Feb 19 07:23:01 108 PA - Learning to Fly, Toddler Steps

From Chronicles

Feb 19 07:23:01 108 PA.

LANDING STRIP

Ah, Monday. Ah, still winter. Ah, snow still laying around the Landing Strip, piled high, particularly on the sides. Gabriel is out today and wrapped more warmly than usual due to an unusually biting arctic wind coming in from the northwest. His Falcon 300 is sitting on the ground at his armored feet, but he seems to be adjusting the straps correctly this time. Looks like things are going to be done under some distant lights and the light soft luminescent lunar illumination.

Erica moves through the snow in long strides in her armor. She marches along the landing strip to move up to where Gabriel is and she nods her head in greeting. "Alright Gabriel are you ready to give this a start?" She asks while using her foot to clear an area. "Not very good weather for a lesson so we will just try some powered jumps and some hovering. Without a gyroscope you would likely crash and get yourself turned all about." She says as she walks a few feet away. Ok so a powered jump is just using a short burst of your pack to help you jump."

The older man hefts his pack, and doesn't seat it quickly like a master expert, but as a man who's been taking lessons and practicing very carefully. It locks in quickly enough, and he tightens the strap. After a thump on his chest, "Ready. Oh, and by the way - I've lined myself up to get one of those gyro things. Guess it's time to get into this century. Whatever number it is." Gabriel looks around his pack when his instructor jumps. "Um.. okay, there's a button for that, right?"

Erica takes a couple of long steps in the snow before jumping up. At the height of her jump her jet pack opens up very briefly and makes her gain five extra feet. "Good. You can't fly in bad weather with out a good gyroscope." She mentions as she walks back over to where Gabriel. "Yes there is a button," she says in a very sarcastic voice. "If you haven't figured that out yet I guess my lesson might be much too complex."

Gabriel looks at the controller in his palm, frowning - humorously - at Erica. "Yeah, yeah. How do you think a caveman would have thought when you showed him an airplane?" He snickers at his own analogy. "Okay, here. Jets." Poke. Apparently that was the wrong button, because instead of a gentle thrust, the full force of the pack ignites for a moment, throwing him a good fifteen feet into the air. This wouldn't be so bad, if he'd been expecting it, but he wasn't. Thus, instead of coming down deftly on his feet, he instead lands heavily on his chest with a loud expulsion of air, and further expulsion of a number of colorful expletives, some of which you really only understand if you've been in the United States Marine Corps.

Erica walks over to where Gabriel landed and hits him in the chest with her armored foot. "Yes that would be the button. Good job. Next time maybe wait to push it." She says in the same sarcastic voice. "Alright get to your feet. Obviously you activated the jets for too long. Although 15 feet you can do with repeated usage of the jet."

The older man may not be the strongest, or the fastest, but he's tough, and can go for hours on end, taking a pretty good beating if he needs to. So it doesn't take Gabriel long until he's looking Erica's cyclopean helmet bashfully in the face. Even though he's wearing his helmet, that emotion is obvious. "Thought I just poked it. How do I just get it to lift like that? Like playing a goddam violin or something." He sighs. "Sorry, chest just hurts. So yeah, this palm thing. What do I do now that you've amused yourself?"

"You vary the thrust of the jet pack by squeezing harder and lighter on the palm controller. So the lighter you squeeze the less thrust you have." She moves out a few feet away. "Alright try again this time don't have a death grip on the controller. You just do a quick press on the button." She crosses her arms as she watches.

Gabriel looks at his palm. He stares at it. He... apparently manages to just nurse the pad enough that he doesn't actually get airborne, but his apparent weight is momentarily increased. Just a slight lift beneath his heels. "Huh. Well, that was uneventful," he offers. He pokes at it again, manages to lift himself off the ground an inch or two... and damn near falls over again, not being so hot at playing inverted-pendulum. "Ah. Okay. I guess it's probably easier once you're airborne. How do you fight with this thing in your palm, Erica?"

