July 11
Aquamarine said that she had to check on her plants, and she said that there was a bus that took her there. She told me that I could come along or I could fly around for a little while if I wanted to. She said she'd be back in time to make breakfast and then we'd all go to the train station together.
She was sincere—and I knew that she wouldn't be mad if I wanted to fly. So I put on my flight gear and she propped open the balcony door for me, and when I was getting on my flight gear she looked on a map at where Lansing's airport was and it was way north of the city so as long as I didn't fly up too high I wouldn't be in their way.
I still used the radio to announce my intentions 'cause that was important, and another pilot asked me to repeat. I could hear a buzzy noise in the background which I thought was probably his airplane engine so maybe he hadn't heard me.
So I told him again that I was Pegasus 1 and that I would be flying from the corner of Hagadorn and Mount Hope Roads and performing maneuvers between there and the Pavilion (which was where the draft horse show had been) at up to five thousand feet.
Then he asked what kind of aircraft I had and I told him that the FAA called me an ornithopter, and he said that this radio was for professionals and I should give it back to my daddy.
Well, even though I wasn't supposed to, I told him what he could do with his radio and I hope that nobody who heard knows Equestrian. Then I said that I bet I'd been flying longer than he had, so he got kind of snarky and said that he had over four thousand hours in the air, and I told him I'd gotten more than that before I was out of diapers.
After that I just stopped listening to him, 'cause this argument wasn't going to go anywhere, but when I flew I kept a good watch for airplanes. He seemed like the kind of guy who would fly over just to see if I really was in the air.
I was glad I did, too, 'cause I'd just circled around the horse pasture when I heard an airplane engine from behind me and so I looked up and there he was, coming up from the south. Well, I think it was the same man but there wasn't really any way to know.
I found a sturdy-looking dead tree that was standing near the horse pastures and landed in it, just to watch him and see what he was up to.
He flew past me, and over the university, then he turned around and went lower and started to make a big circle, which was kind of stupid and dangerous, since I'd said that was where I was flying, and I hadn't heard him tell anyone on the radio what he was doing. So when he went by I read the numbers off the back of the airplane and thought maybe I'd tell Mister Salvatore when I got back to Kalamazoo.
After a couple more circles, he went back up to altitude and flew off and I don't think he saw me at all, even though I didn't try to cover my blinking light.
I flew back to Aquamarine's apartment and landed on the balcony then pulled open the door and got out of my gear in the living room. I packed it all in my saddlebags so that I wouldn't forget anything, and then went back into the living room and waited for Aquamarine to come back.
She had a little smear of fresh dirt on her muzzle from her plants, and I wiped it off for her. She asked if I wanted to help with breakfast, and I did, but I warned her that I still didn't know how to cook that much. She said that was okay, and most of my helping her was me getting food when she asked for it.
She had a low table on wheels that she could use to prepare stuff on, and a step-stool for standing at the stove, and both of those things looked like they'd be useful if I wanted to do more cooking, although standing on the counter worked too.
Jenny got up when breakfast was almost done, and Aquamarine put our pancakes and scrambled eggs on plates for us and then got us each a glass of juice.
When we were done eating, Jenny drove to the train station, and we waited inside until the train came, then they came out on the platform with me and I hugged Jenny and nuzzled Aquamarine and got on the train.
I got a seat that had a table, and after I'd waved goodbye one more time as the train left the station, I got out my journal and finished up my entries for the weekend, 'cause I hadn't had enough time to do it all. And I also wrote down the numbers I'd seen on the airplane in a corner, so I wouldn’t forget them.
I probably wouldn't have been able to get all caught up, but the train had to wait for a while outside of Augusta. The conductor announced that we'd be moving soon, but soon was almost an hour, and I was glad that I hadn't made any plans for when I was back in Kalamazoo. I could tell that some other people had, though, 'cause I could hear them grumbling.
We never really got going fast again, either. I could have gotten out and flown back quicker.
After I'd unpacked my saddlebags, I filled up my birdfeeder then flew over to Aric's and filled up his, too.
