After meeting with the Chief of Naval Operations of the Department of Navy, Alexander prepared for his last meeting, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

For the Imperial Ruthenian Coast Guard, Alexander received a letter from the Commandant of the Coast Guard stating that he won’t be able to attend due to personal matters. With that, Alexander won’t be able to present his design to him about the new class of ships that the Coast Guard will use.

Nevertheless, it’s a discussion for another day.action

It’s been one hour since the meeting with Admiral Kutnetzov and the head of the Dubin Design Bureau Andrei Serebyakov. Just as it went for the Army, Alexander was the one presenting his design rather than them. After all, Alexander believes in technological supremacy. The tanks, the artillery, and the warships are based on what’s in the mainstream whereas his design is far beyond it.

Why settle for something that would be considered obsolete in the future where you can just build something better that your industry could create?

“Admiral Kuznetsov, Sir Andrei, I believe this has been a productive meeting and I look forward to meeting with you soon regarding the construction and the design,” Alexander rose to his feet and offered his hand to the two.

“It’s a pleasure, Your Majesty,” Admiral Kutnetzov received Alexander’s hand and shook it firmly.

“It’s a pleasure for me as well, Your Majesty,” Andrei smiled, also shaking Alexander’s hand. They then turned around and began walking out the door.

Seeing that the Imperial Ruthenian Coast Guard representatives won’t be able to attend the meeting, the next one will be his last one: The Imperial Ruthenian Air Force.

Alexander has been working on a proposal for months, as this service branch is the most tricky one compared to the Army and the Navy.-.

The aircraft that he’s going to present to them later is something that will blow their mind. He’s not exaggerating that.

Ten minutes later, a knock on the door was heard, causing Alexander’s attention to shift away from the papers that were in front of him to face the person who knocked at the door. It was the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Lavrinenko. Three men followed him into the room. All of them wore dark suits.

“General, good afternoon!” Alexander greeted Lavrinenko with a smile while getting up from his seat and walking over to greet the group.

Lavrinenko returned the smile, “Good afternoon, Your Majesty. We hope we’re not late,”

“My meeting with Admiral Kutnetzov just ended so I believe you’re in time,” Alexander chuckled and glanced at the three men standing behind Lavrinenko stiffly. “Who are these gentlemen?”

“These are from each aerospace company that will be presenting their designs for fighter aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft, and bomber aircraft,” General Lavrinenko motioned his hand to the three gentlemen who stood at attention.One of them stepped forward, “I’m the representative of the GiM Design Bureau, Nikifor Zakharov, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty.”

Alexander nodded as another man stepped forward, ” Pazlov Design Bureau, Kir Bogdanov, it’s an honor to meet you, Your Majesty,”

“Luka Fedoro, representatives of the Tupolev Aeronautics, it’s also an honor to meet you, Your Majesty,”

Upon their introduction, the three bowed in unison.

“Excellent, shall we get started?” Alexander gestured towards the seats in front of his desk.

The other four took a seat and arranged themselves properly, waiting for instructions.

“Well then,” Alexander looked down at his papers before speaking, “As you’re all aware, the Imperial Ruthenian Air Force has five core missions…These are air superiority, global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. Our air doctrine revolves around those five missions. So, when you were designing an aircraft for the Air Force, I hope you factored in the core mission…If not, well expect that your designs be rejected,”

The face of the representatives of the aerospace company turned pale and they quickly nodded in understanding. Alexander continued, “Now, let’s see what your company has to offer,”

With his signal, the representatives presented their design to Alexander in an eloquent and fluid tone, giving precise and concise descriptions that made sense to a layman.

Alexander listened closely while looking at the schematics of the aircraft. As expected, none of them caught his interest. The aircraft is similar to that of the 1920s and 1930s design from his past world. A fuselage made from wood and fabric and powered by a radial engine.

If these designs were to be approved, then there’s no hope for the Air Force to achieve the five core missions as the other superpowers are already developing superior warplanes and even exploring a new type of engine.

In one of his free time, Alexander read a book titled “An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design” from the Britannia Empire which talks about a new kind of engine theorized by a material science researcher named Alan Griffith.

Engineers of this world are beginning to realize that engines driving propellers were approaching limits due to issues related to propeller efficiency, which declined as blade tips approached the speed of sound. If aircraft performance were to increase beyond such a barrier, a different propulsion mechanism was necessary. Thus, this became the motivation behind the development of the gas turbine engine, the most common form of a jet engine.

