Authors note: This is a collaberation between myself and Goldenarbiter. Now please, everyone enjoy!
Prologue: Takeoff
The sun shone brightly over Fort Lauderdale as the crew of Flight 19 were preparing for takeoff. Well, mostly preparing. Takeoff was scheduled for 13:45 and thirteen of the fourteen pilots were sitting were sitting in the briefing room as the clock ticked to 13:50. Their squadron leader had yet to show up and the fifteenth man had special permission not to fly today. Aviation Ordinance Man Third Class George Devlin , one of the instructors, was the first to speak, “Typical Taylor, he’s always late. Remember this rookies, he’s always late and he loves to fly by the seat of his pants...”
The door swung open and Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor walked in. “Yes I do, George. That’s how you log over three thousand flight hours. Now, lets go. You all know the drill, Navigation problem No. 1.”
The flight was nothing but a routine navigation and combat training exercise. The assignment was called “Navigation problem No. 1”, a combination of bombing and navigation. Throughout the day, several of these flights had taken place, and Flight 19 was the last to fly. The pilots lugged themselves out of the room and out onto the tarmac. Lined up in a slanted rows lay the pilots' planes. Four TBM-1C torpedo bombers and one TBM-3 torpedo bomber, the latter being Taylor’s plane. The only difference being that the TBM-3 was able to sustain a slightly longer flight. Each aircraft was fully fueled, and during pre-flight checks it was discovered they were all missing clocks. Navigation of the route was intended to teach dead reckoning principles, which involved calculating, among other things, elapsed time. The apparent lack of timekeeping equipment was not a cause for concern as it was assumed each man had his own watch.
Taylor’s voice rattled to life over the radio, “Alright rookies, start up your engines.” a chorus of stuttering then roaring engines was the reply. “Control, this is Flight 19, requesting permission for takeoff.”
“Roger Flight 19, this is Tower, the strip is yours. Have a nice flight,” droned a dull voice.
“Thank you Tower, have a nice day. Alright, Gerber? Take us out, you’re flight lead,” commanded Taylor.
“Yes sir,” came a voice. The lead plane's propeller began to speed up, dragging the fuselage behind it. The plane and its followers quickly rolled out onto the airstrip and accelerated, hastily heading down the runway. Engineers stood on the side of the strip, waving at the departing aircraft. The planes parted from the concrete and pulled into formation above the rolling ocean.
“Flight 19, you are clear, see you when you get back.”
“Thanks ground. Gerber, set course for zero-niner-one and proceed 73 nautical miles, you have the lead. Take us through the routine nice and clean so we can get back home,” said Taylor, loosing his grip on his control somewhat. So far so good.
“Roger that, Lieutenant. I have the lead. Accelerating to 300 kph and holding. ETA till target, eleven minutes.” Gerber’s voice could be heard over the radio. There was a small break before it started back up again. “With the wind at our back, we could even save some gas, speaking of, Lieutenant, how come they gave us so much gas? I mean, two wing tanks in addition to our main tank? Seems a bit excessive, don’t ya think?”
“Dunno Gerber, not my problem. They want to give us gas in case we get lost probably. So don’t get lost. I don’t want someone barking down my neck over wasted gas.” Taylor replied lazily.
“Yes sir. Two minutes to target,” Gerber sounded again. The two minutes clocked away in silence. “Sir, we are above the target.”
“Roger, Flight 19, drop to bombing altitude, safeties off... bombs away,” Taylor said, still rather nonchalantly. As the planes dropped their bombs, they pulled away. “Bombing run complete, nice work everyone. Gerber, turn to heading three-four-six and go seventy-six nautical miles again. Mark.”
“Yes Sir, changing heading,” Gerber replied. “Wind’s getting pretty bad Lieutenant. At least the sky is clear.”
Taylor rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Yes, good thing indeed...” The second leg of the flight went on rather silently to Taylor’s relief. That was until a concerned voice came on the radio.
“Uh, Lieutenant, I think we’re lost.” Gerber’s voice sounded shaken.
Taylor’s grip tightened around the control stick when he heard this. “Son, what do you mean... lost?”
“Like I think my heading was off. My compass is out of control, its spinning like crazy.”
“Erm... okay, uh, Powers, give me your reading,” Taylor said calmly.
“I’ve got the same thing here Lieutenant. Spinning like a drunk man on St. Patties day,” came a voice.
