Author's Note: So, when you watch the movie/look at the art I noticed that the only structures that Cabbie can't fit in on base are the Mechanic's Hanger, the spare/Dusty's hanger, and the tower...I can't help but think that is by design. Prompt suggested by PenNameArtist.
H is for Height
At the end of the Vietnam War, there weren't many places left for an old warplane could go. The United States military was actively modernizing its fleet and pushed aircraft who had served in WWII through Korea out of the force to make room for new theories and methods of warfare. Sadly, the nation wasn't willing to greet these aircraft back into society, choosing to instead shun them and refusing to let them integrate back into society as a whole.
While a jeep, helicopter, or Cessna was able to change their paint and eventually fade into the fabric of cities, the bigger planes could not as easily hide their natures. Planes like this were forced to take one of three paths. The first was to give up the skies and live out their lives in a military boneyard in Arizona. The second was to join a state National Guard unit in hopes that they would occasionally have the chance to fly. The last was to become an aerial firefighter.
Like many other C-119 Flying Boxcars, Colonel Cabbie McHale chose to fly the last of these routes. Though instead of being modified to become a tanker like his fellows he chose to join a motley group of Skytrains and Twin Otters in jump plane training. Given his combat experience, no one was surprised when he graduated top in his class, but the fact that he was an odd make for this position meant that no established smokejumper team was going to take him on.
But as luck would have it, there was the National Park System was getting ready to launch a brand new smokejumper team. One that would be based high in the Serra Nevada Mountains at elevations that would push most aircraft to their limits, but were a Flying Boxcar with a pair of massive Wasp Major Engines might be able to succeed. Cabbie was brought on to see if a C-119 was capable of completing the mission. It was not until Cabbie arrived that he realized that flying in thin air would be the easiest thing to implement…because while he could successfully land and take off at his new airstrip he literally couldn't fit in any of the base's structures.
From the mechanic's hanger to the IC shack, the bunkhouse to the shower space, none of the buildings on base could acuminate his 8 meter height let alone his 34 meter wing span. The base CO had enough decency to look a bit embarrassed by the oversight, but there was little he could do. So after introductions hand been made, Cabbie had been given a bite to eat, and did what he normally did in this situation. He found himself a comfortable piece of gravel and caught some shut-eye.
The next morning Cabbie discovered yet another indignity. Because of his size, he had to ask another person on base to fetch him some coffee. The tug returned with a mug that was comically small and there was no way for Cabbie to refill it because the tug had disappeared into one of the buildings, so he did his best to savor what he had.
It was a good thing that Cabbie had had some coffee because the grid flying that the Base CO sent him on that morning was brutal. The grid started him on the far corner of the park and had him crisscrossing the landscape multiple times. By midafternoon he was still only halfway done and a refueled at the lodge twice, but thunderstorms were beginning to brew so he had no choice but to return to base.
He was so exhausted that he didn't notice the changes that had happened to the base, until he was already on the ground. While he was gone the whole team must have been working their tails off because now a corner of the tarmac was now shaded by a large tarp draped between some big trees. Under the tarp were two makeshift tables, one was just the right height for the base's current residents…the other one was clearly built to accommodate Cabbie's larger statue. And sitting on 'his' table was a proper coffee mug and a beat-up, but still very functional coffee pot.
Looking at the set up in front of him, C-119 had to smile despite his sore wings. Cabbie had roughed it before…and if his team was willing to make that much effort to make sure that he could have his morning coffee with the team, he was perfectly willing to rough it out here until he has proven himself enough of an asset to build a hanger that would actually fit his bulk.
