If you could fly - especially if you could fly fast - wouldn't you take advantage of that ability? Say, by flying someplace to have one of your favorite foods every few days, or stunting around the rock features (natural bridges and such) of the US West and other regions, as well as perching on the tops of buildings and bridge towers? What else?
What problems could come from that? Such as getting in trouble with airlines and military facilities?
Comments
Problems in the air?
There are how many people with guns (legal or not) in the US who just love to shoot things that fly around.
Better wear some kevlar.
Samantha
To quote Mel Brooks, in History of the World, Part I
"Pull!"
If you want to see it, in all its Brooksian splendor, here's the clip: Pull
— Emma
On second question - well,
On second question - well, borders, military facilities, weather (hail/lightning/bad rains and winds). If you fly fast, also potentially collisions with power lines and the like (Known hazard for low flying ultralights. You can't see the wires in time to react).
Airlines, in general - no. Unless you dress for something like -50°C and wear oxygen mask - you wouldn't go that high.
I used to have an aircraft
I used to have an aircraft map for Kentucky, showing restricted areas. Most of which were for military bases.
As for clothes and oxygen, the temp and thin air involved in high-altitude flight come into play in my story "Angel of Europe" where Malak has adaptability and Luftjaeger doesn't. Malak simply lures the Nazi flyer higher than he can take.
Just passing through...
Bugs and birdstrikes
Could be really annoying.
Teri Ann
"Reach for the sun."
Which is why most flyers in
Which is why most flyers in my Masks universe wear goggles. :-)
Just passing through...
MS Taragon
Under "Gwen Brown" I wrote a story about a child who eventually morphed into a Dragon, her true form. In the last part of the story a man with a rifle in the vicinity of "Hat Point" in Oregon, shot her and she almost died, falling to earth near a Nez Pierce settlement where they nursed her. Eventually her people from another planet arrived to take her home...
Gwen Brown
Not fast
I can't say that I've flown fast (unless freefall counts as flying), but one of the happiest days of my life was spent ridge soaring on the edge of a steep slope in Derbyshire. There was a steady wind and the updraught meant you could stick there, even in the clunkiest old hang glider, occasionally shifting your bottom fractionally to left or right to traverse the ridge line, but with no real effort at all: just surveying your domain, like a bird of prey, in silence broken only by the sounds from nearby sheep.
I was about to go for a pilot's qualification, but the country suffered an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and we lost access to all our flying sites for a year. Somehow, events conspired against me and I only came back to flying once (tried a paraglider; much less fun) after that. I'm hoping to fly some more when I retire.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh
No way ...
... would I fly an aircraft in which my legs formed part of the undercarriage! However, I've also flown on Derbyshire slopes but in a sailplane - much more civilised :) The only flying I do now is with my feet on the ground controlling my aeroplane in the air through the medium of radio - much safer and I walk towards my crashes rather than try to climb out.
You can get a powered one,
You can get a powered one, and it will be like motorcycle ;-)
(it is a link to youtube)
Author of that video above warned 'do not try that without knowing what you are doing'. Considering that it was filmed 15 years ago and he is still flying - probably he knows.
"No way would I fly an
"No way would I fly an aircraft in which my legs formed part of the undercarriage!"
That's basically the only way Malak can do it!! (I sized his wings to be similar hang gliders.)
Just passing through...
Hang Gliding
Hang gliding is to air travel what riding a bike is to wheeled travel — the purest, simplest, most perfect expression. The Platonic ideal of it. I never got to ridge soar, but I did take solo flights at altitude and I agree it’s just magic. I even managed to incorporate a bit of it into one of my stories (Uplift).
— Emma
Error 503: backend fetch failed
Thanks, I followed the link and read your story, 'Uplift'. Unable to leave a comment there, because BigCloset is being flaky for me, lately. I'll post it here.
The gender stuff, to my mind, was about what one can expect, here at Bigcloset: what I call the fantasy of acceptance - but the way you described flying was sublime.
Everyone needs a thing. ("The thing that feeds your rat," as a flier acquaintance used to call it.) One can't just be a tranny, or a transie; life is too rich for that. In life, there needs to be some things that you can take pride in or have passion for, and the way your character experienced and felt about his flying was conveyed wonderfully.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh
The problem is
the site does backups at: 1:00 am, 7 am, 1pm, 7pm Eastern Time. That is what you encountered.
Sephrena
Small wonder that Malak is
Small wonder that Malak is often tempted to just... fly away...
Just passing through...
Reminds me of the scene in
Reminds me of the scene in "Angel of Chicago" where Malak is circling in a thermal in the Rockies, and the birds there just treat him as one of them.
Just passing through...
Well, you end up with a few
Well, you end up with a few things. Some are speed dependent, of course.
1) Dealing with power lines, especially when trying to come in for a landing near buildings
2) Bugs. They're everywhere near the ground. Just at the speed of a bicycle, they can be very painful. (Turn your head, drive a june bug into your ear...)
3) laser pointers. (day or night, both a threat)
4) Shooters - but less of a threat, unless over relative wilderness areas. Most areas get VERY upset with folks that shoot anything other than shot into the air. (birdshot) There have already been a number of cases of "The Law" coming down on people shooting drones over their property. My attitude there is that if they're low enough for you to hit it, and it drops in your yard - the person piloting it is the one that should be charged, not the property owner.
5) Navigation. It's actually easy to get lost in the air.
6) VFR fliers - specifically prop planes and similar. They don't have any way to see other flying things other than with their eyes. They're more likely to ignore something they "know" can't be there.
7) debris in the atmosphere, such as the saharan dust cloud that ends up over the SE US pretty much yearly. Sand your face off.
8) Pollution. Flying in certain areas will be detrimental to your health.
9) Cars. Taking off or landing, passing through traffic areas. (or a parking spot someone is trying to suddenly use)
10) Weather - trying to see in heavy rain, sleet, snow.. Same problems as most small VFR aircraft.
11) Night - no radar, no real night vision - complicates almost all of the above.
12) clothing/cargo carrying. Like bikers, how do you carry extra clothing to deal with changing out of 'safer' flying clothing into normal clothing? (weatherproof?)
13) Sunburn, windburn, being soaked to the skin (hitting rain at high speed is painful)
14) Various governments. Either trying to fine you, or study you for the 'greater good', or just kill you for being a threat to their existence. (You could be traced by your phone)
15) Corporations - see the above. Also lawsuits for trespassing if you fly too low, etc.
Birds really aren't a threat. No jet engines to get sucked into, and they can see you better than you can see them. They can get out of the way of an automobile (usually) while in flight.
Does that answer some of the questions you were asking?
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I find it interesting that
I find it interesting that everyone focused on the problems - the second part of my post - and nobody talked about the first part. Gamers I asked were especially concerned with the practical problems. Anyway, Malak started flying in 1919 and just got used to the problems which came along in later years. Being tough, having "sonar" and able to turn invisible and intangible were actually part of his original power set, along with flying via wings.
Just passing through...
Probably because it was an
Probably because it was an unnecessary question? Unless you were terrified of open heights, you'd use it as a tool. The question should rather be 'how much'.
Imagine a gentleman cruising along upright, wearing a three piece suit and great coat, bowler hat on his head, umbrella under one arm, and holding a briefcase - while wearing 1900's aviator goggles.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.