High Flight

Prologue

"Thou art an eagle, thou doest belong to the sky and not to the earth, stretch forth thy wings and fly."

— Paul H Dunn

We know that pegasi were built for flight, high speed and maneuverability. And that they will often take their wings for granted. Not knowing what they have over other the ponies.

Earth and Unicorn ponies have dreamt of flying beside their winged brethren. The first recorded instance is a short poem written by a Unicorn whom rode on the back of a Pegasus. This made the Pegasus incapable of any fast speeds or quick maneuvers, but was the start of earth bound ponies’ quest for flight.

That Unicorn then went on to study in great detail how Pegasi were capable of flight, and made many ground breaking discoveries that without them, any heavier than air flight today would be impossible, though all of it is gliders. The discovery of thrust, drag, lift and weight, and the study of aerodynamics. This Unicorn went on to create many gliders, and learned how to manipulate the winds with magic to greatly extend air time for the glider. The Unicorn also witnessed the first Pegasus to break the sound barrier. After discovering the fundamentals of flight with the Unicorn, the Pegasus was then able to train and experiment to increase thrust, speed, and aerodynamics, by bringing in the legs and wearing a suit that reduced drag of hair and mane. Though mere seconds after surpassing the speed of sound the Pegasus lost control recovered and slowed to a stop. Unwilling to try again, in fear of the loss of life, the Pegasus decided that traveling faster than the speed of sound for long periods of time would be impossible without a fixed wing and thrust system.

Yet this event is what made the Unicorn think that it would be possible to attain faster than sound, air travel. Though impossible with magic and the current technology. Maybe in the future. But at the present time, the Unicorn created the first powered flying machine. A fixed wing glider, which had a propeller attached, to increase thrust. Though this created the first plane to not be completely reliant on the wind, it did cause great stress to the one whom was using magic to turn the propeller, which was crude at best. The little thrust it did provide was not enough to keep the plane from stalling, without any wind the plane still could not fly. The design also did not allow for any aerobatic stunts, as light stress would break it apart. The Unicorn learning this from experience, had the Pegasus not been there as always, the Unicorn surely would have lost its life, and our story would not have happened at all.

The Unicorn continued researching and revising the design of the first plane, with the assistance of the Pegasus, but never attended powered flight for more than 30 minutes. Even providing magic to spin a propeller for only that long, the Unicorn had to rest at least a week before being able to try a new design. The plane could never come close to what a Pegasus could do in terms of maneuverability. Being only able to pitch less than 20 degrees without major stress to the structure, or a roll of 10 degrees. The design also had no way to yaw like a pegasus can, as the vertical stabilizer was fixed and the Unicorn saw no way to efficiently control an adjustable one during flight.

The Unicorn and Pegasus continued working on improving their plane to the day they died, from old age and exhaustion. Before dieing the Unicorn requested that all their work be published, in hopes that one day somepony might be able to build a flying machine capable to rival the speed and abilities of a pegasus.

After they passed away all of their work, schematics, calculations, models and prototypes were stored away in the Canterlot Archives, and forgotten for the next 50 years. During this time the only advancements in the field of flight were the refinement of lighter than air balloons or airships. And it seemed that any memory of the aeroplane, or even glider, had been forgotten.