“Not the time for that, pilot. Can anyone get me a reading?” Taylor asked, slightly getting unnerved. No one replied, and his compass had begun spinning as well. He shook his head in frustration. He angled his plane slightly and looked down below. Beneath him was a series of Islands. “I think we are above the Keys...”
“How the hell did we end up here?” Someone asked.
“Dunno, but if we fly north we can find home, any objections? No? Good, put the sun towards your starboard side and fly straight. We should hit the mainland soon, we'll fly up over the Gulf of Mexico and go home,” Taylor said, confidence flowing back into him. He had a plan again.
After about an hour of flying, though, that confidence began to drift away again. “We should have hit the mainland by now. All planes close up tight... we'll have to ditch unless landfall... when the first plane drops below 10 gallons, we all go down together, and where the hell are these clouds coming from?” He glanced out towards the sun, it was beginning to set. “Pilots we—”
“Sir, what the hell is that?!” Shouted the gunner in his plane. He looked forward and a bright light was approaching the planes.
Staff Sergeant Howell O. Thompson blinked.
What just happened? And where did all of these clouds come from?
“Hey Howell, you okay there?” Thompson realized someone was asking him a question. “Howy, wake up man!”
“George? What... What happened?”
“I don’t know How. But whatever it was, it knocked out our radio," commented Sergeant George R. Paonessa
“Shit. Why is the plane spinning?”
“Because you hit your head when we hit some turbulence. We really need to toughen you up.”
Their conversation was interrupted by Captain E. J. Powers gasping in disbelief. “What the...”
“What’s up Cap’?” George said as he looked over to the cockpit for a better view. A second gasp met Howell’s ears. Curiosity perked, Howell turned from his gunner's position to see what looked to be an explosion in front of their aircraft. “Jesus Almighty, is that flak? The hell!? We are over friendly ground and the war is over!” There was a lingering light that could be seen faintly through the clouds. As a second explosion appeared much closer to them, Captain Powers started to take evasive maneuvers to avoid being hit.
Howell could barely see fifteen feet in front of him. He had no idea how the Captain was going to avoid crashing into the other Avengers. “Wait, isn’t that a mou —” Howell was cut off as the right most wing was torn violently from the aircraft as they passed by a mountain.
“We’re hit!” The Captain yelled, “Mayday! Mayday! This is FT-36, we’re going down!
Howell couldn’t entirely comprehend the situation as his vision slowly receded. Wasn’t there a wing there a minute ago? There was a noise that Howell thought vaguely resembled speech. Howell's vision continued to black out as all of the blood from his body was forced into places it shouldn’t have been from extreme G-forces.
Why is the plane spinning?
Twilight sat on her patio, staring through her telescope. The clouds were blocking her vision, however, and she became flustered. "Gah! Why did the Pegasi forget to clear the skies tonight!? I wanted to look at the stars!" She smacked the telescope with her hoof and it spun on its pedestal. She let out a sigh and looked back up into the sky. Clouds were thick as ever, blocking her beautiful night. It was then she saw a flashing light in the sky. She blinked and looked again. She still saw it. Flashing red and green lights soared far off in the distance. Twilight angled her telescope towards the lights and peered through. She couldn't see much through the clouds, but she counted a total of five green lights and five red lights that would flash in unison. Twilight sat in deep thought, contemplating what she saw. "Spike, come here and have a look at this would you?"
"What is it Twilight?" Spike asked.
"I don't know, there's flashing lights in the sky and I don't know what they are!" Twilight grunted frustratingly.
"Twi, if you don't know what they are, how would I?" Spike replied lazily. "Besides I'm in bed!"
"Just come look would you!" Twilight raised her voice slightly.
"Fine, fine," Spike grumbled. He slowly drew himself from his bed and laundered over slowly before peering down into the telescope. "Twi, I don't see anything."
"What do you mean? The lights were there a moment ago!" Twilight was very confused. She looked back out into the night sky and to her surprise, the lights had moved somewhat. She angled the telescope accordingly and told Spike to look again.
"Oh, I see now... Yeah, I don't know what they are. Can I go back to bed now?" He asked, stifling a yawn. He was looking out at the sky with sleepy eyes when the small lights erupted into a giant fireball. "Whoa!" He quickly stared through the telescope again before another explosion blossomed through the clouds. "Look Twilight!"
Wait, Why did you add the cross over tag?
323044
He must have miss hit.
