The World Dragon's Heir - Chapter 765: Which Design?

With the chaos sorted out for the day, Dominic headed for the airship docks to talk to the teams there.

They were already shorthanded, but they should know where he could find at least one engineer to help him with the new interceptor design, which they would have to make a whole new hangar to produce and design.

Gully met him at the door, as the senior airship engineer was on break, and glad to get some fresh air away from the chaos of the hangar.

With the whole team there, being assisted by the crew of the ship in production, there were too many bodies in the workspace, with half of them mostly only being in the way. It wasn’t optimal from a build time perspective, but these were all things that they needed to know in order to successfully operate and maintain the airships.

“You’ve got the look of a man here to give me bad news.” The Dwarf began.

“Indeed. The Royal Military Advisors have requested that we build an interceptor. An attack craft capable of running down foreign airships and pirates that might be attacking or operating unlawfully in Cygnian airspace.”

The dwarf lit his pipe and took a seat on the bench outside the door.

“Well, I can’t say that I didn’t see this coming. Good thing that we came up with a few alternatives before we made the airship, eh?

I reckon that if we go for that biplane, with two magitech turbines turning propellors, it will be more than fast enough to chase down the airships. The question is what it will do when it does?”

Dominic smiled. “I have an idea for that. Two large bore guns in the nose, firing in staggered order. We don’t need a full on cannon, but if we made the rounds twice the size of what we usually use in a rifle, it should punch through most airship armour and protective magic.

Then, give it a bomb bay, just a stacked magazine behind the pilot so it can drop a bunch of mortars onto targets below it.

That will let them use it against ships on the water, or against ground targets, since they will inevitably want something to be used in war, not just defensively. The design parameters never seem to stay where they were set, so we might as well prepare in advance.”

Gully hummed as he considered how to change the design.

“Alright. The issue is who is going to fly it. Are they going to make the Battle Mages an air force?”

Dominic shook his head. “They’re hoping for Techno Wizards on the ground to prep everything, and then the pilot to have minimal magical skills. Enough to use magitech weapons, I’m assuming. But not a full-fledged mage.”

Gully sighed. “That’s going to make a mockery of the design, and you know it.

I say that we make it possible to fly without much extra magic, like with a storage crystal to keep the steam turbines running. But then add enchantments for extra airspeed, manoeuvring speed and defensive capability that will need more capable mages.

It will be what they asked for, but they’ll realize right away that they’re idiots, and it should be mages flying the things.”

“I don’t have any objections to that. The question is if the biplane will be fast enough to be a proper interceptor. It’s going to need some serious speed to catch up to an airship spotted on a distant track, and get back to base before the pilot gets exhausted.”

“That will be the hard part. We can design it in theory, but until we’ve actually tested it, it will be impossible to tell how much the drag will slow it down.

There is probably math that tells us exactly, but I don’t know it.”

Dominic nodded. “Can I steal you from your team? They want these asap. Designing them needs expert assistance, but building them will likely be able to be delegated to a team once we train them.”

“I am an Airship Engineer, I live for the challenge. I’m sure my lads will gladly spend a few hours a day supervising the Techno Wizards as they shape the airships, and the rest following us over to design the new interceptor.

Have you thought about the logistics, though? A biplane isn’t an airship, you need infrastructure. At the very least, a straight road with no trees beside it, or a large open field.”

Dominic nodded. “The design is going to need some space for certain. The question is how large we’re going to make them. If we’re going small, like an eight or ten metre wingspan, they’ll be able to take off fast, and land short.

But if we’re going for something long range with a larger payload, they’re going to have to build an operations area for them.

I can just imagine how annoying this would have been a few years ago, when we didn’t have a good grasp of inflated rubber tires. They’ll take most of the impact of landing out, since I don’t expect the army to be in any way gentle on equipment.”

“Good point. Big soft tires are the way to go. It’ll be easier on the metal parts.

The designs that we did for the airships will be valuable as well. Thin stamped metal pieces to build the structure, with magical materials, will make it very light.

Then, we can stagger the upper wing rearward, and the lower one forward, to maximize the clean air they see, and make balancing the load easier. If we’re planning to drop things out of them, it’s going to take some adjustment as well.

But we can work that out easily enough.

Now, where are you building this new structure? I recommend over by the other building. Everyone will think it’s a third airship hangar that way, and we can build a large road without anyone asking questions.

They’ll think it’s for manoeuvring new airships, when it’s really a hard surface for the biplanes.”

Dominic nodded slowly. “I think that we should design them to be used almost exclusively off grass. If we can fly them out of a fresh mowed hay field, or a pasture, there won’t be anything for the enemy to find and destroy unless the planes are actually there.

It’s not like Cygnia is short on flat spots.”