The Ithlean Airships that have been discovered thus far work as described below.

The airship has a stone hull upon which is inscribed several runes that produce wind. The runes are divided up into sections along the hull. Each section’s output of wind is adjustable by the pilot which allows for several directions of flight. This also gives the craft the ability to change its flight pattern almost instantaneously.

The pilot of these ships upon taking the steering wheel and triggering its magical abilities then essentially interfaces with the ship. The pilot enters a trance like state, similar to an Eladrin trance. The pilot can’t see but is ethereally aware of his or her surroundings and can carry limited conversations. If concentration is lost the connection with the ship can become severed. The wheelhouses do have windows in the front so that should this occur the pilot could continue to pilot the ship in a limited capacity until able to reforge the link.

While the pilot is linked with the ship his visual input comes from what is called the conscious ring. Essentially the conscious ring is a circle encompassing the entire ship. It sits tilted towards stern at a 45 degree angle. The pilot can move his line of sight anywhere along this circle allowing him to see all around the ship without aid and greatly increase his abilities to direct the ship.

The ships have a limited version of auto pilot. If the ship has been somewhere before a single set of coordinates can be stored in the ship and the pilot can trigger these causing the ship to direct itself back to those coordinates so long as the pilot keeps the ship empowered. The maximum distances of this feature is yet unknown.

Maycon & the SOC
The Ithlean ships that have been recovered and controlled by Maycon have been outfitted with weaponry. Some of which is based off the concepts uses to power the ship itself. One such innovation is known as the arrow cart (The SOC prefer to refer to them as Hellion Launchers) An arrow cart consists of several tightly packed tubes. At the bottom of each tube is a rune similar in nature to the air runes inscribed upon the ships. It creates a strong, but temporary gust of wind however unlike the ship air runes. Given the nature of its design the arrow cart is a point and fire type of weapon. Its lack of accuracy is made up for in volume of arrows fired.

The members of the SOC however have managed to sync the arrow carts to the airship piloting system allowing the pilot to rotate and fire the arrow carts. Reloading however must be done manually though the inventors of Maycon have simplified the process. They have created a ban that holds enough arrows spaced out evenly so that the entire thing can be loaded into the Hellion, once in place a release on the ban is hit and the arrows fall free the rest of the way into their respective tubes.