323044>>323071 Fixed it
Intrigued, and looks promising. Tracked.
So at this point, only one plane made it through?
Hmmm, interesting and well done. I'm a bit of a sucker for the Bermuda Triangle as well when it comes to the weird and unexplained. Tracking and thumbs up. I am curious where the flak is coming from.
omgomgomg i did a report on this incident in history!! im so reading this!!
323125
Wait and see.
sounds promising, tracked
So far i like both the story and the writing style. Plus 1 point for bien in third person. tacked.
I'm curious to see where you take this, tracking
Not a bad start.
323125 No it would be five planes. Each aircraft has two position lights on the wingtips, one red, one green.
Huh, of all the ways to enter Equestria, I'm surprised this is the one instance of doing so through the Bermuda Triangle. Interesting read mate. Also it's nice to see you're around.
I'm keeping me eye on this one. Looks promising.
"were sitting were sitting"
"Gah! How come tonight the pegasi forgot to clear the clouds? "
I would suggest changing this to "Gah! Why did the Pegasi forget to clear the skies tonight!"
Other than that, the premise is interesting.
Hmm, promising, but did you use the word "laundering" correctly? Also, the paragraph describing the airplanes has sentence fragments.
oh dagnabit I just finished something similar to this though its a romance I knew I should have posted it sooner oh well on to another story. I have my first second and third chapter done if you need any help on yours.
You have me very intrigued. This is one hell of a good idea. I sure as hell hope the planes are okay, taht's give Twilight something to putz around with for a few years lol. Tracking this bitch.
Well this story seems... interesting to say the least. I will track it for now.
323463 Thank you sir, will fix that right now! And thanks everyone else! We did not expect this story to explode like this!!!!
please excuse me while I go to the bermuda triangle
i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t414/Brony4ever/hiResPony-1.png
Me like, me like very much, Track.
323616
The royal we is spreading, it seems.
And your welcome. I don't normally put up grammar corrections, as I can usually auto-correct them as I read, but those made me have to stop, so I figured I'd mention them.
When I say we, I mean me and GA the other author
Tracking and thumbs up. The writing style is good. It isn't too descriptive but isn't too vague either. Also, the characters are interesting.
Well, I came here just because fighter planes. Likes what you have so far, but got kinda lost at the "Howell" part. Either way, will be tracking!
Hmm...concept is interesting enough. Tracking for now.
Excelent go forth my writers...
This is good.
I am intrigued.
323811
Character switch. The prologue does that. the rest of the chapters are going to be focused on just one character.
Moar!
This sounds bizarre enough to be worth tracking. John Keel meets Equestria!
hmmm intrestingmethinks i will continue reading and tracking
so i hope i made you smile
Grammar is a little iffy in places, but otherwise everything is in order. Either way, this sounds like it will be good!
Well, off to the Bermuda Triangle! *gets in plane*
Nice. Why aren't there more fics with the Bermuda Triangle as a means of entering Equestria? :/
70 likes and only 2 dislikes?! On the first chapter post (technically prologue)?!
I have got to read this!
324826 I know right!!! Its exploding!
Tracking this Target. o_o
Will the Catalina flying boat that went searching for Flight 19 suffer the same fate?
Flak cannons in PONYLAND?!?!?!?! This is unexpected. Tracking cause always been fascinated by the Bermuda triangle, particularly flight 19 though.
325105 No, since we the airplane actually exploded and was found in bits and pieces
Interesting. I'm actually in the Florida coastal area right now. I'll be tracking this and reading the heck out of it when you post more.
I don't always read human in Equestria, but when I do they are of Flight 19.
324726
First off, awesome username. Second, I agree. The overall mystery behind the area would give an explanation, or even the scientific 'Bermuda Black Hole' theory would work. I mean, that sort of stuff has to go somewhere.
This is bland, honestly.
325388 Well I respect your opinion and I hope that future chapters will catch your attention
Wow, this story is just taking off in popularity! A tip of the ol' hat to you ty500600 and GoldenArbiter.
Hm, first time I've ever given an honest critique so...here goes.
First thing, I noticed that you didn't really pour much details into the events as they occurred. For example the scene with the planes on the runway -- I didn't realize that they had actually taken off until they had started speaking about the direction they were heading. It was abrupt and a little jarring.
There was little detail in the events that led up to the...teleportation event, is the basis of what I'm saying. More detail to the places, actions, and people of course, always help a story out.