The Flying Wire

I was sitting at my desk, typing away at my computer, when it died. With no warning. Suddenly, utterly, and completely. One moment everything was fine — or as fine as can be expected with anything that involves the Dark Lord of Redmund — the next: no power, no lights, no fan, nothing.

The problem was almost certainly the power supply or the motherboard. Given the Known Perversity Of Man-made Things, I suspected it was the motherboard. But when I pulled and tested the power supply, it wouldn’t run, so I figured what the heck, threw in a new one, and… tah dah! Back online!

The question now becomes, what to do with the old power supply. If I was irresponsible, I might be tempted to take it to some flying site deep in the wilderness, launch, climb up to 8000′, pull the thing out, and… drop it. Whee! Indeed, I’ve long suspected that bombing was invented because It’s Fun To Drop Things — the supposed military applications of this practice were just offered as an excuse. It’s even more fun when those things blow up, and bigger explosions are better, which led to a natural escalation that continued until August 1945, when people realized that things might be getting out of hand.

But I’m a mature and thoughtful individual who would never dream of doing anything so childish. Right?

Part of the fun of creating a story like this is checking the logs to see where readers are coming from. California is still at the top of the list, because that’s where the site got started. But for many months, Ohio and Texas have been battling to take over the lead. This makes a certain amount of sense. Ohio has a long airship tradition. It’s where Goodyear began their operations, and the USS Akron, ZRS-4, was named after the city in that state. Texas seems like a great place for airships. It’s big, filled with big places to fly, and I’m sure that Amarillo, the world’s major source of helium, was on the short list of proposed names if the US Navy had ever flown a ZRS-6.

Recently, Massachusetts has been moving up to challenge them. This came as something of a surprise. True, the state does have a long involvement with airplanes — among them everyone’s favorite racer, the Granville Gee Bee — but airships are an entirely different matter. To the best of my knowledge, none of the great ships of the 20s and 30s ever landed there, and the thought of building an 800′-long dirigible in, say, Lowell, is difficult to imagine.

There you have it. It’s a three-way battle now: Buckeyes versus Cowboys versus Yankees! Which state will be next to enter the fray? Email your friends, start a readership drive, and see if you can edge them out to take the lead

The forecast for last Saturday looked good. We’d been watching the fronts, stalking the weather, and it seemed our patience was going to be rewarded. But when I arrived at Ed Levin that morning, the clouds were low and dropping and the wind was turning to the north. Winter can be like that: full of promises that end in disappointment. (Perhaps that’s why more men than women become pilots: they get used to that sort of thing) Still, all hope was not lost, for there was always Mission Ridge. Off we went, following the ancient ritual, organizing the ride, loading gear into a single truck for the drive up the hill, strapping our wings to the rack as we shivered in the cold.

It was even colder when we reached the top, for clouds had dropped until they were just above launch, the sun was hidden, and it had begun to drizzle. We stood around, pretending things would get better, and this time they did. The improvement was slight, but at least the clouds lifted enough for us to fly. If we didn’t mind the cold, and the gray, and the threat of rain.

I was the third one off, wrestling my glider over the stone wall to launch, hooking in, doing a preflight check, then shouldering my wing for the run down the hill. Three steps… left wing drops, bloody hell, I can do better than this… make a correction… feet leave the ground… whoa, where’d that turbulence come from!

Moments later, I was climbing, annoyed at my launch, wondering if it was worth it. Yes, I might be flying, but this wasn’t some cushy jet with a nice warm cockpit. It was a hang glider, I was out in the open, and the air was freezing. It was also quite wet, and my jacket, control frame, and glasses were beaded with mist. Imagine standing on beach on a cold windy day with fog blowing in from the ocean. Now take away the ocean, the beach, and every last hint of sun. And we do this for fun? Still, it seemed too early to land. And perhaps it would get warmer. And the sun would come out. And a team of bikini models would arrive to offer me large amounts of chocolate.

I flew back in forth in front of the ridge, waiting. It was easy to stay up, for thermals and upslope wind had merged into a big smooth band of rising air. And the view might have been quite nice if I could have seen out my glasses. The only problem was staying below the clouds. Every now and then, I would roll into a steep bank, hold the control bar down, and do a spiral dive to lose altitude. It was a way to pass the time.

Then, unexpectedly, the clouds began to rise: above launch, above the peak, above the radio towers to the south. The sky grew brighter, with a faint hint of sun. It even seemed to grow warmer. It’s amazing how much difference even a hint of warmth can make. I’ll take that over bikini models. Or chocolate. Any day!

