Sunny: The Memoirs of an Airline Pilot

[Confused Scientist]

Sunny: The Memoirs of an Airline Pilot

When I came to Kerbspoke Air Force Base, I wanted to fly planes in the war. We were in the thick of it back then, with old fighters and bombers going out every day to the Kerbaic Ocean to fight the enemy, and we knew that the struggle wouldn't be over for a few more years. So, my choice was simple: either fight in the war, or tolerate "Loose Lips Sink Ships" posters for the rest of our time fighting. And so, I found myself walking to the airfield, with my medical information in hand, ready to stick it to The Man overseas.

What was I thinking? I had only ever been in an airplane once before, and it was parked on the tarmac for the little kids to see at the Kerbspoke Air Show during the Depression. I had only ever seen an airplane fly a few times before, and now here I was, ready to put my life in the hands of someone who knew nothing about flying- my hands. My ignorance of flight.

The general was happy for the new recruit- but, darn it, he was a general, and he had to be tough. "Sunny," he grunted, "you've got basic training for three months, and then you ship out to Kambodia. You're in barracks 12; you'll find your uniform on your bunk."

I nodded.

"THAT'S YES, SIR!" he bellowed.

"YES, SIR!" I replied, and saluted. Then I spun around on my heels, and marched to my barracks. I was already getting the hang of this.

I went up in an old crop-duster for the first time the next day. My instructor showed me how to start the engine, move the rudder pedals to taxi out to the runway, and then he performed the takeoff with his own set of controls in his seat. Then, once we were at altitude, he said, "Turn onto a southern heading."

I contemplated the stick and the rudder pedals, and deftly stepped on the latter. The plane lurched sickeningly as we jolted broadside to the slipstream. "Sunny Kerman, what do you think you're doing?" The instructor arrested our sideslip and rolled the plane onto its side before pitching up. "When you're in an airplane, you don't turn, you bank."

The rest of the three months processed like that, with me graduating to bigger and bigger craft, until finally I was at the controls of a Knat-27 bomber, practicing touch-and-go on the old dusty runway. After one of our landings, I pulled back on the stick and only a few seconds later, I felt a vibration shudder through the entire aircraft. "Engines two, three, and four are down," the engineer said. "I think we've hit some birds." Without even thinking, she feathered the engines and I turned around and landed back at the base. Thus I had handled the first in-flight emergency of my long career. Next time, however, there would be dozens of passengers counting on me to get them down to a runway intact.

I climbed out of the bomber, and then the general delivered some bad news. "Sunny- you're not shipping out."

"What?" I cried. I couldn't think of what I'd done wrong.

"Apparently the scientists down in Las Kruces, or Kalamagordo, or some place in some desert were working on a super-bomb. The war in the Kerbaic is over." I was stunned. I had spent three months preparing to fly, wanting to fly, and I would fly.

"Sir," I said, "I'm in the top of my class. Talent like this doesn't come along often. What can I do now?"

He thought for a minute. "Well..." he muttered, "wherever kerbals go, destruction will follow. There will be another war soon."

I was ignorant and naive, and I didn't think there would be another war for a long time. Later, when I was older and wiser, I knew that the wars would never end. But I was still young and stupid, and back then, there was one mother and one father and one son and one daughter in every family, plus a dog, and people drank alcohol from glasses that could hold a lot more bourbon and ice than they put in, and there wasn't any security at the airports, and people were too busy smiling and generally eating the spam-in-a-can that suburbia served then to fight in another war. So I said, "I don't really want to wait around for that, sir."

"Well, then that reduces your options. You know some people are starting to use the airplane to get from one place to another? You know, like a train." I said I did know. "In that case, I heard Trans-Pan Airlines is looking for pilots. Go there, Sunny, and you'll be a rich kerbal."

And so I left Kerbspoke Air Force Base, and I went to Kerbspoke Airport, and I said, "Gimme a job. I'll fly for fifty years." And in the end, it was actually sixty.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Confused Scientist

[HamnavoePer]

This already has Potensial. Images would make it even better   

[Confused Scientist]

4 hours ago, HamnavoePer said:

Images would make it even better 

I don't really do images. It makes my words a lot stronger, when each and every reader has a mental picture of what's going on, instead of being force-fed one.

[HamnavoePer]

4 hours ago, Confused Scientist said:

I don't really do images. It makes my words a lot stronger, when each and every reader has a mental picture of what's going on, instead of being force-fed one.

Ok, I suppose i was just thinking that a lot of people do like pictures. But that is a good mentality for an author

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter One

The Obsidian Workshops-1 was the first large passenger plane that the airlines bought and flew around the country. It was based off of a modified Knat-47 airframe, and it had the distinctive dual-propeller and tail-dragger characteristics of that bomber. The OW-1 was so large that those of us who had gotten into the new industry of flight called it the COW-1 because of its sheer mass; we joked that it "flew like a cow." It could hold thirty kerbals on a journey about a quarter of the way across the country. It was about half the size of a modern short-range airliner.

