Apollo And The Jet Age.

by Kingstar008

First published 20th of June, 2024

Apollo takes on his greatest challenge yet, bringing in a new age of aviation to Equestria and the world.

The Equestrian aviation industry has always prided itself for designing and building great quality aircraft. Its zeppelins and blimps has always been looked at with envy by the entire world for decades.

That was until a few companies from the River Federation created a new class of airships that overshadowed even the best airships from its western counterparts.

And now, these companies were determined to beat their eastern rivals.

Seeing an opportunity, Apollo decides to use his engineering skills and usher in a new age, the jet age.

This story takes place during The Royal Three: season two

(This story was inspired by the Hearts of iron 4 mod Equestria at war and TNO the last days of Europe.)

The concept.

March 17, 1010, A.G
Cloudsdale International Air Station.
10:00 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXtTBQW0lwg&pp=ygUUb3BwZW5oZWltZXIgYW1iaWVuY2U%3D

It was a beautiful spring day in the cloud city of Cloudsdale, and right now, Apollo Titan Yukon
was walking through the air station terminal after an hour-long flight. The only bag he had was a briefcase.

Unlike most of the ponies in the terminal, he was not here to enjoy the beautiful city.

He was here to meet with the CEO and CFO of a major aviation manufacturing company called Omega industries, to convince them to develop and build the first airplanes on planet Equis. With himself as head engineer.

If you have told Apollo that he would be doing this today, he would’ve laughed in your face and called you crazy.

But that all changed four weeks ago when a company from the River Federation called Pearl aeronautics built the largest passenger zeppelin in the world.

After that other companies from the Federation also release their new classes of airships.
Some were freighters, others were very luxurious airliners.

Almost immediately these companies were getting a lot of orders. While their Equestrian counterparts were getting less and less.

Which is why some Equestrian aviation corporations were inviting engineers from around the nation to propose their concepts to them.

And Apollo immediately signed up for it.

After Apollo exited the terminal, he saw that the bus to downtown was already there. He ran towards is and got on board just in time.

20 minutes later, the bus arrived at his stop.
He got off the bus, walked to Omega‘s headquarters and enter the building.

“Hello Miss, I’m here to meet with the Omega brothers.” Apollo said to the pegasus receptionist.

“What is your name, sir?” She asked.

“Apollo Yukon.”

“You’re just in time for your meeting.” She said, after looking at the schedule. “ The CEO and the CFO are in conference room 280. It right down the hall.”

“Thank you very much.” He said before walking away.

===•••===
Room 280

Inside of the conference room, sat two Pegasus brothers who looked like they were in their early to mid 40s.

The one on the right has a cream color coat with an orange mane and tail and the pegasus on the left had a light brown coat with a dark red mane and tail.

Their names are Astro and Roy Omega. The CEO and CFO of Omega industries.

“Roy, who is next on the list?” Astro asked before taking a sip of his coffee.

“Apollo Yukon.” His older brother answered.

“Yukon? Isn’t that the last name of the humans that appeared last year?”

“Yep. I never thought I would meet one of them.”

“Me neither, I wonder what he’s going to show us.”

A few seconds later, they heard a knock on the door.

“It’s open.” Roy said.

“Good morning, Mr. Astro, Mr. Roy. My name is Apollo and I’m here to have a meeting with the both of you.” Apollo greeted.

“Ah, Mr. Yukon, we been expecting you.” Astro folded his hands on the table.

“May I have a seat?” Apollo ask.

“Of course.”

After he sat down, Apollo clears his throat.
“Before I show you what I have to offer, I just want to say thank you for hearing me out.”

“No problem, we were once in your shoes a long time ago. Now, what are you going to show us today?” Roy said.

“I’m glad you ask because unlike some ponies before me, I am not going to show you a new airship design or something like that.”

“Then, what are you presenting?” Astro asked.

“The future.” Apollo opened his briefcase and took out two sheets of blueprint paper. One of them was two engine wide body airliner, and the other one was a four engine supersonic jet.

“What is this?” Astro curiously ask.

“These machines are called airplanes. Safe, fast and very reliable aircraft.”

“Interesting. What are their model names?” Roy asks.

“The two engine jet is called Aspera and the supersonic airliner is called the Astra.”

“This thing could break the sound barrier?” Astro said in shock.

“That’s right. The Astra should be able to fly at a top speed of Mach 2.8. Its maximum capacity should be around 250 passengers.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. Is that even possible for something like this to fly that fast?” Roy ask.

“It is, I have seen it back on my home world a few times before.”

‘And nearly went deaf because of it.’ Apollo thought.

“All right. What can the Aspera do?”
Roy asked as he looked at the blueprints.

“Well it can’t go supersonic like the Astra. But the Aspera is bigger, so can carry passengers or cargo.”

“I got a question. If it was a sunny day but there was high winds in the area, would it prevent these airplanes from taking off?” Astro ask.

“It’ll be difficult, but it’s possible for airplanes to fly through high winds. The only thing that will ground a plane is in hurricane, tornado or blizzard.”

