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

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Character Sheet
  • Informational


    • ​
    Stress
    0​
    Office Stress
    0​
    XP
    5​

    Matsura Asuka
    Head Designer for Ohara Airworks
    Age 24 (Legally 25)
    Year 12 AF (After Flight)

    Design Stats
    Aerodynamics Engineering - +2
    Structural Engineering - +2
    Chemical Engineering - +1
    Mechanical Engineering - +1
    Ballistics Engineering - +1
    Electrical Engineering - 0

    Personal/Political Stats
    Social Skills - 0
    Politics Skills - 0
    Importance - 2
    Income - 1
    Investments - Ohara

    Resources
    Power - 0
    Wealth - 2

    Designs
    Type 1 Series - Military Variation (Designated T1M1)
    Type 2 Racer (World Speed Record October 1910-April 1911, 180kph)
    Model 2 Scout (Designated T1M2)
    Navy Scout Prototype (Drowned Rat)
    Dive Bomber B1M1 "Duck"
    Machine Gun Carrier R1A "Dragonfly" (World Speed Record May-July 1911, 200kph)
    Naval Rescue Water-Landing Supply Plane NR1M0 "Dolphin" (World speed record 240kph)
    Rhino Demon Train Hunter
    The world's first airliner
    The world's first pulsejet airplane

    Assets
    Slide Rule
    Computator (1 Reroll per Routine)

    Languages
    Albian
    Gallian

    Familiar Vices
    Drinking
    Prostitutes
    Dancing

    Family Life
    - Engaged to Arita Yachi, formerly the leading Ace in the Imperial Army. Designated #1 Cutest Army Boy, he's having some serious problems with PTSD right now.
    - Taking a second try at dating Mikami Kiho, ex-dockerwork from the south.

    Upgrades
    - 3 XP to upgrade a stat.

    Ohara Airworks
    Start Up, Imperial Capital, Akitsukuni

    Owner
    - Mr. Ohara, Rich. Aircraft Enthusiast. Business guy.

    Engineers

    Kibe Koume, 26, Office Manager
    Tiny & angry, Kibe went to school in Albia, picking up the language, the religion, and a fuckload of swear words. Speaks Albian.
    Mechanical +2, Ballistics +1
    Office Manager: If Kibe is not assigned to a team, the Office Stress is reduced by 1.

    Sakane Jun, 26, Second Team Leader
    A soured patriot, Sakane is married and has a young child being raised gender-neutrally. His two brothers who fought in the war.
    Structural +2, Aerodynamics +1
    Team Leader: If there are any additional projects, Sakane will lead them.
    Joinery: Sakane has training in the traditional Akitsukuni carpentry art of joinery, creating complex self-supporting joints with no fasteners or glue. When working with non-monocoque wooden spars or ribs, +1 Structural.

    Tezuka Kenji, ???
    A stoner with occasional flashes of insight. Nobody really knows what he does, but he's probably useful?
    Aerodynamics +2, Chemical +1
    Flashes of Brilliance: Each natural 10 rolled by any team Tezuka is assigned to gives +1 forward to the next research roll.

    Hasegawa Morio, 26
    A hopeless nerd with a photography habit, mostly on account of developing his own film, Hasegawa seems to do nothing but work and stack card houses, but somehow has an incredible attractive boyfriend. Speaks Gallian.
    Chemical +2, Ballistic +1
    Silent Workhorse: Hasegawa can work on two different projects at once for no cost to Office Stress, providing they use different stats.

    Kawamura Yosai, 25.
    Serially successful womanizer and incredibly attractive, Kawamura doesn't seem to have much of a personality outside of seducing women. Well, except for that time he seduced Asuka, which nobody talks about. Speaks Dyske.
    Structural +2, Electrical +1, Social +1
    Easily Distracted: If Kawamura is working on the same team as a female or non-binary employee, the team is at -1d10.

