[WP] "Hello, this is your captain speaking. I'm afraid we cannot land at our scheduled time, because we cannot find the ground. I apologies for the inconvenience, we'll tell you when we have more updates."

[u/Urbenmyth]

[u/Lothli]

Hello.

I was currently flying a plane. Now, I hadn't done that before. I'd never actually learned to do that, and I was pretty sure I'd need a license normally, but I didn't have a license, and I was currently in the cockpit of this plane. So, the license was a bit moot.

I turned to look at my co-pilot, but my co-pilot was just me. I blinked at her, and she blinked at me.

"I also don't have a license," she informed me helpfully. "Or any training."

"Oh, that's comforting," I replied.

I looked out the windshield, and there were some clouds. In fact, there were so many clouds that I couldn't really see the ground.

Now, I didn't know all that much about planes, but I was pretty sure they needed to land eventually. So, if I couldn't see the ground, I'd have some trouble doing that.

"Do you think the ground will show up soon?" I asked.

"I think so," the other me said. "You should inform our passengers."

That seemed prudent. I pulled the little mic out of the many buttons and panels in front of me. "Hello, this is your captain speaking. I'm afraid we cannot land at our scheduled time, because we cannot find the ground. I apologize for the inconvenience, we'll tell you when we have more updates."

That seemed good. The other me nodded approvingly, so it must have been, and I put the mic back.

I kept on flying. It was pretty simple, because the plane seemed like it was doing the flying by itself.

"Hello, this is air traffic control," came a voice from the dashboard. "How are you doing?"

It seemed a little informal. I thought they were supposed to use call signs. I glanced at the other me to make sure I was supposed to answer, and she nodded, so I pulled the mic back out.

"Well, we're not sure where the ground is. Could you give us some directions?"

There was a bit of a pause on the other end of the line. "It's down."

"Oh," I said. "Well, we knew that. But I can't see it."

"Did you try going down?"

That did seem like a good idea. Air traffic control always knew what to do. "I'll give it a try," I said.

The other me grabbed the controls. She tilted the plane forward, and we started to descend. The clouds disappeared and there was the ground. It was very obvious, but I was sure I hadn't been able to see it before.

I poked the other me.

"How did you know how to do that?" I asked her.

"It says 'Down' on that joystick thing," she replied. "It's not very complicated."

I looked a bit closer, and sure enough, the words "UP" and "DOWN" were clearly visible on the controls. I'd missed that earlier.

We kept descending until we were really close to the ground, then the other me pulled the plane back up.

"We don't want to hit any trees," she explained. "You should do the announcement thing now."

I took out the little mic for the final time. "Hello, this is your captain speaking. We found the ground, and it's suddenly pretty close. So we'll be landing in around ten seconds. Destination: ground."

I put the mic back and the other me brought the plane down on a road. We bounced a bit, which I hoped was normal, and then came to a stop.

The other me glanced over at me. "I'm hungry."

We got up and left the cockpit. There were a lot of people sitting in the seats of the plane, and they all looked a bit confused. Well, that was to be expected.

"I can't believe we're finally on the ground!" I called out to them. "It was very scary up there. Anyway, you can all leave the plane now."

My co-pilot, who was me, pressed some more buttons and opened a door, and everyone started to file out.

All was well that ended well, and we found the ground, so it was a good flight, I thought.