Disclaimer: I acknowledge that Disney Fairies & associated content are owned by Walt Disney Company. I am not interested in profiting from this document. It is for the enjoyment of fans only.
Author's Note: Fairy science lesson coming up!
Caution: This chapter contains technical content, which some readers may find boring. Reader discretion is advised.
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Vidia Captures the Hawk - Chapter 2 - Tink's Flying School
Early next morning, Tinker Bell was just setting up a portable chalk board at her training site, when most of the fast-flyers zipped in.
"Good to see you all." greeted Tink, "Uh... where are Aura and Tizzywing?"
"Getting dusted." said Zephyr. "They'll be along shortly."
"And Vidia?"
"I don't think Vidia is interested." replied Leeta. "She's probably still sleeping."
"Oh." Tink's wings drooped. "I'll be back in a few minutes, then." She took to the air.
"You're wasting your time!" Wisp called after her.
Tink sighed, and knocked at the door in the sour plum tree. This wasn't the first time she'd stood pleading before Vidia's door.
"Vidia?" Tink paused to listen, then tried again "Vidia?"
"Go away!" came a muffled call from within.
"Please join us. I have information you could use." Tink paused, but got no response. "Vidia, you're the best. Everyone knows it. I can show you how to out-fly the hawk, if you'll just give me a chance." Still no noise from inside the cottage. "Please, Vidia." Tink felt as though she was talking to the door. She sighed once more, "You know where to find us." and reluctantly glided off.
Vidia was in no spirit to talk. After the summoning of the fast-flyers yesterday, she had flown straight home, and spent the time since then curled into a ball in bed. She was mired in another of her "dark times". She knew it was a fabrication of her mind. Normally, she wouldn't hesitate to heap verbal abuse on the perky tinker, but somehow it was just easier to surrender to her darkness.
Something the tinker had said poked at her: "show you how to out-fly the hawk". The tinker was insane; the best way to survive the hawk was to fly like the wind for a hiding place. If she could just get up, she'd tell that tinker a few things. "But who cares what I have to say." she thought, as the darkness crept in again.
She needed Mr. Wong's special herbal tea. It was just a few steps away, in her kitchen cupboard, but to reach it seemed like the labor of 10 lifetimes. A little at a time, she pushed her legs out over the edge of the bed, until they sagged to the floor by their own weight. She went to work on pushing herself upright, next.
With a rotating spiel of self-encouragement, self-directed orders, and self-abuse, she got herself to her feet, and made it to her kitchen counter-top. Once there, it was easier to find a cup, drop in a measure & a half of the herbal tea, add some water, and stir, stir, stir.
She forced herself to drink the entire contents, with promises of going back to bed. She did, in fact, sit on the edge of the bed for a while, but her darkness faded, and she was then able to make small plans.
"Tell me," began Tinker Bell, "What is your best way of dealing with the hawk?" She gazed at the collected fast-flyers seated on the ground before her.
"Fly fast and hide." said Hermes, the flyers nodded consent.
"What if I claimed that every one of you can out-fly the hawk." declared Tink.
"You've been drinking fermented nectar!" smirked Wisp. The flyers chuckled.
"Even Vidia can't out-race the hawk." pointed out Aura.
"That's only because you panic." responded Tink. "You fly in a straight line, with a few predictable turns. But all of you can out-maneuver the hawk. I want to teach you what humans call Air Combat Maneuvering. With training and practice, the hawk will never catch you." The flyers were quiet; she had their attention.
"First, I should remind you of some basic differences." Tink continued. "The hawk is like any other bird, or human aircraft. She has weight to move around, she must work to climb higher, and she has limited speed & turning ability, depending on her energy of the moment. We'll get to that soon."
"Fairies, on the other hand, are unique as flying creatures. We can do things that no bird, or aircraft, or even insects can do. I'll explain that later. I'll need your patience as we cover a bit of air flight theory, but it will show you that the hawk has limits. Some of these limits do not apply to fairies."
Suddenly everyone's focus was broken by the sound of fairy alarm horns. They all looked in the direction of Pixie Hollow. Tinker Bell turned to her fast-flyer students, saying "Ignore that. Everyone is wearing Neverland camouflage. I'm sure the hawk will find nothing of interest."
Tink explained to the fast-flyers how the hawk's wings worked during each operation, from full-dive to near-stall. She described the conflicts between the hawk's size, speeds, and maneuverability. She explained the trade-offs between kinetic and potential energies for the hawk during flight.
"Now, on to fairies." continued Tink. "Fairy wings are not actually large enough, or strong enough to give us flight." The fast-flyers gasped in disbelief. "Just see how well you fly without pixie dust some day."
"Oh, yeah." they grumbled.
"Thanks to pixie dust, fairies have 2 flying properties shared by no other creature. First, we can adjust our buoyancy." Tink crossed her arms, stilled her wings, then pushed off from the ground with her toes and floated. "This allows us to hover, using minimal wing effort." She floated back to the ground, landing lightly as fluff.
