Originally Posted by
NoseGunner
Cavepunk
Post away with your questions. You will get a mix of replies, but it should be possible to sort through the rabble and get some decent answers.
If you give more detailed background it may help, many here are paranoid about Press on a fishing trip.
Hi there!
Thanks for all your replies! What a brilliant site! This internet thing can be a real boon to lazy writers like me... although I've spent the last week online trying to find the info I need, without much luck...
And obviously there's the Official Secrets Act etc. so I don't want to break any laws or anything...
I've emailed a couple of guys privately and I hope it's okay if I repost an edited version here. I'm sure these questions will make me sound like a total nutcase but please bear with me as it IS a daft science-fictionish comic story!
Coould I propose this situation - which has to happen more or less this way purely because the story dictates it - and would you mind filling in the details and nicknames and jargon etc. so it at least seems vaguely plausible?
I want a secret Masonic government group to order the covert bombing of Castlerigg. (Not very covert, I know, but you'll get what I mean in a mo...)
A Tornado GR4 is scrambled (? or is that an Americanism?) - with sidewinder missiles - from RAF Lossiemouth. It would be good to know the callsign (again??) of the base and also how they would refer to the pilot on the radio and vice versa. Also, since this might be a suicide mission, is it possible for the plane to fly with just one pilot and what rank would he be? I'm thinking some middle-rankish who'd be expendable (and sinmgle?) and wouldn't ask too many questions if he lived.
Also, does a Tornado have an onboard computer that can "talk" as I've found a clip on the internet -
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006426.html which shows an F-16 crash as a result of bird strike to an engine and it seems to have some kind of computer-synth voice talking to the pilot. (Or I'm mistaken and it's the tower over the radio...)
The Tornado flies towards Castlerigg. Again, what kind of conversation/ techno-talk would he use back-and-forth with the ATC as he approached the site? I know the Tornado's normal minium height limit is 250 ft. above ground level but how would it approach and how would I describe the pilot informing the ATC guys (basically, my readers) of his descent?
It's a moderately cloudy night with a full moon - dawn approaching as he nears Castlerigg. (I've read the Tornado is best suited for low-visibility flying but again, the story dictates this...) But as he approaches, his radar picks up a ghostly image in the air a few miles away from the stone circle. How would he describe this to the ATC people?
It in fact turns out to be a vast swirling flock of crows (that's why it has to be dawn) and the Tornado has a bird strike. (I read on BBConline that, sadly, something very similar happened recently with a Tornado from RAF Marham...) What kind of conversation might occur then in this life-and-death situation? Obviously, I'm the writer, so I'll try to wring some emotion out of it, but what information would be relayed back and forth before impact/ejection?
The pilot loses control and either ejects out or is ordered to divebomb Castlerigg kamikaze-style. Which I guess means I have to have him say "Oh !!!!!" at the very least!
Anyway, that's basically it. I'm not a plane guy (I've found out what I could online but it's not been much) so sorry that this ramble makes little sense. And sorry I've gone into such length for what will probably only end up a four-page sequence in a comic. But I'd like to get as much accurate information as possible so you'd be a great help to me if you could fill in the blanks and stuff...
Thanks in advance for your help and sorry if I'm expecting a bit much! Bet you wish you'd never replied to my bloody posting now, eh? ;-)
Cheers!
john
If anyone's interested, the Castlerigg connection comes from the rather Quatermass-y theory of "earthlights" -
http://www.earthlights.org/earthlight_mechanisms.html which can be used to explain UFOs/aerial light phenomenon and, in my opinion, is a damn sight more plausible than the flying saucer/ET hypothesis!