FA+
Shop
1044 submissions
Those memories you wish you could forget...
"So, how it has been?"
"Quiet good, I have nothing to report, you did quite a good job on it!" replies the vixen as she puts her flight helmet on the windscreen of her aircraft.
The chief-mechanic, for his part, places the ladder on the side of the fuselage of the bomber and climbs to defuse the ejection seat before to let her get down from her silver mount. As she unties her hair, she notices on the same parking as the one she parked her Vautour a little aircraft, quite flat with a tailfin which forms a "V", she knows perfectly this type of aircraft.
With a slight grimace on her face she turns to the mechanic and asks "Again an accident?" before to point of the finger the little jet.
"Yeah, her pilot caught a bird in the left reactor, it was set afire but the pilot managed to get her home. What drives me crazy is that they normally have railings in front of the air intakes to prevent this kind of accident but that wasn't to the taste of some Portuguese (not designating someone from Portugal but a high officer of the French Air Force headquarters) who decided to remove them because it "wasn't looking good"..." Answers the mechanic with some kind of anger in his voice
Her look goes back to the silver aircraft on which the insignia of the 92e Escadre de Bombardement is painted under the windscreen. She lowers her ears and head as she passes next of it, her experience on this kind of aeroplane, especially her last flight on it, have certainly have been the most painful experience of her life.
That was back in the middle of April 1959, at this time she was still flight instructor on the relatively new arrived Fouga CM170 Magister within the CIB 328, already part of the 92e Escadre de Bombardement. That was the last flights she had to do with her students before to be able to certify them able to fly alone on this kind of aircraft. As she walks into the room where all the future pilots were waiting, accompanying the badger she just certified, she asks for the next candidate on the list, the pilot she asked for, a young grey wolf quite confident, raises and follows her and, before to leave the room, gives a sign of confidence to his friends.
As they walk to the parking, she tells him what she awaits from him and briefs him on the current meteorological conditions. Once arrived at the aircraft, she lets him do the pre-flight inspection, looking from behind and taking notes of the actions of the student. Once the inspection is finished, he indicates her that they can get in the cockpit as everything is normal, he sits at the front place while Atar sits at the rear place. She settles into this dark narrow cockpit that is the one of the Fouga Magister, the rear place, the one of the instructor, has a very bad visibility and the manufacturer was obliged to install a periscope over the instrument panel to allow the instructor to see forward.
"Okay, so now you can begin to start the aircraft" She tells him through the intercom after they both put on their flight helmet.
"Affirmative." replies the wolf
After few seconds of radio silence, she finally asks "So? What are you waiting for?"
"Err... I'm starting the engine, madam."
"I want to hear you telling me what you're doing, I can't see you and I need to evaluate you. You should be used to that already!" She begins to tell him off as it was seeming obvious for her.
At this command, the young wolf began to tell her what he already did and what he was now doing to start the aircraft. Once the engines were running, producing a an ear-splitting noise, the mechanics unplugged the ground power unit from the aircraft and removed the chocks in order to let the training aircraft join the runway. After he has contacted the tower and had the clearance to taxi to the runway, he releases the brakes and moves a bit forward the throttle lever, under the increasing power of the both reactors, the Fouga begins to leave its place on the parking and, leaded by its pilot, follows the long white line through all the taxiway until it reaches the intersection with the runway. There the air controller gives them the clearance to engage on the runway to prepare their take off, once they are ready, the young wolf asks the clearance to take off but no one answered to the request.
Behind him, the vixen checks her watch and notices the hour, at this sight she decides to warn her student "It's 4pm, the air controllers must be making shift, if you're authorised to engage on the runway it means that it's ok, with the time that the new shift will take to get organised you better have to announce yourself and take off"
"Copy that." Answers the wolf to his instructor "From Pygargue 26, taking off from the runway 05 of the Cognac Air Base." Once the message announced, the flaps down at around 25°, he pushes the throttle lever forward and let the little silver jet rolling on the long runway.
From her side, Atar, not worried about the take off as her student for this flight has already over 150 flight hours, takes some notes about how he handles the Magister at the take off and watches constantly the engines instruments to see if everything is going good. After some distances ran by the little aeroplane, the future pilot finally raises the nose wheel from the ground and, after a short moment, get the jet in the air, behind him, the vixen takes notes, the speed at the one he raises the nose wheel, the speed at the one he took off and the α at the moment of the take off.