    Koide Hatsu, 24.
    One of the few female graduates of an Akitsukuni engineering school, Koide is brilliant and incredibly driven, but her first job at Akibara was both humiliating and exposed her to an abusive coworker. Her father is a rich businessman with factories in Joseon, and she's engaged to Ken from Castles of Steel. Speaks Joseon.
    Mechanical +2, Structural +1
    No Sleep: If you let her, Koide will work herself to death. She can work a second project for no Office Stress, but all her stats will be reduced to 1 for the routine.

    Kobayashi Ayao, ???
    Disowned heiress of the Kobayashi family, all Kobayashi wanted was a career and to be a modern woman. For her trouble, a cousin threw acid on her, scarring her face, neck, much of her torso, and her left arm. Despite appearing serene and above it all, she's actually an avowed communist activist and baseball player.
    Aerodynamics +2, Social +2

    Adachi Ren, 24
    Adachi learned chemistry from her father, one of the most famous chemical engineers in the country, rather than through formal schooling. She's married, has a kid, and takes spirituality very seriously. Yes, you did the math right, she had Yuki when she was 17. It's 1912, folks.
    Chemical +2, Electrical +1
    Young Mother: Adachi will cause double Office Stress if she has to work multiple tasks.

    Uyeno Sei, Ballistics Engineer, 31.
    The oldest member of the crew, this is Uyeno's second career. Her first was as an officer in the Imperial Navy with specialized technical training: her very promising career was cut short by her transition. Her work in a naval arsenal on machine-guns landed her the job here. Briefly dated Satomi (the age range is a bit creepy but again, 1912), she's missing a piece of her ear and is deaf on that side, from an exploding cannon. Recently returned from Varnmark from experimental surgery, she's known for her skill navigating gendered bureaucracy.
    Ballistic +3

    Mi Kyung-Jae, 23
    A recent graduate of the Imperial College of Heijo, Mi is from the recently annexed territory of Joseon. For those keeping track at home, that means he's a Korean national living in Imperial Japan in 1912. We haven't seen much of his personality because he's rightfully terrified of everything around him. He has a specialty in endurance engine design and modification. Speaks Joseon.
    Mechanical +1, Chemical +1
    Endurance Engines: Mi has an excellent understanding of metallurgy and tolerances. Any engine he works on gains +1 Reliability if a 16+ is rolled.
    Pulsejet Wizard: Mi is now one of the world's leading experts on the pulsejet engine. He can be given his own project to custom-craft pulsejet engines, and he gives +1 to any pulsejet-related project.
    Joseon National: Mi does not have security clearance to work on any top-secret projects.

    Miyoshi Shigeri, 23.
    A non-binary person and admirer of Asuka's work, they were in an support role in the Army before joining the company.
    Structural +1, Mechanical +1, Aerodynamic +1
    Mechanic: Miyoshi has some experience repairing and refurbishing aircraft. They get +1 if assigned on the clean-up phase.


    Other Employees
    - Ohara Satomi, 22, Mr. Ohara's niece and the company test pilot, Ohara is a general lesbian disaster. She's good at flying planes, driving cars, and kissing girls. She's bad at being patient, being respectable, and sticking to literally anyones conceptions of gender roles. Deeply in lesbians with Coralie D'Amboise.
    - Fujkikawa Sotatsu, old, modelmaker. He's an old man and toymaker and we don't see much of him because he locks himself in his workshop a lot. He's friends with Kawamura?

    Assets
    - Engine Test Rig (Allows engine tweaking and optimization.
    - Wind Tunnel (+1 Aerodynamics)
    - Rapid Prototype Lab (+1 Clean Up)
    Expanded Cast

    Akitsukuni Industry
    - Homura Mohoko: Head Engine Designer for Kobayashi. First female engineer in the country. A lot of sex appeal.
    - Okumura: Head of Akibara aircraft design.
    - Yamanaka Hajime: Kobayashi engineer. Young and eager.
    - Igarashi Masazumi: Kobayashi engineer. Reserved and experienced.
    - Admiral Akibara Toru: Imperial Navy Admiral. Maximum nepotism. Maximum douchebag.
    - Lt.Cmnd Akibara Shinzo: The above's son. A hottie but very forward.



