Realistic or Modern The girl that could be (private with chaste_nightmare)

[ShadowWolves]

Date: June 25th
Map Grid Location: Grid 7-8-9-7-0-6-5
Location: Lemoore Naval Air Station
Time: 08:55 hours Zulu time

It was five minutes before 9 am in sunny California, the weather was as usual perfect, no clouds, no major winds that could ground an aircraft from flying, nope just another picture-perfect day in the beach state. at NAS Lemoore, several naval aviation fighter squadrons were preparing to take off from the air station to rendezvous with the aircraft carrier that they were assigned to for their next deployment period. One of those many squadrons was VFA-11, the red rippers, their current commander Garreth Olsen, was prepping the lead aircraft which was the one he always flew. Today though he was getting a new Wizzo (Weapons Systems Officer) in the back seat of his plane, he had always been flying by himself in an Echo Superhornet, but now he was commanding a squadron so he had to learn the ins and outs of the Foxtrot Superhornet, once he had gotten them down and mastered them he became close to an ace.

 

[chaste_nightmare]

"You're going to be late." Came an amused voice.

"I'm not going to be late." Answered a female's voice. Green and blue eyes peered over at the bright screen of her phone. Dammit. She was going to be late. Getting from her place in the warm bed, Sloan dragged herself to the bathroom and readied for a shower. After washing, dressing and eating breakfast, Sloan Rogers was ready to go.

"Better get going."

"Yeah, yeah..." Sloan rolled her eyes and kissed her younger sister on the forehead, "Get to work today, okay?" With that, Sloan made her way to where she was told to head to when time came. Looking at her watch, she realized she was indeed on time rather than late. Smiling to herself, Sloan strolled in and looked around for who she was being assigned to, a mister Garreth Olsen. Sloan bit her lip for a moment as she looked around for him, finally finding him. Walking over, Sloan saluted, "Hello, I am Sloan Rogers... Your new Weapons Systems Officer... You must be commander Garreth Olsen?"

 

[ShadowWolves]

Garreth turned around as he heard the voice and saw the salute and saluted back "At easy, so Rogers, your my new WSO huh? I read your profile when I was told about you, let's hope all the things in there about your capabilities as a WSO are all true. But anyways, yes I am Garreth Olsen, commander of Strike fighter squadron one-one, Red Rippers. Welcome aboard your first flight in an actual Foxtrox Superhornet. We're gonna be on a nine-month deployment period with the U.S.S. Harry S Truman Aircraft Carrier (CVN-75).

One thing I expect from all my squadron members is that they perform when needed, I expect the best, but I also let them have their fun when needed. While you're here, riding behind me and making sure we don't die and prosecute our targets as we engage them, I'll expect you to hit as many targets as you can when we've got more targets then we can handle by ourselves, but also communicate with me, let me know where targets are that I may miss on the approach and the general ACM (Air Combat Maneuvering), just shout it out all right? Now that we have that out of the way, let's get boarded, shall we? Then we can taxi and takeoff and fly to the carrier."

The commander then went over to the aircraft ladder and climbed it quickly getting onto the sides of the cockpit and going into a squatting position and started doing preflight check of the cockpit, since he had done his visual inspection of the aircraft before she had arrived, once that was done, he did a walk-along of the aircraft on the top, making sure that the aircraft didn't have anymore obvious things that could potentially damage the craft during flight, He went to the Alierons (the parts of the wing that allow it to turn to the left and right yaw in flight ) and did various tests on them to ensure that they were still in proper condition, followed by the elevators (winglets that allow the aircraft to ascend and descend pitch in flight, as well as help it take off and land.) He then walked along to the back of the aircraft where the rudders (the parts of the back of the rear wing tips that are angled at a 45 degree angle or so at the back of the aircraft to help maintain aerodynamic lift, these parts provide left and right turning on surfaces, as well as control the aircraft's front wheel turning and when in the air.)