"Oh well I don't have to. My interface is different then yours. My armor and jet pack are designed to work together. This is how you work the model you have." Erica says with a quick shrug of her shoulders. "It will take a lot of practice but that is what we are here for." She jumps up and her jet pack starts up. She hovers about eight feet up in the air before much more then a moment. "Ok try jumping up again with your pack. Lets try a good four or five feet."

With a nod, Gabriel jumps - by bending his legs, pushing off the ground, and then awkwardly engaging the thrusters once he's already off the ground. This causes his total leap to be awkward and jerky, but he does achieve the desired height. A little more, as he's not ready for the momentum of the pack to continue to carry him after the thrusters are disengaged. Once more, he lands heavily on the ground, this time landing down in a one-bent-knee position. At least it was a semi-stable landing. "Ah - close?" His voice is hopeful, but not a tone that sounds like he expects a positive response.

"That was good. Yes be aware of the thrust and how it pulls on and moves your body while your pack is on. That will help you make fewer corrections." Erica says as she cuts her jet pack and lands back on the ground. "Ok try to do a few more of those jumps. Then you get to make a lap of the landing strip doing that."

Gabriel takes the time to do a lap - running with the weight of the pack again, flat out. When he returns, he smiles - obviously through tone, as it cannot be seen - and says, "Just making sure." Then he turns his back on his instructor. Puff - WHEE! Puff - WHEE! It takes the man a good long time to make the same one-hundred yard circuit using the pack as his method of locomotion, complete with good jumps, low jumps, high jumps, and the occasional crash to the ground again. But he does eventually make it back. Again, he's amused at himself. "You know, I think that the old Chinese rockets were more accurate than I am. Can I give it another shot? But maybe you walk along side this time, to give critique each time I fuck up, instead of a grand finale afterward?"

"Well I watched your lap but sure can run a lap along side you. Really it just takes a lot of practice with your interface. You are doing well." Erica mentions as she readies herself to do a lap around the landing strip. "I'll jump with you. Just use the radio in your armor and that will keep us in touch over the noise." Erica switches her speaker off inside her armor as she makes a powered jump ahead reaching a good ten feet up.

"Ready? I'll do it on five-seconds. Or, try." With that, Gabriel gives a five-count, and is then off. This second time around is more successful. The jumps are more controlled, the timing more accurate. Not great, but enough so that neither of his jumps comes into a complete fall. "And... back..." he turns and starts to thrust his way gradually back. He seems to get cocky for the last twenty yards or so. Covering it in one large - for him - twenty-yard leap. Impressive, in a way. He doesn't come down gently or pretty, but it's not a crash either. A controlled crash, where he lands, rolls, and ends up on his feet, arms out to the sides: "TA-DAH! Okay, that was just lucky, I admit."

Erica laughs softly to herself as she makes a fairly distant jump herself to land next to where Gabriel landed. "Well that was much better. You are learning quickly. You will want to do hundreds of powered leaps so that it becomes second nature to yourself. Try long jumps where you fire the pack twice in a jump to elongate it. Try one or two here and then try a lap doing that. Careful now."

The helmet of Gabriel's self-customized Crusader armor nods once, then his body turns downrange. An obvious inhale-exhale, then he's off - jetting up about twenty-feet, thrusters off... falling almost all the way back to the ground before re-engaging the thrusters for far too long, hitting a good hundred feet or so, falling again and somehow just popping the thrusters on long enough and soon enough to slow his descent into a controlled crash of the non-bone-breaking kind. There is an audible grunt over the radio. "Okay, yeah. Take my hand. Seriously. I've taught children how to ride bikes, and sometimes they need hand-holding to keep them from killing themselves."

"Hey that was great. You didn't break anything. Much better then most." Erica says with a little laugh in her voice. She walks over to where Gabriel is she holds out a armored hand for him to take. "Ok we will do a several jumps around the whole strip." She says while she waits for Gabriel to jump up. "I'll keep you from killing yourself."