I thought about the airplane this morning and I still hadn't decided if I should tell Mister Salvatore. I hadn't been nice on the radio like I was supposed to be and even though he'd started it, that didn't make me right.
If it had just been that, I think I would have let it go. But the way he'd flown low right through the middle of where I'd told him I'd be, that was against the rules. I had to respect other airplanes, but they had to respect me, too.
So I turned on my computer and wrote a computer letter to Mister Salvatore, and I admitted that I'd been rude, too, and then I read back over it and couldn't decide if I liked what I'd written or not, so I left it on the screen and paced around the apartment a little bit. Then I ate the rest of my alfalfa, tried to remember how to order more of it, and then once I'd figured that out (and ordered a box of timothy as well) I read through the letter again and sent it to him.
It hadn't bothered me that the train was late, 'cause I didn't have any plans, but now I was pacing around my apartment like it was a cage . . . 'cause I didn't have any plans.
So I put on my flight vest and filled up my camelback and flew out of the apartment and I went north 'cause that was as good a direction as any.
I hadn't felt like using my radio, so I stayed low and just listened to hear if there was anything flying around that I should know about.
When I got over the dirt mines, I circled around them, watching the machines work, and that was kind of fun. There were yellow machines with a big scoop on the front that dug into the walls, and they put them onto a conveyor which dumped them into two separate piles, and then another scoop-tractor took the dirt out of one of the piles and put it into another conveyor, which carried it up and into the back of a big open truck trailer. And then when it was full, it would drive off and another one would take its place.
They filled about a dozen trucks that way before there weren't any more to put dirt into, and then the scoop-tractors stopped sorting the dirt, and I saw their drivers get out of them and go back to a little white building.
I had a drink of water and then flew off to the west, 'cause that was the way the trucks had gone. And I followed them all the way up to the 131 Highway, which wasn't hard because it took them a long time to accelerate.
I realized when I got back to my apartment that my portable telephone was completely dead. I hadn't charged it at all over the weekend.
Mister Salvatore had probably gotten my message, and then he'd tried to call me, and I hadn't answered, and he was going to be mad when he found out.
I kept expecting him to show up all afternoon, but he never did, and when I turned my telephone back on, there were no messages from him.
But there was one from Aric—he'd called last night, when I was at Aquamarine's apartment and I wondered if the telephone had been dead then or if I just hadn't heard it ringing from inside my saddlebags.
So I sat on the papasan and called him back and there was a lot of noise in the background until he went up to his room. He said that Autumn and Felicity were downstairs, doing some kind of fitness thing that involved a lot of jumping around. He said he thought it was called zoomba or something like that.
I told him about my weekend and all the tall ships we'd seen, and he told me about how he'd spent all his weekend doing tech so that they'd be ready for the show and that he'd gotten a promotion to light board operator that he hadn't really wanted but that was how theatre went sometimes and he said it wouldn't be fun if you didn't have to scramble at the last minute.
He said that they had another rehearsal tonight, but it wasn't for a few hours yet and he was just going to get some dinner at a fast-food restaurant and eat it up in the light booth.
I thought it would be fun to go and see his play, although I wasn't sure how I would get there. That was a pretty long way for Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn to drive, but I bet a train would go there. I'd just have to figure out which one.
We had to stop talking after an hour, because I hadn't let my telephone charge enough and it was beeping at me. So I said that I missed him and I'd send him a computer letter soon and he said that he missed me, too, and I hung up right when the battery picture turned red.
I read another couple dozen Psalms, and then I heard someone knocking on my door so I flew down to see who it was and it was Trinity who was knocking, and Caleb and Lindy were standing behind her.
Trinity said that they were going out to hunt Pokemon and wanted to know if I'd join them.
I didn't know what Pokemon were or how you hunted them so they all explained that they were imaginary creatures that you could see with your portable telephones and Celeb showed me the ones he'd caught. He said that you walked around until you found one and then you threw a Pokeball at it and if you were good, you'd catch it and then you could train it and fight with it.
I said that I'd never played and I didn't want to scare off any of the Pokemon, and they said that I wouldn't, and it did sound like fun to walk around the neighborhood, so I said that I would.