This answer surprise the omega brothers. Anytime a zeppelin tries to takeoff and high winds there was always a high chance of it crashing into something. So hearing about an aircraft able to takeoff and such conditions was not only foreign to them, but to many ponies as well.

“Any more questions?” Apollo asks.

(30 minutes later.)

“Apollo, it was nice meeting you today. We will keep your ideas in mind.” Astro said as he put Apollo‘s blueprints into his folder.

“It was nice meeting you guys too. Apollo shook their hands. “Well, I better get going. Hope you guys have a nice day.”

After that, Apollo left the room.

===•••===
8 PM

The Omega brothers we’re in Astro’s office looking over all the blueprints they received from all the meetings they had in the past two days.

They’ve been looking them over for almost an hour at this point, trying to figure out which engineer they should go with.

“How about this one?” Roy ask as he showed his brother a passenger airship design. “It looks promising.”

Astro looked it over and shook his head. “No, it look like the type of design that our competition might use. I mean, look at it. It looks so generic.”

“Ok, it might look ordinary, but could be a success.”

“Yeah, but I also could end up being another ordinary aircraft. And ordinary is not going to cut it.”

“You’re right.” Roy said before putting the blueprint in the reject pile. “Let’s look at one more before we call the night.”

“All right.” Astro said before picking up Apollo's blueprints that were stapled together. After looking at the two pieces of paper for a few seconds he looked at his older brother and said.

“I think we should go with Apollo’s ideas.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, hearing about what these aircraft can do is amazing. These airplanes are going to be a great success.”

Roy had a feeling that this was going to happen. Astro was more of the visionary and risk taker of the two. While Roy was more cautious and pragmatic.

“They are interesting, but you really think that the airlines are ready to embrace this type of aircraft? Airplanes might successful on his home planet, but we don’t know if it would be the same on Equis. This could be a major shock to the industry as a whole. It’s too much of a risk.”

“Ponies said the same thing to Ace Tradewinds when he invented the first blimp and look what happened. He created a billion bit industry and change the way we travel forever. And we’re no strangers to risks. I believe that us and Apollo could do the same.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Roy ask.

“Definitely.”

“All right, airplanes it is.”

===•••===
The very next day.
12:30 AM

Apollo was in his office looking over some boring paperwork, when he heard a knock on his door.

*Knock, knock, knock*

“Come in.”

The door opened, revealing Derpy holding a letter. “I have a letter for you, Apollo.”

Apollo got up from his chair and was handed the letter. “Thanks, Derpy.”

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

Apollo looked at the envelope and saw that it had an Airship with an orange letter O on its side.
The symbol of omega industries.

He opened the envelope and began reading the letter.

===•••===
Dear Mr. Yukon.

Omega industries is happy to tell you that your concepts have been chosen by our top executives and engineers.

We’re excited to be working with you in creating the future of air travel. We hope that this partnership will be a start of something new between you and our company.

Your first day will be on the 20th of march at 9 AM at the latest.

Until then, we hope that you have a nice rest of your day.

From, a representative of omega industries.

===•••===

Apollo read the letter over and over again.
He couldn’t believe it. They chose him out of hundreds of potential candidates.

“Hell yeah! I did it!” He laughed before he left his office to tell his siblings the good news.

Engine test.

May 16th 1010 A.G
Cloudsdale, Equestria.
9:00 AM.

It was a bright sunny day in Cloudsdale and right now Apollo was walking through the Omega industries factory. While drinking a cup of coffee while doing so.

It’s been almost 2 months since Apollo’s airplane concepts were chosen. Since then, he’s been coming to the Omega factory three times a week. He chose this schedule so he wouldn’t neglect his career back in Canterlot and give his project as much attention as possible.

A few weeks after the project started, the company decided to announce that they were creating the world’s first airplanes.

This obviously got some media attention with some ponies being interested in the idea, while others were not.

One of the project’s biggest critics was an aviation engineer named Lloyd Ivory. He one of the biggest names in the industry. Lloyd believes that what Apollo was doing was wasting every ponies time and suggest that he should just scrap the entire operation entirely. Despite the fact that a few major airlines expressed interest of producing a fleet of new airplanes.

Unfortunately, Apollo met Lloyd before on a few occasions. Let’s just say their meetings weren’t pleasant.

Thank goodness that the company was focusing Aspera for now. If the critics knew about the Astra’s supersonic capabilities, he didn’t know how they would react. But if Apollo was being honest, he couldn’t wait to see his face when the Aspera becomes a major success.

Finally, after 10 minutes of walking, he finally arrived in a warehouse with a jet engine in the middle being held up by steel beams.

This is where new engines for new aircraft of different shapes and sizes are tested. To make sure they are fit for commercial use.

On Apollo’s right, there was a room just a few yards from him that had a large window. The room in question is the control room.

He opened the door and saw that there was a gray pegasus mare with a white and blonde mane and tail, writing something down in a notebook. Her name is Patricia, she is one of the head engineers.

