The World Dragon's Heir - Chapter 457

Chapter 457: Structural Plans
“The first challenge is going to be the internal structure. Holding the balloon in place with ropes isn’t going to work for this design.” Gully, the self-appointed head of design, announced.

“Hollow tubes? Or is it better to do a half loop with lightening holes?” One of the others asked.

“Let’s design both. It’s easier to build the model and put it on the scale than to calculate the weight savings.” Dominic suggested.

Gully laughed. “Trust the Dragonkin to have the practical answer. You would be a terrible researcher, but I like the way that you think.”

“What should we start with? Just regular aluminum to see how extreme the construction methods need to be?” One of the older dwarves suggested.

“That’s not bad. Go for aluminum, with thicker hull plating, and a double layered gas envelope. That’s peak safety procedures, even if it will hurt our cargo capacity.” Gully agreed.

“If we’re going to use them for the military as well as for reliable cargo, that will be important. They’ll obviously be using defensive barriers, but you can’t make it too easy to tear or puncture the envelope once the barrier is down.” Dominic noted.

The dwarves nodded in agreement. “Aye, there was an incident a few years back where a Roc, a big flying monster, attacked airships in its territory, and tore the containment.

Takes them right out of the sky. That would never do in battle, and it won’t take long for armies to learn to hook defenceless ships with a grapple to tear them to shreds.”

Gully sighed. “Unfortunately, the only viable option that we have for a cover is rubberized silk. There isn’t anything else that will both hold the gas and be light enough to be useful.

A metal containment vessel is too heavy, even if we use some of the more advanced metals.

So, an airship will never be a tank, unless we’re using a huge amount of magic to keep it aloft. And at that point, do we even call it an airship?”

That was an issue for durability. But it was what it was.

“Well, if we have enough weight available, we can work on something. But just having a frame with inner bladders and an outer bubble that isn’t holding the primary helium source should be a good start.

We will be able to lose a portion of the lift, and they will have to get past the frame to get the primary envelope.” One of the others suggested.

That was added to the design, and Dominic could see that the new airship was becoming a much more extensive engineering problem than the old ones had been.

They should be even safer, though.

With three sections, it would be harder for a cannonball to take them down, and they would be less likely to simply plummet from the air. A controlled crash was much more survivable.

The structure of the airships was starting to become a coherent design, not just a basic concept.

That meant that they could start making the construction blueprints for the framework. The dwarves planned to lay out the parts to cut them to size instead of making jigs like they would for larger pieces. But the real challenge was making the thin tubing that would be used for the first design.

If it was solid wire, it would be heavier than the representative design, and that would mess up their calculations.

Even just trying to extrapolate a full sized design from the scale models was difficult, but if they weren’t true to the design, it would be even worse.

Fortunately for Dominic, the men were all skilled at their trades, and with experienced blacksmiths, they were not strangers to delicate work and precision tooling.

“While they work on the design blueprints, why don’t we start on the magical portion? It will take a few days to get the final design done and get the models made.” One of the Techno Wizards suggested.

“That’s a wonderful idea. What did you have in mind? Everyone complains that a full magical design will take too much skilled labour to be practical for sale, so it will have to be efficient and limited, but with the option to expand.” Dominic agreed.

“That shouldn’t be an issue. They’ll need someone with at least a little skill to keep the orbs for the motors going, unless we’re going to use boilers and steam turbines, which will limit range.

Beyond that, I was thinking of just a few simple things. We can add wind magic to increase speed and lift, the combat spells for the military options, which I am told that you already know, and if we’re feeling adventurous, we could use a levitation spell to reduce the weight of the cargo, so it would be volume limited and not mana limited.

That might be beyond the average merchant, but an average merchant isn’t buying a top of the line next-generation airship.

Those who can afford it can afford to hire a mage, and wouldn’t you know it, a little birdie tells me that Wistover is training a whole school full of them.”

The Dwarves laughed at the comment, and Dominic smiled back.

“I’m glad we’re all on the same page. Having enough mages isn’t just for inside the city, it’s a job opportunity that will take them anywhere within the Cygnia sphere of influence.”

“So, we can make all the appropriate orbs, and offer them as options for the purchasers of the airships. These large cargo hold style airships will be able to do so much more than anything that came before them, and I honestly don’t think that we will lose much by staying with a standard steam boiler setup for the turbine.

Water creation spells built into the control room will take care of refuelling, and steam vents to each turbine will be better for weight distribution.

If we put larger amounts of weight outboard, it needs a stronger frame, and if we put magic out there, it needs ranged activation and maintenance. That will be the killer part. A ship this large will need at least four turbines for control and flight.

That’s a lot of maintenance, and it will drive away some customers.”

Dominic frowned, “Then we design it for both. Offer the propeller design as the base model with the turbines as a higher speed option with associated costs for those willing to take the risk.

What sort of speeds are we looking at? Or do you know yet?”

The Techno Wizards turned to Gully, the lead designer.

“If we can use levitation and wind magic, plus that turbine design you showed us, driven off a steam boiler, we should be up over a hundred kilometres an hour, where the standard balloon and ship hull design is only good for about thirty.” He insisted.

Now they were talking.