Difference between revisions of "HRW:Avalanche Wing"

Revision as of 10:07, 8 April 2015

Avalanche Wing

History

Avalanche has long been a wing characterised by its competence and reliability. Its main book of flight patterns is relatively straightforward; the wing's traditional strength has been in executing maneuvers with finesse and precision.

Towards the end of the Pass, Avalanche was one of High Reaches' light wings, comprised of a large percent of blue and green pairs. At the start of the Interval, a previous Wingleader began tapping and transferring with the purpose of balancing out the color distribution. However, with the aberrant return of Thread a decade into the Interval, Avalanche was once again skewed towards the lighter, faster dragons.

When the last class of weyrlings were tapped, a number of the older veterans - riders who'd flown in the true Pass - were transferred out to wings with lighter drilling schedules, or lighter duties in general. This loss of the wing's backbone, combined with the stepping down of Wingleader L'vae a few months later, and the promotion of an out-wing greenrider to Wingleader began to disrupt the previously steadfast balance within the wing.

When K'del rose to the Weyrleadership in turn 19, he took leadership of the wing, which only served to further alter the wing's dynamics. Currently, due to his inexperience and other duties, K'del leaves most of the active wingleadering to Sisha, the greenrider who was briefly Wingleader herself.

With the graduation of Iovniath and Cadejoth's clutch to the wings, a few more older riders have been transferred elsewhere, making room for the new riders, and beginning to tip the balance a little more towards the center.

Present Day

Under Sisha, the wing has largely maintained a full-on drilling schedule, expecting riders to attend usually six days out of the seven, though they are known for occasionally calling the drills off at the last minute. This has resulted in some grumbling from older riders, who don't see the point now thread will never fall again in their lifetime, as well as from younger riders, who've never faced thread. Nonetheless, it continues despite protestations. It is also expected that riders will maintain professionalism in their sweeps, and fly regular, long sweeps over their assigned coverage areas. In all, Avalanche riders have less free time than riders in some of the other wings.

Riders who have been with the wing a longer time will remember that Avalanche used to have regular group outings - a practice that fell at the wayside during the multiple transitions of turn 19. Since the later months of turn 20, this has started to see a comeback, though the social warmth that was previously a large part of the wing's reputation is liable to take a much longer time to return. When these activities do happen, it is usually after drills on a day when the wing is not assigned to a particular sweep area, and involve such activities as attending a gather together, trust games/activities, trips to a beach somewhere, and so on.

During K'del's tenure as Weyrleader, he was largely considered to be only nominally in charge: Sisha continued to run the wing on a day to day basis, deferring to K'del only occasionally. When K'del stepped down from the Weyrleader position in Turn 30, after Iolene's murder, Sisha took over on a more official basis, and has been in charge of the wing ever since. She largely attempts to navigate the political of waters from a position of neutrality, preferring not to get too heavily bogged down in such details. Whatever happens to the Weyrleadership, Avalanche will fly true.

Logs