They kept checking their portable telephones, and after a little while they found one near a small park by Academy Street, and Trinity caught it. She said it was a Eevee, and showed me a picture of it on her telephone. It was a cute little brown thing with really big ears and a white ruff.
Caleb said that when students came back to Western, there'd probably be a lot of Pokemon over there and maybe at Kalamazoo College, too, and sure enough, they found one right by the library. This one was a Weedle, which was some kind of leggy worm with a hat, and Caleb caught it.
We went down to Main Street, and then back up Grand Avenue, and there was another one there, which Caleb also caught. Lindy said that wasn't fair, so they decided they'd let her catch the next one no matter what it was, and we went around the neighborhood a bit more until we found another. Caleb saw it first, but he pointed to where it was and let Lindy catch it like he'd said he would.
I stayed with them until they went inside for dinner, and then I went back to my apartment. I was really happy when I landed on the balcony to see Meghan inside, sitting on my papasan with her folding computer in her lap.
When I came in, she closed her computer and held it off to the side so that I could jump up in her lap and kiss her.
She told me about her weekend and I told her about mine and I think I had more fun than she did, although she said that she got to stay in a big hotel near downtown, and that had been kind of fun. She thought I would have liked it there, especially since the room had a jacuzzi tub in it.
I asked her what her plans for dinner were and she said that she'd already eaten dinner, so I just got some fresh vegetables (which weren't looking so fresh anymore) and snacked on them. And she said that maybe tonight would be a good night to make up for missing the hot tub last week and I thought so, too, so she called for an Uber-car while I was finishing up my meal.
We sat in the hot tub together until it was all the way dark outside. She said she really wanted to enjoy it because on Monday, her uncle was coming back home and then we wouldn't be able to use it and so I wanted to know if we weren't supposed to be at all. Meghan said it was okay—he'd told her it was—but that she'd have to wear a swimsuit if he was home and it wasn't as much fun like that.
Since it was such a warm night out, I said instead of drying off we should just sit on the bench for a little while and air-dry. Meghan was a little reluctant, but I finally convinced her to try it, and she said she would as long as I stayed close to her.
She put down a towel to sit on and then covered her lap with another, which she said was so I could rest my head there.
It didn't work out like I'd hoped, though, and after a few minutes she said she was getting cold and she got up and put on a robe then started drying me off, and then we sat back down and looked up at the moon and the stars that we could see over the lights of Kalamazoo, and I pointed out a couple of airplanes flying overhead.
It was close to midnight by the time an Uber-Car got us back home, and as soon as we were inside, Meghan got undressed while I folded down the futon, and I snuggled up with my head on her breast and she put her hand on my cheek and said that at least we'd get to sleep in a little bit because she thought that soaking in the hot tub counted as bathing, and I thought so, too.
I can just imagine Mister Salvatore tracking down that pilot...
"Sir, did you buzz my pegasus?" *cracks knuckles*
I know most air traffic control centres record their conversations. I wonder if that interaction is on tape?
Question for Silver
If he performs the morally ambiguous anatomical impossibility you demand, how will he get his head up there too? There can't possibly be enough room for it to fit beside the airplane.
Registration numbers should be sized so that when a given camera setup, look at how cheap they are these days, can see it without enhancement, you are definitely too close. I keep looking at those WiFi IP moveable cameras for $100 and thinking, a thousand of those round an airport wont even be the cost of a fuel tender. After other things are taken care of of course.
I wonder if Mr Salvatore is going to be very happy, having SWATted an annoying Fly Guy?
The annoying thing about Go, is that Nintendo farmed it out onto a company known for its data abuse, especially given you dont need online, as Satnav maps give you the streets, PokeDex 3D pro give you all the models, moves, details and sounds, in 3D, PokeRadar gives you the search and targeting, in Augmented Reality camera overlay. And the Global Link gives you the Wifi internet, chat and trade. Well, it would, but apparently they keep farming that out to third partys as wel, who keep going bust and taking the servers with them. So no Global Link between Generations, only Pokemon Bank. Which doesnt handle items like the first one did back in N64 days.
