7-301: MaPaCoA Vehicle Pool

The relevant GURPS skills for operating an AeroStat are either Pilot(Contragravity) or Pilot(Vertol) – which I treat as the same skill for game purposes.

Basically, AeroStats work as follows:

A Grav Plate is inverted over the top of the vehicle body, which is about the size of a large contemporary car or small bus.  This nullifies the weight of the vehicle and permits a relatively small amount of thrust to levitate it and fly it around.  Models designed to fly in atmosphere typically use props or even small jet turbines.  Vacuum-designed models usually use a rocket or compressed gas propellent and tend to have much shorter ranges.  

In contemporary terms, an AeroStat probably handles most like a blimp, although without the big gas bag creating drag on top you can get performance more like a slow light aircraft – because they have to remain level for best performance and safety they tend to fly slower and more sedately than light aircraft and are vulnerable to strong winds and turbulence.   

They are much easier to fly than a helicopter, but more difficult than driving a car.

The AeroStat hired on Pristine was actually fairly slow, the Vizierate one at MaPaCoA  is a bit faster.

Passengers in an AeroStat travel in Zero-G; Dicard hates them.