This is Sean Whalen (prion).
I have always had the feeling that the wooden plane in Free Live Free is the same as the ship Tzadkiel.
Why? Well, they both are made of wood (though by the Tzadkiel time the wood would be replaced, and backed by other materials) and are flying ships.
Ben Free even says near the end of the book that in a few years the plane will be permanently located in space, as opposed to flying through the atmosphere.
In case you don't remember or haven't read the book, the reason the huge wooden plane was built was for a place where the leaders of America would be safe, as it was untrackable by radar. I wonder how it will fair with the powerful optical satellites of the modern age?
Of course, this might just be Wolfe's love for modern stuff made of wood, but it just seems too similar to me. It also seems strange Sev says the wood is there to preserve warmth, but plastics or composite would be much better, to say nothing of whatever has been developed by the Hierogrammates in their eons of existence.
Then again, in The Castle of the Otter Wolfe says that he thinks missiles should be stored in a scattered flotilla of wooden ships because of their radar-invisibility, so both examples may just be ideas grown from his affinity for using old things for modern purposes.
prion