Apollo And The Jet Age.

February 9 1011 A.G
Canterlot Castle.
2:15 AM

It was a chilly night in the city of Canterlot, and right now, Apollo was in his office, looking over some blueprints.

It’s been almost 5 months since Aspera took off for the first time and since then, a lot of things have been going on in the Aviation world.

Ever since the Aspera entered service two weeks after its first flight, the industry was flipped upside down.

Creatures around the world were amazed by the reliability, versatility and comfort of the world first airliner. Airlines from every corner of the globe have been ordering entire fleet of planes for months now. Making Omega industries insanely rich.

This caused every air station from Rhodesia all the way to the Crystal Empire to build runways and expand their terminals to accommodate the new jets.

Thanks to the Aspera, the age of airship dominance was quickly coming to an end.

Now Apollo and the Omega brothers were working on the Astra. And so far, things have not been good at all.

Development of the Aspera’s supersonic sibling is not off to a good start because it was discovered that the Astra’s design created a sonic boom that was just as loud as Concorde’s. Which is not good if you want a supersonic airliner to be successful. That meant that the company had to redesign the Astra.

This is why Apollo was in his office so late.

He looked at the new redesign he made on a separate piece of blueprint paper only to crumpled it up and toss it at an overflowing trash bin.

He leans back in his chair and looked out of his window to see the beautiful night sky with an airplane flying across it.

“What are we doing wrong?” He sighs.

At this moment when his office door opened, revealing Luna wearing a beautiful nightgown.
“Apollo, what are you doing up so late? You should be in bed right now.”

“Lulu, I’m doing something right now. I have no time to sleep. I thought you were in the dream realm.” He replied as his marefriend enter the office.

“I was, until I realize your dream was not in there. Which only means one thing.” She said, gesturing to the blueprints on his desk. “Apollo, I know this project means a lot to you, but that doesn’t mean you should drive yourself to exhaustion. It’s not healthy.”

“I’ll be fine even if I don’t get eight hours of sleep. I won’t blackout like most ponies.”

“You will if you continue to do this.” She said before putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on go to bed. If you want, you can sleep with me tonight. Who knows maybe you might get a new idea when you wake up.”

After thought it over for a moment, Apollo decided to concede. “All right fine. I’ll go to sleep with you.”

“Good boy.” Luna patted him on the head before teleporting the both of them to her bed chambers.

===•••===

Apollo opened his eyes and saw that he was standing in a hallway in one of the Omega factory hangers.

“Goddamnit, well I’m going to be here for the next few hours so might as well make the most of it.”

He walked down the hallway and found a door that lead to the main area of the building.

He opened it thinking that he would see one or two Asperas parked inside.

But instead, he saw a Concorde parked inside. A British Airways version to be more specific.

“Wow.” He said quietly as he got closer to it. Apollo walked underneath the aircraft touched the bottom of its right wing.

The last time he saw Concorde in person was 2003 when it took off from JFK for a very last time.
The sad day for every aviation lovers out there.
Even though this was a dream, this Concorde was still as beautiful as its real life counterparts.

Then he noticed that there was another aircraft right next to it.

The plane in question has a similar fuselage design, but that’s where the similarities end.

The plane is a bit larger and its delta wings were shaped like a compound delta instead of a ogival delta design the Concorde had.

If Apollo had to be honest, this plane looked like it was from the future. Like from the year 2030 or something. That’s when he realized that he was looking at the Astra. No, much better version of the Astra.

“I need to check this out.” He said quietly.

Luckily for him, there was a set of stairs on the left side of the plane.

After he got inside of the plane, he looked around and whistled. The inside was just as nice as the outside. After Apollo did a little exploring, he decided to check out the cockpit.

He walked from the back of the plane to the cockpit and sat down in the captain’s chair.

“I wonder if I could take this bad boy for spin.”

It was at this moment when the hanger doors started to open up. Instead of seeing the outside world, Apollo saw a blinding light which made him cover his eyes.

He turned his head when he heard the sound of Concorde’s loud engines powering on and saw the iconic airliner moving towards the light.

After it disappeared, the light started to envelope everything.

===•••===
5:50 AM

The moment Apollo opened his eyes he slowly sat up in Luna’s bed and thought about the lucid dream he just had.

He didn’t know why he had that dream, but he glad he did. He got out of bed, knowing what he had to do.

After he got out of bed, Apollo teleported to his office. Apollo turned on his desk lamp and began to draw on a piece of blueprint paper.

10 minutes later, Apollo put his pencil down and looked at his work. The airliner on the blueprint was identical to the one in his dream.

He smile, knowing that he may have the solution to his problem. After he put the blueprint in a folder, he teleported out of his office.

===•••===
7:05

After Apollo arrived in Cloudsdale, he teleported from the air station all the way to factory. As he was walking through the building, he found Patricia writing something down on her clipboard.

“Morning, Pat.” He greeted.

“Oh, morning Apollo. You know you don’t have to come in the factory until next Sunday, right?”

“I know that. I’m here is because I think I found the perfect design for the Astra.” He said as he handed the folder to the gray pegasus.

“Hmm, it looks similar to the original design.” She commented before closing the folder. “But it can’t hurt to test it out. Thanks for giving me this.”

“You’re welcome. I will see you next week.”

“See you then.”

After that, Apollo left the factory.

===•••===
Two days later.
11:30 AM

Apollo was walking from the castle conference room after a long meeting with a few foreign delegates. He was heading over to the library for a well-deserved break when he heard Atlas calling his name.

“Hey Apollo.”

“Hello Atlas, what’s going on?” He asked as his identical sibling walked over to him.

“I’m here to give you a letter that the castle received a few minutes ago.” Atlas said as he handed the envelope to Apollo.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Atlas said before walking away.

After Apollo entered the library, he open up the envelope and began reading.

===•••===
Dear Apollo.

I have some great news. A few hours ago, Patricia and her team tested out the new design for the Astra in the wind tunnel and I’m happy to write that it passed with flying colors. The engineering team is predicting that its sonic boom is going to be much quieter than its old design and it’s possible that will be much more fuel efficient as well.

As I'm writing this the factory is planning to build a prototype for further testing.

Good work, Apollo. I don’t know what inspired you to create that new design, but I’m glad you did.

From Astro.

===•••===

“Finally.” Apollo smiled, relieved that the first major hurdle of the Astra project was finally behind them. He didn’t know what was going to happen next, but he is sure that it was going to be smooth sailing from here on out.