Which will be the first Pegasus to get one of the new Anti Laser Lasers for Drones?
7558077
If it is, it might get on YouTube eventually.
I imagine anyone listening to that tape might say that it sounds like Dutch or like a recording of Dutch played backwards.
7558077 Most? If there isn't FAA regulations stating that all communications must be recorded at least for a couple days I'd be absolutely amazed.
I'm not knowledgeable when it comes to rules and regulations in the FAA, but four thousand hours sounds like that pilot is a rookie who just got his license.
Yeah, if Mr. Salvatore does do something about that incident, getting his license revoked is the least of that pilot's worries. He endangered his and Silver's life with that stupid maneuver and could possibly be facing very hefty fines and jail time.
On a more comedic note....
I can totally see little filly Silver flying and then saying "It's feeling a little heavy back there, time to jettison the load!"
We've seen a couple of people being jerk, but this was the first time (aside maybe from that creep at Meijer) that was genuely dangerous.
Isn't Pokemon go supposed to have pokemon that fit the environment you are in? I'm surprised they did not caugth any Ponyta...
I think you need to add a coma here.
For a second there I thought Silver might encounter that creep from Meijer again and decide to experimentally establish his aerodynamic drag coefficient.
I wonder what "stick it up your plot" sounds like in Equestrian.
Wait, is this the first time Silver directly mentions herself swearing?
Oh my god, a Ponyta! Quick, get it! Maybe she'll go into the ball if you offer her some anchovies and sunflower seeds.
7558161 This is one of the few stories I tend to give a pass on grammar and punctuation, because Silver Glow herself may not be perfect with it, and this is supposedly her journal.
Bragging about your flight record to a pegasus is, well, like bragging about your flight record to a pegasus.
7558162
Aric should totally make that joke when he hears about her playing with the kids. Aquamarine is from Ponyville, right? Might she have seen Twilight's exposure to Hot Sauce Shots? I can see that story coming up if someone showed her a Rapidash
7558161 I hope not. A coma would be really inconvenient. Unless maybe you meant a comma.
damn silver is learning quick how to use her big stick.
mock dogfight with someone in a ww1 replica when ?
7558295
"where i come from, we count flight years, not hours!"
7558110
Well, Equestrian is taught at colleges by now, so there's probably a decent fraction of humans who know it. If the recording is examined, a bunch of people will understand what she said.
I don't think catching a pokemon in pokemon go removes it from the map from all other players in the area; the spawns are however time limited, so you have to act quickly in order to catch them.
Believe it or not, but the other pilot probably didn't violate any rules, other than running his mouth on the radio (which Silver Glow is also guilty of). Self-announcing that you're flying in a certain area doesn't "claim" that area for you, and other pilots don't have to stay out of an area just because you said you were flying there. You do it only to increase the awareness of other pilots as to your intentions and locations, but the basic rule is still "see and avoid." What he did was a dick move, and perpetrating dick moves is a mark of a poor pilot, but I can't think of any FAR violations off hand. (Of course, there are several far more experienced pilots here who might chime in on this.)
This "ornithopter" thing she keeps using is probably contributing, as well. Frankly, to everybody else in the sky that means absolutely nothing. It's not one of the FAA aircraft categories (airplane, rotorcraft, glider, powered lift, lighter-than-air, powered parachute, weight-shift control). She should be stating that she's an equestrian Pegasus, which will have a lot more meaning to people than a cutesy term really only used by hobbyists building special types of either model aircraft or light sport aircraft.
7558077
Probably not. Air traffic control installations record the frequencies they use, but the vast majority of frequencies (and transmissions on them) don't involve ATC in any way.
For uncontrolled airports the procedure for aircraft with radios is to self-announce. (Radios aren't required if you're only flying in Class G or Class E airspace) You just tune up the published frequency of the airport, announce the name of the airport, your callsign, location, altitude and intentions into the aether. Go to skyvector.com and look for all of the solid magenta circles, and the solid blue circles. The magenta ones are uncontrolled airports, while the blue are controlled. A quick look will give you the ratio of uncontrolled to controlled. These frequencies aren't monitored by the FAA (barring reports of issues) or recorded.