Because of all of my training on the Knat-47, I started flying the COW right away, in the left-hand seat. On my first flight, I stood by the cockpit door as the passengers got in through the rear hatch and climbed uphill to their seats. They were dressed in suits and dresses, and each carried one suitcase. Every single one was smiling, looking forward to when they would become the lucky one percent and take to the skies.

"Please fasten your seatbelt when you sit down," I said, noticing how most of the passengers just peered quizzically at their safety belt, "and please do not smoke on this aircraft." A chorus of moans chased me back into the cockpit as I sat down and began to start the engines. "What in kraken's name is that!" one ignorant passenger yelled as the propellers began turning. "Trans-Pan flight 0003, please taxi to runway 043, northeast facing," the controller called. My copilot replied, "Roger, northeast on runway 043," as the engineer checked the hydraulic pressure on the flaps.

I turned and started the long, five-minute taxi to the other side of the airfield where the appropriate runway was. We had to wait for a minute as a crop-duster landed on a runway we needed to cross, and then we joined a long line for Runway 043, the only one that could handle the COW. We were fifth in line, but there were also three planes on approach to the runway. Nearly ten minutes later, we were second in line, but the passengers were getting restless. "Why are you just sitting here?" one lady yelled through the door. "We paid two months' salary for this!"

"Ma'am, return to your seat," I heard the steward say.

The lady cursed. "You don't have to sit down on the bus. Why do you have to sit down here? And I want to smoke! Why can't I smoke?"

"If you don't return to your seat we will not be able to take off and you will be removed from the airplane."

That kerbal was removed from the airplane, swearing and threatening to sue as she was dragged out the door. That delayed our takeoff by another twenty minutes. Then I turned out onto the runway, gunned the engines, (passengers yelled about how they "couldn't hear themselves think") and climbed to our cruising altitude of four kilometers. Then I left the cockpit and looked out at the passengers.

They argued among themselves. They jostled for a view out the window. They complained about the noise of the propellers. "Attention, everybody!" I yelled. All at once nobody spoke. The drone of the engines was the only sound.

"We have reached our cruising altitude of four kilometers. None of you have been so high up in your life. This machine is traveling at over half the speed of sound. You took off from Nendo City at 7:43, and you will land in Jendo's Crossroads at 10:02." Years later, I would fly the same route in under an hour. "This machine is the most expensive thing you've ever seen in your life. You will probably never fly on an airplane again." After I made the record run from Nendo City to Jendo's Crossroads, a study was published showing every kerbal in the country had flown at least twice. "Look at that window while you can- and try to enjoy it." I smiled. "And thank you for flying Trans-Pan Airlines." I retreated back into the cockpit, and for the rest of the flight I never heard the noise of the passengers again.

We landed at Jendo's Crossroads and the passengers disembarked- at least, that's the official word. Then they put some more fuel in the airplane, and a new set of passengers, and we took off into a new era of travel.

Edited November 7, 2017 by Confused Scientist

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter Two

The COW-1 had been flying for about two years, and kerbalkind had somehow entered an even more extreme Era Of Ultimate Perfection and Happiness and Smiling. Every car weighed twelve tons (plus nineteen ashtrays) and got two miles per gallon. There were seven million McBurger locations in the Kerbin Union alone. The life expectancy of the average kerbal was fifty-eight years.

In retrospect, we've come a long way.

I walked towards the COW-1 on a foggy morning in Lando City. The stairs were pushed up to the rear of the plane, and I hiked up to the cockpit to get the heater going for today's flights. Just as I settled down in the captain's chair and powered up the hydraulics system, I heard a knock on the door. I turned around expecting to see my copilot when I opened the door- instead, a Trans-Pan employee held an envelope.

"Sunny Kerman?" he asked.

I nodded.

"This is an executive decision from HQ. You're not flying the OW-1 anymore. I don't know what you're doing now; they won't tell me." He left and I examined the envelope. I opened the flap and saw that the messenger was right: From now on, I would be flying the DRJ-100. The letter told me to go to taxiway fifteen for an introduction to the new aircraft.

There were a few other pilots gawking at the plane as I walked up, but I was too stunned to notice them. I was focused on the vehicle just as much as they were. We stood there in the cold and sleet for a few minutes before a Trans-Pan executive walked up. "Good morning," he said, wrapping his scarf around his neck as he spoke. "This aircraft is the DRJ-100, built and sold by Dilkenstien's Regional-"

"Um, excuse me, mister boss," said a kerbal who was very clearly fed up already. "Where are the engines on this plane?"

The employee turned around and looked at the wing. There wasn't a single propeller to be seen. Then he faced us and smiled. "Why, nobody's told you?" We shook our heads. "This is a new jet aircraft- the thrust for takeoff and cruise is provided by jet engines instead of big, noisy propellers. Jets are much more efficient- and this plane is capable of cruising at Mach 0.79!"

That was over one and a half times the speed of the COW-1. Fast wasn’t better, however, and I still preferred the Obsidian Workshops prop plane. However, I knew this was the future- and that there was only a matter of time before something better came along.