"Second, we can adjust our mass, which is like weight, but it works in all directions, not just "down". This gives us near-ideal flight dynamics." She buzzed into the air, and snapped back & forth quickly. "We can do high-speed starts & stops, and right-angle turns." She settled back to the ground. "It also somewhat protects us from injury in collisions."
"Those are big advantages against the hawk. Now I'm going to show you what humans call Basic Fighter Maneuvers." Tink used small models of a hawk and a fairy, on sticks, to demonstrate Zoom Climbs, Breaks, Immelmann/Pitchback/Split-S Turns, Kulbit Loops, and Cobra Maneuvers.
The fast-flyers were mesmerized. She next showed them Barrel Rolls, Canopy Rolls, High/Low Yo-yos, and J-Turns. Finally she covered Lead/Pure/Lag Pursuit, Flat/Rolling Scissors, and Defensive Spirals.
"It's time to break for lunch," said Tink, "But eat lightly, because you'll be practicing those moves this afternoon."
As Tink watched her students tear through the sky that afternoon, she almost yearned for the total joy of flight the fast-flyers displayed. Wisp and Elwood were definitely the fastest. But Tizzywing, perhaps the "slowest", could do right-angle & hairpin turns so fast, she seemed to disappear from pursuers.
Their flyer brains had instinctively soaked-up and remembered the full variety and complexities of the maneuvers Tink had shown them hours ago. Tink admired how they understood & executed the moves on a level deeper than any bird or human. When the afternoon sun sank lower in the sky, she called them in for another briefing.
"Before we finish for the day," Tinker Bell noted to the fast-flyers, "I have something for you to think about. Having the skill to fly those moves won't guarantee your survival. You need to continuously observe, plan, and act, ...faster and smarter than the hawk. Humans call it Situation Awareness.
Suddenly again, the fairy alarm horns were heard. Several of the fast-flyers jumped to their feet. "Oh, sugar-plum-fairies." spat Tink. As the rest of the flyers jumped up, Tink leapt into the air in an effort to block their ascent. "NO!" she ordered. "You're NOT going after the hawk!" She knew she actually had no way of stopping even one of them, if they wanted to leave.
"We might be able to help..." suggested Zephyr.
"Good," thought Tink "At least they're hesitating." "You think you've learned a lot, but look back in 2 day's time, and tell me if you think it's smart to go after the hawk today. You're more dangerous to yourselves right now than you were yesterday." She softened her voice. "Wait until your training is finished. The hawk's not going anywhere."
The fast-flyers settled back to the ground. The horns had stopped a minute ago. Tink dropped to the ground, and continued.
"There are 2 different missions at work: The hawk flies to kill you, while fairies fly to let themselves and the hawk live. For this assignment, you'll need to lead the hawk into the nets. That means staying out in front of the hawk. You need to know where the other flyers, obstacles, the ground, and nets are at all times. Most importantly, you need to know where the hawk is, and what she's doing. So you'll be spending a lot of your time looking behind you."
"But your safety comes first. You can't out-race the hawk in level flight, or a dive, but the hawk can't beat you in a turn, or a climb. That's your way out if the hawk gets too close. Use the sun, and the hawk's own body and wings to hide your approach and retreat. Don't give her a chance to learn your best moves; mix it up. Use the chaos of the chase to distract the hawk."
"That's it for today." finished Tink. "I'll meet you all back here tomorrow morning.
Tinker Bell followed the fast-flyers back toward Pixie Hollow, but veered-off to the animal-talents. The unusual project she gave them was going well. Tink headed next to the tinker workshop. Her project for them was finished. Tink made arrangements for it to be transported to her training site after dark. She would accompany them and supervise its set-up.
By this time, most fairies were at supper, but there was still plenty of light in the sky. Tinker Bell flew back to her training site, and cautiously approached the hidden entrance to the brush thicket. She stepped her way lightly to the small secret clearing in the thicket, near her training area under the large tree. Someone had been here; she saw more footprints. Someone had been sitting for a while. And there was a plate! With pastry crumbs and a half-eaten lemon tart on it!
"Vidia." Tink breathed to herself, with a smile.
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Author's Post Note:
A LOT of TBell fans adore Vidia, so I wondered how to "get her right". I considered putting her through an on-line personality test, but which Vidia? Between the movies, the books, and the fan-fiction, Vidia's character can be anything from surly-but-helpful, to spitting venom at anything that moves.
Then one day I thought "What if Vidia was slightly manic-depressive?". Not cripplingly so, just enough to affect her personality. The more research I did, the more it seemed to explain a lot: Why she lives alone, why she's so driven to be the best, why she belittles others, and why Queen Clarion puts up with her. See Wikipedia's entry for: Cyclothymia.
Maybe I wrote Vidia's "depression" scene a bit heavy-handed, but I hope you get the idea.
Come to think of it, Elwood shows some symptoms of hypomania... or maybe it's his honey-addiction.
Thanks to Wikipedia and assorted air combat flight-sim websites for the technical info.
More fast-flyer fun in Chapter 3.