The World Dragon's Heir - Chapter 456

Chapter 456: The New Generation
Sheriff Nate arrived a few minutes later, and escorted the new arrivals into town so they could find places to live, as none of the ones who stayed were farmers.

One of the Trolls came to take the Siren Mage, the girl with the magical voice, to Alexis, as her ability didn’t work on the Trolls, and that freed Dominic and Fahad to return to the airship factory, where the Dwarves should have finished exploring.

“Well, what do you think of the setup? Did we miss anything important?” Dominic asked once everyone was gathered.

“It looks like we’ve got everything to get started.

The first few weeks won’t be too hard, we’re going to try to redesign the airship framework to be lighter and more efficient, using higher quality metals.

Most of that will be transmutation work, which isn’t an issue, as this Wistover Clay that you’ve provided is of excellent quality. Then, we will make a number of smaller scale prototypes, before we make a full-sized airship.

We can extrapolate the changes in total weight from the blueprint, but only when we actually build it for the first time will we see if there are any construction issues with the design.

Did you want to stay here while we work?”

“Sounds good to me. Fahad, what do you want to do?”

The Axbridge Prince sighed. “Unfortunately, I have to get back to the meetings. There is about to be some progress between the negotiators, and I will have to be there to officially approve it.

If you want to stay, I will let the Princess know where you are.”

“That would be perfect. I will report back tonight on our progress. Go, do what you have to do, and we will keep busy here getting everything ready for initial production.

The more convincingly we can get the project started, the easier it will be to hide their identities from anyone who might be looking for them.”

Fahad nodded. “I will make sure that everyone in the Manor knows the right way to answer when anyone asks about the new airship program. To anyone outside the Royal Families, they are just what they seem, regular employees who travelled here with a caravan.”

Dominic joined the Dwarves at a worktable, where they were sketching out designs for the “New Generation” airship, as they had tentatively labelled it.

“First up, how large are we planning to make this airship? Somewhere near the size of a warship, with a lower hold twenty metres long and a total length twice that when inflated?” The team leader asked.

Dominic shook his head. “No, I want to make a proper cargo airship. Forget naval vessel sizing, we are building the docks for it after we design the airship.

So, we can make it big. Truly large in dimensions, enough to hold an entire caravan worth of supplies.”

The dwarves looked at the hangar that had been built for the project.

“You can’t seriously be thinking of making an airship a hundred metres long?”

Dominic shrugged. “I don’t see why not. If we’re making it out of an upgraded version of aluminum, we can make a semi-rigid airship frame, instead of a balloon under netting like the primitive designs that hung a small ship underneath.

I still like the design with a ship’s hull underneath, and that will work amazingly if you’re going to land on water to load and unload.

Think big.

We’re going all out, and this will be usable for both military use and bulk freight. Nobody else is using this sort of integrated design, so we can blow all their minds.”

The Dwarves smiled. “You know, they’re going to be terrified if we show up with a massive airship lined with cannons. Not only would it dwarf anything else in the sky, if we integrate the cargo hold with a structured lifting envelope, we won’t have the sway at higher speeds.”

He began scribbling furiously. “You see, like this? If we put the envelope in a lightweight frame, we protect it from damage and leaks, but we can also mount the engines to the envelope, and eliminate the energy lost to the swaying.

A solid structure can also be shaped into a more aerodynamic shape than the usual blob of gas.

I think that the real advantage will be magitech motors, though.

Water for the steam boilers, coal or oil fuel. Those add up fast, and eat up almost all the cargo capacity of a conventional airship. Just doing away with those and replacing them with magic, we can gain back a huge amount of capacity.”

One of the other Dwarves was calculating the lifting power and volume on a large piece of paper, using the rough oblong shape that they had sketched.

“With an average diameter of thirty metres, and a hundred metres long, we’ve got just over seventy tonnes total lifting capacity using helium. Subtract the weight of the airship itself, and we should be able to give it at least fifty tonnes of capacity.

That is… a bit ridiculous, but when you think of what we want to do with it, I would say that it’s about right.

Making helium with a spell is easy enough, every airship captain can do that. Even on this scale, it won’t be a big issue.

So, the challenge will be to make a rigid structure light enough to maximize cargo capacity.” Another agreed.

“And if we put a rudder and elevator at the back, instead of relying entirely on the propellors, we can get better directional stability in motion.”

Dominic smiled and brought out the blueprints for the bypass turbine. “If we use magic to drive the turbine instead of steam, it will be harder on the crew, but I think that a ducted turbine of this design would be a great improvement over the standard propeller.”

The dwarves looked over the dimensions and nodded, then began sketching it onto the rigid airship hull design.

“Four fans, all adjustable, The rear rudders and elevators, a long cargo hold. Long, but not tall, so that we can spread the weight. We can do this.”