    Character Families
    - Matsura(?) Mizuko: Asuka's sister. Was paralyzed in an accident in Asuka's first flight. Lives Elsewhere and is married now. Can't forgive Asuka, even though she's tried.
    - Adachi Motoki: Adachi's husband, an accountant. Legally blind.
    - Adachi Yuki: Adachi's 7 year old daughter and wannabe pilot. Very adorable.
    - Yachi's Brother: Exists.
    - Sakane's Wife: Exists. Drives him a bit crazy, but he loves her.
    - Yachi's Brother's Wife: Exists. Is statistically likely to be pregnant.
    - Lt. Coralie D'Amboise: Gallian pilot in exile. Satomi's girlfriend. 25. Accomplished bisexual duelist. She flew in the war for a single day, and for her troubles got a hole blown in her cheek and had her left arm paralyzed.

    Akisukuni Army & Ex-Army
    - Lt. Torio Tanaka: Yachi's former observer as an enlisted man. Was jumped up to fly Ducks and lost a leg on his first mission. A trained painter, married to Torio Saya.
    - Captain Amari Shiro: A Dragonfly pilot who ended up flying as Yachi's partner. Kind of delightfully twinky. They sorta slept together at one point, which wasn't great. He lost his previous boyfriend in the April Offensive and turned his plane into a shrine. He was shot in the gut and is still recovering.
    - Major Izuhara: Logistics officer, Imperial Army, this bespectled officer stood up to the Caspian Crown Prince and accidentally kicked off the Akitsikuni-Caspian War. The guilt was so much that, after almost a year of running Army procurement, he shot himself in a phone both.
    - Captain Nakai Sekien: Army scout pilot. First person to drop a bomb from an airplane, later head of the Duck Squadrons.
    - Captain Teshima: A Desk pilot that fought with Yachi. Lost an arm in the process, took over for Major Izuhara after his death. Seems cheery despite it all.
    - Captain Nashio: A real piece of shit dude and probably a rapist, he's also a war hero as the second-highest scoring ace on the Akitsukuni side. He was a young shitty kid in way over his head but it's no excuse.
    - Lt. Kinjo: Kind of a dumb lump and Nashio's friend, one of the desk pilots. Dead at 19.
    - Lt. Okazaki: Yachi's friend from before the war and pilot, he died in a spin in his dragonfly. His death probably hit Yachi the hardest.

    Westerners
    - Rose & Antoinette Sears: Pioneers of flight. Sisters. Black in 1910s not!America. Yikes.
    - Timina Guasti: Famous aircraft designer from Otrusia. Likes big planes and green.
    - Prince Protasov Vasilyevich: Crown Prince of Great Caspia. Real dick. You gotta hand it to him though, a decent flier.
    - Count von Zeppelin: Invented rigid airships. Runs a successful airline business. Damned impressive.
    - Bennhold: Aircraft Engineer. Experimenting with metal aircraft.
    - Aileen Middlemiss: Albian reporter for the Artimis Times. Well meaning and oblivious.
    Available Tech
    • Materials: Wood, Duralumin, Molded Wood, Wood & Silk Composite, etc
    • All engine mounts
    • All wing types
    • Basic reinforcement
    • Wing warping and ailerons
    • Basic water radiators
    • Flying Wings
    • Semi-Monocoque design (requires at least half the slots have frame pieces)
    • Valved pulsejets
    • Basic weapon mounts and turrets
    Tech not Yet Developed
    • Custom engines
    • Monocoque construction
    • Cantilever Wings and associated tech
    • V and T tails
    • Tailless designs
    • Aluminum and titanium
    • Cellulose surfacing
    • Any kind of radar
    • Weapon accessability mods
    • Interruptor gear
    • Geared propellers
    • And Maybe Other Stuff
    Akitsukuni
    Island Nation

    Government
    Constitutional Monarchy
    - The democratic portions of the government are dubiously legitimate.
    - The head of state is the Empress of Akitsukuni. She gives her blessing to newly formed governments.
    - The Navy and a small number of families have undue influence on politics.

