Vanship
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A vanship is a type of flying machine from the animated series Last Exile. It is often referred to as a "flying boat" in that it does not fly by means of aerodynamics like planes do, but rather by floating on the air and propelling itself through the use of a substance known as Claudia.
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[edit] Claudia & the Vanship Powerplant
Claudia is a glowing, blue, potentially-explosive ore mined on the floating world of Prester. It is processed into liquid Claudia fuel that is compressed and "burned" within the vanship's steam engine to provide both lift and propulsion. The exact process is never explained in the series, but it is known that the Claudia is somehow burned to pressurize the water in the steam engine, which is then used to pressurize and thus "charge" the Claudia, causing it to repel gravity and make the ship effectively weightless. The only known byproduct of this process is the steam that comes out of the thruster at the rear of the vanship, particularly when traveling at high speed.
Due to the antigravity nature of the Claudia engine, Vanships can hover in place, and do not require wings to generate lift, although their flaps/ailerons are used for steering.
[edit] Vanship Mechanics
Volume 1 of the DVD released in the US had an insert with a diagram of Claus and Lavie's vanship. It is shown that the bulky forward section of the vessel contains the enormous steam engine which is flanked on either side by what are called "lift coils" which provide lift for the craft. The Claudia then cycles down through the thruster at the rear of the craft to provide thrust.
Besides the strange forces generated by the Claudia, the vanship also includes flaps/aelerons for maneuvering on the trailing edges of its tiny wings, which are far too small themselves to provide lift. Beyond that, most vanships have widely varied equipment. Some vanships, like Claus and Lavie's, include tools for towing or anchoring to solid objects, as well as hardened hull plating to withstand the torrential winds of the Grand Stream. At the beginning of the series, Lavie is trying to acquire a booster (akin to a supercharger in a race car) for the vanship so it can beat the light-weight racing models participating in the Norkia Cup.
[edit] Types of Vanships
Claus and Lavie's vanship is different from all the others in the series in that it is light and fast with exceptional acceleration, but is not built for racing. Its hull is hardened and ridged to give it extra strength, as its primary purpose is to cross the Grand Stream from Anatoray to Disith, something that only capital ships have been able to do.
Racing vanships are generally smaller, narrower, and have a single, high-powered thruster, giving the ship an impressive thrust-to-drag ratio.
The vanship fighters of Anatoray have twin, overpowered thrusters for unparalleled acceleration and maneuvering and also are the only vanships that come with onboard weapons, a pair of 600 rpm machine guns as well as racks under the craft and in-between the landing gear for carrying bombs, drop-pods, and external tanks to extend the flight time of the craft before refueling.
The military use of Vanships is similar to the role that aircraft held during WW1, developed primarily for scouting, but with added bombs and machine guns became mobile and dangerous weapons.
[edit] Series Info
All vanships in the series were rendered as 3D images, a hallmark of Japanese animation studio GONZO Dijimation, makers of such series as Vandread and Blue Submarine No. 6.
Two DVD volumes, 3 and 5, of the series on DVD released in the US came with small, papercraft models of vanships, and used tabs and small lengths of string to hold together. The one in Volume 3 was of Claus and Lavie's Vanship, and the one in volume 5 was of Tatiana and Alister's.
