Frank Herbert drew on real life?
Posted: 17 Aug 2009 00:51
Talked to Teg this morning and he brought up this, from Chapter House Dune (emphasis added),
in reference to this, from Dreamer of Dune (emphasis added; originally posted here),FH in CHD wrote:While Odrade composed her response, memory intruded—an old incident simulflowing over immediate observations. She remembered her ornithopter training course. Two acolyte students with instructor at midday high over the wetlands of Lampadas. She had been paired with as inept an acolyte as could have been accepted by the Sisterhood. Obviously a gene-choice. The Breeding Mistresses wanted her for a characteristic to be passed along to offspring. It certainly wasn't emotional balance or intelligence! Odrade remembered the name: Linchine.
Linchine had shouted at their instructor: "I am going to fly this damned 'thopter!"
And all the while a whirling sky and landscape of trees and marshy lakeshore dizzied them. That was how it seemed: us stationary and the world moving. Linchine doing the wrong thing every time. Each movement created worse gyrations.
The instructor cut her out of the system by pulling the disconnect only he could reach. He did not speak until they were flying straight and level.
"No way are you ever going to fly this, lady. Not ever! You don't have the right reactions. You have to begin training those into someone like you before puberty."
"I am! I am! I'll fly this damned thing." Hands jerking at the useless controls.
"You're washed out, lady. Grounded!"
Odrade breathed easier, realizing she had known all along that Linchine might kill them.
I wonder if that instructor is still around....BH in DoD (276) wrote:In 1968, I had an unfortunate experience while taking a flying lesson in a single-engine Piper Colt, an incident where, due to the error of my instructor, we nearly collided with an airliner. Since that time I had not flown, and had vowed I would never do so again, in any sort of aircraft.
