Flier Talk
"What you, Skydive, doing?"
The Arialbot historian looked up to see Swoop standing behind him, head cocked to one side in wide eyed curiosity. "Birdwatching." He replied, gesturing for the Dinobot to sit.
"Why birdwatching?" Swoop asked, carefully lowering himself down and mimicking Skydive's position- leaning back with his arms behind him and legs dangling over the edge of the ledge.
"To learn." The Arialbot replied. He shifted and pointed to a barely visible speck gliding above the desert. "See that? It's a red tailed hawk. I've been watching it for the past hour. I think it's about to, yes, there it goes, it's going to try catch something."
The two fliers watched as the hawk folded it's wings and plummeted to the desert floor, at the last second flaring it's wings and snatching up an unfortunate rodent before arching back into the powder blue sky.
"Now that's what I call flying." The Arialbot exclaimed, settling back into his original position.
"Mmm, me Swoop agree." The Dinobot nodded.
"Makes me wish I could fly like that."
"Why you say that?" Swoop queried. "You great flier, always doing new things, better things."
"I do, but I'm still limited." Skydive replied. "There's only so much that this form can do. I watch birds to learn from them and maybe improve."
"How? Birds are…birds. Organics. We better." Swoop said, confused by the Arialbot's seeming paradox.
Skydive smiled slightly, optics fixed on a nearby sparrow that was pecking at the last of the summer's grass seeds. "The humans learned how to fly by watching the birds. At the core of it, all of their fixed-wing aircraft are an attempt to copy the aerodynamics, weight to structural strength ratio and fuel efficiency of birds. Even the pterodactyl that you're based off was far more advanced than any aircraft that we have when it came to flying."
"Why that?"
"Well, paleontologists have been finding evidence that flying dinosaurs like your alt-mode could alter the shape of their wing membrane, significantly changing how people have been thinking of how they flew."
"Me, Swoop never knew that." The Dinobot admitted.
"I didn't know until yesterday either." Skydive replied.
He suddenly pointed. "Hey, there's one of the swallows that caused so much trouble last spring!" He said. Swoop followed his gaze to the swiftly moving avian, watching as it flew in sharp, tights arcs, skimming just above the waving plumes of grass. Skydive sighed. "Now if we could pull off moves like that, we'd fly rings around those Seekers."
"How it do that?" Swoop asked, curiosity ignited.
"By altering the position of it's individual flight feathers and tail feathers." Skydive explained, leaning forward and holding his hands up to demonstrate. "By not only changing how it holds it's wing, but how the wing is shaped, it can fly like that."
"Oh."
They watched the various birds that lived in the area for another hour, then Skydive handed Swoop a design slate he pulled out of subspace.
"Take a look." He said.
"What this?" The Dinobot asked, thumbing the on switch.
"Something I've been working on in my spare time." Skydive explained. "I've been trying to incorporate some of the characteristics of birds into a jet-propelled frame, but it's proving tricky."
A small hologram of a low slung jet with curving, swallow-like wings appeared just above the surface of the 'slate. "You see, I'm trying to use a series of overlapping metal plates fixed to a jointed leading edge for the wing to mimic the ability of birds to alter their wing shape. But working out how to make the plates and wing move and what alloy and joints to use is far more difficult than I anticipated." Skydive frowned. "I haven't even begun to think of how the transformation would work."
Swoop studied the hologram for a moment then handed the slate back. "Me Swoop think you should use modified elbow joints on second joint of wing, covered with segmented titanium sheath." He suggested, then smiled sheepishly. "Me listen to Ratchet and Wheeljack lots." He explained with a shrug. "You Skydive should talk to them. Him Wheeljack can make anything."
Skydive nodded, mentally calculating if Swoop's suggestion would work. "Thank you Swoop, I think I will. Huffer and Grapple might be able to help too."
"If him Ratchet not weld him Huffer to ceiling again for moaning it not work." Swoop grinned. Skydive stared at him for a second then burst out laughing. "I'll have to remember that one." He chuckled and flicked the 'slate back into subspace before rising and dusting himself off. "I've gotta get ready for patrol, see you tonight Swoop."
"'Bye."
Swoop watched the Arialbot go, then settled back down and fixed his optics on the hawk as it reappeared, winging it's way across the southern slope of the mountain and spiraling aloft on a pillar of hot air, dancing across the back of the winds.
And for a moment, Swoop wished that he had the wings of the hawk, so that he could grace the skies like it did.
Fin