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Heavier-Than -Air Craft

P

Pickles

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The ARES Mars Scout Plane got me thinking about the kind of aircraft which might exist in a Traveller universe. Look at the picture again, and imagine the 'NASA' letters on the logo are cockpit windows ... changes the scale considerably.

I've always been a fan of winged and lighter-than-air craft in SF settings. I suppose there wouldn't be much call for them with cheap fusion power and gravitics, but I like to have them in there if only for variety.
 
Heh, one of my favourites! There's lots of good stuff which comes out of the EAA - that's why they have the word 'experimental' in their title.


One reason I can see for continuing with aerodynamic flight is as a fail-safe. With vestigal wings or at least a lifting-body design, you won't fall down quite as precipitously if the gravitics fail. If you have a seperate propulsion system, as in the LBB3 speeder, you'd still have (possibly full) manouverablility
 
Originally posted by the Bromgrev:
I've always been a fan of winged and lighter-than-air craft in SF settings. I suppose there wouldn't be much call for them with cheap fusion power and gravitics, but I like to have them in there if only for variety.
Click to expand...
I suspect that on planets with dense atmospheres blimps and dirigibles would be more practical than they are on earth. Better lifting capabilities and the slower speeds are relatively less of a drawback since fixed wing planes will have increased problems with drag.
 
The HiMat! Last time I read about those, I was still in school (literally - my school library had copies of Flight magazine). Are they still messing about with them?

Good point about the dense atmospheres. Similarly, low-gravity worlds might have advantages, although they would probably have less dense atmospheres. Well, ok, not according to LBB6 they wouldn't. ;) But at higher TLs, materials technology could give rise to some very lightweight-yet-strong materials, which might give aircraft a new lease of life.
 
also the Bv-141 is a good customer. I think you could do a TL7-9 "Kit" that could be setup with a minimal crew for a good spotter.

This plane was rumored to have excellent flight characteristics, but suffered from being "ugly", whatever that may be.
 
HiMat was pretty cool. It was still at Dryden when some of my work went through there, but wasn't being actively flown. They still pulled it out for photographs with other craft, though.

I liked the F-16XL a lot as well, and the old AD-1 scissor wing testbed.

Honestly, they had all sorts of cool stuff hanging around. You'd mention something, then next thing you know somebody is leading you into a disused hangar to pull up a tarp hiding the thing you spoke of.

Here is the photo archive for Armstrong/Dryden:
https://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/index.html

Any planet with a useable atmosphere is probably going to have some non-gravitic flight, whether its hobby groups, or niche industries, or drones, or whatever. It's just too easy to fly to not to once you know you can.

ECN-13302B.jpg
 
One of my other favorite jets that did not make production, but would be highly useful on Water Worlds is the Saunders-Roe jet flying boat fighter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe_SR.A/1

That would have been handy down in the Falkland Islands as well.

Then there is the Spruce Goose flying boat transport. Again, an aircraft that would be quite useful on a Water World. Give it eight Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprops, and you have a quite potent cargo carrier.

https://www.evergreenmuseum.org/the-spruce-goose
 
saundby said:
Any planet with a useable atmosphere is probably going to have some non-gravitic flight, whether its hobby groups, or niche industries, or drones, or whatever. It's just too easy to fly to not to once you know you can.
Click to expand...

Gravitic tugs pulling huge glider cargo transporters. :cool:
 
Proneutron said:
Nope. Grav sleds cannot "fly" more than their lift rating. A "tug" could.
Click to expand...

With the possible exception of Darrian designs, which are typically engineered to glide to soft landings in standard atmo in the more-likely-than-it-ought-to-be event of EMP-based total power failures.

But that is a special case, surely.
 
1. Balancing gravitational loads is trickier than pumping in helium, or dflating the balloon, so it's probably done by the computer.

2. Presumably, the grav sled has the opposite problem from aircraft, the greater the distance from the ground, the more there would be a tendency to rise further.

3. And then, assuming there aren't different types of gravitational motors, it can manipulate it's gravitational field to fall forward, and then it's all down hill from there, gravitationally speaking translated into forward momentum.

4. And historically, the Germans did get around to motorizing their largest gliders.
 
boomslang said:
With the possible exception of Darrian designs, which are typically engineered to glide to soft landings in standard atmo in the more-likely-than-it-ought-to-be event of EMP-based total power failures.
Click to expand...

Nope, not the same animal. Gliding DOWN is not the same as powered flying, climbing across a planet.
 
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