[RP Academy] Up in the Air

[Renolion]

Still figuring out a writing style for Eurth, but I hope this reads half decently

Private Vladimir Sergeyevich was annoyed. Today the 37th Bomber Squadron had been ordered to do more practice drills, the only issue being that the Squadron hadn’t received the dummy payloads required to actually run the drills. This left Vladimir alongside the other bombardiers dropping makeshift payloads on the training targets, these jerry rigged payloads including empty oil drums, miscellaneous pieces of tubes, and literal pumpkins, none of the which were exactly aerodynamically stable enough to get a true measure of if the crews were hitting their targets or not.

After the fifth go around, the order to land came through, which is where some of the aircrew's inexperience became clear.  Vladimir’s bomber came down easily enough, the pilot deploying the flaps and landing gear correctly for a smooth and quick landing before taxiing onto the apron. A few more bombers landed, each with a similar level of smoothness, but then came the Bloody Buzzard. It was clear that something was off when they crossed over the threshold without their landing gear dropped, however no one knew exactly what was wrong. All of a minute later and a horrible screeching noise came from the bomber, it’s belly skidding along the length of the tarmac, smoke rising from it’s tail. When the Bloody Buzzard finally came to a rest, its crew could be seen trickling out from the side hatch, flames glowing behind them. No one moved, waiting and watching as the fire crew sped towards the burning behemoth.  Flames shot out from the front windows, the bubble where the bombardier, pilot, copilot and radio operator would be turning into a mess of melted plexiglass and thick black smoke. A loud sizzling noise could be heard as the first hose began to pelt the warped duralumin of the bomber, the smoke dissipating as the flames were snuffed out. When the fire did stop burning, the wreck of the beast was quite a sight, the left wing having become disconnected. Most interesting was that the nose gear was jutting out through the floor of the cockpit, while the wing gear’s were still solidly inside of their cubbies. To Vladimir it screamed mechanical failure, to command it screamed ‘pilot inexperience.’ Walking over to the ever so slightly beat up pilot, Vladimir began to question the man.

“Was there hydraulic pressure?” 

“Of course there was, you think I was beating the gear lever?"

“Then what the hell prevented you from deploying your wing gear?”

“Both of the gear doors were jammed shut, I tried to use the gear to bash the doors open, but we ate tarmac before that ever happened.”
With a nod Vladimir walked off, as far as he was concerned what was a boring drill was now slightly more exciting. He admittedly felt a small bit of sympathy for the crew of the Bloody Buzzard, but at the same time he felt much better knowing that it wouldn’t be him receiving an ass chewing from command all the way until supper. All of fifteen minutes later though, he found that though he wouldn’t be getting yelled at, he’d be helping to clear off the debris until the end of time. Just another day for the 37th.