College
August, 1994
West Lafayette, Indiana
The first day of school was something Rainbow Dash hadn’t experienced in a long time. It carried the usual feeling of nervousness. She was a long way from home, knew nopony, and might have just signed up for something that would be impossible.
The US Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration team had enamored Rainbow, and she knew there were several things she would need in order to accomplish her dream of joining them. One of the most time-consuming was getting a college education.
To become a Naval Officer, she was required to have a degree. Rainbow wasn’t sure why. After all, what did school matter if you had the skills? Still, it was an unavoidable requirement.
She’d chosen the college carefully. Her eggheaded friend, Twilight Sparkle, was interested in human learning and more than willing to help. They’d reviewed many possibilities before Rainbow made a decision.
She'd eventually settled on Purdue University. It had one of the strongest Aeronautical Engineering programs in the country, in addition to an airport on campus. Twilight warned her that there would be difficult math involved with that field of study, but expressed confidence that Rainbow would have no problems if she worked hard enough.
The school was located in the same state as doorway #1, the very first link that had been established between Earth and Rainbow’s world. The doorway was at a military research site in southern Indiana, and had a direct connection to Ponyville.
Purdue also happened to be the same place where Amelia Earhart had taught. Rainbow had found a role model in famous human pilot. Her autobiography was titled The Fun of It, which struck a chord with the pony. There were also other well-known pilots from the school. Several alumni, including Neil Armstrong, had even gone on to be astronauts.
Also, the university’s symbol was a train, which was touted as the loudest and fastest college mascot in the world. It sounded like a perfect fit for Rainbow.
There was some difficulty in getting the university to accept her school records from Cloudsdale, but Twilight had come thorough once again and helped polish her application. She’d also managed to secure Rainbow grants and loans to pay for it all.
She was not the first pony to go to a human university, or even the first to go to this one, but there was still very little precedent to follow. Rainbow was effectively blazing a new trail by doing something that hadn’t been done before. It was going to be a difficult undertaking every step of the way.
She showed up a few days before classes were scheduled to start, and was glad that she did. It gave her some time to get used to the massive changes that she would have to live with.
All the buildings were tall. It was less a school and more a city. There were tens of thousands of students. It was all very confusing to a pony who had grown up in the clouds.
Flying with her own wings was going to be restricted. The airport’s traffic pattern was always busy, and there was a real risk that she’d get run over by a Cessna if she flew over campus.
Lots of food was available at all hours of the day, but very little of it was tailored to her liking. Most was greasy junk food that the other students were content to shovel in, but probably would have made Rainbow sick.
And then there was the dormitory. The most economical housing involved sharing a building with a couple hundred humans. All of them were different colors, spoke a range of languages, had varied customs, and practiced many religions. The concept that there were different ways to worship was perhaps the most confusing. Rainbow had no need for faith. After all, she knew the Princesses of Equestria existed.
The dorm, Windsor Hall, was a very old building that the maintenance crew just barely kept up with. Like most buildings at the university, it was made of red brick. Rainbow was delighted to learn that Amelia Earhart had lived there.
Meeting her roommate was a strange experience. Her name was Denise. She had yellow colored hair and was very friendly. She’d tried to pat the pony on her head when they'd been introduced, but Rainbow got her straightened out quickly. She was not a pet, and she expected to be treated like an equal.
The girl was very embarrassed and made it up to her with dinner. To Rainbow’s surprise, it was exactly what she wanted to eat. As it turned out, Denise was studying Nutrition and wanted to go to veterinarian school.
The thought of spending a year living in a tiny room with a human was disconcerting. Rainbow decided that she would need some advice, and began writing letters to her friends asking for input. The mail service did deliver to Ponyville, but it took a couple of days. Rainbow knew what a telephone was and thought it was a great invention, but phone lines between her dorm room and home did not yet exist.
The opening day of classes finally arrived. Rainbow walked to the class building carrying heavy saddlebags of textbooks and notebooks.
She quickly became accustomed to the stares that accompanied her wherever she went. Her totally awesome reputation as the coolest pony ever was unknown on Earth, but she still got plenty of attention. She felt like showing off, but knew she should instead concentrate on school work. It was just as well that she wasn’t allowed to fly. Such a load of books would quickly tire her out.
It was her mouth, however, that showed fatigue first. There was a lot of writing to do, and each class lasted at least fifty minutes. There was no way she would trade her wings for a horn, but Rainbow did wish for a better way to hold the pencil. The math looked like nothing she had ever seen before, and she was forced to write down every word to make sure she understood.
It was only her burning desire to achieve her goals that carried her through the first day, and every day after. Rainbow knew that she needed to have some kind of guiding signal carrying her forward. As a reminder of what she wanted, she hung a picture of a Navy F/A-18 fighter jet above her desk. It was a stark contrast to Denise’s pictures of cute animals.
