After four days of jig building and hard work, the core of the biplane was ready, and Dominic was fairly certain that their newly developed instruments were going to be sufficient that they would allow the plane to fly safely, even in questionable weather.

The airships didn’t need much but a compass, and a magitech altimeter.

But they also had to avoid major thunderstorms, as extreme winds would push them wherever the wind pleased, and they were a massive target attracting lightning strikes.

The aircraft got a couple more gauges, telling them what direction they were pointed, relative to the horizon, and how fast they were turning. Those would help in cloud, where they might be able to see the enemy, but not the ground.

Nothing said "bad ending" quite like hurtling toward the ground at five hundred kilometres an hour, thinking you were circling an airship high in the sky.

Technically, the biplanes would struggle to get to more than two hundred kilometres an hour. But they would be much easier on mana than the actual attack craft, and more manoeuvrable.

The last addition that they put in was actually not something made for flight, but for merchants.

There was an enchantment for maps that told the user where they were. It should be especially useful for pilots, who could much more easily get lost than even a caravan on the open sands.

Of course, there were practical limits. Like the quality of the maps that they had, and the fact that you simply couldn’t unfold one inside the airplane.

But a small map with decent details of the region would at least get them within a few kilometres of their destination. From there, they would have to descend below the clouds and find out where they actually were.

That could be easier said than done.

However, there were already some accommodations in place for the airships. The airship hangars in every town painted the name of the town on the roof.

Only the airships would ever see it, but it ensured that the town got their supplies.

With even that simple nod to direction finding, the airships could confirm their locations without relying on other landmarks. In some cases, it was easy. The river was impossible to miss, and Wistover was right on the river, so if you found one, you could find the other.

But not every town had that advantage.

"What colour should we make the first plane?" Gully asked as he began arranging the patterns to cut the silk for the plane’s covering.

"I’m thinking a mixed pattern. Drab green on the majority, light blue on the bottom surface. That way, when you look from below, it blends with the sky, when you look from above, it blends with the ground."

"That’s actually brilliant. Nobody would paint a carriage that colour, so it’s not going to interfere with anyone else’s livery." Gully agreed.

"We should still put some sort of identifying mark on them. Maybe a flag on the tail surface? Just so that people know who they belong to. That’s what we do with ships and airships."

"Alright, that works for me. I’ll finish up the silk tonight, so it can cure. Come back in the morning, and you can take it for a test flight. You know how to fly, right?"

"Of course. And I’m pretty sure that I understand the controls we made."

That was going to be the interesting part.

They had designed all the controls for the new biplane, but none of them had actually flown anything like this before. Nobody had, as far as they knew. It was more of a theoretical flying machine than a practical one up to this point.

They understood the concepts, but nobody with enough magic had ever tried to build one.

And that was how Dominic found himself strapping a helmet on at dawn.

"Alright, all the control surfaces move as intended with the stick. No slop or play in the motion. Now, power it up and let’s see what a dragonkin can do with this turbine."

Dominic flipped the cockpit lid closed and poured mana into the complex circuitry between the mana storage crystal and the turbine. Everything came to life, and the propeller began to turn as the turbine spun up to speed.

He let it spin to a quarter thrust, which was enough that the tail of the plane began to lift off the ground, forced up by the airflow.

Then, he returned it to idle, and let Gully remove the blocks from in front of the tires.

"Off we go!"

Gully laughed as the turbine whined, and the plane began to move.

"The Princess is going to quite literally murder you if she finds out that you let the Duke make the first test flight in an untested design," one of the other engineers noted.

"I don’t doubt that you’re right. I’m just praying that he makes it back down safely so that she goes after him first. I’ve already got my valuables packed and waiting in the warehouse, in case I need to run."

Once it was pointed across the grass field on the far side of the hangars, Dominic smoothly pushed the throttle forward to full power, and the plane rocketed forward. Then, with a slight input of the stick, the tail dropped, and the biplane screamed into the sky, nearly vertical, driven by pure thrust.

They had underestimated the amount of power that they were producing, or perhaps the pitch calculation of the propeller.

Cautious adjustments levelled him out a thousand metres above the city, and Dominic realized that they had missed one important piece of information. He had no idea how fast he was going. How was he supposed to estimate how far he had gone if he couldn’t see the ground, and he couldn’t tell how fast he was moving? 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

There were magitech items for that, it was no big deal to make one. They just forgot to add it to the panel.

A minor detail.

He circled over the open forest between the hangars and the monster summoning ritual area. With rough math, knowing how far it was to the ritual zone, and his watch, Dominic estimated that they were right on the speed limitations.

He was doing close to two hundred kilometres an hour, which felt sedate and reasonable from this height. As long as he was level.

However, the design was incredibly agile, and if he pulled too far on the stick, he would crush himself down into the seat. The plane was holding up wonderfully, with no signs that the stress was giving it any issues.

Gully would check that once he landed. But first, he had to actually land.