Personal Flight
Shalampax’s island is far too small to accommodate even the most rudimentary of airplane landing strips. What’s more, our near-incessant ferocious winds make it too treacherous to hover a helicopter above us in order to winch goods and people up and down, let alone land a chopper here. Thus, it has long been the desire of Shalampaxian inventors to develop a personal flying apparatus that would overcome these problems.
To be commercially successful in Shalampax, such a contraption would have to possess a number of challenging characteristics.
- It must have powerful, automated course correcting capabilities to overcome the rapidly shifting, fierce winds here. Human strength and response times are not up to that task in even the most strong, agile and skilled of humans. And no Shalampaxian has ever been referred to as strong, agile or skilled, not even in jest.
- It must be small enough to strap onto someone’s back like a jet-pack, as opposed to encompassing the aviator. Larger flying machines are considered to be unworkable in view of the tight and challenging takeoff and landing conditions here.
- It must be capable of flying relatively long distances as there is nowhere worth going to close to Shalampax.
- It must be possible to manufacture it at a low cost. Thanks to our cult and spam industries, Shalampaxians are by far the richest people on the planet. Nonetheless, we are also the cheapest bastards you’d ever want to meet, not that you’d never want to meet us. Shalampaxians are unlikely to spend more than $300 on such a device.
A Shalampaxian inventor has finally proven herself up to the task. Burnedoutlightbulb strapped on her prototype personal flying machine and proved its air-worthiness in a test flight that ventured more than 375 miles beyond Shalampax’s shores.
To celebrate Burndeoutlightbulb’s great triumph, a funeral service will be held should her body ever be recovered.
Shalampaxian inventors wishing to attempt to carry Burnedoutlightbulb’s work forward are reminded that, if you fly the most economical route in both directions, two-way trips are twice as far as one-way trips. You should, therefore, turn back before you’ve used up half of your fuel. This is especially important to keep in mind as no other country would ever knowingly allow a Shalampaxian to land on it soil, even in an emergency.
