Birds of a Feather

by All American

Chapter 1: Takeoff

-USS Abraham Lincoln barracks-

"Get you shit in gear Ivan" I said kicking my friend in the side

"You're not my fucking mother." Ivan said rolling over onto his side

I landed another kick in Ivan's side.

"Get your flight suit on! We were supposed to by on the flight deck five minutes ago." I said again with a scared expression on my face

"Shit!" Ivan said hopping up and struggling into his suit

We ran off into the aircraft carrier's hallway. Ivan struggled to keep up behind me, still trying to get his pants up.

-USS Abraham Lincoln flight deck-

Ivan and I opened the hatch on the far side of the control tower and stumbled out gasping for breath. I gave another half hearted attempt to shamble over to the commander next to a helicopter.

"This *cough* is Major Laney reporting for duty, sir!" I said bent over, catching my breath in front of the officer

Ivan finally zipped up his flight suit and ran to my side and saluted the officer.

"This is Specialist Dementiev reporting!" Ivan said in a weak voice

"Good morning gentlemen, we have a special assignment for you today," the officer turned and pointed to a black helicopter sitting on the deck "This is a new helicopter that runs entirely on electricity. You will be testing it today." The officer walked to the helicopter and motioned for us to follow him. After the pilots caught up with the officer, the climbed into the cockpit "As you can see, it has the exact same lay out to a regular blackhawk but with the benefit of running completely on DC current." the officer then hopped out of the helicopter and pointed to the aircraft itself "The skin of the aircraft itself is the generator of electricity. It charges on solar power. you can get anywhere from 6-8 hours of flight time on a single charge. Questions?"

(A picture if I didn't describe it well enough)

I had many questions but figured it would be best not to test the officer's patience. We climbed into the cockpit and took our positions and familiarized ourselves with the dials and gauges. After the adjustments were set I put on my helmet and looked at Ivan

"Sometimes I hate you, you lazy motherfucker. We could have been assigned to goddam lunch duty if the officer wanted." I said scolding my co-pilot.

After chewing my flight partner out, I raised the control tower on the radio

"This is Redhawk 3-1 requesting takeoff."

"This is command, you are clear for takeoff, over." the radio called out with a hiss of static

I flipped the ignition and raised the RPMs of the helicopter's blades halfway. I could feel the wheels leave the flight deck as I got used to the controls. I then pulled on the joystick as we gradually gained altitude. 'Ok' he thought 'just make your way to the coordinates and back. Simple.'. I then press the joystick forward slightly and the helicopter pushed forward. We met an airspeed of 100mph as we left the flight deck. As I left the flight deck he saw the ever expanding ocean in front of me, the soft ripples of the current the only distinguishing characteristic of the ever expansive ocean. At the far edge of the horizon was my destination, a thunderstorm.

-Unknown location in the Gulf of Mexico-

Me and my co-pilot we still sore from the rude awakening but I hoped Ivan wasn't still angry with me. We had been silent for almost an hour. I lifted the RPM of the rotors as we neared the thunderstorm. our mission was to test the hazardous conditions on the new helicopter since it was electric. We neared the electrical storm and stopped just before entering it. I turned my head to Ivan's and said

"Going where no one has gone before" as i pushed the joystick forwards and saw the storm approach at a steadily increasing pace

We entered the storm and the gauges began to spaz out. The altimeter was giving impossible readings, the speedometer was saying we were doing somewhere around the speed of sound, and the radio kicked on to some annoying song. i turned the radio off and continued to go deeper into the story flying off my instincts. The way ahead began to get darker and darker as we flew deeper and deeper into the storm. I hit the external lights switch on the console and the outside of our helicopter light up like a Christmas tree. The head lights came on only to light up dark grey clouds.

Suddenly I head a crack of thunder and felt my control on the helicopter slacken. I then saw a crack of light brighten up the sky and the warning lights come on. The helicopter then began to spiral as the tail end spun out due to lack of power to the helicopter's main rotor. The main warning light came on over the charge counter as it read 3%.An unrelenting warning siren came over the dashboard. Ivan uttered a curse to himself and grabbed the radio

"This is Redhawk, mayday, mayday! We have had a lighting strike and have lost power!" He said in a calm yet panicked voice

No response.

"This is Redhawk, FUCKING MAYDAY!" he yelled.

We continued to lose speed and altitude at an unprecedented rate. We preceded toward the ground in a 45* angle at 45mph. I as we approach the ground I noticed a forest to the left and a field to the right. I pushed with all my might to the right and the helicopter responded with a sickly sidestep. We landed with a thud as rubber met dirt and we kept moving forward at 45mph. A tree line was steadily approach. With the sound of shattering glass and screaming men we came to a halt as my head slammed of the dash and I sank into a cold blackness.

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Author's note: This chapter is so short but This is just the beginning. The chapters will get longer later.

-The Sanguinor, Exemplar of the Host

Comments

[Geyshawins]

Hm... I've heard this storyline before.. OH RIGHT "The Stranded Pilot" I knew I heard of this before. Anyway, I'm going to keep reading in hopes that this isn't the same. My hopes are up though so "Yay"

~Parajack

[IncoherentOrange]

Huh. Maybe you should work a bit on your grammar. A few periods and commas could make this much smoother to read. Nice plot so far.

[Northwest Brony]

There are a few things I saw with this that really screwed up the immersion in the fic.

The first thing that felt wrong was the two guys being late to the piloting. Anyone on-duty would never, ever be late to anything, especially something as important as a test flight.
Next, there was the picture. Having to adjust to absorbing information from the picture, then back to words is very jarring. If you can't describe the helicopter without a picture, the description is not clear enough. In this case the description was clear enough and I already knew what it looked like from the main picture for the story.
Third, there were no engineers on board looking at data. If it were a test flight (which it says it was) there would be as many engineers in that helicopter as possible looking at diagnostics in order to improve the main design features: the solar cells.
Fourth, there was no mention of any electricity-storing capabilities, only electric-generating abilities. What happens if they fly under a cloud? It would be really inopportune if they got into the shadow of something and stopped producing electricity and therefore couldn't fly.
Fifth, I don't know how that guy got into a position of holding the control stick in the experimental craft, but he is pretty mental if he willingly flew the plane into the storm.
Sixth, lightning comes before thunder or at least at the exact same time. The pilot would have seen and heard the lightning and thunder at the same time in a lightning strike, not thunder then lighting, and especially not at the delay described in the story.
Seventh, when an emergency happens, it's pretty surreal, leaving people unusually scared and calm. "FUCKING MAYDAY" goes against that.
Eighth, the pilot is able to control the plane while it is descending. I thought he lost power?

Anyway, these are some of the things I found were bothersome while reading the story. I'm sure I would enjoy it a lot better if these things were addressed.