This week we started off the new year by accepting a contract from Probodobodyne, who heard about our recent success with fixed-wing aviation and was impressed at how relatively cheaply we’ve managed to turn around flights in the Civvie, which only requires a top off of fuel, not fuel and gas. While the Civvie is not yet much faster than airships, the cost savings were enough to interest agencies looking for crewed observational data of various regions near KSC that are will within the range of the Civvie.

The drawback of a single crew member aboard has meant that we can’t charge much – the pilot has to fly the aircraft first and performing observations adds to their workload in the cockpit and thus their reports are not as detailed as if they were aboard a more stationary platform like an airship. Furthermore due to the craft’s natural tendency to want to fall out of the sky upon engine failure rather than stay aloft, we can’t allow the Civvie to travel far out over the open water where it couldn’t glide back close to or over land in the event of trouble. So there are still trade-offs. But it seems agencies are willing to support the idea of fixed-wing aircraft by handing us small contracts, and it will certainly help bring the Genesis Program towards an eventual profit.

As with expenses, all profits from contracts and collected science will be split 50/50 with our partners C7 Aerospace Division. The first observational flight will be undertaken today by Commander Valentina.