| Degradation |
| Summary: | Trask revisits McQueen's flight footage and has Wade weigh-in. |
| Date: | 24 Apr 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Welcome the Coming, Speed the Going (the Areion initially appears) |
| Players: |
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| Ready Room - Deck 7 - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post-Holocaust Day: #422 |
| With the hatches at the rear of the room, the walkways on both sides slope down towards the dais at the front of the room. The stadium seating forms a partial semi-circle around the speaking podium and provides enough seats for all three hundred members of the Air Wing. The walls are adorned with the patches of each squadron aboard and their mottos stenciled in white lettering above each one. Behind the podium is a set of large LCD screens that can display any matter of material from reconnaissance to maps to gun camera footage. |
| Condition Level: 3 - All Clear |
Light duty for Bootstrap largely consists of his standard workday minus being on the flightline. Since CAP rotations are cycled through the squadrons, it's not at all uncommon for any one person to fly Combat Air Patrol only once a week, double-CAP status notwithstanding. All of which is to say is that light duty for Bootstrap is pretty much like any other non-flight day for the SL.
A missive had been sent to Wade, requesting the pilot's presence in the Ready Room during some hour that would not interfere with Duncan's daily duties. And so it is here at this designated time that Trask is already present, combing through some flight footage from Audumbla.
The message, he received, and now, Wade makes his way towards the Ready Room. The pilot returned from CAP not long ago, and probably had some time to take a shower and relax for a little bit. As he steps into the room, he is wearing his blue uniform. The Viper pilot finds Trask there and makes his way towards him. "Captain…" offers the man, throwing a quick but formal salute to him. "You wanted to see me, what can I do for you?" Now, he considers the fact that Trask has been hurt pretty badly and adds, "I trust you are recovering?" Even if said at least, there's no falseness in his question.
Ever one to dispense with formality, the sole reply is, "Drips." Eyes are still on the footage. As for recovering, "Better than Kepner an' Duncecap ever will be. Sweet shot, by the way. I've added that to my collection of the Fighting Fourteenth's greatest hits." That out of the way, it veers to why the pilot was summoned here. "I'm an old hand at analyzing Raptor footage, but I could stand a more expert opinion when it comes to Viper performance seeing how my approach to reviewing such is through the eyes of an engineer and not a pilot."
A sidelong glance to Wade, the video feed paused. A tilt of his head serves as silent invitation for the other man to sit down. "I've pulled up all of Queenie's footage from both times the Fleet was in Audumbla. There's not much of it, which leads me to suspect he traded his CAP shifts for Alert spots, so he'd have to spend as little time out there as possible. I'm gonna check with Poppy since she'd know exactly where to look in her records."
Wade nods to Trask words and he says, "Frakker got what he deserved, so did that damn Fedora." And that is all he says about the subject. He looks at the seat as it's offered and he takes a couple steps towards it, taking it right afterwards. He leans back against it and takes a deep breath, looking at the screen in front of him. "But you want to see if there were any problems during the times in which actual footage was recorded, I take?" asks the man. He nods to this and clears his throat, looking at the paused monitor for a moment. "I will try to help you as much as I can." The man looks around the chairs for a moment and extends his left arm two seats to his left, taking a small clipboard and a pen that are laying there.
"Somethin' like that," Trask concurs, pulling up a different feed in all of the ones he's queued. "This is from the engagement that resulted in Queenie being off the flightline. It's evident that he took a real pounding, but none of us were performing at our best in that soup. What I'm trying to determine is how much of his performance was likely diminished due to the same electrical and environmental difficulties we all were suffering, and how much was the result of other factors." Another look to Wade. "Just so you know, you're not the only pilot I'm consulting on the matter considering what those 'other factors'," cue the pointer finger only finger quotes, "are. Out of everyone in the Knights, though, I trust you to look at it with the most objective eyes."