As the aircraft climbs slowly in the sky, the wolf raises the landing gear and goes ahead to reach the altitude requested by his instructor before to join the training area. Behind, the vixen let herself being flown away by her student but she still paying attention to every actions that the wolf applies on the aircraft, confident about this part of the flight, she turns the head to look outside were the fields are passing under the silver wing. As the aircraft reaches enough speed, the wolf raises the flaps and raises a bit more the nose of the aircraft, a bit after, as she was still looking outside, a silver arrow crosses her field of view quickly followed by a great shock in the whole aircraft.
At those events she nearly yelled in the microphone to her student "I'm taking the commands!" taking in her left paw the throttle lever and the control stick in her right paw, she pushes the throttle lever to its most forward stop and compensates the will of the aircraft which was raising its nose while it was going on the left side. She then plunged her muzzle in the cockpit to check the instruments to only found in horror that all the navigation instruments, including the air speed indicator and the altimeter, have the needle on "0", next of that, her eyes are attracted by two red light bulbs on the right side of the instrument panel which just switched on, they both warn of an engine fire. Her look is now directed to the engines termometer and to their rev counters, located the one over the other, she begins to panic as she realises that the engines temperature was indeed worryingly increasing and that the rpm were falling.
At those indications, she raises her muzzle and began to shout in the intercom "THERE'S AN ENGINE RIF*, WE'VE TO..." She does not end her sentence has she gets like paralysed for a very short moment at the view in front of her. On the front seat, there was nothing that could be called anymore "wolf" as there weren't anymore a front seat neither, there were nothing but a broken canopy on which blood has been sprayed, this sight freaked her out, she doesn't understand what in the world just happened. The only thing she can manage to do is to press the microphone switch and announces in a muffled voice "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! From Pygargue 26 at the end of the 05 of the BA-135, Engine rif and loss of control, we bale out!"
Once the message announced, she stuck the control stick between her legs to stabilise the aircraft and unlocks with her left paw the canopy that she begins to raise with her right paw but the relative wind violently pulls it off her hands causing it to break and to fly away. With her left paw she now unbuckles her harness and as she puts her paws on the both sides of the fuselage to erect from it, letting the control stick free, the aircraft now begins to spin lightly on the left, she then notices that 1/4 of the left wing has been torn off. Loosing herself to the relative wind, she's carried away from the cockpit, brushing past the silver fuselage but she cannot avoid the right empennage that she hits with her right shoulder but she still manage to pull the handle of her parachute, in spite of the pain due to the collision with the aircraft, once the aircraft doesn't create anymore a danger zone.
Above her, the extractor pulls all the innards of the ripped open bag in her back and, as the ground was getting dangerously close, she hears a great slamming as the harness around her body suddenly tightened and that, above her head, a large vivid orange cupola opened to slow down her fall. under her eyes, the aircraft she was in dove while spinning on itself before to disappear in a fire ball in a field. Even if her parachute opened, she know she stills too fast as the contact with the ground becomes imminent, she tries to soften the impact as much as she can by folding the knees and falling to the ground with no resistance but it isn't enough as she hears some cracks when she touches the ground and as she now feels two new painful points at her left ankle and at her left hip. She remains there, lied down in the middle of the field, unable of any movement, at only around 50 metres from the wreck of the Magister she was in few minutes before.
The first rescue team, composed of active soldiers who witnessed the accident, which arrived on place has found her in shock, unable to move nor to speak, it was violent and happened extremely quickly, she didn't understood everything that happened...
She learnt, later, thanks to the witnesses of the accident and to the investigation led by the French Air Force, that their aircraft entered in collision with another Magister of her unit which was in a landing procedure. The remains of her student, Warrant Officer Duval, have been found near the both part of their Fouga Magister even if 300 meters separated them. the remains of the Warrant Officer Rossinger, the student pilot in the other Magister, have been found in the front part of the aircraft and was still alive when it touched the ground but he wasn't able to bale out, his instructor, Flight Lieutenant Jaume, was killed at the impact as, as for WO Duval, he has been hit directly by the wing of the other aircraft.
