Pinkie Pie and the Jet Set · 5:53pm Dec 14th, 2014
On Friday, I spent six hours stuck at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport when a computer glitch grounded flights to London. Fortunately my new laptop has a long battery life, and I had plenty of new story ideas to work on…
Vectors: Shho13, BitterPlagueRat, Rolls-Royce
“Hey Dashie, wanna do something super fun and all about flying and high speed?”
“Sounds good.”
Pinkie Pie pulled her friend through the door of Sugarcube Corner and into the kitchen. The table was covered with a pile of pieces of shiny metal. Nuts, bolts, fan-blades, pipes and heat exchangers covered the surface, surrounding a large cylindrical object, tapered at the end.
“What's all this?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“It's a jet engine!”
“A what?”
“You remember that time when Rarity went to Canterlot and made friends with all those posh ponies, except there was that one real snooty stallion who was a big meany pants, whose name was 'Jet Set'? Well we were talking about him the other day—I asked Rarity if he might lighten up if I threw him a Pinkie party, and Rarity said that was a marvelous idea, but she would have to arrange something with Fancy Pants to make sure that Mr Set would show up—anyway, I just asked myself, what kind of a name is 'Jet Set' for a pony anyway? What is a jet for that matter? So I looked it up in the encyclopedia and it turns out a jet is a sort of super high power gas turbine engine which you can use to fly really really fast.”
“Okay.”
“I got one mail-order.”
Pinkie proudly held up a cardboard box on which was written: ACME Jet Engine.
“I've been putting it together, it's a really beautiful bit of engineering.” She placed a hoof lovingly on the metal surface. “There's a big fan to suck the air in. It's then squashed to a super high pressure. You squirt in some fuel and spark it, and—whoosh!—all the exhaust gas flies out the back. But the design is like super-critical—it's got all this fancy cooling stuff as when it's running, some bits get so hot, it almost melts the metal. And the force on the fan-blades is more than the weight of Sugarcube corner!”
“Right. So what do you want to do with it?”
“Bring super high-speed air travel to everypony! Don't-cha see? You just strap one of these onto a pair of wings, and as the air whooshes out in one way, it pushes you in the other. Action and reaction and equal and opposite!”
Pinkie crouched down on the floor, then catapulted herself across the kitchen to illustrate the equal magnitude and opposite directions of the forces. She collided with a set of pans on the far wall, which exerted an equal and opposite force on her head. But she quickly recovered.
“I don't know why nopony has thought of doing this before. Maybe those Canterlot ponies are just boring and prefer balloons and airships as anything fast might make them spill their gin and tonic. Or maybe the Wonderbolts want to keep superfast flying for themselves—Hey Dashie—do you think I could do a sonic rainboom with one these?”
“Err, I dunno about that. Are you sure this is safe Pinkie? With that thing strapped to your back?”
“Duh! I'm not just going to fit it on my back. I want a proper aircraft with room for all my friends.”
“You're making that?”
“No. In a big project like this, you need to collaborate and delegate tasks to other engineers. I do the engine, and my collaborators make the fuselage and wings.”
“Collaborators?”
The kitchen door opened and Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo walked in.
“We put it together Pinkie,” said Scootaloo.
“This will get us our cutie marks for sure,” added Applebloom.
Will this one get off the ground? Maybe. I need to finish a couple of other stories first.
I still think you should publish a compilation of these story snippets.
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Yaay, Pinkiie got a Trent. I wondered how long it would take to make the blades that shape since I tried to analyse teh continous flow equations back at University i the 80s, then found out Rim Driven Thrusters were far more efficint and easier to build. Thats why Rolls Royce announced they were ready to bring them out. 20% more efficint, and 40% more efficnt.
But, only for total new build aircraft, instesd of replacements for existing 747s.
I mean, look at teh market. All those 50 year old aircraft needing 4 replacements each, saving 40% on fuel a time.
Then they can flog it as a SABRE upgrade as well, givng ut a 500% improvement to Mach 10.
You can tell when someone doesnt want an aircraft to work, they give it a pointy nose and make it fly in teh atmosphere. Simple example, the energy of the fuel in an Airbus A380 is enough to lift the ISS into orbit. So, we just need to make a drive system that can work with jetfuel and atmosphere, maybe retanking with oxygen on the way up, and we can have real cheap LEO flights.
I need your image editing skills.
I like that Pinkie Pie appreciates the division of labor.
Will we see Rainbow Dash race a jet plane? A modern Jane Henry?
2653111 Motion seconded, although this one could be expanded too.
I want this.
1) I don't trust ACME products
2) I don't trust CMC engineering, when Apple Bloom isn't the only one in it.
3) ACME, seriously?
No. Bad Pinkie.
I see no way this could end badly.
I am busy procrastinating, but when I am done procrastinating, I shall edit my blogpost and credit you. In the mean time, I have more procrastinating to do.
For what it's worth, there's a story where Scootaloo buys a jetpack, and it came to mind about when Pinkie was suggesting strapping a couple of jet engines on a wing.
I shudder to think of how the CMC would design a jet. It's canon that AB can't fly a hang-glider....
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