7558148
Four thousand hours is a lot. Either somebody who's around retirement age and been flying their whole adult life, or a professional pilot.
7558476 True, the pilot may have broken no laws. But Mister Salvatore tends to be quite protective...
¡That numb skull is a fatal accident waiting to happen! ¡That menace needs to have his PilotLicense pulled!
7558369 I meant "une virgule", of course.
way
7558077 or on LiveATC depending on the location, they have a lot of archives too.
So, Admiral, would you ever writing a story like this, but for one of the human students who went to Equestria?
7558077 7558101 7558383 7558476 Powered flight under 1000 feet above ground level(AGL) over a populated area is a violation of Part 91.119 of the FAA regulations. Silver Glow is exempted from this due to "Other aircraft, such as helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft, are not required to meet the FAR 91 minimums, so long as their operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface."
Somebody is getting an *extremely* uncomfortable meeting with the FAA. If they are fortunate, they will only be groundbound for 30 days. If they are unfortunate, having intentionally entered an area with another 'aircraft' without notifying either the aircraft or the relevant ATC over that airspace, they're screwed.
7559256 I live in Las Vegas and we know that law very well. A lot of pilots get busted for flying low over the strip. It's especially dangerous as it not only causes havoc for the tourist and news helicopters, but also interferes with several approaches and departures out of both Mccarran and North Las Vegas airport.
7559256
It's not entering the area with another aircraft that's the problem--everyone shares airspace--though communication requirements do depend on the class of airspace. As 7558476 noted above, Silver can't "claim" any airspace, and she and the other pilot are just being courteous (and safe!) by advising each other of their operating areas and intentions. Their pissing contest over the radio does no one any good, but neither of them is doing anything illegal. (Unless, as you note, the guy descended below 1000' AGL over the city while he came to check her out.)
That said, the area over southeast Lansing where Silver was flying is Class C airspace, so between 2100'-4900' MSL (1200'-4000' AGL) she is required to be in contact with Lansing ATC anyway if she is maneuvering "at up to five thousand feet," since she is still within the 10 NM ring. The other pilot is welcome to come putter around that area, too, but he also must be in contact with Lansing ATC within that radius. If he (or Silver) didn't do that, then there's a violation.
7558161
Breathless run-on sentences and a comma shortage are part of Silver's in-character writing style, as far as I can tell.
7559553 The pilot is still screwed, only double-so. Under 1000ft AGL over a populated area *AND* violating §91.111 in operating his aircraft so close to a second, far slower 'aircraft' that the second one had to land in order to prevent a possible collision. Remember kids, 500 feet vertical separation OR 3 miles apart in VFR conditions or Uncle Siera gets a little upset, UNLESS the two pilots in command are in communication and intentionally flying in formation AND neither of them have paying passengers on board.
Q: What do you call a pilot who almost causes a mid-air collision?
A: A pedestrian.
7559717 I guess I'm coming down a bit on the devil's advocate side here, since Admiral Biscuit/Silver Glow didn't specify in the journal any concrete altitude numbers. Again, you're right in quoting the numbers in the FARs, but I think the situation is not very clear, and commenters here (and Silver herself, for that matter) are jumping to the conclusion that this guy is wrong, dangerous, and stupid.
That may be so! But that's not clear in the journal. It is not clear that the second pilot was actually flying below 1000' AGL, nor is it fair to say that Silver "had to land to prevent a possible collision." Her situation and super-maneuverability actually reminds me a lot of the busy helicopter traffic at the airport where I got my pilot's license. It was a towered Class D, and ATC was really good about giving traffic advisories to all the fixed-wing folks, but it then and now continues to amaze me how hard it is to visually track a helicopter doing maneuvers when you are a fixed-wing aircraft expecting certain behaviors from fellow aircraft. A pegasus that is even smaller, even more maneuverable, and can land in a tree on a whim? Incredibly hard to spot, even with her lights on.