During the investigation, she was forbidden of flying by the headquarter as they get her as responsible for the death of a very experimented pilot, of two student pilots and for the loss of two aircrafts. She has been acquitted at the end of the investigation as it have been concluded that an error has been made in the air control traffic management and was finally able to sit again in the cockpit of a military aircraft though, as it has been a very painful experience for her, she asked to be affected to an operational unit. Her request have been accepted and she was assigned to the EB 2/92 "Aquitaine", flying on SNCASO Vautour II B, A and N on the same airbase.
"Atar, are you okay?" This familiar voice coming from in front of her get her out of her thought, she recognises her navigator, a young grey fox.
She manages to get a smile on her muzzle when she raises her head to answer to her crewmate "Yeah, I'm okay, why should I be otherwise?"
"I don't know... you weren't looking as usual, you were looking quite..." He did not end his sentence as he can't found the right word.
"Oh, don't worry, I was just thinking about the paperwork I have to fill, that's all." She replied without waiting the end of the sentence of her crewmate.
In a way, he does know that she isn't going as well as she pretends to be, it's very rare that this cheerful and energetic vixen gets in the mood she was before he intervened, he was feeling in her fear, distress, anger and sadness but he does not understand what can bring her in such mood so when she says that everything is okay, he does not insist.
*Rif: French Air Force jargon, means "fire"
So now I'll stop planning things for her as I can't respect what I say, I first said that she was a "random" character, well... she isn't anymore, and I said that I wouldn't give her a story and I finally began to give her one.
I really don't know what to say about this piece excepted that I wanted to work a bit on emotions.
"Quiet good, I have nothing to report, you did quite a good job on it!" replies the vixen as she puts her flight helmet on the windscreen of her aircraft.
The chief-mechanic, for his part, places the ladder on the side of the fuselage of the bomber and climbs to defuse the ejection seat before to let her get down from her silver mount. As she unties her hair, she notices on the same parking as the one she parked her Vautour a little aircraft, quite flat with a tailfin which forms a "V", she knows perfectly this type of aircraft.
With a slight grimace on her face she turns to the mechanic and asks "Again an accident?" before to point of the finger the little jet.
"Yeah, her pilot caught a bird in the left reactor, it was set afire but the pilot managed to get her home. What drives me crazy is that they normally have railings in front of the air intakes to prevent this kind of accident but that wasn't to the taste of some Portuguese (not designating someone from Portugal but a high officer of the French Air Force headquarters) who decided to remove them because it "wasn't looking good"..." Answers the mechanic with some kind of anger in his voice
Her look goes back to the silver aircraft on which the insignia of the 92e Escadre de Bombardement is painted under the windscreen. She lowers her ears and head as she passes next of it, her experience on this kind of aeroplane, especially her last flight on it, have certainly have been the most painful experience of her life.
***********That was back in the middle of April 1959, at this time she was still flight instructor on the relatively new arrived Fouga CM170 Magister within the CIB 328, already part of the 92e Escadre de Bombardement. That was the last flights she had to do with her students before to be able to certify them able to fly alone on this kind of aircraft. As she walks into the room where all the future pilots were waiting, accompanying the badger she just certified, she asks for the next candidate on the list, the pilot she asked for, a young grey wolf quite confident, raises and follows her and, before to leave the room, gives a sign of confidence to his friends.
As they walk to the parking, she tells him what she awaits from him and briefs him on the current meteorological conditions. Once arrived at the aircraft, she lets him do the pre-flight inspection, looking from behind and taking notes of the actions of the student. Once the inspection is finished, he indicates her that they can get in the cockpit as everything is normal, he sits at the front place while Atar sits at the rear place. She settles into this dark narrow cockpit that is the one of the Fouga Magister, the rear place, the one of the instructor, has a very bad visibility and the manufacturer was obliged to install a periscope over the instrument panel to allow the instructor to see forward.
"Okay, so now you can begin to start the aircraft" She tells him through the intercom after they both put on their flight helmet.
"Affirmative." replies the wolf
After few seconds of radio silence, she finally asks "So? What are you waiting for?"
"Err... I'm starting the engine, madam."
"I want to hear you telling me what you're doing, I can't see you and I need to evaluate you. You should be used to that already!" She begins to tell him off as it was seeming obvious for her.
