The World War

Chapter 2: Getting in the Saddle

I pitched the nose of the P-51B Mustang down, all I could see was dirt in my wind screen. Looking behind me and to my right I could see Derpy following my dive before I jerked the stick back and pulled the plane out just a little over fifty feet off the ground, Derpy matching my manuvere perfectly.

"Great flying Dash, whats your speed?" she said with a slight thrill in her voice.

"I pulled out of the dive a four hundred twenty miles per hour Derp!" I exclaimed, this thing could easily out dive just about any of the fighters we have, though the Thunderbolt I heard about was one helluva plane.

I then spotted the two Piper Cubs with target sheets behind them for our target practice, those civilian pilots must have more guts than those bomber pilots I heard about in the Eighth Army Air Force. Rolling to my right and gently pulling the stick I eased my fighter into place as I pulled the trigger on target plane one's sheet. Derpy flew ahead and peppered target two's sheet before shooting up into the sky and circling back around to my wing.

We did this repeatedly for some time, practicing highly complex maneuvers and strafing targets both in the air and on the ground. The planes were performing perfectly, though if I was reading my rad gauge correctly then my plane was reading a little hotter than I would like.

"Hey, anybody else got the rad gauge in the yellow?" Scootaloo asked over the radio.

"Yeah, mines at two hundred degrees." I replied as I cut my throttle down a bit.

"Affirmative, my radiator is hot as well." Lightning Dust chimed over the radio.

"Reduce your throttle by twenty five percent, lets not run these engines too hard now." Thunderlane chuckled, I guess he noticed it before us, or he was just being a smart ass as usual.

"Um, anybody else notice that it is almost lunch time now?" Fluttershy added as she formed up behind me with Thunderlane on her right.

"Yeah, lets land and call it for a bit, I think we've gotten the hang of these fighters!" Lightning Dust proclaimed as both she and Scoots formed up on my left.

"We will continue training tomorrow if the weather permits, we need to know what the limits of these planes are before we get into a combat situation." I said sternly, hoping that they would see my point.

I didn't hear anything in response over the radios, so I checked on Derpy and Scootaloo since I could see them and surly enough they're mouths we moving. I looked down and checked my radio, everything on it seemed fine, so I attempted to transmit, but was hot with a wall of static. I looked over to Derpy and she was waving at me, I waved back and pointed to my ears before making a cutting motion across my neck, I guess she spread the message I sent over the radio cause everyone gave me a little more room.

Derpy then fly up next to my wing tip and pointed down towards the runway and then to me, thus saying that she wanted me to land at the runway. Giving her a thumbs up I dipped down and banked right into the approach to pattern, I could see personnel on the ground rushing over to the runway, was a dead radio really that big a deal. Then I smelled the smoke, checking behind me I realized that I was leaving a nice long black cloud in the sky as I came in. Frantically I checked my gauges for reasons why, both my oil temperature and water temperature were high and climbing quickly, I reasoned that my engine would be soon to quit as I came into my turn to base.

I could see emergency vehicles on the ground, did they really think I would need them though? I regretted thinking that when the noise of my planes Merlin engine died out and left me with only the sound of whipping wind. I checked my speed and found that I was slowly accelerating so I put my flaps down by one setting. Once I reached one hundred twenty miles per hour I put my gear down and set my flaps to full, the runway was close, if I kept my glide slope I would touch down on it threshold, not ideal, but it would work.

My gear touched the ground and I bounced, looking down at my speed I was holding at ninety, keeping my nose up slightly I eased the plane down onto the strip and felt the tail gently touch the ground before I applied the brakes. The smoke was now billowing out of the front of the plane making it hard for me to see, then I felt the heat and I didn't need to think anymore. I removed the harness and opened my canopy up before jumping out of it and running to a safe distance.

"Lieutenant are you alright?" Sergeant Scott inquired as he ran up to me, his uniform only halfway on.

"I'm okay, though I'm not sure what happened, all I know is that the water and oil were overheated." I said as I brought out my flight cap and put it on.

"The crew will take care of it LT." he sighed, grateful that it wasn't too bad.

I watched as they hosed down my plane and brought it off the runway and into its own little area on the side of the ramp, my flight was now landing behind me. Turning around I could see their planes as they taxied in, each of them pulled their planes over to where we had found them yesterday and shut their engines off.

"Dash!" Scootaloo yelled as she hopped out of her plane and ran over to me, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but lets not let the planes get above one hundred ninety degrees for water now, okay?" I replied, grinning as my other pilots ran up to check on me.

"So, what now?" Lightning Dust asked with her arm crossed, probably still a little sour about not getting picked to lead the flight.

"Now, we go eat lunch before any of us have another near death experience before we even get shot at." I laughed.

"I agree." Fluttershy complied with a nod from everyone but Lightning who just sighed and followed along.