Wade nods in silence to Trask's first words and then presses his lips, looking at the screen once again, "Ah, yes, I remember that one." As for the 'just so you know', he looks at Trask and nods. "Sure, no problem." And that is that. His attention moves to the screen again and he takes a moment to examine what's going on there. The man takes a couple notes on his clipboard and then taps the pen there, "I can remember what /I/ did… but to better compare things, we should take a quick look at all the Knights' footage. I'm saying all the Knights so we don't extend to the Checkmates and Mighty Lions. While, of course, it can offer a more accurate view, it's definitely not something /needed/." Regardless of this, he keeps taking notes, writing down time tags and notes next to each.
And so it is that time passes. Trask pulls up various reels, including some non-Audumbla footage for better comparison, of both McQueen and his fellow Knights, for the Harriers' SL is never one to initiate a process ill-prepared.
After the footage is done, Wade runs his fingers over his chin for a moment, reading what he wrote. "Well…" starts the man, clearing his throat after that, "One second." He stops and writes a couple more things, making lines cross from point to point, only the gods know what the hell he is doing. "While all of us suffered from drops in performance, mostly because the challenges that area offers; McQueen's performance suffered more than most of ours." He stops for a moment, looking at the notes taken and just thinking. "It's not the easiest thing to process, because of the very fact of… the area. But…"
Yeah, he is taking his time, looking at things with an objective stance. "This is more than possibly a degradation on the Cylon brain, but you know, it's not something that one would easily notice." The man taps his pen against the clipboard as he reads all the results and compares, again and again, just making sure that nothing gets left behind. "Yes, everything points that his performance dropped because of this. Then again, it all depends on time of exposure. If you look here, it was progressive…" he lifts his notebook and shows it to Trask, The timetags that he placed start getting more frequent towards the end. Not that people don't know that already, but still.
"So, to make sure I'm understanding what you're trying to convey," Kal seeks to qualify, "you're sayin' that unlike the others out there, the longer Queenie was in the radiation, the worse his performance became, as opposed to everyone else more or less plateauing at their initial level of suck?" Keen brown eyes alight on the pilot.
"Yes, basically that. But it's not something all that noticeable, you know?" says Wade, nodding to his own words. His gaze moves to the notes he wrote and says, "Normally, what all of us try to do is just… to adjust our flight. Queenie showed degradation with time, so…" he presses his lips together before saying, "But it's a degradation I'm seeing now, with Toast's note in mind. It would be something one would have to take a real close look at to notice it. But…" then Wade arches both eyebrows, "You know… when the Areion appeared and we had to do the flak cannon thing, Queenie did a RTB. A few moments before, he was flying a little erratically."
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to put your analysis in writing?" is asked with a quirk of Trask's lips, knowing full well it's a rhetorical question. As Wade recalls the Areion's initial appearance, however, the SL gets up and moseys on over to the flight footage repository and pulls up that particular encounter for review.
True enough, Queenie's Viper remained /outside/ of the flak ring.
[TAC3] "Queenie" McQueen says, "Toast, Queenie. I've got a hit which looks like it took a chunk out of my nav systems. I can't maneuver in that mess."
Also, true, he was flying somewhat erratically — but still managed to land a moderate hit on a Raider despite that. After another salvo, he then broke a hard left and sped away for a few seconds, clearing some distance between the engagement and himself.
At which point the Gun was fired.
[TAC3] "Queenie" McQueen's voice is heavily disrupted by Wireless interference, "-st, Queenie. RTB now. G-" Static. "-hold together now." More static, and then silence, as his ship turns tail and speeds towards Cerberus' hangar bay.
And that all can certainly be interpreted several ways.
"Huh," is all Bootstrap says, however.
Wade just nods in silence and remains that way for a few moments, looking at what he wrote. "Sure, I can put that in writing," says the man now, not looking away from his notes. However, when Trask starts playing that particular footage, he looks up and narrows his eyes in thought. "That's one way to put it…" says the man at the 'Huh'. It is said not really as a challenge but more like a 'Yep'.
A moment more of contemplative silence is ended when Trask concurs, "Yep." That's one one to put it, indeed.