"Thanks." Jet, up, off, fall slightly, jet, up, fall slightly, jet, up, fall slightly. With Erica's assistance, Gabriel will successfully make the one-hundred yard circuit again. Not that it's pretty. No, it really is very much like watching a child learn to ride a bike. Sure, she's riding down the middle of the street - but you can barely look, because you're expecting to see her tottle over with the next push of the peddle. "Whew, okay. Is this like artillery? Forty-five degrees gives you optimum range? Or because you're in a pack, does it not really matter?" An intelligent question.

Erica keeps mainly quiet as Gabriel makes his lap around the landing strip. She makes quick comments to help Gabriel keep his control but for the most part just helping him guide his jumps and landings. "Well it is a lot like artillery but you want to keep your jet pack thrust very carefully controlled. This is why we are only doing this very close to the ground. You need to learn your thrust control first before any altitude is attempted."

"Well hovering is like being in constant motion accept your acceleration is the exact opposite of the acceleration of gravity. You can do some hovering but you have to have really really good thrust control." Erica says over the radio, subvocalizing as she leaps into the air and starts moving up and down in the air. "See you just learn how to decrease this yo yo motion with experience until it isn't much motion at all."

Gabriel's helmet nods again, and he hops - hops. He doesn't attempt to hover, and he makes no bones about it. "Probably beyond me at the moment. Right now? I think I'll learn how not to crash. Although, you know they say that flying is only learning how to throw yourself at the ground, and miss. Never found that very funny until this moment." One could her the man's grin over the radio. He looks like a kid on a trampoline, or maybe an advanced pogo-stick. As he continues to hop - higher and higher, but more and more controlled - he says, "I told you that I've lined myself up for that cyber-gyro, didn't I? Going under the knife soon. Still.. sounds a little weird. But I hope it helps with this stuff."

"Yes I wouldn't try it now. Just keep trying the extending jump. Try singles then doubles and then maybe a triple or two. Lets do another couple laps together. I will keep close by." Erica says as she makes ready to go for another round of laps. "Glad you are getting the gyroscope. I wouldn't want to go to air in this weather anyhow. Luckily though the snow helps a bit with the landings."

The older man chuckles at that. "Growing up in high Appalachia does give you an appreciation for the small padding the snow gives you. Of course, I wasn't a full-grown man in a set of environmental body armor and a jet pack." Gabriel gives a sloppy salute and starts his off-balance jets. Seems like each one of them involves a lot of windmilling of his arms and bending at the waist. That gyroscope will probably help avoid those antics. In one more barely-controlled crash, he lands next to Erica. "Ah... okay, I'm in armor, I know that I have an oxygen supply. If I just much the button and don't let go... how far up will I fly? How fast can I go?" He leans an examines Erica more closely. "Guess it's not the same as yours though, right?"

"How far up can yours go? Likely about three thousand feet or so. The jet pack is not built for high altitudes. Mine can go up higher. Keep in mind the biggest problem is the high wind speeds at those altitudes." Erica says over the radio as she takes a moment to pause and let Gabriel catch his breath. "Much harder to control yourself if you have a high wind. I'll try to help you with that later."

There's a loud laugh coming from Gabriel's helmet, loud enough to be heard by someone outside of the armor standing nearby. "Yeah, that's probably plenty. I think I'll stay low, unless I encounter something really scary, then I'll be high and fast with my thumb mashing this thing until I run out of fuel!" He begins another series of leaps. Doubles, triples, even two quadruples. Probably unnecessary and unlikely to be useful in the field, but at least it shows some growing aptitude. "How close can I get to something - someone - without burning them? I assume that's why I'm wearing armor? I'm not exactly feeling Flash Gordon flames on the backs of my legs."

"Alright old man. We should call it a day. Trust me you are going to have a lot of bruises. I recommend having a warm bath to help loosen your muscles." Erica says as she picks up a watertight backpack and brushes the snow off of it. "Next time we can get some air time."

Gabriel offers his instructor a genuine salute - soldier to soldier - and disengages the power supply, just to make sure that he doesn't accidentally launch himself like a cannonball on his way home. "Hey, let me buy you a beer - or a soda - sometime when you're not so busy, okay? Thanks, teach." He'll playfully whap Erica's shoulder, and begin to head out.