Pegasus Transport Logistics

[Robinski]

On 06/08/2020 at 4:32 PM, kais said:

I've moved the island the characters are on to the farthest away in the island chain (90 some days away from their closest neighbor, by boat, and too far for a pegasus to fly). I've established that the island pegasi are wild and very hard to breed in captivity. They keep ending up with horses, which is why the island is overrun with feral horses. HOWEVER the Duchy of Bad M, which has the one commercial port, has been trading with another island for a breed of horse that can be crossed with a pegasus to produce tame, viable, flighted offspring.

Conflict then comes with Bad M eventually breeding enough pegasi to control transport over the island, since everyone else would just have roads and carts.

I think this is much better than the train thing. This just hangs together really well, and feeds into the existing world-building, supporting it rather than confusing it. Nice job!

On 06/08/2020 at 10:11 PM, Turin Turambar said:

You wouldn't need a huge amount of pegasi to make an economic difference. If a merchant or messenger or army has access to even only one, then he'd be able to move valuable goods/information in record time, rendering him/her/it/they/them (too many pronouns) incredibly wealthy.

Yeah, agree. the Pegasi are rather like ships, small trawlers maybe, but still, as TT says, will make a significant economic impact.

On 06/08/2020 at 10:11 PM, Turin Turambar said:

Also, isn't a ninety day journey like from Spain to the USA?

This caught my interest because: transport engineer! A little light research* indicates an average speed of tall ships (i.e. oceangoing sailing ships) of about 5 knots. If you assume the ships was saying 24 hours a day (which I suspect did not happen, but I don't have that kind of knowledge) then 90 days would equate to 10,800 nautical miles. Lisbon to New York is circa 3,370 miles. In nautical miles, that's just under 3,000 (the factor is 1.15). So, roughly 30% of the distance from your island to the next one, and a journey of about 25 days.

So, what about another comparison? Miami to Havana is 220 nautical miles, or 44 hours. So, about 2 days' sail. The Hawaiian islands are about 325 nautical miles from end to end (almost 3 days' sail). Sydney to Wellington is 1,235 nautical miles, or, 247 hours = 10 days' sail.

Conclusion? Is 90 days (10,800 nautical miles) too far? I think it is for the island to be considered as part of the same chain. However that doesn't mean that can't be the nearest land. Although, is this supposed to be an alternative Earth? Hawai'i is about 2,400 miles from San Francisco, 4,700 miles from Brisbane and 4,000 miles from Tokyo. 

An Albatros flies at 40 miles per hour (quick search, not attributed). If a pegasus flew at 100 mph, or say even 200mph, it would cover 10,800 nautical miles (I'm fudging the difference between knots and mph) in 54 hours. So, 2.25 days compared to 90 days by ship? I think you can bring the islands closer, in fact, I think it would be more believable.

On 07/08/2020 at 7:23 PM, Snakenaps said:

I had a lot of fun writing this up.

How much fun did you have writing that up, @Snakenaps?  

I found this:

Spoiler

Neat idea with the space-saving, Snakenaps.

I forgot that, originally at least, Pegasus was one winged-horse, so like in the way of Shadowfax, it was 'just' a name. Obviously, this has no bearing on your story, Kais, as the term has long since passed into general fantasy usage. The thing is was search for was to comment upon the ability to carry passengers. I guess Caro can work from panniers, etc., however passengers seems difficult. But, I guess there could be a kind of basket suspended from the pegasus, in the way of a ballon basket, but, unless these are giant creatures, seating capacity is going to be limited to a handful at most, surely.

On 07/08/2020 at 9:46 PM, Turin Turambar said:

I actually tried to calculate the calorie intake for dragons once. 

  I don't see how dragon fire could, in any way, be based in reality, i.e. the laws of physics, but it's a fascinating question. Off topic, I know (sorry, Kais), but I just had to delve into this. I've spoilered it as it's off topic.

Spoiler

I did a quick search to see if I could locate the size of Smaug. There is a "non-canonical" reference in the LotR wiki to 18 metres. Another search indicates that a brachiosaurus was 18 to 21 metres long, so, not a bad comparison. A brachiosaurus also was estimated at 28 to 58 tonnes. Myfitnesspal website () indicates that a whole elephant (2,400lbs or about 1.1 tonnes) comprises 27,000 calories. So, using the brachiosaurus as our dragon comparator, with an average mass of ~45 tonnes, that would be 41 elephants or 1.1M calories.

Then the flames: a Russian LPO-50 flamethrower, according to Wiki, dispensed three blasts of 3 seconds from three 3.4 litre tanks.

In another website (avforums), I found a reference to there being 8,325,818 calories in a litre of petrol (unleaded, I guess). So, in 3.4 litres of fuel, there would be 28.3M calories.

So, by this very rough, very hurries calculation, a dragon would use 28,300,000 calories per gout of flame, but the dragon itself onl.y comprises 1,100,000 calories in its body.

No doubt it's not that simple, but on the face of it, it does seem that dragons must be magic. Who'd have thunk it?

On 08/08/2020 at 0:19 AM, Snakenaps said:

"And then Katie felt inspired to draw..."

That's beautiful. Very expressive faces.

Also, I don't think the old lady should stand there when beating the creature... Just saying.

Also, yes, you do have to rotate the photo on your comp before posting it. (Experience talking after posting probably over 100 Lego Millennium Falcon pix.)

 

* http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/TAPA/82/Speed_under_Sail_of_Ancient_Ships*.html