What had once something to be endured was now something to be enjoyed. There’s something almost meditative about soaring on a glass-smooth winter day. You feel every motion of the glider: slight bobbles in turbulence, the faint tendency of a wing that’s spirally unstable to wander off to the side. You play games, slowing down while heading into the wind to see if you can go backwards. You watch hikers laboring up the slopes below. You relax, gaze at the view, and somehow, the dust of the world slips away. This transformation is subtle, elusive, and difficult to define, but there comes a moment when your mundane concerns are gone and all that’s left is flight.

But all flights must end — hopefully in a landing. An hour or so into this one, I considered my options. I could land on top of the mountain or I could land in the regular LZ at the bottom. The former was cold and windy. The latter was right next to the parking lot where I’d left my truck. But it was full of cows, and cows are treacherous beasts. You pick a clear spot, set up to land, and that Killer Grazing Instinct – a legacy from the age when Cows Ruled The World – makes them wander right in front of you. We must also remember that to cows, the Whole World Is A Bathroom. No, the regular LZ was out.

Besides, landing on top of the ridge was fun! So I told myself as I set up an approach parallel to the crest, decided I was too high, threw in a turn to burn off some altitude, realized I was too low, turned left to get out from behind the terrain, dropped like a stone, hey, my left wing is going down… this is going to be ugly, let’s see if I can… gee, I ended up on my feet, that wasn’t so bad!

I was smiling as I wrestled the glider back to the setup are. I was smiling as I shivered in the cold, waiting for my friends to land so we could drive their trucks back down the hill. I was smiling as I headed to my favorite café for the Traditional Post-Flight Pizza. And when I look back upon those two cold, grey, and smooth hours in the air, that smile remains.

Many have asked if there are plans for a Flying Cloud book. This is certainly possible. And to paraphrase the famous Monty Python Flying Sheep Sketch, it’s a fair question and one that in recent weeks has been much on my mind.

The online saga will always take first priority, because so many mysteries remain and because it’s such a terrific amount of fun. But a book could be rather cool. So the question becomes, would you Noble Readers be interested in such a thing? Would you prefer electronic format, a printed version, or something more appropriate to the era, such as newsprint or a wire recording? And what additional material would you like to see? (Well, I suppose that’s three questions, but members of my tribe have never been known for their mathematical skills.)

There’s a fair bit of supporting material around, which I wrote this to provide background, but which didn’t fit into the 1930’s-cliffhanger style of the online saga. I’ve slipped some of this into the About pages, but the rest, which ranges from brief snippets of conversation to a full-fledged subplot or two, languishes in obscurity. So it could be fun to incorporate this into a print version.

If you have strong feelings one way or another, feel free to comment here or post your views on the Forum. And for that hypothetical movie version, who would you pick for the cast? I don’t think Angelina Jolie would be quite right for Sarah, but… oh dear, I wish I hadn’t thought of this… Helga?

The Infamous Green Marine from Episode 13 burst onto an unsuspecting world sometime around April of 2009. I had my excuses. I was in a hurry. I had only the crudest of materials and software. And to be honest, I’d hadn’t done much drawing since the last time I broke my arm, so my rudimentary artistic skills had atrophied to the point of nonexistence. The result was a milestone in the history of graphics disasters!

The best thing one can say for the fellow is that his outfit bore some vague resemblance to the uniform of the Royal Marines. The rest of the figure went horribly wrong. He was standing at what might have been Order Arms in some entirely different universe from our own. His weapons was a rifle-like scribble — suitable for defense against an army of hostile scrawls, perhaps, but of dubious value against more mundane opponents. And as for his complexion, a friend of mine observed, “Ah, I see that the Royal Marines is recruiting zombies into their ranks!”

The IGM has finally mustered out and retired to run a pub for poorly-drawn green people somewhere in the Old Country. His replacement is pictured above on the right. I’ll admit that this new recruit still has some problems. It’s hard to make something that’s only 120 pixels long recognizable as an Enfield. I’m sure his sergeant would find fault with his stance. And he’s holding that rifle like it’s a dead rat. (Perhaps this is some new drill from the Manual of Arms that was developed for the vermin-infested trenches of the Great War. “Company… Order… Rats!”) But is he an improvement over his predecessor? I leave this for you to decide…

[Friends of the Infamous Green Marine needn’t despair. The hunch-shouldered green guy is not gone forever. He shall receive a page of his very own in the Extras section once I decide upon the best way to do him justice.]