At this command, the young wolf began to tell her what he already did and what he was now doing to start the aircraft. Once the engines were running, producing a an ear-splitting noise, the mechanics unplugged the ground power unit from the aircraft and removed the chocks in order to let the training aircraft join the runway. After he has contacted the tower and had the clearance to taxi to the runway, he releases the brakes and moves a bit forward the throttle lever, under the increasing power of the both reactors, the Fouga begins to leave its place on the parking and, leaded by its pilot, follows the long white line through all the taxiway until it reaches the intersection with the runway. There the air controller gives them the clearance to engage on the runway to prepare their take off, once they are ready, the young wolf asks the clearance to take off but no one answered to the request.
Behind him, the vixen checks her watch and notices the hour, at this sight she decides to warn her student "It's 4pm, the air controllers must be making shift, if you're authorised to engage on the runway it means that it's ok, with the time that the new shift will take to get organised you better have to announce yourself and take off"
"Copy that." Answers the wolf to his instructor "From Pygargue 26, taking off from the runway 05 of the Cognac Air Base." Once the message announced, the flaps down at around 25°, he pushes the throttle lever forward and let the little silver jet rolling on the long runway.
From her side, Atar, not worried about the take off as her student for this flight has already over 150 flight hours, takes some notes about how he handles the Magister at the take off and watches constantly the engines instruments to see if everything is going good. After some distances ran by the little aeroplane, the future pilot finally raises the nose wheel from the ground and, after a short moment, get the jet in the air, behind him, the vixen takes notes, the speed at the one he raises the nose wheel, the speed at the one he took off and the α at the moment of the take off.
As the aircraft climbs slowly in the sky, the wolf raises the landing gear and goes ahead to reach the altitude requested by his instructor before to join the training area. Behind, the vixen let herself being flown away by her student but she still paying attention to every actions that the wolf applies on the aircraft, confident about this part of the flight, she turns the head to look outside were the fields are passing under the silver wing. As the aircraft reaches enough speed, the wolf raises the flaps and raises a bit more the nose of the aircraft, a bit after, as she was still looking outside, a silver arrow crosses her field of view quickly followed by a great shock in the whole aircraft.
At those events she nearly yelled in the microphone to her student "I'm taking the commands!" taking in her left paw the throttle lever and the control stick in her right paw, she pushes the throttle lever to its most forward stop and compensates the will of the aircraft which was raising its nose while it was going on the left side. She then plunged her muzzle in the cockpit to check the instruments to only found in horror that all the navigation instruments, including the air speed indicator and the altimeter, have the needle on "0", next of that, her eyes are attracted by two red light bulbs on the right side of the instrument panel which just switched on, they both warn of an engine fire. Her look is now directed to the engines termometer and to their rev counters, located the one over the other, she begins to panic as she realises that the engines temperature was indeed worryingly increasing and that the rpm were falling.
At those indications, she raises her muzzle and began to shout in the intercom "THERE'S AN ENGINE RIF*, WE'VE TO..." She does not end her sentence has she gets like paralysed for a very short moment at the view in front of her. On the front seat, there was nothing that could be called anymore "wolf" as there weren't anymore a front seat neither, there were nothing but a broken canopy on which blood has been sprayed, this sight freaked her out, she doesn't understand what in the world just happened. The only thing she can manage to do is to press the microphone switch and announces in a muffled voice "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! From Pygargue 26 at the end of the 05 of the BA-135, Engine rif and loss of control, we bale out!"
Once the message announced, she stuck the control stick between her legs to stabilise the aircraft and unlocks with her left paw the canopy that she begins to raise with her right paw but the relative wind violently pulls it off her hands causing it to break and to fly away. With her left paw she now unbuckles her harness and as she puts her paws on the both sides of the fuselage to erect from it, letting the control stick free, the aircraft now begins to spin lightly on the left, she then notices that 1/4 of the left wing has been torn off. Loosing herself to the relative wind, she's carried away from the cockpit, brushing past the silver fuselage but she cannot avoid the right empennage that she hits with her right shoulder but she still manage to pull the handle of her parachute, in spite of the pain due to the collision with the aircraft, once the aircraft doesn't create anymore a danger zone.
Above her, the extractor pulls all the innards of the ripped open bag in her back and, as the ground was getting dangerously close, she hears a great slamming as the harness around her body suddenly tightened and that, above her head, a large vivid orange cupola opened to slow down her fall. under her eyes, the aircraft she was in dove while spinning on itself before to disappear in a fire ball in a field. Even if her parachute opened, she know she stills too fast as the contact with the ground becomes imminent, she tries to soften the impact as much as she can by folding the knees and falling to the ground with no resistance but it isn't enough as she hears some cracks when she touches the ground and as she now feels two new painful points at her left ankle and at her left hip. She remains there, lied down in the middle of the field, unable of any movement, at only around 50 metres from the wreck of the Magister she was in few minutes before.
