Into the Bombardment

Flight of the Sabrejet

It was still the dawn of the Great South African Conflict, in the year 2016, mercenaries, and superhumans fought battles in planes, instead of as infantry.

Within the Bravo Sierra mercenaries PMC, a new mercenary named Mason Lewis had been enrolled and had arrived at the base, his mindset was ready to kill after he was issued his first plane, a North American F-86 "Sabre." Like most Sabrejets, the plane had the typical armament of six fifty caliber Browning machine guns. It was noted that the Sabre had the appearance of a bright silver monocoque; lacking its previous U.S. Air Force roundels, instead of having a navy blue skull and crossbones symbol, with red flames surrounding the skull, and red stripes leaving the skull from the sides.

For Mason's first mission, he would be fighting Pak Sung-Min, a member of the Pak family of North Korean superhuman fighter pilots; It would be as if it were a typical Korean War-era dogfight between a Sabre and a MiG.

During the Korean war, there were countless amounts of engagements between MiGs, and Sabres. Despite the MiG-15 was a nimble aircraft and had powerful weaponry, but the aircraft's pilots were habitually incompetent with the controls, due to their extremely rudimentary training from the Soviet Union, while the South Korean Sabres and the American Sabres usually were able to outfly the North Korean and Chinese MiGs.

Before taking off, Mason did a walk around, inspecting the aircraft. First, opening the weapons bays, the Browning machine guns were out of ammunition. Before going on in the inspection; Mason called the weapons tech hangar and requested six magazines of fifty caliber ammunition.

Thirty minutes passed by, and the Browning machine guns were loaded. Mason checked the tire pressure, to see that the tires were at optimal pressure. He then climbed onto the wing of the plane, putting on his flight helmet. He slid the teardrop canopy open, slipping his body into the cramped cockpit of the Sabre.

When he slipped into the cockpit, he turned on the radio, contacting maintenance to request a ground power unit, while switching on the Sabre's battery. As the battery turned on; his radio turned on, enabling Mason to listen to air traffic control.

When the ground power unit was hooked up to the Sabre, the General Electric J47 could be heard whistling to life, as the turbine's blades started to speed up, the plane's turbine screeched until reaching the proper RPM, settling to a quiet whistle. Mason then checked the fuel gauge, which read that he had a full tank. He then checked the oil pressure and temperature gauge, which read optimal conditions, almost as if the Sabre just rolled off of the assembly line in Inglewood, California.

Mason then jerked the jet's joystick to the left and the right, testing the ailerons, to see the fighter's ailerons were in primal condition, to which he twisted the plane's joystick, looking over his shoulder to see the rudder working perfectly.

He then saluted the ground power unit handler, as he disabled the plane's parking brake as the ground power unit handler unhooked the ground power unit from the Sabre. When the power unit was unhooked, Mason applied fifteen percent throttle, feeling the Sabre move forward instantly.

Mason turned the nose gear to the left, as he left the parking bay, moving down the taxiway, past an F-8 "Crusader" and an F-100 "Super Sabre."

As he taxied to the runway, he got in line, behind an F9F "Cougar" as well as a few other Korean War era aircraft. While he listened to the radio, he could hear chatter from air traffic control about a heavy bomber that was about to land.

A few minutes passed by, and a B-36 "Peacemaker" landed; Mason watched the behemoth of a bomber hulk down the runway, slowly taxiing off of the runway, looking over his shoulder, he saw another F-86 "Sabre" get in line to takeoff behind him.