This story is a sequel to Of Challenges and Kisses
Fresh out of the Academy, Featherweight's finally got his wings, figuratively, of course. He’s now a first-class Navigator, with no idea of where he’s going with his own life, much less an airship. Fat load of good those classes did.
Much to his dismay, The Sol Aeternus, flagship of Celestia herself, plucked him off the streets as soon as he made it out the door.
The diplomatic mission to the western lands of the Crown runs afoul when the Aeternus meets an angry fleet. With few other options, and none of them good, Celestia, Spitfire, and the worst navigator on the ship escape west, directly into Crown—and maybe enemy—territory.
Written in the same timeline as: Of Solicitude
Chapters (1)
Not to be confused with "Rainbow Dash flies east"
I need to read the previous story first, which I've been meaning to do for some time. I'm curious to see how these two stories which seem like they would have nothing to do with each other are in fact connected.
I think the sequel link may be incorrect.
3612819
Enough time has passed between the two that some key things have changed. And I crafted it in a way that you could read any one without reading the others and not miss a beat.
3612826
Oh? How so? The link works on my end.
3612836
Well I thought Rumbling the Dinks was the sequel to Challenges and Kisses. This story, on the surface, doesn't seem to have any connection besides Featherweight being a character.
Wheeee!!! They're up!
x pony flies y direction?
Somehow this seems familiar
fimfiction-static.net/images/avatars/32973_256.jpg?1385412218
3612993 thus my first comment.
3612898
Rumbling Dinks is a sidequel, if that is a thing. It follows the continuity of OCaK, but not the characters. This is a direct sequel.
3613110
Damn. beat me to the punch.
Alright, see, this I take issue with. A fighter plane should not need more than two people. Modern military planes that require more than two people aren't fighter craft, they're designed for special missions like electronic warfare, surveillance, or anti-submarine missions.
In addition, you can't launch planes out of the hangar. I would wager that's true even with an airship. You need wind flowing over the planes, and the best way to do that is with an open deck. Alternately, an airship might do better just dropping the planes out and letting gravity do the work instead of a catapult system.
An an aircraft maintenance person, I find this offensive. Those maintenance ponies need to be seriously reprimanded. I mean, seriously, were their OSHA guidelines written by StableTec?
3621331
First, let me tackle the landing/takeoff issue.
From the get go I wanted the flagship to have a hangar that was not completely visible from the outside, which, as you mentioned, brings up a problem with take off and landing (look at Steam Gears, for example. The first scene where we see a plane taking off, it's litterally dropped from the airship then turns on). So, I decided to use a catapult system. It should, in theory, give the plane enough speed so that when it launches out of the airship, it's going fast enough to glide a ways. As you mentioned, they could just drop out, but that would mean a lose of time as they try to build up their speed. And in a battle, a few seconds can really count.
The two pilot thing: I'm sorry, I miswrote that. What I meant was, that the planes have two opperators. One's a pilot, the other's a "navigator". The pilot would, well, pilot, and fire the main weapons. The navigator would reload those weapons from behind (these are not very modern ships). Control the radio systems (again, primitive) and trade information with both control and the pilot. That way the pilot can focus on piloting.
As for the tool. Yeah, that's just an oversight on my part. Never even crossed my mind.
3622082 Well, it's probably less of an issue with prop craft than jet engines, but even the prop craft landing/launched from Nimitz carriers still use the catapult to get up to speed. Now, that plane might have less of an issue, since prop crafts don't need the same relative windspeed that an F-18 does, but the absence of ambient wind speed will make takeoff more diffifult.
Maybe I misread the part on crew; it sounded like you were saying it needed 4 crew to fly. (Alright, Celestia probably counts as two, in ability and weight
) Pilot/Nav is an established combo even for military craft, so no complaints there. (Though navigator usually also controls some of the weapons. "Launching Celestia at the enemy!" )
The tools part, though, I'm writing up those maintainers and assigning them all EMI.
3622152
I take it you're a plane buff too?
3622156 More like it's my job.
i14.photobucket.com/albums/a331/brittmcgee/MLP%20Minecraft/TLSOA_zps2aa17c49.png
Airships are cool
Airship aircraft carriers are at least 120% cooler
That was an interesting start. I am certainly looking forward to more.