Now, this poses a problem. If the study is already published, then there is a huge chance that engineers from the Britannia Empire or even the Deutschland Empire are developing this kind of engine. Is this really a problem? Well not technically, the first turbojets designs are clunky and oftentimes prone to fail. But technology is advancing year by year. Unfortunately, the development was hampered by world war 2 by focusing on improving the propeller-driven aircraft, which led to multiple advancements of the radial engine, only to end up being scrapped after the war in favor of the turbojet engines.

In short words, this world hasn’t perfected the design of jet engines and therefore Alexander has the upper hand again in developing a better and faster aircraft.

In spite of that, this world already has a plane developed by the Britannia Empire that can reach a speed of 610 kilometers per hour and is the most advanced aircraft of any military aircraft of this time.

To achieve great speed, changes were made in engines, cylinder disposition, and aerodynamic design, making the plane slim to offer less air resistance to the air. However, this presented a problem too, especially the engine cooling. As reiterated before, the most common engine for the aircraft of the time is a radial type engine, where all the cylinders are exposed to the airflow, hence more air drag of the aircraft and therefore is not possible to reach faster speed.

There is another idea to solve this by using an inline cylinder to reduce the aerodynamic drag but air cooling was less ideal. So liquid cooling systems have to be developed by using radiators.

Remember, the quest of each aircraft designer of this world is speed, the more speed the better the aircraft. After one hour, the presentation ended.

The representatives wore a smile on their faces as they anticipated a reaction from their Emperor.

“Hmm…” Alexander hummed as he propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin upon his palm. “Is that all?”

The three furrowed their brows Nikifor gulped before speaking to Alexander.

“Yes, Your Majesty. That’s all there is,”

Alexander sighed as he leaned his back gently against his chair and exhaled softly while keeping his eyes fixed on the three representatives.

“I know you guys worked hard to come up with this design, but I got to say, not one design even came close to my standards. I’m afraid I’ll have to reject it,” Alexander said.

Actually, Alexander has no power to decide to reject or accept a design other than the department of the service branch itself. However, he’s still the Emperor of the Ruthenia Empire, the man who holds the power, and thus his opinion greatly matter in this discussion.

“With all due respect, Your Majesty. Do you mind telling us what your standard is?” Kir Bogdanov, from the Pazlov Design Bureau, said to Alexander, trying to sound as respectful as he possibly could, despite the fact that his voice had a hint of frustration in it.

His words caused the heads of those present in the meeting room to turn to him with a subtle disbelief expression.

“Mister Bogdanov. Watch your words carefully…You’re speaking directly to the Emperor of Ruthenia,” General Lavrinenko sternly warned Bogdanov.

“I’m just curious…” Bogdanov defended, but he soon regretted doing so, as he saw the glint that appeared in Alexander’s eyes. This look was meant to tell Bogdanov ‘Do not cross me.’

Bogdanov swallowed hard and immediately lowered his head. He knew very well how much this incident would mean to him if this was to go out.

“As I said before, there are five core missions the Air Force has to take. None of your designs could achieve it, regardless of how you look at them,” Alexander replied curtly, without hesitation. “In air superiority, we already lost against the Royal Air Force of the Britannia Empire. In global integrated intelligence and surveillance, there’s not even a plane that could fly at 30,000 feet without the pilots getting hypoxic or the engines losing power due to less air density. I wouldn’t even bother explaining the other three since it’s an entirely new concept to which I would forgive…but failing these two…unacceptable,”

“What you’re asking is impossible, Your Majesty,” Bogdanov said. “Also, the design was made way before the Imperial Ruthenian Air Force was changed. If you could give us a second chance, we might be able to come up with something that will suit your standard…”

“There’s no need,” Alexander cut him off.

“Pardon?”

“I said there’s no need,” Alexander repeated and continued. “Because my company, the Imperial Dynamics System Aerospace Division, has already come up with a design better than yours,”

————————————————————————————————

Andrei Serebyakov sat in his car as it pulled out of the General Staff Building area, the streets around it is lightly populated as security has diverted most traffic away due to fear of another attempt on the Tsar’s life.

As Andrei’s driver goes past a checkpoint, Andrei took off his jacket. His shirt underneath was wet with his sweat. He’s now able to breathe easily after the screw-up in the meeting.

How could he forget about the storms that are common in the seas around Ruthenia? Luckily, or unfortunately, the Tsar pointed out his mistakes.

Wait.

Andrei’s brain suddenly clicks, ‘How does the Tsar know about ocean meteorology?’