Again, just wanting to not crucify the dude before all the facts are in. If it were established that he were truly in violation, that's one thing; but if he safely and out of genuine curiosity overflew an area where (for all he knew) some random little human girl was dangerously playing around with a radio, that's a different story. One more reason for Silver to remind herself to always communicate professionally on the radio--Even if the other guy was being an ass when she first called up, she certainly didn't help him understand what was going on. Nor did the tower of this Class C, apparently.
7557126
huh, it's always funny to see how things are close to a border. Accepting canadian change has to be nice. I'll run across canadian quarters every once and a while where i'm at. I think part of the reason it gets used interchangeably where i'm at is that only some of the units change, for example gallons, but the units I use regularly are the same. 1 foot is the same in both, 1 lbf is the same, etc.
i'll have to check that one out. I think my favorite first contact one is Twilight makes First Contact. It's probably one of the more realistic ones. Quarantines, massive language differences, things like that.
xkcd is great, didn't he propose a rocket made of guns at some point? I need to catch back up on the what if blog.
that's certainly believable. Propellers can be kind of fragile.
yeah, most of the general population wants to keep U.S. customary but i'm willing to bet that the designers love that they work in metric. I was working an A.C. problem in imperial for thermodynamics and I had 4 units for the same thing. It was all units of work and I had ton refrigeration (cooling capacity), horsepower (compressor), ft-lbf/second (change in potential energy, typically not used), and BTU/hr for heat output. And of course, in metric it's all watts or directly related to watts (kilowatts or N-m/s).
Huh, if these kids are just roaming around the city they're older than I thought
7558476
This. When she was talking to an airport (in the U.P. trip maybe) they were confused, and I was wondering why she didn't just go "I'm a friggin magical flying horse."
7558476
7559932
Following procedure is a bitch, sometimes. Ends up causing more confusion than clarity in Silver Glow's case.
Maybe Mister Salvatore can propose to FAA to adjust the procedures or add "pegasus" as a type of "aircraft".
But that will take damn long to sort out. =/
7560151
Aha. I'd seen these at nautical gift shops but didn't know what they were.
orig15.deviantart.net/1ecc/f/2013/159/b/c/drink_like_cheerilee_by_kp_shadowsquirrel-d689y9i.jpg
I was going to go with cheerleader Cheerilee for the 10,000th comment, but this is close enough.
7560347
I just realized that I'd assumed she'd won. I like the idea that she lost the dominance fight more.
7558148
Minimum logged flight time to get each category of pilot's certificate in the US:
Student: 0
Sport: 20 hours
Recreational: 30 hours
Private: 40/35 (part 61 (flexible)/part 141 (focused and more tightly regulated) training respectively)
Commercial: 250/150 (part 61/part 141 again)
Airline Transport-Restricted (can't be captain): depends on history (1500, or 1250 with Associate's degree, or 1000 with Bachelor's degree, or 750 if ex-military)
Airline Transport (unrestricted): 1500 (more rigorous requirements within these 1500 hours, though)
be advised i am drunk please contine other stories like OPP
that is all
7560309
Yes. The Minoans, who were wiped out by Santorini.
historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/greece/images/gr0004b.jpg
There is a theory that that same eruption in the middle of the Mediterranean was responsible for the Plagues of Egypt and the great Exodus.
This may well be Ancient Aliens-quality documentary, but it's still an intriguing theory.
done, I think.
Quick correction on Pokemon Go - everyone can catch the Pokemon they see. It doesn't disappear when someone catches it first. It only disappears when it runs out of time but it disappears for everyone at that point.
7560467
I guess that makes me a World of Warcraft 'professional' with the option to get an unrestricted license?
7558077
That's the kind of thing Mister Salvatore most enjoys.
Maybe. She wasn't communicating with the control tower (who does record conversation); however, there are people who rebroadcast (and potentially record) other radio communications, so it's very plausible that there might be someone recording on the General Avation frequency (which I seem to remember is 121.5).
