flyers
Names: flyerssmall flyersthe flyeraircraftgreat metal birdthe birdexotic birdthe black birdthe great birdhis birdrhocraftrhoboatsexotic flyersgravomagnetic flyerflying machinesbirdsships
First appears in Book 1: The Many-Colored Land, chapter 1 (Prologue)
Appearances
B1
B2
B3
B4
What you know
Book 1: The Many-Colored Land
- Ch 1More than forty birdlike flyers carry the exiles away from the Ship, wait out the impact, and later rest by the crater for a thousand years.
- Ch 46A thirty-meter, thousand-year-old gravo-magnetic craft with inertialess drive and sixteen power-modules; it runs on plain water in its generator.
- Ch 46Its rho-field cleans and blackens its hull, and it has orbiter capability; forty-two similar craft sit around the Ries crater rim.
- Ch 48The flyer can hide itself, climb inertialess to 5000 meters and hover; it crash-landed after the lightning attack.
Book 2: The Golden Torc
- Ch 42The bird looks smaller than the ramapithecus remembers, and the hole in its belly and the climbing-up thing are gone.
Book 3: The Nonborn King
- Ch 38Basil's Bastards found forty-two exotic aircraft; some crashed, one exploded, others were scrapped for parts, and twenty-nine were repaired.
- Ch 38The flyers are inertialess and reach about 12,000 kph at the edge of the atmosphere, with rho-field-covered swept-back wings.
- Ch 41Gravomagnetic aircraft hidden by Lowlives in the Vale of Hyenas; two exist, one operational, guarded with iron and a stun-gun.
- Ch 42The ancient aircraft can carry about two hundred knights each, and Nodonn's side intends to seize them for the attack on Aiken Drum's Goriah.
Book 4: The Adversary
- Ch 9The aircraft were the Lowlives' main hope of defending freedom; Aiken plans to use them, so that hope is now gone.
- Ch 12Aiken wants to seize the aircraft at Monte Rosa to counter Marc and the Firvulag.
- Ch 15Twenty-seven rhocraft are parked at 5924 meters on Monte Rosa's North Face, in cold storage two months; the King wants them delivered to Goriah.
Connections
- inLake of Giant Birds
- related toNodonntook them to Afaliah
Key moments
- Book 1 · Ch 1The Ship arrives and crashes
The dying Ship emerges near the planet; the exiles flee in flyers before it plunges into the eastern highlands, creating a huge crater.
- Book 1 · Ch 46Flyer's maiden flight
Richard powers up the restored flyer, lifts off, performs maneuvers over the Ries crater, then shoots vertically toward the ionosphere to learn its handling.