    Economy
    Developing Mixed Market
    - Most industry is controlled by a small number of wealthy, family-owned companies.
    - The state provides most contracts to industry. Consumer good market is anemic.
    - Exports are few, mostly cultural.
    - Imports are raw minerals, food, oil, and expertise.
    - Currently suffering an economic crash after the last war.

    Politics
    The Diet is currently ruled by a Constitutional Nationalist government. It has a system of nonlocal proportional representation, with representatives appointed by the party in accordance to their share of the vote.
    - Constitutional Nationalists: 50%
    - Purity Club: 9%
    - New Independents: 26%
    - Fairness Association: 11%
    - United Communist League: 2%
    - Monarchists: 1%
    - Assorted Fringe Parties: 5%

    Demographics
    Akitsukuni is mostly very ethnically homogeneous. Around 5% of the population are various minorities, most from nearby countries. Roughly .1% are westerners here for business or in advisory positions.
    - Population: 55 Million
    - Religion: Mostly Kodo. Roughly 2% of the population follows western religions.
    - Wealth: Most wealth is concentrated in the top 5% of the country. Nearly 20% of the population lives in conditions indistinguishable from peasantry.
    - Urbanization: Heavily urbanized for a small economy: 35% and rapidly growing.

    Military
    At Peace
    - Imperial Akitsukuni Navy (IAN): The 6th largest in the world, and the most experienced.
    - Imperial Akitsukuni Army (IAA): 150,000 highly experienced soldiers, and a considerable reserve.

    Aspects
    - Poor Resources: Aluminum costs +1.
    - Damn Akitsukuni Engines!: Engines have -1 Reliability.



    The Main Character Of This Quest Is Nonbinary And Uses They/Them Pronouns.

    I Am Putting This Here Because The Next Person To Misgender Them Is Getting Yeeted Into The Trash

    Also here's the Gayaverse TV Tropes page, because why not.​
     
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  • Informational
    • xthetenth said:
    a less agricultural power to weight ratio.
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    I genuinely died. That is a great description. We should start classifying engines based on their power to weight ratio based on this standard. Is "Agricultural" the lowest tier of engine, or do we have yet more terrible?

    DrunkenGrognard said:
    I'll also cast my vote towards "is it even vaguely useful to try and design folding wings?" because more wingspan would be helpful.
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    Shit man I think we have to. I know that there's a lot of really strong hinge designs out there, because cranes and stuff exist, and it turns out that the things that hold a car's suspension attached to the car are ridiculously beefy. Maybe we can adapt something inspired by those examples?
     
    Himmelhand said:
    Screw putting hinges in the middle of your wings to reduce wingspan! Just rotate the wing until it's narrow enough to fit your needs!

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    ....

    You're not wrong. If you pod the engine and put it between the upper and lower wings of the biplane section, do a canard configuration...

    There's no actual limit on overall length is there? You can probably do this. It would probably work. It limits the number of hinge points to exactly one, and that means it's going to be overall lighter than having two hinge points, and it'll also probably be stronger.

    The question is just what does it buy you....
     
    It's a recon plane, right? Not really for combat? Make the entire wing part of the plane detachable and eat the half-hour it takes to detach/reattach the wings whenever you want to launch or recover it.
     
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    Vebyast said:
    It's a recon plane, right? Not really for combat? Make the entire wing part of the plane detachable and eat the half-hour it takes to detach/reattach the wings whenever you want to launch or recover it.
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    open_sketch said:
    These airplanes will be tasked with accompanying scouting fleets to find enemy vessels, and will light combat duties.
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    Nah, the Hunter/Observer is apparently supposed to able to go poke out the eyes of other aerial scouts based off the name. It is expected to see use in active combat to some degree. I don't really think that disassembling or reassembling the plane for/from storage as part of it's launch/recovery procedures really fits with combat duties, even if it is light combat.

