Above the clouds, a uniquely designed aircraft took off from an airport on the outskirts of Utopia City, flying toward River Valley Province.
It had two pairs of wings and four engines in total, two in front and two in back, symmetrically arranged at the four corners of the fuselage and spraying pale blue plasma trails behind it.
This transport plane was a civilian modification of the "Orca" transport aircraft. Its fuselage had been lengthened, its cargo hold expanded, and an additional pair of plasma engines added.
Since it was for civilian use, the aggressive name "Orca" had been changed to the comparatively gentler "Blue Whale."
From the outside, the aircraft looked like an upgraded four-engine tiltrotor, with traditional propellers replaced by lighter, more stable plasma engines that were less affected by airflow.
Like the Orca transport, it could switch between level-flight and vertical-flight modes, and could even perform lateral translation maneuvers the Orca could not.
Like a quadcopter drone.
Though passengers who experienced it would probably curse their heads off.
The aircraft had been designed by a subsidiary of the Silverwing Group, with over a hundred companies participating in its production. Only one had been completed so far, and it had already entered service on the route from Cloud Province to River Valley Province.
The exploits of the Pioneer had influenced the current mainstream thinking in Utopia City to a certain extent, and Wu Changnian's "influence expansion" proposal passed smoothly in the board meeting.
In the future, the Enterprise would not merely operate within the little patch of land that was Cloud Province. It would turn its gaze beyond Cloud Province and explore the road ahead alongside survivor settlements across the region.
They would not return to the era of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, unconditionally supporting those survivor settlements