//------------------------------// // II: Evaluation // Story: Malta Mayday // by WainbowHedgie //------------------------------// Fg Off. James Burkley Well this is a little awkward. The blue one sent for a map from somewhere inside the buildings. Am I in a kid's dream here? Or is it a man's worst nightmare? Surrounded by pastel horses that have wings besides Princess Twilight here I believe she called herself. I mean, they speak English. ENGLISH! Maybe Doctor Who did have some merit after all... No. No, as fun as that show was even it had differing languages at times like those strange ant things from a few years ago. Well, judging by the lack of obvious aircraft here nor any apparent sound of one, the ground crew probably don't exist to any degree or simply don't want to touch the drogue chute so I may as well pick it up myself to safely store away. "How does it fly? After you landed I performed a quick scan and found no magic of any kind to assist in lifting or lightening the craft." If they don't know how an aerofoil works, hence a monoplane then why do they have a runway? "Okay Princess, to what purpose does this runway serve?" "Well, for the pegasi to have a safe place to land at high speed if necessary." "Does your nation have any sort of flight capable craft?" "We have airships, the latest and fastest way for non-pegasi to cross land and ocean relatively comfortably. Even those need floatstones to assist with the weight of the ship underneath the balloon." "Oh dear, this is going to be a loooong chat." I sigh. "So, this aircraft in particular is the Lightning built by BAC, this variant is the F6. The earlier models were built by EE but those details don't matter right now. The Lightning F6 is one of the latest and most advanced aircraft ever built for the purpose of interception and could climb at 20,000 feet per minute up to 60,000 feet to some of the highest flying spy aircraft and bombers." I pull out my notebook and pencil. "The reason this is at all possible is down to those wings and how as a nation we have managed to refine the design in the last 50 or so years to allow such high speeds." Drawing an aerofoil shape on the paper and a quick sketch of how the air flows around the wing. "This shape is known as an aerofoil and is designed to accelerate the air over the foil to create a pressure difference between the top and bottom of the wing called lift." I draw an arrow from roughly the centre of mass pointing up. "While this is a rough sketch of the force diagram you can see the idea. As your airspeed increases, the lift increases, hence a greater force acting up on the wing." Drawing an arrow down and writing mg next to it I continue. "This lift has an opposing force however. The weight of the whole airframe acts down which reduces the resultant force from the wings and most importantly will cause your aircraft to lose altitude if you are going so slow that the weight has a greater magnitude than the lift. This also happens at high altitude which could lead to a stall. Hopefully that satisfies your curiosity for now." Throughout that whole lecture, the Princess just took notes and nodded along. Just by her note taking and stance I can tell that she is a scholar at heart. "Thank you, that will satisfy for now but I would love to know more about your flying machine. We will need to compare measurements though and create conversions where we can." I nod. "I have a feeling we can and will need to do that sooner rather than later." The map had arrived and was placed neatly on the ground unfolded. I pull out one of my charts. Oh. Looks like I never took out my UK chart. This thing was always useful for map practice showing the whole of the Isles after all and perfect for my purpose here with a mini map of the world on the back detailing the other map series for designated areas. "The map I have here is specifically of my country. It is an Aerodrom chart in truth showing all the roads and airfields in the country rather than borders, counties and the like." I lay it out unfolded next to the map of Equestria that had been brought out for me. "You're lucky that we even have a full map of Equus here. Had to pull it out of the office cabinet. I'm Lieutennant Rainbow Dash seeing as I haven't actually introduced myself formally." "Thank you Lieutennant Dash and I don't believe I have actually formally introduced myself either. I'm Flying Officer James Burkley, which is equivalent to a Lieutennant in the army back home." Damn Yanks have gotten here already with the L-ooo-tennant shit. We invented the word after all, its L-ef-tennant. "Why did you say Lieutennant in such a strange way?" "My people invented the word in the first place quite some time ago. It has carried forward from older forms of English but your way of saying it was adopted by the Ya-Americans back home when they broke away from the Empire. That wasn't the only word either but we can discuss it later." "Anywho, we need to compare these measurement systems. My chart here is 1:1,000,000 which means that 1 inch on this map is roughly 16 miles in the real world. Each box here is 1 and a half inches wide and 2 and a quarter inches tall but those boxes don't help too much really. There are conversion scales on here from imperial to metric too which could be of use. To cover the basics of imperial, the