AiringJet Current

The AiringJet Current, or the AiringJet, is an artificial vortex in the sky that sucks in and traps hot air, keeping Antarctica cold. It is the air vortex that runs through Club Penguin Island's popular Jet Pack Adventure course, giving the course a rather windswept atmosphere and making the game significantly harder.

Background
The AiringJet was created in late 2006 as a means of speeding up the airflow in CP's newest game Jet Pack Adventure. The problem was that the Jet Packs did not have enough fuel to make it from one starting pad to another, and it would cost the island millions of coins to move the welded-in-place, heatproof pads. So, G came up with a plan to create a faster airflow within the game area -- a strong air current. This air current would blow fresh, cold, polar air through the game course to do two things: speed up the players, and cool down the heat from the jet packs. Just as the current's large primer pumps (see Structure for more) were being built, Mayor McFlapp of Ternville (who was funding the project) received news that global warming was causing the entire continent to heat up, and that average temperatures in the USA had gone up 1.15 degrees. At a South Pole Council Meeting, the Mayor passed a bill expanding the project (dubbed "Project Refrigerate") into a current that would fly across all of Antarctica. The current, dubbed "AiringJet" by the government, is very useful in many ways (see Involvement) and is a large tourist attraction. Penguins come all day to see the large vortex at work cooling the continent down.

Involvement
The vortex's main purpose is to help prevent global warming and cool down the continent. It does this by sucking in and trapping hot air, while refrigerating the air around it. The Current also makes a wonderful tourist spot.

The vortex as seen in Jet Pack Adventure is very strong, lifting coins right off the ground and carrying them up into the air. It blows the many obstacles of the course, like anvils, coffee bags, and such, to and fro to keep the Jet Packers alert and wary.

The vortex is also used by aircraft to boost speed. Flying in the area directly below the Current gives planes a forward push, though flying too close will result in disastrous turbulence.

Guiness Continental Records 2006-Present
The vortex is featured every year in the book Guiness Continental Records, as the location with the highest wind speed and the highest amount of tourists visiting, second only to Hackzon Valley (in that field). An excerpt from the book:

"'The AiringJet Current is a fast-flowing artificial air vortex that serves to cool down the continent and slow down or prevent global warming. Its average summer speed is about 121.78 mph, while its average winter speed is about 102.39 mph. To see its tourism profile, go to page 475.'"

Another excerpt, from the book section "Tourism":

"'The AiringJet Current is a gale-speed current that flows above Antarctica as part of 'Project Refrigerate' (more details on page 213). It is visited about 20,000,000 times a day and, according to polls, about 53.6% of tourists in the USA daily are going to see the current. It is second only to Hackzon Valley (visited about 25,00,000 times a day) in terms of most visited.'"

Appearance and Properties
The AiringJet appears as a large, semi-transparent gray vortex swirling and thrashing in the sky. It seems to act much like a snake, in that it buckles, twists, swerves, and slithers through mazes of clouds. The vortex's height varies, but it usually keeps below the tropopause (the boundary between the stratosphere and the troposphere).

Interior
The AiringJet seems small from a distance, but it is actually quite large, its diameter being about six times a commercial airplane's wingspan. Inside the AiringJet, the wind blows like mad and the cloud-speckled walls seem to shift and bubble as the current moves them along. The roar of the vortex is so loud that you must shout at the top of your lungs to be heard.

If you are inside a bubble, the roar will be muffled down to a growling sound that is still loud enough to keep you awake.

Structure
The AiringJet's structure is highly complex and has been designed so that the Current can be utilized for many different purposes.

The Current is powered by a vast ensemble of specialized pumps, called primer pumps. Each pump is wrapped like a tourniquet around the Current, sucking immense amounts of air from the outside and pumping it forcefully into the Current. The inner wall of the primer pumps spins around as well, to create the vortex effect of the Current and help boost velocity. Built into the pumps are refrigerators that cool down the air outside of the vortex while heating up the air in the Current. The pumps are operated by a massive workforce of arctic terns using all sorts of machinery (treadmills, bicycles, cranks, etc.) to turn the gears and pulleys that run the pumps. The terns have rotating schedules and take an hour off (it's pretty tiring to operate those pumps) before moving onto the next pump. Each primer pump is supervised by a chief engineer, usually a tern or a penguin, who operates the master controls of the pump. By working together, all the pump operators and their primer pumps are able to manage the wild AiringJet, and can use it to do almost any important task (like halting an airplane's stall, boosting a USA fighter plane while slowing down enemy fighters, clearing bad weather out of the way, etc.).

All around the Current walls are located special "secondary vortexes" that serve as exits from within the main current. These exits are used by only JetPackers and Skylines, as they are too small to let anything else through. The secondary vortexes are produced by pumps similar to the pumps powering the actual vortex (except the terns use only bicycles). The terns operating these secondary pumps also have a rotating schedule and take half an hour off before moving onto the next pump. Each of these pumps is also operated by an engineer, who takes orders from the chief engineer of the nearest primer pump.

Pumps that are smaller than primer and secondary pumps and distribute other items in and out of the Current are called accessory pumps. There are many different types of accessory pumps, each of which has a different purpose.

The section of the Current that contains Club Penguin's Jet Pack Adventure Course contains specialized accessory pumps that pump coins in and out of the Current. The coins first sit in a large bin in the Lighthouse interior, and are then sent into a TeleNet portal that transports them to an accessory pump that shoots them into the AiringJet. They get tossed about until they either get collected by a jet packer or sucked up by any of the other accessory pumps, which feed them down another TeleNet, which transports them back to the bin.

Other accessory pumps are used to release or pump in air to pressurize the Current and stabilize it. These are called pressure pumps and are operated automatically by a master supercomputer located in Dorkugal. They can also be used for defensive purposes, like blasting powerful jets or air at unwelcome creatures (in which case they are operated manually). Some pressure pumps are used to launch missiles and other projectiles. The missiles are locked in a metal holder, which is inserted above the pressure pump. The holder allows the missile a limited range of motion so that it can move around to aim at enemy targets. The missile is shot by manually forcing the pressure pump to blast air out of the Current and into the holder, which promptly uses the blast to launch the missile.

Special openings are occasionally found in the Current's wall. These openings are called gates if they are large enough to accommodate large flying vehicles like planes and portals if they can only take a few penguins at a time. The openings are simply metal rings embedded in the Current's wall, split by metal rods into two halves -- one outside the wall and the other inside it -- that allow the wall to pass between them. When the gate/portal is opened, the metal rods retract, pulling the two halves together, thus disallowing the wall to pass between them and subsequently allowing the section of the wall they enclose to dissipate, pinching an opening into the wall much like a cookie cutter. The gate/portal seals shut again when the metal rods come back out and push the two halves apart, letting the wall seal itself. The gate/portal is operated by a solitary tern.

Portals that are used to deliver bubble-encased packages for the postal service are called mail portals. The packages are brought up by hot air balloon, encased in a bubble by a purple puffle, then placed into the Current by the tern operating the portal. After arriving at their destination mail portal, another tern uses a large mechanical claw to pick up the package, pops the bubble, and places the package into another hot air balloon, which takes the package down to earth. The government uses the Current a lot to send absolutely pointless important items, documents, and tapes.

Trivia

 * This is a very loose parody of the Roaringburn Current (which is an ocean current) in the Redwall book The Bellmaker.
 * In the book Professor Shroomsky's Wild Escapade, the AiringJet is accidentally lowered to ground level when Professor Shroomsky, who gets annoyed with Explorer breaking the Fourth Wall, performs a "COC-Abiding" exorcism that is supposed to cause the Fourth Wall to fall down.