Crash Survival, Emergency Wing

        I dreamed that N and I along with several of our friends were making our way down the ridgeline overlooking a small stream. I had the impression that we had crashed on the mountain and were making our way down to what we hoped would be civilization. We were trying to stay under the cover of the trees as much as possible, as there were alien invaders flying around in this part of the world. (I believe that is how we crashed.) I didn’t have the kind of panic that I get in some of these “running from danger” type of dreams. As we picked our way carefully along the game trail near the top of the ridge, we heard a whoosh from above.

        A silvery glowing shape soared overhead. Then crashed into some trees not far from us, down into the river valley. We ran over to see if we could render assistance. There was a man in a flying squirrel-like contraption stuck in some willows. I climbed up and helped him out of the flying wing, S and A helped get him safely to the ground. I then took the time to work the craft out of the willow and we lowered it to the ground as well.

        The man was a pilot, and the flying suit was a new test escape vehicle for our newest fighter craft. It was based on alien technology, a flying wing that was also a super light heat shield. You could bail out even at sub orbital heights and survive re-entry burn. Which this pilot had actually done. We helped him fold the thing up and used some of the cords that I had in my bag to tie it all together as the packing case was long gone.

N asked if I was going to try flying it later. I wanted to, but I also was more concerned about getting us down out of the mountains to safety as a group. We attended to the pilot’s injuries, splinting what looked like a broken leg, and then took turns towing him on a makeshift travois, keeping his leg elevated.

        The pilot verified that there was a town at the base of the mountains that straddled the stream we were following. He traveled with us for some time until a thrust vectored military vessel arrived to rescue him. He left the flying wing with us, as a thank you for rescuing him. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough room for all of us, and they were pretty sure to attract alien attention if they came back for the other two. I volunteered to stay behind, as did S. We helped the rest climb up to the military vessel. They promised to drop A and our wives off in town before heading back to their base. The pilot kicked out another of the flying wings to us, warning us that there was a cliff and a waterfall, so it would come in handy. “Aim for the lake,” he shouted as they pulled away.

        S wanted to try to use our cord to climb down, but I was actually looking forward to gliding down to the lake. I found a sloped meadow for us to practice on and we did a couple of gentle glides, practicing the slowdown flair and drop at the base of the meadow so we wouldn’t hit the water too hard later. It took longer to figure out how to get into the thing than it did to actually learn how to control it.

Ad astra per technica,

FF