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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.​
     
    Last edited:
  • Informational
    • True. On the other hand, navigating between islands or across an inland sea wouldn't be nearly so bad, at least not in decent weather and daylight.
     
    Frankly if we're going a somewhat different course than OTL, Akitsukuni may find it better to pay off and arm the warlords, rather than doing what occurred historically and trying to invade most of Cathay in a vast and unwinnable forever war. A Cathay which was permanently fractured into Warring States 2: Diesel Boogaloo whilst we grab Manchuria and some of the Europan holdings would be much more preferable from a pragmatic viewpoint. Not remotely nice, but when compared to China in WW2, the Civil War, and then Mao, maybe it will come out slightly ahead. Hard to say.

    As far as where we go from here, I frankly find military designs more interesting. Cracking naval air power and carrier aviation, for example, will bring a host of new interesting challenges and cool moments. We haven't built a ground attack plane yet. Flying Circus is ultimately designed towards fighting planes, so a lot of the bandwidth in the system is devoted to it. That isn't to say I don't think civil aviation can be fun too, but let's be realistic. Akitsukuni is a small nation which is still developing; there is not going to be a massive market for civil aviation to begin with.

    I also find it dubious that people think a Fairness Association government will increase the civil aviation market, given that the primary, indeed more or less only customers for airplanes at this point in time other than militaries are rich people. Whether it's individual rich hobbyists with private planes, or the customers of fledgling air travel operators, it's pretty much exclusively a preserve of the wealthy, and that won't change for a couple of decades. Hence massively raising taxes on the wealthy, whilst it might have any number of good points, is not going to do wonderful things for the private aviation sector. A few more government orders for mail planes for island holdings, even air shuttles for high ranking officials if they really go overboard, is not remotely going to make that up the gap.

    It doesn't mean we can't go that way, and it could lead to some interesting challenges and emotive moments in the quest -like our nice new intern being distraught when the firm downsizes- but let's understand what we're voting for here.
     
    If we could pull it off, something akin to a proto-An-2 (I'm sure there's an earlier attempt, but can't think of one off the top of my head) would be nice - the priorities here being robust, modular, and versatile. Something that can mount skis or floats or conventional landing gear, fit out for a bunch of roles - light airliner, medical transport, supply drop, aerial observation/mapping - and reasonably be expected not to kill its crew in any configuration.

    (It's also a dual-purpose technology - a light airliner is about ten minutes' work away from being a tactical transport or a gunship or a commando delivery system - so the army will probably still be interested).
     
    Have we considered making a variation on the Duck for agricultural use? Crop Spraying would be inordinately valuable for a small island with little land for such purposes.

    Admiral Skippy said:
    Hence massively raising taxes on the wealthy, whilst it might have any number of good points, is not going to do wonderful things for the private aviation sector.
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    Or any sector really, since their money will be taken for government spending instead of creating industry or funding loans.
     
    Simon_Jester said:
    The Broken Window Fallacy is the flawed belief that doing costly damage to a structure or system will be actively good for the economy, because it will require work to replace that which has been destroyed.

    The fallacy here is that the opportunity cost is being neglected.

    If a child carelessly breaks my window, I must pay to have the window replaced, and that's good for the glazier who makes windows. But had the window remained intact, I would have spent that money in some other way. I might have improved my life in some way, rather than spending the money just to get back to the same place I started in. The glazier would have less money, to be sure. But some other person would have gotten the money instead, and the money would be spent in a way more in line with my preferences, calculated to bring me greater benefits, and quite possibly more beneficial to society at large in the long run.

    Furthermore, adding up a lot of broken windows over time, one effect is to keep an unnecessarily large number of glaziers working to replace all the broken windows, when if the windows were NOT broken, those glaziers could be working doing something else, something that would bring about more added value for the economy, rather than just maintaining the status quo by replacing breakages with identical windowpanes.
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    I will note, however, that rich people tend to horde a substantial portion of their money rather than spending it on anything that is of any use to anyone. Though neither war nor breaking working class windows is generally good for the economy, a case could be made that running around throwing rocks through the windows of mansions is a public service, even within a purely capitalist framework. It puts money that wouldn't have been spent at all into the hands of the glazier. As a bonus, the ruling class benefits from the character building effects of occasionally having something not go their way (far more valuable than a window!), it is great fun for the whole family, and if it becomes common enough, the idle wealthy may start reinvesting more of their money so that they don't have to replace their windows so often.

    Do your part of the economy! Break a mansion's windows today!
     
    FlatlineAskari said:
    If we could pull it off, something akin to a proto-An-2 (I'm sure there's an earlier attempt, but can't think of one off the top of my head) would be nice - the priorities here being robust, modular, and versatile. Something that can mount skis or floats or conventional landing gear, fit out for a bunch of roles - light airliner, medical transport, supply drop, aerial observation/mapping - and reasonably be expected not to kill its crew in any configuration.