The series of letters that Rainbow traded with her friends gave everypony some interesting insights. All of them were supportive and curious about her life.
The pegasus knew herself and her abilities very well, and had always been good at managing her day to include a designated time for getting her work done. As a result, she often got long periods of free time, which was perceived by some to be laziness when they saw her lying around.
That free time gave a lot of time for new experiences, which she related to her friends. She had always been at home in a crowd, and Twilight was interested to hear firsthand accounts about human behavior and social gatherings. There were parties, events, and all kinds of things to do at college, many of them free to attend. She quickly learned to be careful about what she ingested. Grain alcohol was very different from grain. Rainbow managed to avoid trouble, and took warnings from many who didn't.
When she got the chance, Rainbow would canter down the road a ways to get out of range of the airport. West of campus, there was farmland where she could stay in shape and fly. She wanted to take flight lessons in an airplane, but couldn’t afford it.
Her budget had been calculated to include only the essentials. Looking for extra money, she applied to several places for a part-time job. Eventually, she managed to find work at a small restaurant in the student union. About the only thing she could do without fingers was make pizza dough. She had to spend long hours balancing on her back hooves to keep her sanitized front ones from touching the floor. Luckily, her wings helped with that.
Once everyone caught on to how fast she was, Rainbow was tasked with delivery. She much preferred that to working in the kitchen, although making change was sometimes difficult. Humans had an annoying variety of coins and bills.
It was all worth it to earn her first flying lesson. The price in dollars was frighteningly expensive, so she vowed to make it count.
The instructor admitted he had no idea how a pony was supposed to control an airplane. After introducing the basics in a class on the ground, they walked out to the ramp to begin preflight.
The aircraft was called a Piper Cub. It was quite old, but maintained well enough. All the controls were very simple. With a little creative positioning of the seat, she was able to reach the rudder pedals and manage the all the other controls.
The airplane had been retrofitted with an intercom between the pilot and copilot. The headphones squashed Rainbow’s ears a little, but she figured she could stand it. The instructor handled the takeoff, but then let her handle the controls.
The air was very familiar place, but experiencing the airplane was completely new. Rainbow was apprehensive at first. The loud mechanical engine seemed like it could quit at any time, and she didn’t trust wings that were made of bucking fabric. Still, she was soon enjoying herself.
The instructor asked her to do a few basic maneuvers. Despite the simple controls, getting everything to move just right took practice. A couple of times, Rainbow caught herself moving her own wings when she instead wanted the airplane to move. She filed away the idea of a wing-to-control interface to talk to her professors about later.
In what seemed like not very long, the instructor asked her to come around and return to the airport. He took over for the landing. When he asked how she liked the Cub, Rainbow told him honestly: it wasn't fast enough. Unfortunately, a higher-performance training aircraft cost more money. Rainbow thought that waiting until she could get her hooves on a jet would drive her nuts.
That wasn't the worst of it. As Rainbow walked back from the airport, she began to think about other things that she had to wait on.
Besides getting a degree, there was something else Rainbow had to have. She needed to be a citizen of the United States in order to join the Navy as an officer. The process would take several years, and she had begun as soon as she knew that it would be required.
Rainbow felt conflicted. As the Element of Loyalty, it felt strange to be filing paperwork to become a citizen of a different country. Equestria was home. Changing citizenship didn’t mean she couldn’t be loyal to Equestria, but getting the green card was a big thing, symbolically if nothing else.
She arrived back at her room, thinking of what lay ahead. Despite begining her bachelor's degree and starting on the path to joining the Navy, there was still a long way to go. Rainbow glanced at the picture of the jet above her desk. She wasn't about to give up.
Big Author note:
Real aviators, I beg you to contact me for technical support. I want to get this right.
Purdue people, I hope I got everything correct. I'm only using Wikipedia and Google street view.
The next few chapters aren't going to be awesome military badassery, or at least not at first. Rainbow has a long, long, road ahead of her in order to get her wings. I'm trying to write about these things called feelings.
Thanks to everyone who helped out with ideas for this story, including my prereaders and the commenters on my blog, especially Jlargent.
Yeah, here I go writing short chapters again. I've got a plan to fix it next time: Dialogue!
Edit: I wrote a whole story based on just this chapter. It's called The Roommate
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I love it, plus my favorite flying team? this is gold
292417
I've heard the Red Arrows are pretty cool, too. I saw the Thunderbirds once, but it must not have been very impressive because the only thing I remember about the performance was the C-130 JATO.
Holy shit, already?! Wow, you're fast. At least you put the prequels in the description.
You're not done with the other one yet, right?
292436 The thunderbirds are good, but I'm not a big fan of their F-16s. I love F-18s, though
292460
The Truth is still a chapter or two from being done. A Dream might eventually have a chapter for every episode.
Going to be interesting to see her try to fly a Cessna with no fingers...
Oh God, a Cub? I think a 150 would be cheaper due to the fact a Cub is an antique.
