So you want to fly? What, When, Where, Why, How

Weird Harold wrote:

Zakharra wrote: Yeah. They'd be better off using fast steam ships for sea delivery then using railroad/steam barge for physical messages or ones that needed to be kept secret.

So...

Neither of you would even bother developing a method of mail delivery twice or five times as fast as the fastest surface transport?

Not without being absolutely certain that the OBS wasn't going to have a freakout, no.

Right now, the Empire of Charis is just starting industrialization. It's relatively poor compared to its future self and aircraft don't fill any critical need. (Even if they did fill a critical need, I'd be doubtful that they were safe with respect to the OBS, and that's not a reasonable risk because Safehold is humanity's only chance. Easier to find a way to use more SNARC intel.)

Getting the railroads built out and the merchant marine on steam is a twenty year job. It's a hard job, and it's a necessary job. After that's done, there will be much more money and capability to consider the current necessities and anything nice-but-not-necessary.

Speed of communication isn't crucial because the components of the Empire are already well-administered stable societies with strong governments and a reasonable speed of communication on each land mass; communication between the land-masses gets improved immensely by steamships with sufficient range, more than enough to provide substantial commercial benefit.

Weird Harold wrote:As for reconnaissance, WWI commanders had to wait until the photo planes landed for a quick verbal brief and several more hours for the film to be developed; Reconnaissance doesn't have to be 24/7 real-time coverage in order to be useful.

Sure. This is not a present critical need for the Empire of Charis; the war they're fighting reliably locates armies where it's possible for the army to be and have logistic support. The only possible question is "how far along what known route".

Naval scouting -- when you're trying to find the enemy on the trackless ocean -- benefits enormously from radio reports, and being able to find out where your carrier is going if it changes course...

Weird Harold wrote:

Zakharra wrote:I wouldn't exactly have that much faith in a wooden plane that large staying intact for very long.

Aircrew of the DeHaviland Mosquitoes would probably disagree with you. The Mosquito was much smaller than the Hercules, but it flew a much more stressful flight profile than would be expected of a huge cargo-lifter.

I didn't know that. Very interesting.

Zakharra wrote:The vibration of the engines and just traveling through the air would be problematic.

Yet another disadvantage of reciprocating ICEs.

Just flying causes vibration and use of a jet engine or propeller is going to cause some vibration no matter what. I still think the IC engine is the better option when they can build them.

Graydon wrote:Not without being absolutely certain that the OBS wasn't going to have a freakout, no.

I didn't really put a time frame on this discussion. I think you're over-limiting things. Most of the discussed power options would require the OBS and Proscriptions to be gone.

Graydon wrote:Right now, the Empire of Charis is just starting industrialization. It's relatively poor compared to its future self and aircraft don't fill any critical need.

True, but aviation fuels imagination and innovation. The sooner Safehold starts to fly, the better off they'll be.

Graydon wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:As for reconnaissance, WWI commanders had to wait until the photo planes landed for a quick verbal brief and several more hours for the film to be developed; Reconnaissance doesn't have to be 24/7 real-time coverage in order to be useful.

Sure. This is not a present critical need for the Empire of Charis; the war they're fighting reliably locates armies where it's possible for the army to be and have logistic support. The only possible question is "how far along what known route".

There's a lot more to reconnaissance than just what route an opponent is taking. Cavalry and Scouts can provide a lot of information about the point of contact, but aerial observation, whether balloons, gliders, or full-up airplanes can provide so much more information from much deeper behind enemy lines.

The Kind of Intel the SNARCs can supply can't be matched by airplanes, but they can surpass cavalry and scouts by a good bit.

Graydon wrote:Naval scouting -- when you're trying to find the enemy on the trackless ocean -- benefits enormously from radio reports, and being able to find out where your carrier is going if it changes course...

Just being able to go straight up above your own fleet gives a view much further than even a crows-nest. Being able to see 20, 30, 50 miles or more further than your enemy confers a great advantage. Going out to the edge of visibility to your own fleet extends that even further.

A simple signalling mirror can keep your navigator/GIB in contact with your fleet. Of course, after the OBS and Proscriptions are history, radio and signal lights become possible as do homing beacons that allow you to scout beyond visual range. (Not to mention letting you put engines in your glider and/or smelt aluminum for your airplanes' structure.)

Given the current tech level of Safehold, Zeppelins (or similar) would be the best form of flying device to use.
Admittedly, the use of Hydrogen would be dangerous in certain circumstances, but the use of Steel Thistle Silk in the gasbags would reduce (not negate, reduce) the chance of accidental rips/tears that could lead to explosions.
Zeppelins wouldn't need much (if any) armour as they'd routinely operate above the height that Safeholdian artillery could reach, allowing them to scout out where the enemy is, drop bombs and/or propaganda leaflets, resupply field forces by airdrop, deploy parachutists (steel thistle silk again) etc etc.
They could even use sails to catch the wind and aid with movement.
Church troopers seeing these Sky-Ships for the first time would probably break and run. Their very existence would seriously hamper church resupply tactics as a single bomb on a road or canal could take it out of commission for weeks, making an already shaky situation catastrophic.