    It's possible the Navy might greenlight it anyways (IRL IJN had something similar for their line of submersible carriers), but it's equally possible that they just take it as an excuse to kibosh the offer due to preexisting biases. Sure the one Admiral stepped down, but that just means we have a chance to get accepted rather than actually having a level playing field against the other competitors.
     
    In light of someone making a post about oblique wings and Frangible posting about A380 configuration evaluation, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the 1988 Boeing proposal for supersonic transport of 400+ people in a supersonic oblique flying wing. The summary includes phrases like "Problems in the interface between the aircraft and the airport were identified, but not solved"

    Bless the past, it was wild. NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    That said, it's probably a good idea to keep the fussing about to a minimum if we can. It'd be ideal to just drop the thing in the water, spool up the engine and take off. That reminds me I need to sketch this idiot thing I've come up with.
     
    [x] A canard configuration: tail, observer, pilot, engine, with the rudders on the wings.
    [x] A conventional tractor layout: engine, pilot, observer, tail.

    So the vote doesn't require us to specify if we want to do tandem or whatever. I think that at the end of the day the canard will probably give us more options to work with later in the design process. The conventional configuration is probably fine too.
     
    Okay, finally did the rough sketch of my overgrown canard idea.



    I think I like it, it's real easy to combine visibility and stability, and its mom says it looks super cool.
     
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    [x] A canard configuration: tail, observer, pilot, engine, with the rudders on the wings.

    If only because I want to see if I can get people to put the observer in a spinny cockpit so they can shoot at things below the plane.

    Also, I got distracted last night and figured out how the whole thing would work. Physically, at least.

    Chop off the front of the plane and add some framing. Mount a big shaft, sticking a foot or two out the front of the body and extending a ways into the body so you can mount it on multiple bearings to take transverse loads. Shaft rotates relative to plane body! Fix a big gear to the plane body around the base of the shaft. Give the observer's compartment a pair of bicycle pedals going through a simple transmission (three settings: Roll Left, Locked, Roll Right) to the gear. Actuate transmission with a knee plate near the pedals or maybe just a lever somewhere convenient. Observer's compartment can roll freely, control is hands-free, can stay locked when not in use to preserve observer's endurance or if the observer is injured, mechanically simple, no need for small fiddly bits, doesn't feel like it's likely to fail before the observer dies of lead poisoning.

    Game-mechanically... "Isolated" cockpit style suggests 1 extra mass, some extra money, and that's it!

    xthetenth said:
    In light of someone making a post about oblique wings and Frangible posting about A380 configuration evaluation, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the 1988 Boeing proposal for supersonic transport of 400+ people in a supersonic oblique flying wing. The summary includes phrases like "Problems in the interface between the aircraft and the airport were identified, but not solved"

    Bless the past, it was wild. NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
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    Extracting a screencap so people don't have to open the full pdf to see the glory of this incredible thing:
     
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    Ah, right, yes. If you look at it from a certain perspective, the rotating front cockpit could be a section on a shaft that you rotate a few hundred pounds of equipment around. From an engineering perspective it's just a rotary engine that develops minimal torque! (Please do not look at the wildly unbalanced aerodynamic forces, and certainly do not suggest sticking the observer's feet down into the windstream to balance things a little bit better so he doesn't inevitably flop upside down)

    That's not NASA's fault, that's all Boeing. Who doesn't want to fly around with four hundred other people sideways and supersonic though?
     
    xthetenth said:
    (Please do not look at the wildly unbalanced aerodynamic forces, and certainly do not suggest sticking the observer's feet down into the windstream to balance things a little bit better so he doesn't inevitably flop upside down)
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    That's a feature - think of it as an unbalanced airbrake that you can deploy in an arbitrary direction for improved maneuverability! :V
     
    xthetenth said:
    That's not NASA's fault, that's all Boeing.
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    BOEING. BOEING WHY.

