Lets go fly a ....

[lankyogre]

I was thinking of this in context of playing, so I figured I'd put it here.

Could a wizard fly a sufficiently old enough airplane ex. WWII P-51.

First off, the examples that Harry has given show mostly electronics failing. Even the Blue Beetle is new enough to have some amount of electronics and computers under the hood. OTOH, McCoy seems to drive an older truck with even less problems than Harry. Harry has referred to flying in an airplane a few times, though he prefers trains and ships. From the descriptions of when/why there are problems it seems all electronic and very little mechanical. So could an older plane fall under the same caveat as an older car?

The two problems I see would be learning to fly in the first place, and modern laws regarding flying. Even if a wizard can fly an older plane, I'd imagine it would be awful difficult to find a way to learn on an older plane, unless the wizard in question was older (so they learned to fly when airplanes were new) or the wizard's mentor knows how to fly. Finally, if a wizard did learn to fly, and could fly an old enough plane, modern laws and regulations require additional radios and instruments that would be susceptible to wizard hexing.

My wife also pointed out that with all the bad stuff that has the ability to fly, would you really want to leave the earth?

[mlangsdorf]

The consequences of your car's engine dying on the highway at 70 miles an hour is that you have to pull off the road without power steering, which may be difficult but usually isn't fatal.

The consequences of your plane's engine dying is a power-off stall followed by gliding to the ground followed by a dead-stick landing on whatever reasonably flat and unoccupied piece of land you spot on the way down.

Even the Beetle fails to work one day in ten.  Most people aren't in their cars for more than an hour a day.  I don't think I'd want to try two or four dead stick landings while I was still qualifying for my pilot's license, which takes 40 hours of instruction.

So while I think it may be possible for a wizard to learn to fly an old plane, I don't see how a wizard safely could learn.

[ahunting]

while its potentially difficult and dangerous, its theoretically possible to create a flight spell or item. (I think a flying carpet would be easier then say a Broom stick.) There are lots of dangers inherent in that concept but its possible and if you centered a character about it, trained to do it, and devoted thought on how the spell would work, including some kind of provision for headwind, a protective outfit, it should be possible.

After all Thaum is really about making the impossible Possible.

[crusher_bob]

I always got the impression that it wasn't flying that was really the problem, it was learning to fly that was the problem.  Even Storm Front Harry probably has enough power to fly around (Bob makes fun of him for trying to enchant a broomstick), but it sounds like he gave it up after one badly embarrassing accident.  From an in game perspective, being able to fly is quite cheap (-1 refresh for wings)

[CMEast]

Did you want your wizard to have an actual airplane? Or did they just need to fly without wings?

They could have some sort of paraglider or even a full glider? Then with a bit of air magic and some practice (training with both should be easy to get hold of, as long as the glider isn't too technically advanced).

Of course, if the paraglider would work, why not take a leaf out of batmans book and have a cloak that can be turned in to wings. That plus some wind magic and you'll soon be leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

[Buscadera]

There's also the possibility of making the oft-discussed 'technology-jamming-jammer' enchanted item that shuts off a wizards mana static. Harry does it in the books, so I don't see why another wizard couldn't do the same thing.

[Crion]

I think it should be noted that the idea of technology failing is one part "what is new" with one part "mana static." Most of the examples of failures are pretty high tech things (such as cell phones), or technology that is still "new" in comparison to humankind or to the wizard in general. The RPG mentions that the age of the wizard does often denote what sort of technology will act up around them. If a wizard from the 1600's were to use an older automobile, it probably would fall apart faster than the Blue Beetle at Dresden's hands.

With the way things are in the novels, we haven't seen anything less advanced than a television go on the fritz around Molly, and no problems with the Blue Beetle as far as we've seen. We also haven't seen semi-automatic weapons fall apart in the hands of the younger Wardens (remember, Carlos prefers grenades and semi-auto pistols when he goes into battle). We don't have much evidence by way of the older Council members, but we seldom see them with things that would have been "new" in their time.
The only time we've seen an exceptionally old Warden in a vehicle was in Turn Coat, when

(click to show/hide)

Luccio (who is from the late 18th to early 19th century judging by the hints by Lara Raith) and Harry were lent a the Rolls Royce Wraith (production circa late 1930's if memory serves correctly) by Lara. Of course, she was in a new body and noted her powers weren't what they used to be,

so this could be the reason why it didn't fall apart.


Long story short: I don't think an older wizard would have learned to fly the planes from WWII due to them being "new" at the time, but I could see some of the new Wardens being able to take to the skies in such a way without causing too many problems, as they seem to be a bit easier on technology, as their perspectives of it and what's "new" is drastically different.

Again, this is all speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.