Bonus - Clyntahn would probably enter a rage that makes even the letter-inspired one seem like an oasis of calm, increasing the chances of an aneurysm or heart-attack, or at the very least, rumours about how he's lost it and has gone insane.

Michael Everett wrote:Given the current tech level of Safehold, Zeppelins (or similar) would be the best form of flying device to use.

Dirigibles would take a while to develop, giving blimps and balloons a head start. Do you think they might persist longer than in OTL? Hopefully Merlin/OWL can steer them away from the Thermite clone used as a coating on the Hindenburg and other Zepelins.

Michael Everett wrote:Admittedly, the use of Hydrogen would be dangerous in certain circumstances, but the use of Steel Thistle Silk in the gasbags would reduce (not negate, reduce) the chance of accidental rips/tears that could lead to explosions.

I'm sure there are other options for reducing the danger of explosion -- better ventilation, maybe?

Michael Everett wrote:Zeppelins wouldn't need much (if any) armour as they'd routinely operate above the height that Safeholdian artillery could reach, allowing them to scout out where the enemy is, drop bombs and/or propaganda leaflets, resupply field forces by airdrop, deploy parachutists (steel thistle silk again) etc etc.

I suspect development time would push Dirigibles past the current war and technology will overtake them in the inter-war years; depending on when the Proscriptions are lifted and the OBS neutralized.

Dirigibles would certainly reduce mail delays by providing trans-oceanic air mail service. Passenger service would probably be restricted to the "rich and royal," at least for the first dozen or so airships.

Graydon wrote:It's a big if, because scouting aircraft are much, much less useful with no radios.

Only really plausible use I can think of is mail, and that kinda depends on range.

Colored smoke. Make a semaphore-like pattern based on 5-8 colors. Mount a small dispenser, shouldn't weigh more than 50 pounds with one pound smoke grenades, or bigger ones if you want longer range.

Red, green, red might mean "small group of troops in the open", followed by a base 8 (because of smoke colors) reference in kilometers and vector from either the plane's current location, or based off a grid map. Brown, brown, brown might mean "Really huge column of troops approaching your position", with no additional signals necessary.

Are there any bamboo or bamboo-like plants growing on Safehold? It would probably be the strongest-for-weight material to use as frame members on planes. Bamboo has been used for some pretty high-stress applications on old Earth, for everything from bicycles to radar domes to scaffolding. You'd probably have to have a really good glue technology to make it work, though.
Philip Stanley

RandomGraysuit wrote:

Graydon wrote:It's a big if, because scouting aircraft are much, much less useful with no radios.

Only really plausible use I can think of is mail, and that kinda depends on range.

Colored smoke. Make a semaphore-like pattern based on 5-8 colors. Mount a small dispenser, shouldn't weigh more than 50 pounds with one pound smoke grenades, or bigger ones if you want longer range.

Red, green, red might mean "small group of troops in the open", followed by a base 8 (because of smoke colors) reference in kilometers and vector from either the plane's current location, or based off a grid map. Brown, brown, brown might mean "Really huge column of troops approaching your position", with no additional signals necessary.

Or you could just write a note, put it in a container with streamers and throw it over the side as you pass over your own troops.

Zakharra wrote: Unless Merlin used the manufacturing base in OWL's cave to build a Federation level manufacturing unit to make the Federation level technology of skimmers and such, Safehold is going to have to advance through every technological step to being able to understand as a society modern (Federation level) technologies. Just handing out the advanced tech base (which would have tom by its scarcity, only go to a few places at first, which would severely limit control of it) isn't serving Merlin's purpose.

Why wouldn't he? I've been assuming that, once the Proscriptions are voided and the Truth revealed, that Merlin would put the manufacturing capabilities of the cave to creating the initial technology to jumpstart Safehold, letting them leapfrog over some intervening technologies. This is exactly why I believe that Safehold won't bother with internal combustion engines.

If kites are allowed on Safehold, then building large, man carrying kites seems to be a logical development. Ship mounted kites would be quite useful, especially when steam ships become more common, as observation platforms for the ships. The Kite's crew would need signal lamps to communicate with the ship, but that does not seem to be a great difficulty.

Tethered kites (usually giant parasails) or even blimps have been proposed as a means of auxiliary propulsion for Earth based ships, so if this approach is followed there is a "twofer"; ships gain extended range as there is less need for using the engine and an observation crew can be aloft to scan for other ships, inclement weather, threatening sea hazards and so on.

An alternative to kites would be an unpowered autogyro. The German Navy developed something along these lines in WWII for use in U-boats, with the surfaced U-boat towing these things through the air behind them. In an emergency, the pilot could cast off and glide to a controlled landing at sea, presumably to be picked up by the U-boat or captured and interned by the allies. If the issue of the proscriptions arises, an autogyro *could* be passed off as a sort of windmill (something that Safehold already is familiar with).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Achgelis_Fa_330