    (It's also a dual-purpose technology - a light airliner is about ten minutes' work away from being a tactical transport or a gunship or a commando delivery system - so the army will probably still be interested).
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    Only problem is that the An-2 has a HP that's 10x higher than our currently available engines, so we'd really have to cut some corners to get an equivalent performance out of it.

    That or slap like three engines on it or something.
     
    brmj said:
    I will note, however, that rich people tend to horde a substantial portion of their money rather than spending it on anything that is of any use to anyone. Though neither war nor breaking working class windows is generally good for the economy, a case could be made that running around throwing rocks through the windows of mansions is a public service, even within a purely capitalist framework. It puts money that wouldn't have been spent at all into the hands of the glazier. As a bonus, the ruling class benefits from the character building effects of occasionally having something not go their way (far more valuable than a window!), it is great fun for the whole family, and if it becomes common enough, the idle wealthy may start reinvesting more of their money so that they don't have to replace their windows so often.

    Do your part of the economy! Break a mansion's windows today!
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    The Special Higher Police want a word with you.
     
    Artificial Girl said:
    The T1M2 is probably a better choice, honestly. You want a stable platform for that, not a literal dive bomber.
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    Fair point. I was thinking of the sheer amount of weight the platform dedicated to holding bombs would have in comparison, but that level of stability that close to the ground? You'd have to be a magnificent pilot.

    Admiral Skippy said:
    "Losses were high this planting season."
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    It's sadly more common than you'd think, or at least it was. My grandfather was in at least two crashed like that. He's mostly fine.
     
    I still say we make a strategic bomber. We're a plane designer, and we need to design the mother of all planes. Five thousand kilograms of bomb, right on whatever stationary target you so desire! The power of an hour's worth of artillery in a minute!
     
    I was going to suggest aiming for something more like a de Havilland Beaver or Otter as a more realistic alternative to an A2-2 equivalent with a similar set of uses, but that's still 4x the hp we can hope for at minimum. I don't think we've got the engine technology yet for a reasonably affordable STOL bush plane with a substantial useful load. One or two passengers or some mail or something may be doable, though.
     
    Transport planes, and develop parachutes for paratroopers? A few squads of men behind the lines would cause untold havoc with their supplies. Or perhaps make the propeller equivalent to the SR-71 and have spy planes with cameras in the hulls?

    Of course, all this speculates that the Army requests such a thing. There's got to be some bad ideas proposed in there too, like large planes launching little ones.
     
    7734 said:
    I still say we make a strategic bomber. We're a plane designer, and we need to design the mother of all planes. Five thousand kilograms of bomb, right on whatever stationary target you so desire! The power of an hour's worth of artillery in a minute!
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    To be fair, this is entirely necessary for early nuclear bombs, which is why most nuclear bombers had absolutely massive bomb bays and why most early ballistic missiles were easily converted to orbital rockets. So in all fairness, there is legitimate cause to have absolutely massive bombers. On the other hand, that's not going to matter until nukes become a thing, and that's a while from the current period.
     
    TortugaGreen said:
    To be fair, this is entirely necessary for early nuclear bombs, which is why most nuclear bombers had absolutely massive bomb bays and why most early ballistic missiles were easily converted to orbital rockets. So in all fairness, there is legitimate cause to have absolutely massive bombers. On the other hand, that's not going to matter until nukes become a thing, and that's a while from the current period.
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    I wasn't talking about nukes though, I was talking about fifty hundred-kilo bombs. That should roughly be, presuming each bomb is 85/10/15 in terms of fill to structure to control, 4,250 kilograms of falling boom. Considering an artillery shell is more like 30/70 fill/structure, that's a lot more boom for your weight of ordy.
     
    Some very rough work says it looks like it possible to design a 15 passenger aircraft with two Ogre engines for around cost 30. But getting the stall speed and max speed (~130 km/h)? far apart would take a lot of work, because the plane would be so much heavier than anything we've done before. I'd want to hold out for around 15 power engines.
     
    Crusher Bob said:
    Some very rough work says it looks like it possible to design a 15 passenger aircraft with two Ogre engines for around cost 30. But getting the stall speed and max speed (~130 km/h)? far apart would take a lot of work, because the plane would be so much heavier than anything we've done before. I'd want to hold out for around 15 power engines.
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    We might also need facilities to accommodate larger wingspan, since at this point I think we're limited to 12 meters?
     
    TortugaGreen said:
    To be fair, this is entirely necessary for early nuclear bombs, which is why most nuclear bombers had absolutely massive bomb bays and why most early ballistic missiles were easily converted to orbital rockets. So in all fairness, there is legitimate cause to have absolutely massive bombers. On the other hand, that's not going to matter until nukes become a thing, and that's a while from the current period.
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    Strategic bombing was relevant far before nukes. Arguably any time we can get decent level bombing at altitudes of 2-3km strategic bombers will begin to develop. Naval yards and factories are prime targets for airstrikes.
     
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