He then walked back to the canopy and checked it, before he went over and hopped in the pilots seat calling for her to get in and started doing the pre-flight as he saw his WSO climb up the ladder finally and just focused on the preflight which went in order from the main battery being started, to the alternate power unit being started which gave off a low hum as it was left on, he then cycled the left and right fuel pumps to both send fuel to the left and right engine, since the Foxtrot Superhornet, was a twin-engine craft, instead of a single engine craft. He then would cycle the engine start switch to left engine start before listening for the whirring that told him the left engine was starting up and he waited for the engine to get to twenty percent rpm before he throttled up to idle position and then clicked the idle-cutoff button (this will cut idle in the aircraft and allow the aircraft engines to be properly started up when the throttle is pushed to fifty percent power) and increased the throttle to fifty percent and then let the engine's rpm increase until it stabilized and leveled out at sixty percent and brought the throttle back down to idle before continuing to go through the checklist, starting with testing out bitching betty (the aircraft's warning and alert voice, pilots call it bitching betty because it just basically gets on their nerves and complains a lot, but its a vital part of the aircraft.) and watching all of the lights on all buttons, warning signs and switches light up, Once the test ended he shut her up and went on to set the navigational computer to align with the aircraft's gps system so that when he loaded in the data cartridge (dte for short, contains all necessary mission information, as well as pilot preferences, etc.) He also would set the fire control system to ground, which would light up on her screens once he enabled the master switches for the multi-function displays that they had in front of them, along with their sticks.

Once everything was up and running and they were good to go, Garreth then called to the tower for taxi clearence
"Lemoore tower, Ripper 101 request permission to taxi."
"Ripper 101, Lemoore tower, hold one this freq for taxi clearence."
"Ripper 101, Lemoore tower, clear to proceed with taxi, taxi to runway 5, hold short of taxiway."
"Clear to proceed with taxi, taxi to runway 5, hold short of taxiway, Ripper 101."

"Ripper 101, moving." He called out and watched as the yellow shirt started giving them the taxi forward hand signal and he nodded increasing the throttle to five percent and releasing the parking brake and engaging nosewheel steering (allows the aircraft to move on the ground level or on the flight deck) and starting to taxi forward and then turning to the left as indicated by the yellow shirt and then continued taxi once, he was past them. They were on their way to the runway to takeoff, and fly to their home away from home, for the next 9 months.

 

[chaste_nightmare]

Sloan followed Garreth through his millions of errands, it seemed. Watching him, she tried to commit to memory all the things he had to do in case she had to direct another to do the same or if he ever commanded her to do any of it.

When they got into the taxi, Sloan rested easy for a long second, her eyes bouncing over to Garreth for a long moment before she finally spoke again, "Do you know why I was transferred to your unit? No one has told me anything, just that I was being moved... not that I am complaining..." and she truly was not, she just didn't know why she had been moved at such a random time.

All the orders said was to show up there and that her deployment would be for 9 months. Not with her regular crew, which she wasn't exactly thrilled about, but what could you do?

 

[ShadowWolves]

"Well, I was recently given squadron command, before I was given squadron command, I was simply the executive officer of the squadron, but flew in a single-seater, when the squadron transitioned into twin-seater, twin-engine aircraft, we all needed to get WSO's, we got them all around the same time, but you were the one that took the longest with transfer, because of your previous squadrons situation, they didn't wanna let you go as easily as we wanted them to, finally after a bit they were forced by command to transfer you and...here you are." He wondered why she was asking about that, normally WSO's and other aircrew didn't question their orders when given new ones or current ones for that matter, they just followed orders, but this girl seemed different, that's what was so interesting to him, was she a greenhorn (new pilot or aircrewmen) or was she simply just confused on her orders, either way, he was happy to have her, and she would probably be happy here, who knew. The squadron had a bit of variation, not like most squadrons where it was mostly male-dominated squadrons and only a few female flight officers, there were a mix of both male and female pilots evenly, as well as support crew.

Although on a ship with a crew of 5000 or more, you couldn't get away from females, not even on a military ship as big as an aircraft carrier, no sir. But he had had plenty of time to form his opinions on that and just let it be as they reached the holding point the tower had set for them and simply waited behind 3 other aircraft that were in line to take off and head to their respective carriers. He looked behind him, the best he could to see if any of his squadron members were following behind him and sure enough the rest of his flight was following behind him.