From the World Site Atlas (http://www.sitesatlas.com/)

Astute readers may have been wondering about Rashid the Slinger. If he’s really from Persia, as I stated in Episode 3, what was he doing spending his childhood in the marshes of the Euphrates, as I claimed in Episode 7? A quick look at a map shows that these two places are in entirely different countries, with a Big Mountain Range between them. Cynics might suspect that Rashid started out as a minor secondary character from Iraq in some initial draft of the story, and that I changed his country of origin in the final draft when I realized his importance, but missed that reference in Episode 7. Naw… couldn’t be…

Still, one of the neat things about online serialized dramas is that one gets to go back and correct one’s mistakes, and that bit about ‘the marshes of the Euphrates’ has gone the way of Ninevah and Tyre. Why is Rashid so important, you may ask? This must remain a mystery, for now, but the short answer is that 1) with a crew this small, everyone is important and 2) slings are cool.

On a related note, I urge those of you interested in the history and practice of this most elemental of projectile weapons to check out the vast compendium of useful information on http://slinging.org. With a bit of work, and about 30 years of practice, I’m sure any one of us could give that Persian fellow a run for his money.

“Sharks kill an average of six people a world-wide every year. Humans kill between 26 and 73 million sharks. This is not a battle humans are losing.”

  –from ‘The Unthinkable’ by Amanda Ripley

Thanks to the efforts of Peter, Kona, and Nelson, there is now an Official Flying Cloud T-shirt. This is available through Zazzle in both gallant gentlemen’s and sultry island maiden’s sizes, though I must admit I like the ‘Miss Sarah’s version’ the best. This was a collaborative effort. They came up with the inspiration, design, and ideas, while I made all the mistakes. It was a terrific amount of fun, and the results came out looking pretty good.

There are quite a few other graphics around — from the Flying Cloud, the List of Interesting Things, and also a few various hang gliding expeditions — that could be turned into t-shirts, mugs, mousepads, refrigerator magnets, bumper stickers, and artifacts of the Elder Gods. So if you have any suggestions or things you’d like to see, let me know. After all, the Flying Cloud is a community effort, and would not be possible without your help.

Many characters in The Flying Cloud speak languages other than English. This would be fine if these were languages in which I was fluent. Unfortunately, I cleverly managed to arrange things so that none of the limited number of languages I know much about are ever likely to appear in the story. One of the many fine examples of advance planning for which members of my tribe have become famous. Darn.

In the absence of expert knowledge, I’ve been forced to turn to web-based translation engines such as Yahoo’s ambitous Babelfish. The kindest way to describe the results would be ‘indifferent’. The words ‘laughable’, ‘side-splitting’, and ‘hysterical’ also leap to mind. While this may add an element of charm to the adventures of Captain Everett and his companions, I cannot help but wish for advice from real native-speakers who actually know what they are talking about. Or speaking, as the case may be.

For this reason, the Signal Corps of the Royal Navy Airship Service has created the College of Translators on the Flying Cloud Forum. This prestigious institution consists of an episode-by-episode list of every non-English phrase in the story, the language it’s alleged to be in — there can be some doubt — and what it was supposed to mean.

I urge you Noble Readers who have some knowledge of German, Dutch, Strine, Latin, Japanese, Tagalog, Farsi, Russian, the Port Moresby dialect of Pidgin, and/or the tongue of the Elder Gods who filtered down from the stars before the dawn of time and waiting in hidden places, sleeping but not dead, until the stars are right for their return – one assumes this is a bit like LISP – to have a look, laugh to yourselves, and offer corrections. Your contributions will be acknowledged in the College of Translators Roll of Honor!

One of the great mysteries of creation is why The Flying Cloud shows up as number one in a Google search for ‘island maidens’. I can’t recall who pointed it out, but this phenomenon began around April of 2009 — long before Sarah or Helga made their first appearances — and has continued with few interruptions until the present day. It’s not as if the story had many island maidens back then. Indeed, their only mention was a few episode titles. And you’d think there’d surely be dozens of sites competing for this one particular phrase. But it seems that the Royal Navy Airship Service has edged them out.

I cannot help but wonder what other simple 2-word or 3-word phrases turn up The Flying Cloud at or near the top of a Google search. If you come across any winners — or better yet, something totally off-the-wall — let me know!