7558079
7558101
I don't see how that would be that practical--they're usually located on the sides of small aircraft (and possibly also the wings) while most close calls/acually collisions aren't broadside--IIRC, many of them are where an overtaking airplane descends into a slower aircraft. Not to mention at the closing speed of many aircraft, by the time you could see the registration numbers, even if they were as tall as the side of the airplane, you'd be well under a second from a collision. (At a closing speed of 1000 mph, reachable by many commercial jets, you'd be over 1400 feet away at the beginning of that second and have collided at the end of it, assuming a direct head-on impact.)
Mister Salvatore does enjoy the chance to get out of the office and use his powers for good.
What would have happened if the pilot had buzzed Luna when she was in a bad mood? I bet she could melt the airplane with her horn-laser.
7558102
Of course it would. There's (at least) one of a pilot complaining about Air Force 1 messing up traffic. While this one would lack the political motivation, Silver cursing out the pilot in Equestrian would guarantee hits.
7558110
I'm having trouble finding a video of someone swearing in Dutch, although I did find one that was supposed to teach you to swear in Dutch and one of the phrases was 'horny pancake.'
Also, did I say Equestrian sounds like Dutch? Because that sounds like something I might have said.
7558138
Air Traffic Control has to keep recordings for a period of time (I have no idea how long it is), but in this case neither Silver Glow were on the local ATC channel--they were on a general frequency. That may or may not be recorded.
I suspect, but don't know for a fact, that the local ATC tower would monitor that frequency, and if so, it might also be recorded. However, I don't know that there is any actual regulation to do so.
7558148
That's actually a lot for a private pilot.
A good way to think of it is that if you work a traditional, 9-5 job, that's eight hours a day or forty hours a week, or about 2000 hours/year (we'll assume you get two weeks vacation). So 4000 hours is 2 years of fulltime employment flying.
This is handy to think of in terms of any hobby where hours are counted. I once saw a picture of a model that took 6000 hours to construct, so if the man who built it had been hired by a company to build it, that would have been his full-time job for three years.
He didn't come illegally close, which does somewhat limit MIster Salvatore's options.
Yet another reason living under a cloud city wouldn't be all that great. What if pegasus parents didn't use diapers, but just let the mess fall though the cloud?
7558156
Really depends on the pilot's intentions, and what he believes she is or is doing. Although it's not said in the story, had the pilot seen some other craft in the air, he would not have buzzed it.
They don't know where Silver Glow lives, or else her house would totally be a ponyta spawning point.
Added! Thank you!
7558162
"Hold your arms straight! You'll fly further!"
Aside from when she says that she picked up some swearing from sailorponies, I think it is.
7558226
7558295
No pilot could hope to compete with a pegasus' airtime. Depending on how pegasi are raised in cloud cities, it's possible that Silver Glow could have gone through the first part of her life without ever touching the ground (although of course not actually flying during all that time). IIRC, in Fluttershy's flashback when she fell out of the clouds, wasn't that the first time she'd been on the ground?
7558314
Probably not seen it herself, since she's a filly in the show (and I assume Twilight has learned not to have Hot Sauch Shots), although it's possible she's heard of it. That's the kind of gossip about your princess that gets passed down from generation to generation.
7558383
When in doubt, tell MIster Salvatore and he'll fix it.
Oh man that would be awesome.
IRL, there are birds which have more actual flight hours than any human. The albatross comes to mind. . . .
antarctica.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0009/29169/varieties/antarctic.jpg
7558385
And then probably spend a lot of time in the YouTube comments debating the exact translation of all her swears.
7558424
You're probably right--I've never played the game. I have corrected this in a later chapter.
7558687
Only if he would have had performed the same actions if she had been airborne and he'd seen her. What he did was stupid, but not necessarily dangerously or illegally stupid.
7558927
Correction made; thank you!
7559236
Obviously, not until this project is over.
After that . . . I don't know. I do a lot of HiE, so I've probably covered most of that stuff that I'd want to in one or another of my stories, and it would be a little bit difficult to make it 'fresh' (HiE seems to be the more common ground on this site, anyway).
7559860
I gave all my Canadian pocket change to cousins in Florida when we were down there for a family reunion. They thought it was really exotic, while up here it's annoying because it doesn't work in vending machines.