292436
You talking about the Blue Angels? They have the C-130T JATO, the Thunderbirds only have F-16's.
Nice story by the way, looking forward to the next chapter.
292532
I remember that it was a grey-painted C-130, and it was an Air Force show.
Also, Fat Albert doesn't JATO any more. They used up all the old rockets in 2009.
OK, now that I actually read the thing, it has passed my expectations. I actually find this quite humorous, with all the papers and citizenship, etc.
Also,
After all, she could knew the Princesses of Equestria existed.
What?
And a Cessna 172 would probably be more likely. Cubs are cool, due to their antiquity, but antiquity. You might as well have let RD fly a Tiger Moth. Anyways, looking forward to which ever you update.
292564
I kinda said that.
292564
Oops! Let me fix that spelling!
292570
Well now it's emphasized.
Plus it's kinda annoying to read, figure out a thought, then be away from the computer to do something, and come back seeing someone's said it already. So, yeah.
292538
That sucks, seeing a plane as big as that go 45 degrees up was one of the most awesome things I have ever seen
You know, something they could do to get phones to Equestria is this: They could use the old phone lines that were constructed when Equestria was part of Utah in 1957, but redo the entire span! The reason you can't get into Equestria from Utah is this, though: In 1970, the United States blocked off trade with them because of their revolution in 1963 and their relations with Cuba and Russia, although cars were illegally driven into the country until 1982, when Celestia herself created a magical barrier to keep out the illegal car carriers. Gaps in it began to form though, enter your stories....
292436
Thanks for the shout out.
292880
I actually based my description of the air show on videos I found on their website. I don't know what the policy was during the time when this story is set.
If you want some advice, ever tried Flight Simulator X? it's a basic yet full-time simulator published by Microsoft. You could learn flight basics there. Then if you can't afford the time to try it, you can always watch the mission or gameplay videos in youtube. To tell you, the first mission of FSX was landing a Cessna, the next was flying a Piper Cub. You might want to check it out.
But perhaps the other most important thing to flying is navigation. In FSX, you need to always look on your instruments once in a while. I believe it's called a 'scan'.
By the way, will you include combat training in this fanfic?
292978
Sure, if I can find a somebody to tell me what it's like
You know one of the most boring duty stations I had in the Marines? Guard duty at Annapolis lord that was dull.
293067
To ellaborate we couldn't interact with the students.
293001
Here's a sample of what training portion in FSX is like.
Here's the first mission.
Here's a snippet of the second mission.
you might want to be interested in this. A video about A-10s in FSX.
Oh and regarding combat simulated exercise, I found this animation video that I quite very much like
293084
I passed by there one day. A bell rang and a swarm of black-clad mids crossed campus. Another bell rang and they were all gone. Then I laughed.
If you need any help from an RAAF Brony, let me know, I have air traffic and air defence control experiance that you may need later on
Not allowed to fly because she might get hit by a Cessna? How low are they flying? I'm pretty sure there's a flight floor which you're not suppose to fly under. Under 200ft should be pretty much safe.
You can break the sound barrier while making 90 degree turns.
Who needs a plane?
292624
then you havn't seen a B1-B Lancer take off. But I havn't see ANYTHING JATO, so I can't realy say how cool or non-cool that is. The B1-B just sounds and looks awsome as it rolls down the runway at full afterburner.
293674
you are in the RAAF? As in you live in Australia? If you are anywhere near RAAF East Sale, or RAAF Point Cook, I would like to meet you.
292436
I did go to an air show on may 15th 2010 featuring the blue angels, the Thunderbirds, and a few other stunt squadrons, along with a parachute team that had colored smoke following them. The blue angels were really late getting into the air and they were the last event, so everybody were already in the buses and leaving. So they improvised and flew ten feet above the buses as they left. I remember looking at my Amazon Kindle, then looking outside and seeing one of the pilots give me a thumbs up. that scared the shit out of me and then made me laugh. (this was at Andrews AFB, by the way.)
edit: the parachute team was the army's Golden Knights.
mmmmmmm
I've never had the opportunity to see the Blue Angels over here in the UK as they've not travelled overseas for the airshows I go to, but I'd love to see them one day. I've seen the Thunderbirds, but they were, sadly, not especially impressive in the display I saw. Perhaps it was due to cloudy weather limiting their routine at the time.
I've been fortunate enough to see the Red Arrows on numerous occasions though, and they never fail to impress, and many other national display teams too. I can totally sympathize with Dash being inspired to want to become a pilot after seeing a display routine. Looking forward to seeing how she handles all the hard work it takes.
you can actually become a citizen of the U.S.A. automatically by joining the military. AND they would pay for your college education, and flight school they do themselves
Wait, if the portal was only open for a few months than how the heck did THIS happen so fast? If so, who are these mad lad ponies?
Okay, this tech idea is awesome af and someone in this world needs to invent that.