“Morning, Patricia.” Apollo greeted.

“Morning, Apollo.” She smiled. “Are you ready to get to work?”

“You know it.” Apollo put his coffee down on the desk and look out of the window. “You and your crew did a really good job building that engine. It looks better than I imagined.”

“Thanks.” Patricia said before she turned on the control panel. She pressed a red button which turned on the engine and then grabbed a lever and pushed it forward. Which caused the engine fan blades to spin faster and faster.

“It’s looking pretty good. So, what’s the first test of the day?” Apollo asks.

“The rain test.” She answered. “Do you want to do the honors?”

“Sure, why not.” Apollo said before pushing a blue button with an image of a water droplet on it.

The warehouse sprinkler system turned on, simulating a heavy rainstorm. After 10 minutes, they decided to turn off the sprinklers.

As expected, the engine had no problems at all.

“Ok, what’s next on the list?” Apollo ask.

“The winter test.” Patricia said.

“Wait, should we let it dry first?”

“No, we don’t usually do that. It’s s a good way to see how the engine will handle ice forming on it.”

“You’re the expert.” Apollo said before walking over to the warehouse thermostat and turning it down.

It took a little while for the temperature to drop, but when it did, it was just as cold as winter in Manehattan.

“Huh, this has to be the first time I have seen an engine surviving these temperatures on the first try.” Patricia said. “I was expecting the fan blades to freeze up by now.”

“Maybe jet engines are just better than their propeller counterparts.”

“Ok, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Patricia said as she turned off the engine, walking over to the thermostat and putting back on its normal setting. “After everything thaws out will continue the trials. Until then, do you want to play some cards?”

"Ok."

===•••===
Two hours of testing later.

“All right, we are almost done. Now all we have to do is the broken fan blade test.” Apollo said as he looked at the clipboard. “How are we going to destroy one of the fan blades?”

“Easy. Before you came in, I planted a small explosive behind one of the blades.” Patricia said as she held up a small remote with a big red button in the middle. “Doing this will simulate anything from a bird strike to debris hitting the engine.”

“What a coincidence, many aviation companies do the same thing on planet earth.”

“Really now? What a small galaxy. Do you want to do the countdown?”

“Sure. 3. 2. 1.”

Patricia press the button causing the explosive to go off and the broken fan blade to be sucked in to the air intake.

Barely even a few seconds later the engine exploded. Shrapnel went everywhere as the engine slowly died and burst into flames.

“Damn, that wasn’t supposed to happen.” Apollo exclaimed.

“Well, that’s the reason why we do these tests in the first place. Hopefully next time we will have better results.”

===•••===

For the next few weeks, Patricia and Apollo redesigned and rebuild more jet engine prototypes.

Every time they put the prototypes through the tests, they had hope that this time it would be successful. Only for it to explode like one big frag grenade.

The failures even put them behind schedule a little bit, as the first Aspera was going through its own trials.

But no matter how many times they failed; they didn’t give up.

===•••===
June 1
1:30 AM

“Ok, we did the noise test and the fuel consumption test. All that is left now is the broken fan blade.” She sighed. “This is the 60th time we attempted this?”

“Yeah, this is the 60th time.” Apollo replied. “Should we do the countdown?”

“No, just press it.”

“All right.” He grabbed the remote and hope for the best. “Here goes nothing.”

He press the button and once again, broken blade got sucked in to the engine.

They both watched with bated breath as the engine started to smoke and slowly died. But this time it didn’t explode.

“Oh my God, we did it.” Apollo said disbelief.

“It’s finally over.” Patricia said quietly.

The human and the Pegasus looked at each other before yelling. “We did it!” Before hugging each other.

A few moments later, they separated. “Finally, we are done with these tests. I’m glad that it’s over.”

“Me too, but we do have to test out the Astra’s engines in the future.” Patricia stated.

“Don’t worry about it, that’s our future selves to worry about, not ours.” He said before picking up the notebook. “I’m going to tell Astro and Roy the good news. I’ll see you later.”

“See ya.” She said before Apollo left the room.

===•••===
3:30 PM

After a long day at work, Patricia was finally able to clock out of the day. But before she can leave the factory, a familiar voice called her name.

“Hey, Patricia.”

She turns around and said. “Oh, hello Apollo. What’s going on?”

“Nothing much, I just want to ask if you want to get something to eat. To celebrate our success today.”

“Apollo, you don’t have to do that.”

“I insist. After almost driving ourselves crazy over the past few weeks, I feel like we deserve to treat ourselves. So, are you coming or not?” He smiled.

“All right, you win.”

“I knew you would want to come.”

“Where are we going anyway?”
Patricia asked.

“I was thinking we can go to this buffet that Atlas recommended to me. It’s in downtown. Is that good or do you want to go somewhere else?”

“No, the buffet sounds good to me.”

“All right. Let go before rush-hour comes.”

After that, the two coworkers left the factory together.