I had some leftover canadian bills that I never got changed back when I was last in Canada, and at Bronycon we were ordering pizza, and one guy asked if I had change for a hundred (I did), and then another guy asked if I had change for a Canadian $20, and I had that too. That was a great moment.
That was the one where they landed at a horse farm and it took them a while to figure out that the horses weren't sapient, wasn't it?
I think he did. It started as a platform, and by the and of the article, ti was a rocket.
That's what annoys me in the shop, too, becuase lots of specifications are given in different units, and that just introduces a new way to screw things up. Torque is giving in inch pounds, foot pounds, newton meters, and sometimes kilogram feet (who came up with that?), pressure is in inHg and PSI and Bar, and so on. And some stuff is deceptively close--standard 3/8" brake fittings and 10mm brake fittings are really, really close* . . . but if you put a 3/8 where you should have put a 10mm, it won't hold for long.
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*add in the threads being rusty and making up some of the difference, and it isn't obvious right away.
7559932
Caleb's in high school, Lindy's in middle school, and Trinity's in elementary school. They're restricted to their neighborhood--they're not supposed to roam free around the city.
I was allowed around the neighborhood without supervision by the time I was 10, I think.
7559932
7560183
That's actually part of the reason that it took so long for him to discuss it with her. Because you're right; the Kalamazoo ATC knows who and what Silver Glow is but odds are most other pilots and air traffic controllers don't. It was a bad procedure to begin with, but since it was working there wasn't any real impetus to change it.
7560212
My grandpa put deck vents on the topper on his old pickup, and I guess he was ahead of his time becuase I see them on ambulances now.
asap-supplies.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/640x/b9b333412eafde0503f2ea91c55693f4/8/1/813521_3.jpg
Maybe deck prisms will make a comeback, too.
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7560467
So, Silver Glow could has the flight hours to qualify for Air Transport, Restricted. Wouldn't that give the FAA headaches if she applied for that license?
7560484
7560524
If it was big enough (the eruption) it certainly could cause regional or global upsets. IIRC, it was a volcanic eruption which caused 'the year without a summer.'
7560660
Correction made, thank you!
7560925
Good to know! (I've never played the game.)
I made that correction in a later chapter.
7562043
I don't know if that's something to brag about.
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The basic scenario I'd envisioned was that the other pilot did not fly under 1000 feet AGL, thus not violating any rules whatsoever, with the exception of the radio rule (it's probably more formal than 'don't be a dick,' but I think that's basically the gist of it).
I was unaware that the airspace that Silver Glow and the other pilot were flying in was controlled airspace--I had measured from the Lansing airport using Google's measurement tool and had assumed that it wasn't (it's about 7 miles and for some reason I thought that airports only controlled the airspace around them in a five-mile radius).
So, I'm handwaving away the actual violation that both of them committed, since that wasn't supposed to be part of the story at all.
As CatCube pointed out, her saying that she's an 'ornithopter' is causing confusion and is probably something that the FAA should have thought of a long time ago. I would imagine that most air traffic controllers and other pilots have a pretty good idea what to look for when someone identifies themsleves as a particular type of aircraft, while 'ornithopter' really means nothing at all.
7571969
You're right about the 5-mile radius around Kalamazoo's Class D, but Lansing just happens to be a Class C, so it has one of the "upside-down wedding cake" airspace shapes, with the elevated 10-mile outer ring. Don't know if you ever use skyvector.com, but it's a pretty slick tool for flight planning and/or curiosity. Or just wait for your random internet commenters to snipe at the details! It continues to impress me how much interesting breadth of experience you bring to the table (and reveal in your readers' discussions). Kudos.
I still think the classification is pretty hilarious, but yeah, you're right--GA pilots usually use their aircraft model and all or part of their registration number (e.g., "Cherokee 5-6-7-Lima") so that ATC and neighbors have an idea of their speed/capabilities. Also, any discussion of FAA rulemaking always reminds me of this classic:
sportys.com/media/catalog/product/1/9/19220_3.jpg