Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

"How about we fly over town and then come back?" Wolfe suggested, then took his hands off the controls.

"It's all you. Just hold the controls steady and look forward to keep the horizon in your sights. There is a gauge here that tells you if you're level as well, but it's not always necessary. Just fly past town, and then make a gentle left turn, with small inputs of your controls."

They flew for a few minutes, and the copilot became visibly confused.

"It only took us a few minutes to get here on your platform, but it's going to take so much longer to get there in the plane." He noted.

"While we are at seventy percent throttle, normal cruising speed, it is fifty kilometres to Forest Grove. It just feels much shorter when I am flying us in a bubble at eight hundred kilometres an hour."

King Petros laughed. "Just being along for one trip on your flying platform has spoiled them. But this speed is impressive. This would cover the distance from the Capital to the Palace in an hour and a half instead of a day. Plus, there is room behind us for a steamer trunk, should your passenger not have a spatial storage device."

Wolfe nodded. "You do need to watch the balance, so you don't get too much weight at the back, but other than that, it's a simple thing. How is the flying going, young Artificer?"

"This is actually straightforward. I suspect that landing and taking off are the hard parts." He noted.

"Exactly. For the rest of the flight, you just need to try to stay in the middle of the sky, and pointed in the right direction. You can also fly a kilometre or more above the ground, so you're out of range of anything that might want to attack you."

"All this, and no threat of bandits? Now we're talking." The Artificer laughed, while pulling back on the controls a little to aim the nose up and get some altitude.

Once the trees were tiny beneath them, he levelled out.

"That should be over a kilometre in the sky, and the plane has no problems. What is the limitation?" He asked.

"The air gets thinner the further you go up, so it gets harder to climb, but above three thousand metres above the sea, it becomes difficult to breathe as well. So, one kilometre above the ground in most places except the mountains is generally a safe flight altitude.

You can see much further from up here as well, so if you're flying from city to city, it can be an advantage, in that you can more easily see your destination. From here, we can see over a hundred kilometres of ground in any direction.

That should be enough for you to use landmarks to navigate, as long as it's not too cloudy to see them. If not, we have a compass and a map of the area. I think the compass will work in your world just fine, and I'm sure you have a suitable map." Wolfe joked.

"I would say there are one or two accurate ones. Don't tell the cartographer's guild I said that." The copilot laughed.

They made a loop over the city, with the passengers watching the festivities in the woods as they flew, and then they returned to the river, making a loop and turning to face the woods.

"Now, what we're going to do is line up on that river and begin our descent to the ground. You want to make it nice and smooth, and once we get close, you will begin to lower the throttle settings. When we are getting close, we will lower the flaps, which let the plane fly at lower than normal speeds.

Once we are within fifty metres of the ground and slowly descending, we will turn on the headwind switch. That will let you slow the throttle to only a little above idle, and the plane's speed over the ground will slow to a moderate jog.

That will let us stop easily on the river, while the pedals for the rudder also operate rudders on the pontoons, so we can manoeuvre in the water.

Wolfe watched carefully as the Artificer followed his instructions, nervously bringing the plane to a crawl, and then somewhat roughly into the water, but not enough to cause any problems.

"Very nice for a first try. We're safely back on the ground, and if we head to the dock, we can exit the plane and try out the other." He explained.

The artificer looked extremely reluctant to get out of the Pilot's seat, a sentiment that the others completely understood. They were artificers, finding and trying new magic was their passion, their life's work. Now that they had their hands on an astonishing new thing that they couldn't replicate on their own, they didn't want to let it go.

"King Petros." The Artificer pleaded, unsure how to put his desire into words.

"Fine. We can wait on the more complex one. This seems to be well within the easy learning capabilities of our people, and you said that it has a failsafe if you make an error, correct? Would it be possible to trade you for three units identical to this one?" The King reluctantly agreed, as they had three Artificers who all worked for him present.

"For you, I can call three units a gift. I will make them new for you, and the ladies can take the other two for their test flight. They're both capable pilots, and often make supply drops for the villages." Wolfe agreed.

"What do you mean, supply drops?" Petros asked.

"You know, food, medical supplies, weapons if they're under attack by wild monsters. The sort of thing that a small village might need from their leaders." Wolfe explained.

"How did I not think of that? Dropping supplies for the Nobles is a wonderful use of these airplanes. We will arrange to have pilots trained for an order of the twin engine versions, which presumably hold more cargo, to be picked up at the next festival." Petros agreed.

The twins and their Trolls all cheered in unison. "Next festival is perfect timing. It's the Winter Solstice party. The mating festivals are on the equinox, but the Witches celebrate the full moons and the two equinox days. There will be a great party for you next time, and many more witches for the hiring fair, if they agree to go work off world."