Chaw

There have been a few rp events in the past where airships were present, though I'm unsure about the idea of the playerbase being allowed to control them, just seems too steampunk

Mhm, like special airship popping arrows or maybe a high powered bow. It would make raiding very annoying without a proper mod though as it'd be like having to get a GM to worldedit you every time you wanted to move. I guess it might be like boat combat where they can only be used in sieges or skirmishes sometimes. That'd be really cool though, like an airship skirmish or something. 

Unless you got the airship plugin, but then you'd have to give a lot of trust to the players.