Hello! My name is Olie (She/Her) and I am the aviation-obsessed person running this blog.
main blog/ao3: @waitingforsols
band of brothers: @magnoliasforyourmedic
BACKGROUND: I have a mechanical engineering degree with an aerospace minor and I work in the aviation industry.
WHAT DO I LIKE?
Masters of the Air (esp Harry Crosby)
Top Gun (esp Tom āIcemanā Kazansky)
EAA AirVenture
Research & History
Everything Aviation
QUICK MOTA REFERENCE POST LINKS
Base Hospital / Intercom & Radio System / Bomber Crew Clothing / Group Headquarters / Mess Halls & Clubs / Flight Bags / First Aid Kits / PX Shop / Pathfinders / Radio Callsigns / 8th AF Casualty Stats/ 100th BG Crew Stats /
MY FANFICTION (MORE ON AO3)
let it wash over me
masters of the air, crosie explicit one-shot
main themes: the great āgator coup w/ leafy hill, croz feels insecure because of leafy hill and Rosie reassures him
if I said you were all that I had to live for
masters of the air crosie one shot
main themes: the getting together fic
got my heart in your hands
masters of the air pre-crosie one-shot
main themes: all fluff and pining
in your arms i hide away
masters of the air, crosie whump one-shot
main theme: croz has a minor crash out after finding out he was promoted on what was supposed to be his last mission, minor protective rosie
something to hold on to
masters of the air, crosie hurt/comfort, one-shot
main theme: rosie is in the hospital after crashing on September 10, 1944 and receives some visitors (and bad news), established crosie, theyāre so soft for each other, rosie & everyone
out of the fog, youāre calling my name
masters of the air, crosie whump, one-shot
main theme: crosby gets a mysterious phone call, set one month after Rosie was shot down (March 1, 1945 to be exact), theyāre in love your honor
a lesson in international relations
masters of the air, Croz whump, one-shot
main themes: croz and bubbles get jumped by the Riff RAF, hurt croz, croz & everyone, smart croz!!!
the war is over and we are beginning
masters of the air, Croz/Rosie, one-shot
main themes: buckās rosebush, croz/rosie, rosie with a rose, fluff, theyāre both so soft for each other
and maybe if i hold you now
masters of the air, croz x bubbles one-shot (like 4k words)
main themes: Crosby x Bubbles, post-reunion in episode 5, misunderstandings, mutual pining, fluff and angst and smut (in that order), Harry Crosby is insecure AF, explicit sexual content (see Ao3 for specific tags), sharing a bed, Harry Crosby definitely experimented in college, Harry Crosby is the dumbest smart person, these boys deserve to be happy
we rest amidst the tumult of war
completed masters of the air croz x rosie multi-chapter fic (8k words)
main themes: crosby/rosie but can be read as platonic, part 6 rewrite, flak house, horseback riding (like actually), fluff and hurt/comfort but mostly comfort, basically 10k words of flirting, these boys deserve to be happy, ft. Rosieās Riveters, lots of good-natured teasing and jokes, short jokes, insecurities, everyone needs a hug
QUICK F-14 REFERENCE LINKS
F-14 Tomcat Accidents & Issues
F-14 Tomcat Variants
Flight of the Tomcat
What Did F-14 Tomcat Pilots Wear?
FREQUENT UNIQUE TAGS
# mota musings
same as #justalittlethingiwrote but for Masters of the Air and Harry Crosby
# just a little thing I wrote
where youāll find my Top Gun h/cās, writings, musings, rants, prompts, analysis, etc.
#FFFOTD or #F-14 Fun Fact of the Day
want to learn something new about the F-14 tomcat?
#research or #information or # reference
basically what it says
#top gun or #masters of the air
makes sense
#f-14 tomcat
kind of a given, but will likely include primarily technical posts
#f14 tomcat has āØissuesāØ
if youāre looking for ways to hurt your favorite top gun characters without it being pilot error, check out this tag
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The Crosby-focused Shifter AU fic Iāve been working on has absolutely consumed me so as an apology, please have this snippet. Itās not refined but itās got good bones I think.
And for anything wondering, this is part of the same Shifter AU fic that I debuted on Whumptober Day 11. The overarching general concept of the fanfic that Crosby kept the fact that he was a shifter a secret because he was brought up thinking he was dangerous. But after being wounded on a mission, heās forced to stay shifted while he heals both physically from the wound and also mentally from his childhood trauma :)
ā - š¾ - ā - š¾ - ā - š¾ - ā
The box was far too small for him now. It wasn't long enough for him to lay down, and even now, curled up as tight as could, the wire mesh pressed uncomfortably into his fur and skin. Though it's been that way for years, Harry would never dare to make the mistake of complaining. It hadn't been built with his comfort in mind.
