The three aircraft completed their circuits over the concealed airfield and returned one after another.
Their wheels brushed the grass, bounced lightly, and settled. Canvas wings trembled as the machines rolled forward, their engines fading from thunder to a steady mechanical chop before the propellers finally slowed into silence.
There had been no fire, no shattered struts, and no sudden plunge into the earth.
For aviation in 1909, that alone felt close to miraculous.
Oskar was already waiting when the pilots climbed from their cockpits. Their faces were flushed from the cold air, their hair damp beneath their leather caps, and exhaustion mingled visibly with triumph in their eyes.
He greeted each man personally.
Oskar respected courage wherever he found it, but bravery in the air possessed a character of its own. A soldier in battle might crouch behind earth, stone, or steel. A pilot had nothing between himself and death except height, wind, and a machine that would kill him the moment either of them made a serious mistake.
These men were not aristocrats or celebrated officers. They had been drawn from ordinary lives—mechanics, labourers, young soldiers, and men whose futures had once promised little beyond obscurity. Oskar's aviation programme had offered them danger, purpose, and the chance to become something the world did not yet possess.
Pilots.
Now they stood before the Crown Prince of the German Empire after returning safely from the skies.
The enormity of the moment overwhelmed their restraint.
They struck their fists against their hearts in the salute of the Eternal Guard and, with voices unsteady from emotion, pledged themselves to God, Fatherland, and Oskar.
Such devotion would once have disturbed him. By now, loyalty bordering upon worship had become another burden he had learned to carry.
He answered with a quiet smile.
His children immediately attempted to imitate the pilots. Small fists struck small chests with terrible timing, some too softly and others hard enough to make their owners wince.
The solemnity collapsed into laughter.
Tanya applauded them with open delight. Anna corrected the younger ones as though they had merely performed an imperfect household exercise, while Gundelinde joined them with a shy smile, still learning how Oskar's family could appear imperial, sacred, and completely ridiculous within the same breath.
Karl filmed everything.
The camera from Imperial Image Works rested securely against his shoulder, its mechanism turning steadily as it preserved the pilots, the aircraft, the salute, and the laughing children for whatever future waited beyond them.
Oskar looked toward the machines and felt an unexpected ache.
He wanted to fly. He wanted it with the same restless curiosity that drove him to test weapons, inspect engines, and stand upon the deck of a ship to feel the machinery working beneath his feet.
Yet even if the court permitted such recklessness—which it certainly would not—his body made the idea nearly impossible. He was too tall, too broad, and far too heavy for the current aircraft. A cockpit that enclosed an ordinary pilot comfortably would hold Oskar like a cage, while his weight would ruin the balance and consume too much of the machine's limited lifting power.
So he did what he always did when desire threatened to become foolishness.
He turned it into work.
The engineers, pilots, and senior members of the project assembled inside the airfield's administration building.
Stoves warmed the conference room against the autumn chill. Tables disappeared beneath diagrams, test reports, engine measurements, and notebooks filled with calculations. Coffee and tea arrived from a kitchen operating with nearly military efficiency.
The engineers initially sat with the stiffness of men afraid that even breathing incorrectly might offend a prince.
Oskar allowed the silence to settle before speaking.
"Gentlemen, first, you have my congratulations."
A subtle reaction passed through the room. Shoulders eased. Several men exchanged quick glances.
"To meet the requirements I placed before you in so little time was no small achievement," Oskar continued. "You worked hard, but more importantly, you worked intelligently. On behalf of the Empire, I thank you."
His gaze travelled across the gathered faces.
They were men with ink staining their fingers, oil embedded beneath their nails, and sleeplessness gathered beneath their eyes. Most had spent months working behind guarded fences upon a project they could discuss with almost no one outside the airfield.
"It is because of work such as yours that Germany now stands at the forefront of aviation," Oskar said.
A faint smile touched his mouth.
"Even if, for the moment, we must stand there quietly."
Several engineers looked close to tears. The money mattered, and Karl's rewards would be generous, but Oskar's approval meant their labour belonged to something larger than a company ledger.
Gustav Lilienthal lowered his head respectfully.
"Your Imperial Highness, we have only performed our duty to the Fatherland."
"Good."
Oskar's tone sharpened just enough to change the atmosphere.
"Now comes the unpleasant part."
Every man straightened.
"You have achieved the first success," he said. "You have built an aircraft that climbs, turns, carries useful power, and returns its pilot safely to the ground. But there remains a wide distance between what we possess today and what Germany will require in war."
No explanation was necessary.
Every man present understood what bullets would do to wood, canvas, exposed fuel lines, and an unprotected pilot.
"You will therefore continue improving the design," Oskar said. "And you will do so quickly."
"Yes, Your Highness," the room answered.
Oskar leaned forward, resting his fingertips upon the table.
"Nearly every nation now experimenting with flight builds biplanes. There are sound reasons for that. They provide strength, lift, and manageable control with the materials currently available."
He paused.
"But their drag limits speed, and the future will demand speed."
Several pencils began moving.
"I want monoplane research initiated immediately. I want prototypes designed with two hundred kilometres per hour as the objective, not the fantasy. I want useful ranges beyond five hundred kilometres. And once our electrical and aluminium industries can support the necessary production, I want metal frames, stronger engines, and protection for the pilot and vital machinery."
Some of the engineers exchanged uneasy looks. The demands sounded impossible, but that did not make them dismiss them. Oskar after all had built too many impossible things already.
"I know the requirements are severe," he said. "I also know that every one of them can be achieved."
Lilienthal answered with care.
