Important Disclaimer:
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The "balloon" structure of the Solstice, encompassing the solar sails and the assembly which keeps them together, was yoinked wholesale from Dreamzzz set 71477. I added the cone at the front and propeller at the back. The rest of the build is created from scratch and is my own design. Please take this into account when judging.
The Solstice is Linkingrad's first flying vessel, and regarded as the cutting edge of the state's vehicular engineering. The airship was developed with the express intention of facilitating bird's-eye view exploration of lands surrounding the Shelf, enhancing strategic understanding of the world's geography. However, it has recently been contracted by the Master of Technologies to aid in the search for parts which could prove useful in infrastructure projects, including the village space programme.
The ship is primarily powered by solar energy collected by its four vast sun collector sails, with a clockwork mechanism mainly used as a secondary source and failsafe in case of sun scarcity.
Lift is achieved through an ingeniously simple vacuum-based system.
Details of the ingeniously simple vacuum-based system:
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Traditionally, a lot of balloons and airships achieve flight employing a lighter-than-air philosophy, typically with the use of heated air or lighter-than-air gases such as hydrogen or helium. Linkingrad's engineers have, however, come up with a much cheaper and more elegant solution. What is lighter than hot air, hydrogen or helium? What is completely and utterly devoid of mass and weight? The answer, of course, is vacuum. A reinforced glass cylinder is located between Solstice's solar sails. A simple pump removes the air from the cylinder, making it increasingly vacuum-filled. As vacuum is infinitely lighter than air, the airship soars easily into the skies. Should a reduction in altitude be necessary, air can gradually be pumped into the cylinder until the desired descent is achieved. Voila.
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Main control station - where science turns to flight.
The gunner seat is on a ball joint and swivel, allowing the operator to fire up, down, and in a 150 degree arc in the horizontal plane on the starboard side.
Storage crate on deck, for the essentials that need to be available at hand.
Foldable ladder to allow boarding without running aground.
Larger storage crate at the stern for expedition supplies, tools and loot.
Pilot
Once the Solstice was completed, authorities realised with some consternation that the armed forces did not include among their ranks any trained pilots, mostly owing to the fact that the art of aviation had not previously been known, or possible, in Linkingrad.
Enter Aurora Aerheart. Having announced with disarming confidence that she was, in fact, a skilled aeronaut, Aerheart offered her services in exchange for remaining an autonomous contractor. She would complete jobs for monetary compensation rather than being integrated into the Verts, giving her the freedom to accept or reject missions at will, and to negotiate her price. Having spent considerable resources on constructing the airship, and facing the embarrassing prospect of it languishing in the docks as a purely decorative piece, the Four Masters of the Square Table reluctantly accepted Aurora's proposal, making her Linkingrad's premier privateer.
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Boast:
The Solstice took 2 days of thinking and building to construct. I toiled for hours, sifting with fervor through my completely unsorted huge bin of parts to select the finest components for this beautiful vessel. Only the hate-filled visions of countless generic tanks and APC builds which feature in the armies of lesser BrikWarriors fueled my determined creativity. The ship has already saved the lives of 5 Studlanders, as seen in the soap "Arrival", and is sure to end the lives of countless enemies in the skies above Linkingrad in the future.
