The World Dragon's Heir - Chapter 767: Prioritized Development

“So, what one do we do first? It looks like the Gull wing will be the one that the army is going to want. If it lives up to our design estimates, it’s going to be both fast enough, and with a long enough range, that it can do piracy prevention, as well as border security.” Gully suggested.

“Alright. Let’s focus our energy on that one. But we will have one person flesh out the design for the biplane.

That way we can start limited production on it as we do the main force for the military. Make them a Wistover Duchy exclusive toy to start with, and then expand once we have enough of them for our own use.”

Gully chuckled. “I will do that. I have all the spells to make the entire biplane independently. Doing it alone will not be fast. However, these take so much less material than an airship that it’s going to be laughably easy, especially if I make all the wing spars identical.

The rest of the structure is just a tube frame with fabric over it, and some control surfaces that are basically scaled down versions of the ones on airships.”

“That works for me, if it works for the rest of the team? There is more than enough room in this warehouse to do both at the same time. In fact, we could do a half dozen of the main production airplanes at a time. Or a couple of them, and a bunch of the biplanes.

It’s all about priorities, and how eager the King is to part with future tax revenues.”

The Dwarves laughed. Of course, the King would want to deduct it from tax collections, and not pay them directly. They were already deducting a massive amount for the shipments to Dagos, and if they started adding warplanes to the mix, it would be decades before they actually owed anything.

In a way, that was a good thing. But on the other hand, they were adding a lot of value to the Kingdom without payment, which meant that their wages were coming directly from Dominic’s pocket for the foreseeable future.

Or, from the airships that went to private sale, since the King wasn’t buying them directly for the army, just demanding that the Nobles get priority to order.

“I think that we might have an issue with the Gull Wing. We’ve got an orb for mana storage, but we need it at rather high level. No offence, but none of the apprentices can do that, and it takes us forever to make Mage Crystals at that level.

Unless Lord Dominic is going to hand make the mana storage magitech orbs, we’re going to need assistance from the Mage Sects,” one of the engineers noted as they began setting outlines for the various stations on the floor.

Gully laughed. “Do you know how long it takes even an Archmage to make a level ten Mage Crystal for that magitech storage orb? Nearly four days. Doing nothing but eating, sleeping and growing the crystal.

The only real option is to ask the Duke to do it. It’s that or make the mages do it all directly, and that won’t meet the requirements that the King demanded.”

“Even if we recruit the mages, it’s going to be a massive expense. That’s why Gully is certain that seeing them will convince the King that training mages to fly them will be a better option.

Keeping them fully defended with magic makes much more sense when they’re as nearly as expensive as a full airship.”

The other engineers winced at the mention of the cost.

It wasn’t actually that bad, but it was certainly not going to be cheap when they needed a level ten Mage Crystal for the mana storage magitech orb to keep the plane in the air for two hours.

Now, that was an extremely long distance in a straight line, but flying patrol routes, or hunting for targets on the open ocean would quickly burn through that.

Plus, if they had to fight other interceptors in the future, they would be using full throttle a lot, which burned through mana at an astounding rate. Usually, the airships ran between half and two thirds of maximum power, and they had a steam chamber backup that was large enough to support the turbines.

This design did not.

It relied entirely on stored mana. That way kept the weight down, so it was faster and more agile. But the cost to operate was going to be prohibitive. Even just getting the mana recharged between flights would need experienced mages.

That would keep them employed, but that sort of work was difficult to hire for, as it wasn’t glorious.

After spending most of a decade in a very expensive and prestigious magical academy, none of the graduates really wanted to work a job that didn’t lead them to recognition or wealth.

And the ones who flunked out weren’t strong enough to be truly useful.

So, asking them only to work the flight line was not going to be a particularly popular option. However, if you called the air corps a form of elite flying cavalry force, that was something that they could brag about, and use to show off their power.

However, Dominic would not mention that to the King. He would spend the next few months working on the designs with the others, and then they would present one to the Military Advisors council, so they could make their own conclusions.

All that it had to do was meet the spec, which it technically did.

How they used it in practice was going to be the difficult part.

Dominic’s pondering was cut short as Gully finished bending a wing rib to shape, following the plans he had designed.

“Can you make me a mould for these, so we can stamp them out of clay, then upgrade them? We will be making the whole thing out of upgraded versions of aluminum. But I need twenty-five of these, and fifteen of the smaller ones for each plane. Then, we can work on extruding some hollow tubing to make the frame after I get the jigs built.”

Dominic nodded, and quickly made a casting stamp, a two part mould for wet clay to be pressed between. Once that was done, they could stamp out two dozen wing spars in under ten minutes, so the hard part would be getting everything in place and perfectly aligned.

The Natural Sons were going to love these things.