Flyers and Airports

[Timerover51]

Has anyone bothered to compared the required landing and take-off requirements for Winged Flyers on page 249 with some actual take off distances of Real World aircraft?

The PB4Y-2 was the single-tailed version of the B-24 Liberator bomber operated by the Navy during World War 2 and the Korean War. At a maximum take-off weight of 64,000 pounds, and calm conditions, the take-off runs was 1890 feet, and distance to 50 feet, defined as Airport Distance, was 3170 feet, or less than 1000 meters. That is a shorter distance that is allowed for a Very Light Winged Flyer.

The Cessna O-1C, a military version of the Cessna 170, would, I assume, qualify as either a Very Light, or Light Winged Flyer. The take-off run under calm conditions is 390 feet at the maximum take-off weight of 2,650 pounds, with the distance to 50 feet being 735 feet.

The F9F Panther, flown by the US Navy and Marines in the Korean War had a maximum combat take-off weight of 19,494 pounds. The take-off run, in calm conditions without water injection into the jet turbine exhaust was 3,450 feet, a bit over 1000 meters, so it could operate off of your Very Light Airfield.

For more cost and performance data for USAF fighters and bombers from 1945 to 1973, you go to this website: http://www.afhso.af.mil/booksandpublications/titleindex.asp

And download the following volumes under this subject heading:
Encyclopedia of U.S. Air Force Aircraft and Missile Systems

Vol. I: Post-World War II Fighters, 1945-1973
Vol. II: Post-World War II Bombers, 1945-1973

For World War 2 cost data, you go here:
http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/011/11-2/index.html, page 560.
and here:
http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-101105-019.pdf, page 360.

For World War 1 data, I am working on that from material I got from the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base.

For Civilian aircraft from roughly 1925 to 1960, I have the complete set of Juptner's US Civil Aircraft series, all 9 volumes, which aside from giving cost data for the entire aircraft, also give data on added equipment like aircraft floats for water landings, communications equipment, and engine costs, along with detailed performance data.

One last question. Why is there no Passenger Flyers?

 

[Timerover51]

There is another problem with Vehicle Maker and Flyers. I was looking at the World War 2 B-29 Bomber, and trying to determine how many Beastpower would be required by Vehicle Maker to get it to its top speed. All of the data on the bomber is taken from the following source.

Encyclopedia of U.S. Air Force Aircraft and Missile Systems: Vol. II: Post-World War II Bombers, 1945-1973

The aircraft is 99 feet long, or 30 meters long, and looking at the fuselage, I would put it at needing a 3 meter by 3 meter box to contain it. The instructions state that the wingspan is to be ignored. So, for every 1.5 meter of length, there is 1 Traveller dTon of volume. The aircraft equates to 20 tons by Vehicle Maker. The aircraft has 4 Wright R-3350 engines of 2,200 horsepower each, for a total of 8800 horsepower, and has a top speed of 347 knots or 642 Kilometers per hour. In World War 2, it was rated as a very heavy bomber in 1945, but 5 years later, in 1950, it was rated as only a medium bomber, when the heavy bomber designation was taken over by the B-36, a much larger aircraft.

Now, according to Vehicle Maker, the BP requirement is equal to Tons X V(cubed). So, 20 Tons X 9(cubed) equals 14,580 BP. In theory, with the Very Heavy rating, I could have gone up to Speed 10, which would give 20,000 BP.

Then, for a Bomber, the Basic Armor Rating is 10, which equates to a skin thickness of 2.86 millimeters of Aluminum. The B-29 was not an easy plane to shoot down, and several did survive ramming attacks by Japanese fighters in World War 2. I am pretty sure that the skin thickness of the fuselage was more than 2.86 millimeters of Aluminum, as the aircraft was pressurized for very high altitude operations, along with carrying additional steel armor plating for the crew, as well as self-sealing fuel tanks. Probably, the B-29 should be considered both Protected and Armored, which would give a +3 to the speed column. Disregarding the Very Heavy rating, that would bring the aircraft up to Speed Column 12. That would boost the BP power requirements to 34,560. Using Speed Column 11 gives a BP power needed of 26,620. That is a range of between 65% to 393% more power than the aircraft actually needed. Something is not right here, given the huge changes simply by moving one or two columns.