His father had put it together using whatever scraps of lumber and metal he could get his hands on from the scrap yard, the rough wooden frame held together by whatever nails he had lying around the garage. The floor and the ceiling were made of plywood that had likely been discarded due to the warping from water damage, whereas the walls were a patchwork of rusty chicken wire mesh of varying sizes leftover from some farmer's old chicken coop. The door was held shut by a big metal latch and a heavy padlock.
(snippet continues below)
The muzzle on the other hand had never quite fit right. Leather straps squeezed his mouth shut, tightened farther than the buckle had originally been designed for with the hand-poked holes his mother had added. The stiff edges dug painfully into the top of his nose and underside of his jaw, rubbing the skin raw.
The smell of mildew and dust assaulted his nostrils in a way only a damp basement could manage. He couldn't see much. Only faint traces of light reached him, attributed to the occasional flash of lightning from the world outside the two little storm windows on the far wall. Rain pelted siding of the house. Thunder shook the house so violently that the windows rattled, the roar of it causing him to jump out of his skin every time.
His father didn't need to be in one of his drunken stupors to feel the need to shove him down here. And it didn't matter that Harry couldn't control it. He needed no excuse when Harry shifted. Confinement in a small crate in the dark, damp basement was considered the kinder option when the alternative was to chain him up in the backyard overnight. It had only happened to him only once before, on a night where a similar storm raged overhead, but that one night had left him all but traumatized.
Another flash followed quickly by an even louder clap of thunder came, and Harry couldn't stop the whine slipped out of his muffled mouth.
A few seconds passed and just when he thought he might be in the clear, the wood flooring above him creaked under heavy footsteps. Harry immediately froze, muscles locking up tight with the intensity of his shivering as he listened to the footsteps cross the living room into the kitchen.
No, please. No.
With eyes squeezed shut, Harry pleaded with whatever higher power that be that his father was getting another drink. But he knew better than to dismiss the inevitable.
In time with another, ground-shaking roar of thunder, the basement door slammed openā
Crosby's eyes flew open and he jerked awake. His lungs worked hard to bring in air with each uneven breath as the panic seized him like barbed wire, digging its claws in deeper the more his mind struggled.
He was disoriented and didn't know where he was. He was struck by the smell of leather and sweat, at first so unfamiliar that it curbed his panic. Narrowing in on the scent, Harry found himself being put at ease. Even if slightly off-putting, he recognized it as something familiar with warmth the basement could never have. Slowly, the ringing in his ears faded away into the familiar patter of rain against the metal roof of a Nissen hut. Underneath that was the sound of snoring, and the creak bed frames as men shifted in their sleep. All of the evidence pointed toward a space that was very distinctly not the basement of his childhood home.
A flash of lightning lit up the room just long enough for him to catch a glimpse of the Nissen hut. He was curled up on the floor underneath his bed, tucked between a wooden footlocker and the outer wall of the hut like he had been from the moment heād stepped foot in the room the evening before. Though there was also something soft brushing against his fur; a blanket that hadnāt been there before heād fallen into his restless slumber had been tucked around him.
The ground beneath him shook, and Harry was very nearly thrown right back into the throws of his panic.
Jim Mack, a replacement waist gunner recalls, "Rosie would talk to us before every mission. He would brief us on what to expect. Where the flak was going to be. How many fighters to anticipate." But the crew pre-flight briefings were not always without incident. Rosenthal recalls, "I remember that Mike Boccuzzi, our radio operator and a wonderful warm human being, would get very nervous before each mission and throw up. I would end up putting my arm around him and we would chat. He was a wonderful, intelligent person.ā
ā excerpt from an article titled The Story of Robert āRosie" Rosenthal and the Crew Of "Rosie's Riveter'" by Mark S. Copeland
Highly recommend watching Pressure, the D-Day movie that just came out if you can! I absolutely adore seeing the sort of work that went on behind the scenes for military operations and this movie absolutely delivered. I found it incredibly compelling to watch how things went down, and even though we all know the result of D-Day, I was still on the edge of my seat! It was so beautifully shot too, like I was stunned. And the bits of real footage sprinkled in was absolutely perfect.
Jim Blakely, the son of Everett Blakely, wrote an article for the March 2023 edition of the 8th AF Newsletter titled āThirteen Empty Bunks.ā Attached with the article are several pictures, but one in particular stands outāa diagram of a Nissen hut with harrowing annotations.