system the UK uses, you can see the inches here, 3 inches makes 1 foot, 3 feet makes a yard and 1760 yards makes 1 statute mile or roughly 5000 feet. 6000 feet makes 1 nautical mile or about 2000 yards. As you can guess in aviation we use nautical miles due to the ease for conversion. I can see us turning to metric at some point though seeing as using powers of ten is much easier to remember and faster to do mental maths with too." Twilight makes a small noise and begins. "I see. Your country has a very similar system to our old one which works out to be roughly the same with different names for the units that's all. We now use a number system which seems to be identical to your metric system listed here. I brought it in under my rule to standardise our measurements and make them more precise, both systems are accepted however while the transition is underway. I also did it to bring Equestria forward into line with the other few nation states on Equus. From what I have been told by local mayors is that most of the residents are happy with this change, especially those who work with materials who have to order from outside of Equestria and the research community is happier with not having to convert units in papers." "That is exactly why I can see the UK transitioning to metric at some point down the line. The conversions are so much easier, but bringing in new tools for metric measurements may put off carpenters and masons back home. Having both available though does allow everyone to be happy seeing as many people struggle to visualise both systems when giving a rough length for something." I turn over the map to show the world as I knew it. "This is the map of Earth. The continent I see on your chart simply does not exist anywhere. As a species we have photographed most of the planet either by scout aircraft or more recently with spaceflight." Princess Twilight didn't reply, opting instead to turn around and head towards the Lightning. Her horn lit up. I thought she was joking about the magic stuff, I mean, most people in the past put unexplained effects to magic and called it evil in some cases, but this. This is actual magic. Why else would her horn light up like that? Her horn only cut out after a few seconds. "There is definitely some magical residue around the aircraft, but not spellcraft itself. Natural magic. Particularly strong in this case too. Can you tell me what happened before you appeared here? That way I can get to work on identifying what the cause was and potentially send you home." "We encountered an unidentified aircraft entering our training airspace. As we broke away from our formation I came across a sudden bout of heavy turbulence. Thinking back all of my electrics had some sort of minor malfunction at that moment but quickly returned to normal, as if they were disrupted externally. I'd say that was when I left home and appeared here. Where is this base on the map?" Lieutennant Dash points at the base along the west coast at the edge of the mountain range that almost splits the country in half. "With the coast to my right with a river feature clearly nearby and knowing my airspeed for the given time I would say I appeared near Las Pegasus. Are you having a fucking giggle? Is that city full of casinos and nicknamed The City that Never Sleeps per chance?" Lieutennant Dash answers me first. "Yeah. How would you know that?" "There is a city in the USA that happens to be very similar called Las Vegas. There seems to be a common theme here with names. Many of your cities seem to be named after an American city but turned into a horse pun." "I think I know what the situation may be. I shall gather a team of the finest researchers to investigate around Las Pegasus for magical anomolies. If this is what I think it is, you may run into some problems with actually returning home." Turning around to Twilight, the sense of dread I had managed to ignore until now started to finally break through my barriers. Come on, I need to maintain my proffesionalism for the sake of humanity as some sort of impromptu ambassador. "I hope I'm wrong." "I hope you are too. I guess my stay has been extended... indefinitely." I sigh. "Seeing as that is the case, my aircraft will have to be stored properly to prevent damage. Anywhere the aircraft is out of the elements is fine and that fuel will need to be drained and stored properly judging by your demeanour Princess. I'm going to be here for some time aren't I?" "If my theory is true then you may never return. I'm so sorry." She seemed to wilt at this. Her head now held low and her hears flattened to her head. "Well I know nothing about magic, it simply doesn't exist. But I do understand some of the language used. Nature is something that cannot be controlled and probably never will be. Don't beat yourself up over something like this." "I'll have some protection spells placed over your craft to prevent corrosion." "That fuel will still need to be taken out for safety. Store it in a cold tank and keep it away from flames or sparks of any kind." "Follow me Mr Burkley. I will need to speak to you formally in Canterlot and sort out the paperwork for all this." Following her towards a chariot, I can't help but think of home and the last thing I ever said to my girlfriend. Sorry Annie. Looks like I failed to keep my promise.