"Give us three years, Your Imperial Highness. We cannot promise every figure, but we will bring the designs as close as industry allows."
Oskar considered the request, then nodded.
Three years felt long to a man who could see 1914 approaching like a blade. Yet it also bought him time—time in which the engineers could work while he concentrated upon the industries, infrastructure, and military systems required to support them.
"Three years," he agreed. "But fighters will not be your only concern."
Several pencils paused.
"I want bombers."
The room became still.
"Land-based aircraft capable of carrying meaningful payloads over useful distances," Oskar continued. "And eventually, aircraft capable of operating from ships."
That produced a greater reaction than the speed requirements had.
"From ships?" one engineer repeated before remembering whom he was interrupting.
"From specialised vessels," Oskar said. "The concept lies farther ahead, but that is no reason to postpone thinking about it. Land bombers require endurance and carrying capacity. Naval aircraft will require strong landing gear, controlled low-speed handling, short takeoff distances, and the ability to survive salt, wind, and violent deck movement."
He allowed the idea to settle.
Most of the men could scarcely imagine ordinary aircraft becoming reliable weapons. Oskar was already asking them to picture aeroplanes taking off from the sea.
"Begin the theory now," he told them. "The machinery can follow when Germany is ready."
His gaze passed around the table once more.
"Achieve results, and you will be rewarded accordingly."
"Yes, Your Imperial Highness," they answered together.
Many of his requirements remained absurd by the standards of their age.
Yet from Oskar, absurdity had begun to sound less like madness and more like an early description of the inevitable.
A few of the younger engineers watched him with the expression soldiers sometimes carried after battle—a mixture of gratitude, fear, and reverence, as though they were no longer entirely certain they worked for an ordinary prince.
Oskar ignored it. He had no use for worship inside a design office.
Germany needed wings.
It would either grow them first or bleed beneath someone else's later.
Oskar's thoughts remained in the sky long after the family departed Oranienburg.
Aircraft alone would never be enough.
Engines could be refined. Frames could be strengthened. New machines could be built in their hundreds once the factories and resources existed.
But aircraft without trained pilots were only expensive objects waiting inside hangars.
The current F1 prototypes remained crude, dangerous, and far from the combat machines Oskar intended eventually to field. That made them unsuitable for war, but ideal for something Germany needed even more urgently.
Training.
Pilots had to be created before the advanced aircraft arrived. Once faster and more powerful machines entered service, Germany would need men who already understood wind, altitude, mechanical failure, fear, and the strange discipline required to think clearly while the earth lay thousands of metres below.
To Oskar, the pilots of the future would become a new kind of knight.
They would not charge across fields upon armoured horses. They would climb alone into the sky, enclosed by little more than fabric, machinery, and courage.
It would be dangerous work.
It would also be prestigious work—worthy of excellent pay, public honour, and every reasonable protection Germany could provide.
An independent air force, however, would be premature.
It would attract too much attention, provoke arguments over command, and open the project to bureaucrats, politicians, and foreign spies. Secrets bled quickly when too many offices were given permission to touch them.
The new air arm would therefore be born inside Oskar's Eighth Army.
Quietly.
Carefully selected soldiers—disciplined, technically capable, and already examined for loyalty—would be transferred into what official documents would describe as an Army Aviation Detachment.
The name was intentionally dull.
It suggested balloons, observation work, and minor experimentation. Nothing that would make a foreign attaché tear open his reports with excitement.
Inside that harmless shell, Germany would begin building its first permanent corps of pilots, mechanics, instructors, navigators, and aviation officers.
Later, when the machines and trained personnel justified expansion, the detachment could become an Imperial Army Air Service.
And eventually, when secrecy was no longer necessary, it would take its true form.
The Imperial Air Force.
For now, however, titles mattered less than preparation.
The A-class Muscle Motors automobile carried the family back toward Potsdam as evening settled across the countryside.
Oskar sat with his colourful diary balanced upon one knee, filling its pages with diagrams, arrows, figures, and unfinished thoughts.
Pilot-selection standards. Training schedules. Aluminium requirements. Airfield construction. Wireless communication. Engine production. The organisation of future bomber and fighter formations.
His thoughts travelled faster than the car.
Around him, the day's excitement had finally exhausted the children. Some slept against their mothers or one another, while others stared silently through the windows as fields and villages passed beneath the fading light.
Anna and Gundelinde tended to them quietly, exchanging soft words while adjusting blankets and settling restless heads.
Tanya sat close beside Oskar.
Subtlety had never suited her.
She leaned against his side and hooked her fingers into his sleeve, anchoring herself there until he finally looked away from the diary.
Her blue eyes met his with playful impatience.
Oskar understood. Thus he closed the book. And for a moment, Germany could manage without him.
He bent toward her, and Tanya met him halfway. Their kiss was deep enough to promise that his attention would belong fully to his wives later, yet restrained enough to remember that several children remained awake within the automobile.
Tanya laughed softly against his mouth before settling against him, satisfied for the moment.
Anna watched them with a faint trace of envy, while Gundelinde's curiosity remained tangled with the last remnants of her shyness. Neither complained.
They were still discovering the balance of their shared marriage—the shifting order of attention, affection, companionship, and desire that held their unusual household together.
Oskar rested his head against the seat and released a slow breath.
Aircraft, power stations, aluminium, training cadres, industrial secrecy, and now, finally, family. The coming night would probably offer little rest.
It would, however, return him to the reason all the machines and preparations mattered.
As the gates of the Neues Palais appeared ahead, Oskar permitted himself one rare luxury.
The future could wait until morning.