āThose small huts could get crowded; yet by mid-October 1943, there was plenty of room in one. Thirteen of the sixteen cots were empty. Three of four B-17s had been lost in a short span of time. The other plane was damaged beyond repair. Each bed had a tale to tell. And the tale told by the empty beds was especially nerve-wracking.ā
And though there were many huts at Thorpe Abbotts like it, with empty beds aplenty and similar stories to tell, this one was just a little bit more special because Blakely, Crosby, and Douglass were the last three members of the āOriginalā 100th flight officers left on base.
The article goes on to share the stories of the men who once slept in the empty bunks of his fatherās Nissen hut, and I highly recommend reading it for the amazing insight into the lives of these men.
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Harry Crosby: It was just terribly exhausting, and I'd come homeāor back to baseāand I'd be absolutely and completely dehydrated. I was one of the people who didn't take his ration of whiskey, and always gave it to somebody or traded it to somebody for something. But I would just absolutely drink every liquid that I couldāwater and milk and so onājust because I was so dehydrated from just this tension of this sometimes ten hour flight.
To all those wondering, the answer is to ask either of the goblins the following question:
āWhat road does the other goblin think I should take?ā
And then you will take the opposite road of whatever they say, no matter what.
It doesnāt matter who you ask because youāll get the same answer from both. If you ask the goblin who always lies, then he would lie and tell you the opposite road of what the truthful goblin would say (aka the road to damnation). If you ask the goblin who tells the truth, then he would be honest and tell you exactly what road the lying goblin wants you to take (aka the road to damnation).
Both goblins will answer the question with the road that happens to lead to damnation, which is why you will want to take the opposite road.
āOn September 27 and October 2, I felt for the first time that I might finish my tour. We bombed harbor installations at Emden, and our fighter escort went with us all the way. We saw them out there, those sleek, fast Mustangs with auxiliary gas tanks fixed to their wings. When our Little Friends dropped their wing tanks, we knew they saw bogeys.ā
Every mission had a unique phrase that would be used over VHF (very high frequency radio) to recall the formation when a mission was called off, usually due to poor weather conditions or maybe some other factor. They were coded phrases because they didnāt want the Germans, who could easily overhear the message over VHF radio, to figure out where they were and send the Luftwaffe after them.
In his book, John Clark included scanned images of his notes taken during each of his pre-mission briefs. Here are just some of phrases chosen for his missions:
a new instillation of my ādeep in the delphinium dazeā series aka the nsfw series ft. Crosby sleeping around :)
words: ~4.5k
rating: explicit (nsfw)
pairing: Croz/Bucky
summary:
Itās the job of the squadron commander to check out new pilots in their squadron, which usually entails taking them on a flight to ensure theyāre competent. If youāre in the 418th, that means buying Bucky a drink at the officers club.
After the successful mission to Trondheim, Bucky decides has something else in mind for his squadronās new lead navigator.
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May 8, 1945 marked the end of war in Europe and celebrations broke out across the entire world. But while people flooded the streets, the men of Thorpe Abbott remained on lockdown, unable to join in on the celebration with the locals.
Lt Col Robert āRosieā Rosenthal was one of the few men lucky enough to be on leave in London on VE Day.
Rosie recalled how heād ābe walking through a throng of people with a pretty girl on my arm and all of a sudden she was gone, replaced by another one. It was a madhouse, a beautiful, beautiful madhouse.ā
I just posted the first part of a new fic for my ānavigate me through the nightshadeā series! This will make the most sense if read after āout of the fog, youāre calling my nameā but could in theory be read separately.
chapters: 1/2
words: 8.5k
summary:
Rosieās coming home and Crosby struggles to find the courage to tell everyone. Still, rumors spread until inevitably the truth comes out, just in time for Rosieās long-awaited return.
Me after realizing the first chapter of my Croz shifter AU is 15k meanwhile the rest are shaping up to each maybe have half as many
Iām probably just going to leave it as is with the first chapter being massive because I planned it where each chapter is a day and also I love it too much to split it up
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āAt Dummer Lake, where the 100th had been hit so disastrously two days before, John Bennett felt comfortable as he saw what he thought was a cover of Mustangs off to the right.
It was a ruse. On that day the Germans imitated American fighters by seeming to fly escort. Suddenly the "escort" peeled off and hit the Forty-fifth Wing head-on. More than 150 E.A. in one wave.
The Forty-fifth Wing lead went down. The deputy lead went down. More planes went down.
Attack after attack, and soon little was left of the Forty-fifth.
Its planes fell back and fitted onto the 100th, leading the second wing.
Now, with John Bennett in command, the 100th was leading the whole formation to Berlin.ā
