A Pilot's Envy

Posted on Sun Aug 11th, 2019 @ 12:54am by Lieutenant Jack Carver & Lieutenant JG Charlotte Aschail

Mission: Getting To Know You
Location: Hanger Deck
Timeline: Backpost, in flight

Charlotte wandered up to the fighter craft, a Gryphon, if her mind didn't go wrong, one of the newest and best of the Fleet, but one she hadn't yet been trained on the maintenance of. Oh, a Razor she could do, a Razor was one of the ones she'd worked on in her last assignment, before she'd been put into the 'primary' pool of engineering, though she could understand why. One of the problems with fighters was that they could be finicky and when you needed to launch on short notice, sometimes interesting extra fixes had to be made. And for Charlotte, those skills had translated over to damage control, but the smaller craft always drew her back.

She finally made it to the craft, reaching out and running the very tips of her fingers over the engine cowling before ducking under it and clicking her tongue, "Well, what do we have here?" She tucked her hand into the end of the jacket sleeve and rubbed at the spot on the underside of the cowling, "A bit of carbon scoring here, eh?" She spoke mostly to herself, crouching to get a better look at it.

The wings and sleek, aerodynamic shape told Charlotte it was designed for atmospheric operation. It's oversized engines told her it was very powerful. The microtorpedo launchers, pulse phaser mounts and roof mounted type VII array told her it was very well armed. And the hardpoints underneath the wing mounts told her it was versatile.

Jack's voice though, told her that that particular Gryphon, with a calligraphed 'No Mercy' on the right wing, was his. "Must've been some space debris bouncing off on the flight to Astraea." his baritone mused, walking up towards her with a smile.

Charlotte glanced back briefly, "We can have that buffed out pretty quick, I've got no doubt on that." Her accent was smooth as honey, marking her as from the deep South of the United States, "Gryphon?" She asked, just to confirm.

"Yep." Jack smiled, looking up at his ship and letting his gaze trace over the form. "No Mercy. She's mine. Brand new too, less than half a year old." he smiled, turning his attention to her and extending a hand in greet. "Jack Carver, CAG."

"Charlotte Aschail, engineering." She reached out and shook his hand firmly, "I know you flyboys and girls are rather protective of your birds, but I was one of the team leads on the Independence, one of the Ascension-class ships, part of the job was to take care of the birds. I helped to take care of Third Flight, Delta Squadron as one of my primary duties."

"Nice. You've earned your stripes, then." Jack smiled. "Yes, we are protective of our birds and we have our own maintenance crews, but I am very aware that for anything beyond light repairs, we're going to need engineer's hands on them. Anything in particular you'd like to know?"

"Just what makes them tick and what I need to do to put one back together in case one of you flyboys breaks one of 'em." Charlotte's eyes glittered, "Because no doubt, you will, not intentionally, of course. But since I'm a damage control 'expert' on board this ship, I figure it extends even here to the hanger deck."

"Well, she's a modular design to promote ease of maintenance. She comes apart in three pieces; the cockpit section with avionics, life control, communications suite and sensors. The powerpack with the reactor and the cooling systems, and the flight unit with wings, engines, built-in weapons and weapon hardpoints." Jack explained. "In case of emergency the cockpit block can be ejected as life pod."

“Plug and play.” Charlotte nodded, her attention turning back to the fighter and slowly starting her way around it, eyes moving across it as a hand traced various components, “Better than the static systems of a Razor, a stone cold bitch to repair especially when under pressure.” She glanced back, “Life support duration after ejection?”

"About a week, give or take." Jack leaned back against his ship, folding his arms over each other, explaining with a smile. "Specs say a week and it has rations for a week, but you know how those techies are, they like to err on the side of caution and build in a margin of error. I wouldn't be surprised if it had enough life support for a few days beyond that week. Whole thing's built for power and crew survivability."

"Good, good..." Charlotte said absently, "Two people?" She asked, not expecting an answer, not even waiting for one, "You can definitely count on me to help keep them in spec, sir." She said, placing her mark of approval on the pilot.

"Yep, gunner and double-you-oh, weapons officer." Jack smiled. "Glad you approve. Reminds me, I need have schematics uploaded to the ship's central computer for parts replication."

"That shouldn't be too hard, sir." Charlotte finished her way around the fighter and ended up back to facing him, "Anything special I'll need to know about them?"

He put his hand to his chin and pondered for a moment, then shrugged. "Nah, most anything else you'll be able to get from the schematics. Next time we have like a day or so without plans I'll have one ordered split into its three components so the engineering team can familiarize themselves. Think that's help?"

Charlotte's eyes went back to the fighter, then up to his, then nodded, "I do indeed. I'm not sure who all on the engineering team should be brought in on it, but I'll definitely introduce myself to your maintenance team and make myself familiar with them."

"My own maintenance team can take care of small maintenance jobs, but anything more serious than changing fluids or small repair jobs will be the purview of the engineering team." Jack mused.

"And that, sir, is part of why I'm here." Charlotte grinned, "I'll get with my boss and see if I can handpick a team to be available for when you need us."

"Sounds good. Nice to meet you, Lieutenant Aschail." Jack smiled, giving her a wave as he headed back to his duties.