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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
On 30 May, 01:32, Matt wrote:
The "whirling weights in sealed cylinders" bit makes it sound like a tricked-out version of the same old unbalanced-wheel perpetual motion. *Nothing to look at there. The idea about jets used to force air out openings to provide lift to a disc - is it not more efficient to simply provide lift directly from the jets, as in the Harrier, etc.? Any intermediate step is only going to reduce net lift. No this is not true. Ultimately lift is provided by action and reaction - true. The vortex though allows a small mass of high speed air to move a large mass of slow moving air. What happend is that if we (say) have a 5m disc air 20m away feels the feect and starts moving downwards. It is in effect a gearing effect, just as if you go through air at 500km/h you cause a large mass of air to go downwards and provide lift. The normal explanation of lift is a partial vacuum on the upper part of the wing. However you can also look at it in a momentum conservation way and say that the aircraft forces a large mass of air downwards. It is the same here, a vortex forces a large mass of air downwards. As I said in previous postings the big problem is stablity. Now a turbofan equiped with a computer and a large number of orifices MIGHT be able to achieve stability throughout the speed range. I say "might" the word "might" indicates that I do not believe an aircraft can be quickly cobbled together, but that research is justified and valuable. As I said the main problem is stability. Let us look at the helicopter and see how it solves its problems. As soon as a helicopter starts to move air over the forward moving blades of the rotor is moving faster than the trainling rotor. The helicopter soves this problem by reducing the angle of attack of the forward moving blades. A helicopter is controlled by adhusting camshafts which feather the blades. In this way 2 axis control is ackieved, the third axis the "rudder" is achieved from the tail rotor. The retreating blade needs to achieve some lift. It is for this reason that helicopters cannot travel much faster than Mach 0.3 with an absolute (unattainable) theoretical limit of 0.5. The leading blades would be supersonic and the trailing blades too slow to achieve lift. Now we have to achieve a similar feat with a vortex aircraft. Difficult, you need multiple orifices and a fast computer. In fact the best way to fly a German glying saucer would be to go up to 1000m and then go into a vertical dive. It would be stable in stationary air and stable as a fixed wing but not in between. - Ian Parker |
#12
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
Ian Parker wrote: As I said in previous postings the big problem is stablity. Now a turbofan equiped with a computer and a large number of orifices MIGHT be able to achieve stability throughout the speed range. I say "might" the word "might" indicates that I do not believe an aircraft can be quickly cobbled together, but that research is justified and valuable. As I said the main problem is stability. The Harrier's Pegasus is a turbofan. |
#13
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
On Fri, 30 May 2008 02:43:48 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote: This was a fairly odd Magnus Effect concept; a Trac-Ball scaled up to huge size to make an airship: http://www.magenn.com/about.php Golf balls use the Magnus Effect; that's what the dimples on its surface are there for - to create air turbulance over its surface as it spins while in flight and gains altitude from the lift it generates. ....Well, now we know what they did with "Rover" after The Village was shut down in 1969! http://www.magenn.com/images/aboutPic2.jpg http://www.magenn.com/images/aboutPic3.jpg OM -- ]=====================================[ ] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [ ] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [ ] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [ ]=====================================[ |
#14
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
OM wrote: ...Well, now we know what they did with "Rover" after The Village was shut down in 1969! http://www.magenn.com/images/aboutPic2.jpg http://www.magenn.com/images/aboutPic3.jpg Did you ever read what happened to the original "Rover"? They spent a fortune on developing this amphibious radio-controlled thing that looked like a cylindrical swimming pool with a checkered parasol on its top*... that sank the first time they sent it out to sea...so the new "Rover" (a weather balloon full of CO2) replaced it as a desperation move at the last moment. And worked great! What the HELL was that thing supposed to be? A robot? A giant roaring Amoeba? Whatever it was, it was completely unforgettable when I saw the show as a kid...particularly the way it suffocated people by sitting on their faces and sucking them inside of it: http://www.acbm.com/concours/prisone...ver/etouff.jpg That was _really_ scary. That was "Invaders From Mars" scary. IIRC, they went through around 300 weather balloons during the series as the Rovers would pop while chasing their prey. * I'm not going to track it down right now, but somewhere out on the web there's a photo of that thing, which looks about as threatening as a oversized Roomba. Of course... a Roomba scaled up to the the size where it could suck up people like so many Boxelder Bugs would be pretty impressive, wouldn't it? General Klytus, get to work on this concept immediately! "Yes, Your Majesty!" And power them via _Radium_, Klytus... we don't want them to run out of energy with only _half_ of Earth's pathetic population suffering their skins being flayed from their bodies by the terrible rotating brushes, do we? "Most effective, Your Majesty!" :-D Pat |