    ---

    Vebyast said:
    If only because I want to see if I can get people to put the observer in a spinny cockpit so they can shoot at things below the plane.

    Also, I got distracted last night and figured out how the whole thing would work. Physically, at least.
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    So I mean, forgive me if this seems flippant, but aren't you just describing a hand-cranked B-17 ball turret?
     
    Crasian01 said:
    So I mean, forgive me if this seems flippant, but aren't you just describing a hand-cranked B-17 ball turret?
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    Mechanically very different, and also more limited. The B-17's ball turret mounts the guns rigidly to the gunner's chair and the whole assembly is actuated by geared rings. In my design, the only actuated degree of freedom is gross roll; precision control is via a classic pintle mount. This means that the primary coupling can be a rigid shaft. The turrets on the B-17 (both the dorsal and ball turrets) sat on turret rings; in the case of the dorsal turret I wouldn't be surprised if you told me that that geared ring was the most expensive machining operation in the turret by a whole order of magnitude.



    If we're comparing to existing turrets, what I'm proposing is mechanically more like the B-25's dorsal turret, albeit turned on its side. Note how the whole thing is mounted on a single pillar running along the primary axis of rotation.

    edit: Functionally, yes, this has the same roll as a ball turret: Lets you mount a bigger gun with a far larger field of fire, because you don't have to haul it into every position manually with something like a scarff ring.
     
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    The more I see of them the more I'm really glad I wasn't a gunner on a bomber. What a horribly cramped place to die.
     
    Vebyast said:
    No kidding. The ventral turret on the B-25 especially, where the landing gear didn't provide enough ground clearance so there was a mechanism that'd retract the whole turret into the body of the plane. Ugh.
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    Yeah, I remember when the History Channel was still the WW2 Channel and they had a story about this time that the ventral turret jammed full down because a cannon shell damaged the retract mechanism.

    ....yeah....

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    Vebyast said:
    In my design, the only actuated degree of freedom is gross roll; precision control is via a classic pintle mount.
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    Hrm. Fair enough. It's harder to think about this problem, but fair enough.
     
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    The best ventral turret arrangement ever designed was the one on the British heavies that consisted of a pair of guns sticking out the bottom of the aircraft and a periscope, with the gunner sat above, inside the body of the aircraft. You couldn't see anything and it was a total waste of mass, but nobody ever got stuck and crushed to death.
     
    FrangibleCover said:
    The best ventral turret arrangement ever designed was the one on the British heavies that consisted of a pair of guns sticking out the bottom of the aircraft and a periscope, with the gunner sat above, inside the body of the aircraft. You couldn't see anything and it was a total waste of mass, but nobody ever got stuck and crushed to death.
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    One could argue that the aft ventral turret on the B-29 at least matches the Lancaster's ventral turret - like the Lancaster turret, the B-29's ventral turret is unmanned, but unlike the Lancaster, the B-29 might actually be able to hit something with it's ventral guns.
     
    open_sketch said:
    The more I see of them the more I'm really glad I wasn't a gunner on a bomber. What a horribly cramped place to die.
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    Yeah, bomber gunners had a rough life.


    Yeah, I recall a horror story, some poor ball gunner on a B-24 was unable to retract his turret or leave it, and they had to land. Not a fun way to go.
     
    Also, is it economically viable to put a radio system in this plane and still hit under the cost limit while providing a good plane? Because a radio system would be really helpful.
     
    The Laurent said:
    Also, is it economically viable to put a radio system in this plane and still hit under the cost limit while providing a good plane? Because a radio system would be really helpful.
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    Minimum cost for nothing but a transmitter and the power system is about 6, plus the mass and drag penalties which significantly affect performance. It's probably not practical. I think presenting the aircraft fitted For-But-Not-With and then saying "And if you put a radio in it the price is only X for performance Y" might be a good idea, but our entry shouldn't include one.
     
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