Flight Training

by Biscayne

Chapter Two: First Flight

Chapter Two: First Flight

Scootaloo walked to the landing field on the outskirts of Ponyville. Amongst the crowd of ponies waiting there, she saw no one she immediately recognized. She was looking for her instructor, a mare by the name of Skyhawk. She had a basic idea what she looked like, but what she saw instead came as a bit of a shock.

A rainbow-maned mare walked up to the shocked filly and said, “Hey squirt, looks like I’m gonna be your instructor.”

Scootaloo wiped the look of shock off her face and responded, “Wait, what happened to Skyhawk?”

Rainbow Dash smiled, “Well, she and Bo-he’s the Chief- decided, since you’re gonna be one fast filly, that I’d better train you. Hawk’s worried she won’t be able to keep up!”

Scootaloo’s head spun with the words ‘one fast filly’. How could they know how fast she was going to be? No one had ever seen her fly, and when she did, she never was able to get high enough to go faster than a cantering pace!

Rainbow laughed at the look of confusion, “Hey, Scoots, ever wonder why your wings are so small?”

Scootaloo thought for a second, she had always wondered why. It was a lot of work just to get in the air with such small wings; she had to beat the air into submission just to get off the ground.

“I’ll save you some worry right now. I had small wings when I was a filly too, and look what I did-I made the Sonic Rainboom. Small wings mean faster flying; you’ll be much more comfortable flying fast.”

A smile started to replace the pained look of confusion on the filly’s face. “Ok, so once we get flying fast, I won’t have to work as hard?”

Rainbow thought for a sec, then replied, “Basically yes. It’s a little more complicated than that, but everything in flying is more complicated than it seems. Anyway, we’re gonna be late for the beginning-of-camp meeting if we don’t blast off! Let’s get to Cloudsdale!”

Rainbow Dash immediately took off, and started toward the city. After a few seconds of thinking, Scootaloo started flapping her wings with all she could. She managed to get off the ground fine, but was starting to lose her balance.

Rainbow looked behind her just in time to see the orange filly flip over on her back and land, with a dulled thud, on the soft grass. She stopped and sighed to herself. This was going to be a long three months.

After flying back to the ground, Rainbow asked, “so, how much do you know about flying?”

Scootaloo dusted herself off. The dry grass may have softened her fall, but she was still smarting. “Almost nothing.” she gasped. Her failed effort to get airborne had taken a lot out of her.

“Ok then.” the blue mare thought for a second, then said, “Well... Ok, what are you thinking about when you take off?”

Scootaloo thought for a second. She thought about each wingstroke, to be honest. How could this have anything to do with her problems? She obviously just needed more practice! “What do you mean?”

Rainbow looked at her companion blankly. “Exactly what I said. What is going through that featherbrain when you start moving your wings?”

“I dunno, I just start moving them up and down.”

Rainbow frowned, then looked at her own wings. A lightbulb went off under that rainbow mane. “Ok, watch my wings. It’s not a simple up and down motion.” she started moving her wings in an oscillating fashion, the front of the wing leading the back by quite a bit. Slowed down enough to see, it was a very graceful action. The filly was mesmerized for a second, watching the motion.

“Now, you’re not going to be able to think about that motion once your in the air. But, luckily, you don’t have to. Your brain is a wonderful thing, it does it for you. Picture what you just saw in your mind, and then tell yourself to fly.”

Scootaloo closed her eyes and thought. She wasn’t exactly sure about this; she’d seen enough ponies fly to be able to relate the motion she just saw to the way everypony else did it, but how did they learn to do that? Eventually, her curiosity got the best of her, and she decided to give it a go.

She slowly moved her wings, picturing the rotating motion Rainbow had made, and, after increasing the speed, felt the weight leave her hooves. She was hovering about three inches off of the ground when she had an epiphany: she wasn’t working anywhere near as hard as she had before! She felt a giddy smile grow with each wing beat, she was flying with ease.

“Awesome! Now let’s get going!” Rainbow said as she caught up to the giddy filly, now flying several feet off the ground.

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The girls did not fly all the way to Cloudsdale on that flight. Instead they stopped off at a large cloud set between the two cities. The large formation of cumulus clouds was set up specifically for this trip-no one expected the young flyers to be able to make the trip in one flight. On the top of the clouds several fillies and colts, along with a few instructors, stood on the cloud eating lunch, and generally enjoying what was a glorious day to fly.

Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash arrived towards the late afternoon. Scootaloo had become much more comfortable with flying. Her wing motion was becoming second nature, as Rainbow had said it would. She had even gotten a good grasp of moving around in the sky, combining shifting her weight with varying the motion of each wing to make shallow turns. Rainbow Dash had talked her through some of these basic motions while they were flying to the forward base.

But what came next was a difficulty she had not expected, landing.

Rainbow had briefed her on what to expect. “Now, when you come in, you’re going to be travelling too fast to touch down, you have to slow yourself down. To slow down, you need to lean yourself back, while simultaneously making heavier wing beats. You’ll gain some altitude doing this, but that’s ok for now. You’ll feel yourself want to lean forward and go back to the speed you were going, but you’ll have to fight that. Once you’ve slowed down to a walking pace, pick out a landing spot, and point yourself at it. just above that point, hold your wings out, and glide to the cloud, bend your knees a bit, and lean back, and you should land on your back hooves.”

Scootaloo thought to herself that the look of confusion was getting too comfortable on her face. “What now?”

“Feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose yet?”

“Something like that.”

Rainbow sighed, and said, “Welcome to flying. We don’t have enough time between now and when we get there for me to explain it again, so I’ll land first, and just mimic what I do.”

Rainbow leant her weight back, holding out her wings at full length. She started immediately slowing down. Scootaloo tried to mimic this, but didn’t have anywhere near the same effect. She saw the edge of the cloud approaching fast, and started beating her wings backwards. This worked, a little too well. Now she was about a hundred feet too high on the approach.

Watching ahead of her, the blue pegasus was slowly flapping her wings to arrest her descent, and landed gracefully on her hind legs. Rainbow walked away from the landing zone, and turned around to see a frightened look on Scootaloo’s face. She knew she was high and fast, and didn’t know how to slow down.

“Don’t Worry!” Rainbow Dash called up to the purple-maned pegasus, “Worse-case scenario: you land hard. This cloud is really soft though, so it will only hurt a bit!”

Scootaloo did not want to hear this. “That makes me feel so much better!” she replied sarcastically.

Rainbow didn’t hear the snide remark. “Hold your wings out, and glide for a bit. you’ll feel like you’re falling like a rock, but you’ll be fine!”

She was right, again. Scootaloo did just that, and she started coming down, fast. she was still moving forward, but the sensation of falling was too much to handle. she started beating the sky again. All that managed to accomplish was slowing her down more, making hitting the cloud seem even less possible.

“Relax, kid, you’re over thinking it! Hold your wings out, glide down, then lean back as the cloud comes in. the speed will come off, and you’ll touch down fine!”, ish, she thought to herself.

Scootaloo saw a crowd starting to gather to watch the show. A few instructors were talking to Rainbow Dash, trying to help the stricken pegasus get on the cloud without hurting herself.

After what seemed like an eternity, she was now about ten yards from the landing zone, and about five seconds from landing. Going on instinct alone, she held her wings out and lent back. She felt herself slow down, and a tug at the back of her wings. Now about three feet above the cloud, she lent forward to end the uncomfortable sensation of her feathers being pulled out. Then she ran out of altitude.

Rainbow Dash was right about one thing, she thought as she dug herself out of the cloud, the landing did only hurt a bit.

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((Author’s notes: “Feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose yet?” Good. I intentionally wanted to throw information at you, to give you an idea of what Scootaloo’s feeling right now. This is usually how the first few lessons go for a new student pilot in the real world. They get overwhelmed with information. Eventually they get it, though (I’m the biggest idiot on the planet and I got it!)

I do want to apologize for the lack of action in chapter one, but it was necessary to build the plot for this one and coming chapters.

I also want to repost my need for pre-readers. I’m thinking about four chapters ahead right now, and am a bit disconnected from the story at this point. I have a tendency to overdose on technical details as well (you should see my notes, they’d blow your mind).

Thanks for reading!))

Comments

[wazup970]

Wow, this is looking to be really good! I will be tracking this, looking forward to future chapters!

[Biscayne]

210757

Glad you liked it! Chapter Three is still a few days away, expect it shortly!