Thembrian Air Force Academy

The Glorious People's Air Force trains its military pilots from this installation, known formally as the "Thembrian Air Force Academy and Recruitment Center." A sprawling complex, the Thembrian Academy consists of a headquarters garrison, the main recruitment center, a main hangar, barracks, supply sheds and mess hall, a large snowpacked airstrip, and various training buildings and classrooms.

RECRUITMENT

Recruits for the Glorious People's Air Force are selected through an extensive screening process. Candidates submit to a vision test and written exams before undergoing a final assessment of their qualifications, after which they are cleared for training. Even in the Thembrian bureaucratic machine, favoritism can play into the mix; it is not uncommon for a candidate of exceptional military lineage to get a step up on the path to certification. Rules can be bent in the Glorious People's Air Corps, especially if manpower is low or circumstances demand new pilots; in such exigencies, the Air Force will train inductees who simply measure up to some basic requirements.

INSTRUCTION

Following their acceptance, recruits for the Glorious People's Air Force undergo months of training and indoctrination, and must follow strict rules of conduct during their stay at the academy. Free thinking is never encouraged nor is it tolerated, as the task at hand is to mold trainees into the proper Thembrian soldiers that the High Marshall expects to see.

Pilot candidates stay in plain barracks, endure marches around the base in freezing temperatures, and live on coarse foods and by the commands of their superiors. Those who disobey are usually sentenced to turnip-peeling duty in the camp's kitchen or ordered to scrub all the planes in the main hangar as punishment.

Classes in the Thembrian Academy begin with the basics — minor formalities from boot-lace tying to medal polishing — then progress to extended courses in saluting, an intricate ritual in Thembrian military life, encompassing a thousand poses and gestures which students must drill to perfection. Actual flight lessons and air combat exercises come next, but they take a back seat to learning offical formalities. More than anything else, loyalty and dedication are taught at the academy as opposed to any practical instruction. As a result, Thembrian fighter pilots are staunch soldiers but unskilled flyers.

Right: An introduction to saluting.

BARRACKS

Cold, cramped, and confined — these words sum up the conditions inside the Thembrian academy barracks. Base engineers obviously designed them with austerity in mind; perhaps Thembrian commanders believe hard beds and bad heating will somehow bring out the best in recruits quartered here.

GARRISON BUILDING

Next door to the recruitment center is the camp garrison building, a veritable citadel holding the base's arsenal and troop facilities. The distinctive design of Thembrian garrisons, a strong symbol of state influence, has been incorporated into other buildings symbolic of government authority.

The well-polished main corridors of the garrison divide the interior lengthwise on each floor. A central staircase intersects all the base levels and leads straight to the rooftop. In the stronghold's armory, the base's security force keeps rifles, ammunition, and a force of Thembrian light tanks.

KITCHEN & MESS HALL

Food for the academy's personnel is prepared in the base kitchen and served in the mess hall. Eating the meals is not half as bad as cooking them; unruly students are often consigned to kitchen duty, boiling gallons of gruel or peeling turnips by the potful for roast turnip dinners.

MAIN HANGAR

No air force academy (even one in Thembria) would be complete without runways and hangars, and the Thembrian Academy lacks neither. The base airstrips look like little more than snowplowed paths, although their firmness suggests that the Thembrians put pavement somewhere beneath the snow blanket. The slippery surface compounds the difficulty of coordinating simultaneous landings, making for some interesting "icecapades" on the crisscrossing runways.

The main hangar is more or less a giant barn of concrete and steel with a vault-type sliding door of solid metal. Access panels on the roof lead into the hangar's ventilation system above the ceiling rafters, grids of rotting wood weakened by years of termite attack.

The Thembrian Air Force Academy does not keep many planes on the premises except for training aircraft, which students can go through in an awful hurry; Thembrian workers often strip wrecks of all useful parts just to keep the tougher planes going. The academy's officers order new planes when they expect a visit from the High Marshall, who makes at least one trip annually to the base for an exhibition honoring Thembria's Great Patriotic Flounder. (See Special Events under the "TaleSpin World" section for details.)

Thembrian guards, posted outside the doors and up in the control podium, keep security tight around the hangar. The last thing commanders need is some self-motivated student sneaking off for an unsupervised flying session.