The first rescue team, composed of active soldiers who witnessed the accident, which arrived on place has found her in shock, unable to move nor to speak, it was violent and happened extremely quickly, she didn't understood everything that happened...
She learnt, later, thanks to the witnesses of the accident and to the investigation led by the French Air Force, that their aircraft entered in collision with another Magister of her unit which was in a landing procedure. The remains of her student, Warrant Officer Duval, have been found near the both part of their Fouga Magister even if 300 meters separated them. the remains of the Warrant Officer Rossinger, the student pilot in the other Magister, have been found in the front part of the aircraft and was still alive when it touched the ground but he wasn't able to bale out, his instructor, Flight Lieutenant Jaume, was killed at the impact as, as for WO Duval, he has been hit directly by the wing of the other aircraft.
During the investigation, she was forbidden of flying by the headquarter as they get her as responsible for the death of a very experimented pilot, of two student pilots and for the loss of two aircrafts. She has been acquitted at the end of the investigation as it have been concluded that an error has been made in the air control traffic management and was finally able to sit again in the cockpit of a military aircraft though, as it has been a very painful experience for her, she asked to be affected to an operational unit. Her request have been accepted and she was assigned to the EB 2/92 "Aquitaine", flying on SNCASO Vautour II B, A and N on the same airbase.
***********"Atar, are you okay?" This familiar voice coming from in front of her get her out of her thought, she recognises her navigator, a young grey fox.
She manages to get a smile on her muzzle when she raises her head to answer to her crewmate "Yeah, I'm okay, why should I be otherwise?"
"I don't know... you weren't looking as usual, you were looking quite..." He did not end his sentence as he can't found the right word.
"Oh, don't worry, I was just thinking about the paperwork I have to fill, that's all." She replied without waiting the end of the sentence of her crewmate.
In a way, he does know that she isn't going as well as she pretends to be, it's very rare that this cheerful and energetic vixen gets in the mood she was before he intervened, he was feeling in her fear, distress, anger and sadness but he does not understand what can bring her in such mood so when she says that everything is okay, he does not insist.
*Rif: French Air Force jargon, means "fire"
So now I'll stop planning things for her as I can't respect what I say, I first said that she was a "random" character, well... she isn't anymore, and I said that I wouldn't give her a story and I finally began to give her one.
I really don't know what to say about this piece excepted that I wanted to work a bit on emotions.
Category Artwork (Traditional) / General Furry Art
Species Vulpine (Other)
Size 1280 x 954px
File Size 242.3 kB
Listed in Folders
Thanks Lucky, and yes, the story is far to be of the happiest, I'm to blam for this, I do think it permits to develop better a character to add some sad things in their stories. And I must say I get very inspired for this story by a conversation I've heard two years ago during an airshow on a training air base, the father of the guy who was speaking has been killed on board of a Fouga Magister after an in-flight collision.
I'm sorry but I'm not sure of what you mean with the last part of your comment...
I'm sorry but I'm not sure of what you mean with the last part of your comment...
Ah! Now I see better. Also, I agree. A little bit of sadness or a trial of sorts for the character makes them more solid and believable.
That is rather sad to know the son lost his father to such an accident. A few years ago, I tried a simulator for a small jet (I think it was a Dornier Alpha Jet or a BAE based jet of the same size). Given the story flow you have, it is very believable that neither aircraft would have seen the other in time to avoid the accident. It is hard to react when each aircraft is closing in on each other at that speed.
What I meant is that I am glad we only suffer the wounds of a past situation on our body once. The past can lay as it is even if our minds will not let it go.
That is rather sad to know the son lost his father to such an accident. A few years ago, I tried a simulator for a small jet (I think it was a Dornier Alpha Jet or a BAE based jet of the same size). Given the story flow you have, it is very believable that neither aircraft would have seen the other in time to avoid the accident. It is hard to react when each aircraft is closing in on each other at that speed.
What I meant is that I am glad we only suffer the wounds of a past situation on our body once. The past can lay as it is even if our minds will not let it go.
Comments