An example of a Luxury aerostat designed for use on worlds with thin atmosphere.

Farbello’s aerostat is a large luxury model.

There’s a separate driver’s cabin to the passenger area and no visibility between the two areas.  Where some vehicles might have a window, between the shared partition is a vidscreen.  There is another one on the rear wall.  In addition to the side windows is a pair of  overhead ones.

Through them, Lia can see the lights of the city and the amethyst-and-white running lights of the Wardenate escort vehicle.

The upholstery is chocolate brown, some sort of synthetic leather/suede-type material with grey trims.  Below window level the rest of the décor is dark grey, with light grey and brown trims above that demarking line.  Copper-coloured metal trims and panels give a classy looking finish.

The seating is lounge style, three large benches with wide, built-in arm rests containing small fold-out tables and form-fitting bucket mouldings to delimit individual seats.  One bench faces forward, one back and one is sideways facing the main door.  There is a single seat each side of the door.  The middle seat of each bench can be converted to a table, and the side- and rear-facing benches have their tables out.  There is enough room in here for eleven people, or eight with the benches converted.  The main console, and what is possibly a small bar, is at the rear end of the wall bench, but all the arm rests have a small set of controls.  Headroom is such that Lia’s can stand comfortably, though Farbello has to duck a little.

Aerostats operate by taking a grav plate and turning it upside down so it nullifies most of the weight of the vehicle, thus allowing robust performance with often very small engines.  On worlds with any sort of atmosphere they are often propeller-driven and are frequently associated with a sort of dirigible-like floating elegance.  However this is a fast luxury model operating on a world with a thin atmosphere.  There is a huge air intake on the top, probably supplemented with an onboard fuel supply and eight vectored-thrust jets spread around the vehicle on spherical mountings.  As befitting its nature as a VIP transport the pilot is operating it at a leisurely pace, but it can probably push the occupants firmly back into their seats if its latent performance is utilised. 

Ref:  F-312-Lia