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tophatdan
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« Reply #125 on: June 26, 2010, 02:40:55 am » |
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Hmmm.. taking soldiers from point A to point B through the sky.. sounds like a job for a helicopter. Or an airship equivalent.. add some weaponry and you've got a proper gunship.. Perhaps a steampunk alternative to the Mil Mi 24 Hind helicopter?  i like very much, but how will you get that thing to lift with those 2 tiny cells? |
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you gotta love livin babe, cause dyin is a pain in the ass -----
frank sinatra
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hardlec
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« Reply #126 on: June 26, 2010, 02:47:53 am » |
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Just as a note: The mass of the soldiers will be part of ships mass whether or not they will be in bee mode.
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Whatever happens we have got
The Maxim gun and they have not;
Technology is no substitute for Valor
Both are true.
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arcwelder
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« Reply #127 on: June 26, 2010, 02:49:56 am » |
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but how will you get that thing to lift with those 2 tiny cells?
Maybe they get bigger? When it sees a lady airship or something. Just as a note: The mass of the soldiers will be part of ships mass whether or not they will be in bee mode.
No, they are absolutely not part of the ship's mass when in "bee mode"...they only contribute to its mass while they are actually on the ship. Or did you mean something else? |
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Mad repairman for the ship of the damned.  |
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hardlec
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« Reply #128 on: June 26, 2010, 03:09:11 pm » |
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IIRC, and I may be wrong, in Bee mode they are still tethered to the ship.
If they are not tethered, then then the mass shifts when they depart and return.
If a truck carrying crates of chickens hits a bump and the chickens start to "fly" in their crates, the mass of the truck is not affected. If tethered, the bees may add a small amount of lift, but they remain part of the airship's mass.
It will depend on the mass of the ship, of course, but a unit of bees will probably not be significant enough, mass wise to make a difference in bouyancy.
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H. MacHinery
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« Reply #129 on: June 26, 2010, 03:29:29 pm » |
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IIRC, and I may be wrong, in Bee mode they are still tethered to the ship.
If they are not tethered, then then the mass shifts when they depart and return.
If a truck carrying crates of chickens hits a bump and the chickens start to "fly" in their crates, the mass of the truck is not affected. If tethered, the bees may add a small amount of lift, but they remain part of the airship's mass.
It will depend on the mass of the ship, of course, but a unit of bees will probably not be significant enough, mass wise to make a difference in bouyancy.
Not quite correct with the physics. If the tethers were rigid, the bees weight would affect the ship; likewise, if they were not flying (hanging below it), it would affect the ship. If they are flying, they would not, unless they were directly over some part of the ship. The truck example has the birds confined in the truck space, so the lift they get has a reaction on the truck, because it's within the confines, so the lift pushing up pushes down on the truck. If a chicken were to fly out the back of the truck, its weight would no longer affect the truck. That said, the bees have to be on the ship at some time, so their weight is a concern during takeoff, at least. |
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« Last Edit: June 26, 2010, 03:33:18 pm by H. MacHinery »
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akumabito
Immortal
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~~Blast from the past~~
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« Reply #130 on: June 26, 2010, 07:45:47 pm » |
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Hmmm.. taking soldiers from point A to point B through the sky.. sounds like a job for a helicopter. Or an airship equivalent.. add some weaponry and you've got a proper gunship.. Perhaps a steampunk alternative to the Mil Mi 24 Hind helicopter? i like very much, but how will you get that thing to lift with those 2 tiny cells? It's not just the two tiny cells, the rest of the body can be filled with lifting gas too, only the cockpit is filled with regular air.  They physics might still be way off (hadn't bothered with any calculations) but at least it's every-so-slightly more plausible that way.. |
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tophatdan
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« Reply #131 on: June 27, 2010, 01:19:17 am » |
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i do love the idea but something that large is hardly an effective combat ship... i think personally i would stick with 'glider' type craft...
how does everyone here feel about fixed wings for life and for that matter heavier than air craft?
i know its a bit off topic but it is a necesary question i feel, i mean there are a lot of 'airship soldier' and 'airship support craft' options out there...
its all about what people are willing to use...
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arcwelder
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« Reply #132 on: June 27, 2010, 01:54:26 am » |
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That said, the bees have to be on the ship at some time, so their weight is a concern during takeoff, at least. During takeoff, they are certainly a factor in calculating things like fuel load and verifying that your total load is viable given your max lift. The delta when they attack is most likely also significant unless you are carrying an insane amount of artillery such that their relative mass is negligible, in which case you would be talking about some sort of super-jumbo airship. You might then run into a number of problems related to your surface area to volume ratio and the sheer size which must be managed. Assuming it was possible at all, landing would likely become nonviable due to the limits on the rigidity of the gas envelope. Yeah, we're talking a Castle Wulfenbach scenario. Would it be viable? I don't know. It would certainly be horrendously complicated and expensive to build, operate, and maintain. Which brings us back to, maneuvering would be interesting because of the delta in mass when you launch your bees. |
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tophatdan
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« Reply #133 on: June 27, 2010, 02:01:34 am » |
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i dont think it would be any more or less complicated that docking airplanes on an airship, they did that and it worked fine... just use that as a model, if it were too complicated you could just fit a hanger on the pack and use a bar/lift to land/takeoff...
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arcwelder
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« Reply #134 on: June 27, 2010, 02:42:05 am » |
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i dont think it would be any more or less complicated that docking airplanes on an airship That part isn't intractably complicated. Landing your Super Star Destroyer sized blimp, on the other hand, could become quite complicated. |
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tophatdan
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« Reply #135 on: June 27, 2010, 03:08:26 am » |
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OH!
i was talking about landing the bees, not the blimp...
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hardlec
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« Reply #136 on: June 28, 2010, 01:13:48 pm » |
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Aerosat, or an air that never or rarely lands, is a time-honored concept,
Smaller airships are not really better than larger ones in anything.
IIRC: the aerodynamics of an airship work a lot like the fluid dynamics of a ship, so I extrapolate: All else equal, the longest ship is faster. As ships get bigger, the area:volume ratio gets bigger: less area for the volume, and area(drag) is bad while volume (buoyancy and cargo capacity) is good.
As engines get bigger, they tend to become more efficient horsepower/ton wise. For the same percentage of capacity devoted to engines, the power to weight ratio increases. So then does the speed.
Maneuvering can indeed be a honey-witch, no doubt. On the other hand, bees will be able to land ahead of the airship and assist the process.
They may even be able to erect a hasty landing tower.
I really like the gunship graphic.
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Atterton
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« Reply #137 on: June 23, 2016, 08:39:19 pm » |
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I think this is what we are hoping for, just more sepia-toned.  |
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Resurrectionist and freelance surgeon.
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Hurricane Annie
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« Reply #138 on: June 26, 2016, 06:46:58 am » |
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That would be a fairly wild way to travel
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