John smiled at that. He liked Conway, and not just because she was going to get him off Terra Firma for a little while. Shaking Morris� hand, John stood back and let Conway go through her pre-flight check of the 302. He knew that pilots had their own systems they liked to go through before a flight�he was a pilot, too, and he knew that pilots, as a group, were superstitious types. They didn�t advertise that fact, but it was, nonetheless, all too true.
A few minutes later Conway motioned for him to climb the mobile staircase up to the cockpit of the 302. �Take the forward seat, sir. From your record I doubt I�ll have to retake control once you get a feel for her.�
John nodded and got into the front seat, allowing a flight captain to help him with his helmet and the restraint system that was more complicated than he�d ever experienced before�he assumed it was because the alien hybrid part of the fighter made for some complications that weren�t found on F-22 Raptors, which the X-302�s most resembled. Once both he and Conway were strapped in the canopy was lowered and John started going through the in-plane pre-flight checklist, Captain Conway mentally checking off every step that John made.
All pre-flight checks complete, they began taxiing out of the hanger and Flight Control�s no-nonsense representative began droning in John�s ear over the radio in his helmet. Telling him he had a go for take-off, to use a certain runway, to avoid a certain vector, warning him about the potential weather problems he could run into at a certain altitude, and, finally, reminding him that his flight plan was clearly outlined on the screen in front of him�something that wasn�t regular Air Force issue, at least it hadn�t been the last time John was in a fighter jet, which, he had to admit, was at least six months before leaving for Atlantis nearly eleven months earlier�and that he was to stick to it without deviation.
Flying jets wasn�t supposed to be like riding a bike. There was a reason pilots had to re-qualify regularly, why they constantly trained and ran simulations and drills and practised formations and attack vectors and everything they could possibly have to know if they found themselves in a combat situation, why the training was so rigorous, why the standards were so incredibly high for acceptance into any flight training program, let alone passing said program. And it had been a long time since John had flown jets. Being out of a cockpit for fifteen months was a lifetime for a pilot. And it wasn�t like he had even really had to test his piloting abilities, his physical reaction time, while flying in Pegasus. The Puddle Jumpers required more directed thought patterns and less physical direction than anything the Milky Way had to offer. And the X-302�s weren�t exactly an assembly-line standardized ride to begin with.
Which, really, was what made it easier to figure everything out. No preconceived notions about what should be where, or how something should look. He�d read the manuals, the literature, and listened to Sam and the techs talk about the features, the Goa�uld �improvements� and alterations. He�d sat through Conway�s pre-flight, allowing her checklists to direct him to where everything was in reality as opposed to on a diagram or in a description given by memory. And, as always seemed to happen when he was put in front of a new flying machine, his intuition had kicked in, filling in the gaps, either with assumptions, educated though they may be, or simple rational thought about how, if he were designing a plane, it would be set up, because most pilots thought along the same lines when it came to that, and John knew that no plane or helo or anything was created without a team of actual pilots working with the techs and designers and everyone else involved to make sure that everything would work from a pilot�s point of view. He�d done that once, briefly, recommended by a CO who knew he could fly anything and had mathematical skills beyond what most pilots had, which was saying something because math and flying went very much hand in hand, despite what some people might think. Math and instincts, one of John�s earliest flight instructors had said, math and instincts are all you need to survive in the air. John could vaguely recall hearing that that instructor had gotten shot down by a Serbian MiG near the very end of the Bosnian conflict, cementing what John had always thought was the flaw in the man�s logic. Math and instincts, for sure, but also skill and, oftentimes, dumb luck were what a pilot needed to survive. There were too many X-factors, really, to quantify exactly what a pilot needed to survive. But math and instincts and skill and luck would definitely be on the list, should one actually be compiled.
Taking off was easy. Get up to speed down the runway, pull the stick back with the right amount of pressure, continually check items A through N on mental list of things involved in properly taking off, climb to the elevation outlined in the flight plan that was staring him in the face, and level out once he reached that elevation. The alien parts of the jet didn�t kick in until later, John knew, until he broke through the limits of Earth flight technology and entered the part of space that only a select few astronauts and cosmonauts and whatever else they went by in other countries had gone before.
�Ever dream of being an astronaut?� Conway asked.
�Never did much in the way of dreaming, full-stop,� John admitted, �but no, not really an aspiration of mine.