By the way, the take off ground run for the B-29 at a weight of 140,000 pounds was 5,230 feet, while the distance to clear a 50 foot obstacle was 7,825 feet. That gives a take off run of 1594 meters, and an Clear Air Corridor distance of 2385 meters, so it could easily operate off of a Light Airstrip based on the Vehicle Maker requirements on page 249.

And the cost of the aircraft was $639,188 per aircraft. I did not try to figure out the cost in Vehicle Maker.

 

[Timerover51]

I take it that no one has done anything with this?

And I am still wondering about the whole issue of Beast Power.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Not to be a dick...

Honestly it could that this point of aggravation to you is a non-issue for many of the rest of us.

I can not speak for everyone, but honestly I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of every vehicle and such like and put no where near the time and resources in that you do. To me it just a game and as long as it is consistent (mostly) with itself I give two rips about its actual real world comparisons. I am not playing in the real world but on a science-fiction setting of some form or another.

I don't get bogged down by the real world, the fake ones give me enough hassles to work with so as to slow my former roll to insert the Real World into my games. Honestly I find often it can harm them. We game to escape the dreary real world, why bring all its mess to a game?

EDIT: I think the best way to sum up is this...

You the Ref: Well the maximum energy density that a cylinder of...

Player: Whatever, will it power the blaster or do I need a bigger cell?

While you consider the details facinating most folks don't care or even find it dull (depends with me, sometimes I do like it, but them I own a highlighted and much paged through and one time used, and still much loved copy of Pocket Empires). I suspect that here you have hit one of those areas that for you is of some concern while the rest of us didn't even notice there was a difference between game and reality.

EDIT 2: Another thing, you might want to put the definition of "Distance to 50 Feet" somewhere early and in the first post because as I noted not all of know this stuff and till I hit the definition I was very confused. Neato info, but wrong order for presentation.

Oh, and have you compared other vehicles and if so are you having the same issue of power? Maybe if you can put together a reasonable, low complexity replacement you could show Marc your work and get a more Real World consistent VehicleMaker for T5.1 which if it could make a motor (or Grav) cycle easier I am pretty sure there are one or two people who would dig that very much.

 

[Ackehece]

As per magnus
Really a non issue to most of us I believe. The rules create vehicles. They may not be real world equivalent but the vehicles would be consistent with each other in this fictional universe.
To build truly realistic vehicles would require a scary amount of engineering, time and fine detail in the Game engine. The current engine abstracts out for speed and fun, and doesn't require a 20000 page tome by itself. One requires a degree in engineering, the other a game.... I know which one I choose.

As for passenger flyers... why when everyone can have a grav vehicle. And Or vehicle share of the future for usage of grav vehicles.

Are the vehicles in the game engine comparable to each other? Yes.
Are the vehicles balanced against each other? For the most part.
Are there reality flaws? Yes, but reality flaws in this game include things like reactionless thrusters, jump drives, computers the size of houses....

 

[kilemall]

Agree and disagree.

Agree that for most that 'good enough' systems will likely work and concentration on game effect rather then simulation is the design watchword.

Disagree that reality checks have no place- the more authentic and thought out a system is, the more likely it is to 'feel' right, which will make gearheads tolerate and surprise hell out of the 'cinematically' based players.

A lot of the charm and attraction about Traveller is the shotguns and starships ethos, that Mr. Slug is going to get you as much as the laser and Sand instead of shields.

You want to stick I think to that 'whatever tech works' design ethic, and so it's worth fleshing out lower tech as much as upper.

I am curious, do T5 rules deal in different lift and engine performance in different atmosphere densities and Gs? A plane designed for thin atmo is not going to do well in thick and vice versa.

Aircraft would be used as a cheaper alternative to grav for quite some time, money talks. I think that Catalina would likely translate to several million credits in a grav version.

Likely most players would find the portability of a GCarrier to operate on different worlds more valuable for their personal hangar bay loadout, but may find their adventure lifeline hanging on a local plane design from TL5-10 piloted by some crazed ex-flyer bush pilot.

Finally Time, if the original equipment list is lacking in your opinion and you have all this reference material, that sounds to me like an opportunity to write up a supplement. Online PDF, no publishing otherwise, sounds like you are going to do the work anyway, may as well have the hobby pay for itself.

Don't forget to have different designs for exotic combinations of atmosphere and economic niches.

