof land on his back. “Not bad for a first landing.” Spark chuckled, “Thanks Astute. Now let's see if your bombing is just as good.” “Pfft,” Astute batted a hoof, “It’s not my first time, ya know, I’m feeling confident.” “You better be,” Snapshot butted in, clambering out of the upper gun position. “You’ve got a pint of cider riding on it.” The crew opened the door out of the plane and climbed out onto the taxiway. The area around the aircraft that had just been out to fly was buzzing with activity, with fuel tankers arriving to refuel the planes, as well as mechanics on their way to perform maintenance. Kobalt broke from his group and walked towards a group of mechanics, getting ready to work on their plane. They noticed him approaching and saluted. “Start investigating a potential fuel leak on the port wing,” Kobalt spoke bluntly before walking back to the main command building. “Y-yes...sir…” one of the mechanics replied with a raised eyebrow before beginning to do what Kobalt asked. Spark raised an eyebrow at the way Kobalt acted but didn’t say anything. He still had the euphoric feeling of his first successful flight as a CO in his mind, he didn’t want to kill the mood. “Ready to put ya money where ya mouth is?” Snapshot taunted at Astute as they entered the building, walking towards the pinboard with the results from their practice run. “The only thing I’ll be putting in my mouth is that sweet, sweet cider,” Astute taunted back with a wink. “Oh, we’ll see about that,” Snapshot replied with a grin, eagerly trotting towards the pinboard. On the pinboard, there was lots of information posted. But they could quickly identify the one they were looking for - 7th Bomber Squadron practice run results: 25/09/1007 The statistics listed underneath broke down various statistics. Their eyes scanned all the paperwork until they eventually found the section they were looking for. HP4970; Mystic Mare. 12 practice rounds dropped, 12 landed on target. 100% accuracy. “Boom!” Astute punched the air, looking over at Snapshot. “One pint of Sweet Apple Acres finest, please,” He asked with a smug grin. Snapshot rolled her eyes, “Well, I guess you asked nicely…” she muttered under her breath. “I suppose it is time for lunch…” Spark added fuel to the fire. “Usual place?” “Already there,” Astute replied, turning towards the door. “C’mon Snap, ladies first…” he teased, using his magic to drag Snapshot along with him. “Gimme a hoof here, big bro,” Snapshot pleaded, gripping around Slingshot’s leg. Slingshot smirked and shrugged, “You made the bet…” he said then chuckled, following them out. Sparky chuckled to himself at the ordeal. He still considered himself very fortunate that he had a crew that got on so well. All they had to do was integrate one more. Speaking of which… “Hey Kobalt, wanna grab lunch? Good diner just round the corner, best food in Yonderhill…” Kobalt shook his head and turned towards the exit, “I have a plane to fix,” he answered back before walking swiftly towards the door. Spark raised an eyebrow before letting out a sigh. “What am I gonna do with him…” “At least he’s committed,” Barber commented. “Yeah, committed to being a pain in my ass,” Spark replied. Barber chuckled, “Well he seems to know what he’s doing and is confident about it. We should be grateful we’ve got such a competent flight engineer. Besides, you must remember being a fresh young officer eager to impress your superiors, right?” Barber gave Sparky a nudge. Sparky sighed again “I guess...c’mon, let's go…”