Aircraft Design Company- Matsura's Planes Are Always Fastest!

With the incredibly overbuilt airframe and the wide, stubby wings running through, with heavy composite wood spars, there was no real need for external reinforcement, even given the maneuvers the plane would undergo. You valued clean design above almost anything; a plane should have as few elements protruding from it as possible. (There was a doodle going around the office of "Matsura's Ideal Plane", a featureless cone with a propeller on the front.)

Flaps were a theory that had been explored by a few Albian engineers before being abandoned for being unnecessary; the priority for most aircraft was keeping the top speed up, not inducing drag to reduce stall speed. But the attack profile you and Satomi had devised required a very low entry speed and would see the plane slow down even further climbing back to safety; it was a vital element.

The flaps were mounted on the inner edge of the wing, between the two fins, and consisted of simple wooden slats, covered in canvas, held streamlined with the aircraft by airflow. When the plane was resting on the ground, the slats would hang loose. When the pilot needed them, they could turn a racheted wheel next to their seat, with each crank forcing the the slat down about 15 degrees using high tension wire. Gearing kept the physical effort of moving the flaps to a minimum, and four rotations, taking about two seconds, would engage them fully, at which point the wheel automatically locked to prevent pulling the slats out of position (a modification added when Satomi tried the first prototype and snapped the flaps clean off.)

Because the dive would likely cause the flaps to fly right off the wings, they could be quickly retracted again, all the tension could be released using a lever above the wheel, which would cause the wheel to unlock and rapidly spool back. So during the attack, the pilot would extend flaps, throttle down, induce a stall, roll down onto the target, release flaps, dive, pull up, throttle to full, then crank the flaps back out as they gained altitude. It was a complex procedure to do while keeping the plane steady, but after Satomi practiced a few dozen dry runs on the ground you were sure it was practical.

On the other hand, the flaps did have the irritating disadvantage of eliminating the rear wing spar, as the mechanism got in the way. You gave everyone in the office a grin when you crumbled up a piece of paper for a strutless design and threw it across the room in frustration at this clever engineering ruining your perfect lines.

The addition of a bombsight was Uyeno's suggestion, and it essentially consisted of a spring-loaded mechanism that, before the dive, was dialed in to the plane's current speed. The bombardier would trigger the device as the dive began with a hydraulic switch, and the flow of air over a small spinner would unspool on the dashboard of both the pilot and bombardier. When it was time for the bomb to drop, judged by the speed the aircraft had gained, the device completed a circuit and a light flashed red on the bombardiers panel, then when the bomb went out, a blue light switched on for the pilot.

The electrical engineering for this wasn't anyone's strong suit, but fortunately an electrician was on hand who had been wiring up the new factory floor, and he showed everyone how to set up the circuits. Watching him work with Uyeno to work this out, you realized that electrical engineering may one day be in the suite of skills you'd need to build an aircraft.

The device was brilliant, but required a small amount of power to function. How would you obtain this power?