 

[Timerover51]

Finally Time, if the original equipment list is lacking in your opinion and you have all this reference material, that sounds to me like an opportunity to write up a supplement. Online PDF, no publishing otherwise, sounds like you are going to do the work anyway, may as well have the hobby pay for itself.

Don't forget to have different designs for exotic combinations of atmosphere and economic niches.

I am working on this, and I have a Traveller license. I have halfway done something on ballistics on a low-gravity or vacuum world, along with some unusual weapons for that situation.

 

[Timerover51]

Oh, and have you compared other vehicles and if so are you having the same issue of power? Maybe if you can put together a reasonable, low complexity replacement you could show Marc your work and get a more Real World consistent VehicleMaker for T5.1 which if it could make a motor (or Grav) cycle easier I am pretty sure there are one or two people who would dig that very much.

The problem I have with Beast Power is that it is in the rules, but apparently has no effect on anything, nor any cost. Basically, do something with it or drop it.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Fair enough.

The problem I have with Beast Power is that it is in the rules, but apparently has no effect on anything, nor any cost. Basically, do something with it or drop it.

Honestly, I am not sure how to use it either, but then I haven't dug into VehicleMaker like I did CharGen and ACS.

 

[David Johansen]

I thought beast power was just there to tell you how many animals you'd need to pull the thing for lower tech applications. I mean it's not really clear but I always thought that was the point of including it at all.

 

[Spartan159]

I think beastpower is confusing in the first place, what beast? Just call it a horsepower, point out that it's an archaic measurement from ancient Terra and be done with it.

 

[SanDragon]

Why horsepower?

Why not ponipower?

Or, no credit to the Scouts?

 

[Ackehece]

I think beastpower is confusing in the first place, what beast? Just call it a horsepower, point out that it's an archaic measurement from ancient Terra and be done with it.

Beastpower is meant to make the term less earth'o'centric

It works to prevent this earthocentric view point (and makes the system more setting free) and it avoids the idea that it maps directly to real world horsepower. It definitely does not map (if it did we would have people arguing about the fact that the vehicle maker does not map to real world equivalents for that as well.

"For beasts and beast-drawn
vehicles, 1 ton (a measure of
volume*) is also 1000 kg in a
wheeled cart on level ground."​

**EDIT**
missed the most important fact...
this is gravity dependent. if this beast is born and raised on a planet with 5g gravity and can pull 1 displacement ton.. that is a very different measure from one born on a 1/2 g world...

the coefficient of friction even with wheels would be increased. 1 dton has the same mass.
weight is the gravitational force exerted on an object and the object it is gravitationally bound to.
mass is amount of matter maing up the object.
*aka Displacement ton

horsepower was originally defined as

"So that an engine which will raise as much water as two horses, working together at one time in such a work, can do, and for which there must be constantly kept ten or twelve horses for doing the same. Then I say, such an engine may be made large enough to do the work required in employing eight, ten, fifteen, or twenty horses to be constantly maintained and kept for doing such a work"​

Using horsepower would equate things not meant to be equated.


modern definitions:
metric horsepower: lift 75 kilograms by 1 meter (3.28 feet) in 1 second. 735.5 watts
imperial 550 foot-pounds per second 745.7 watts


beast power - is gravity independent
since it is based on mass (100kg) and movement(kph)
Beastpower as a universal standard really does not make sense.
Moving 1 dton on a 2G planet is significantly more energy intensive than moving that same mass on a 1G planet.

 

[Ackehece]

I thought beast power was just there to tell you how many animals you'd need to pull the thing for lower tech applications. I mean it's not really clear but I always thought that was the point of including it at all.

yep - "setting free system" beast of burden pull capacity.

 

[kilemall]

Heck, if I were a car company I'd switch to beastpower as a measure just for the PR advantages.

"This baby has 400 beastpower under the hood! For AWESOME!"

 

[Timerover51]

If you really wish to complicate things, the early steam engines, up to about 1880 could be rated three different ways.

1. Nominal Horsepower, based on the characteristics of the engine.

2. Indicated Horsepower, based on the calculated output of the engine.

3. Effective Horsepower, based on exactly how much work was done after losses.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Timerover51]

Love it. :rofl::rofl::rofl:

 

[Spartan159]

Truly a most powerful beast

 

[SanDragon]

Runs on the minimum of espresso!