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
On Sat, 31 May 2008 03:31:48 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote: Did you ever read what happened to the original "Rover"? ....That "Volkswagen on Crack" prop? Oh yeah. They spent a fortune on developing this amphibious radio-controlled thing that looked like a cylindrical swimming pool with a checkered parasol on its top*... that sank the first time they sent it out to sea...so the new "Rover" (a weather balloon full of CO2) replaced it as a desperation move at the last moment. ....There's been one problem with the "fate" of the original "Rover" - there's been at least a dozen expeditions to try and find the damn thing, and nobody's been able to find it. Footage of the Rover's demise has finally been scrounged up, and last I hear the geeks at Six of One managed to determine where it sank, but they still can't find it. Which, despite the footage, still has a lot of "Prisoner" fans believing this version of "Rover" only existed in the original scripts. Wonder what Curt's doing these days? There might be a new recovery project for him here...:-) OM -- ]=====================================[ ] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [ ] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [ ] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [ ]=====================================[ |
#16
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
On Sat, 31 May 2008 03:31:48 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote: Whatever it was, it was completely unforgettable when I saw the show as a kid...particularly the way it suffocated people by sitting on their faces and sucking them inside of it: http://www.acbm.com/concours/prisone...ver/etouff.jpg ...."Rover" could suffocate, incapacitate, or envelop and carry. One draft script called for Number 6 to be retrieved from sea by four of them suspending him between them - as if he was about to be drawn and quartered - but this got dropped way in advance of filming. OM -- ]=====================================[ ] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [ ] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [ ] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [ ]=====================================[ |
#17
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
OM wrote: ...There's been one problem with the "fate" of the original "Rover" - there's been at least a dozen expeditions to try and find the damn thing, and nobody's been able to find it. Footage of the Rover's demise has finally been scrounged up, and last I hear the geeks at Six of One managed to determine where it sank, but they still can't find it. Which, despite the footage, still has a lot of "Prisoner" fans believing this version of "Rover" only existed in the original scripts. Wonder what Curt's doing these days? There might be a new recovery project for him here...:-) That would be telling.... :-) Pat OM |
#18
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
In message
OM wrote: ...There's been one problem with the "fate" of the original "Rover" - there's been at least a dozen expeditions to try and find the damn thing, and nobody's been able to find it. Footage of the Rover's demise has finally been scrounged up, and last I hear the geeks at Six of One managed to determine where it sank, but they still can't find it. Wonder what Curt's doing these days? There might be a new recovery project for him here...:-) How is he with wet sand? Port Meirion is on an estuary with a decent tidal range, at low tide there's a lot of reasonably flat surface that's firm enough to race your Mini Moke across, the rest of the time the currents are moving things around a lot. Some tourist will probably get the fright of their life when it pops up in front of them one day. Anthony |
#19
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
"OM" wrote in message
... On Sat, 31 May 2008 03:31:48 -0500, Pat Flannery wrote: Did you ever read what happened to the original "Rover"? ...That "Volkswagen on Crack" prop? Oh yeah. They spent a fortune on developing this amphibious radio-controlled thing that looked like a cylindrical swimming pool with a checkered parasol on its top*... that sank the first time they sent it out to sea...so the new "Rover" (a weather balloon full of CO2) replaced it as a desperation move at the last moment. ...There's been one problem with the "fate" of the original "Rover" - there's been at least a dozen expeditions to try and find the damn thing, and nobody's been able to find it. Footage of the Rover's demise has finally been scrounged up, and last I hear the geeks at Six of One managed to determine where it sank, but they still can't find it. Which, despite the footage, still has a lot of "Prisoner" fans believing this version of "Rover" only existed in the original scripts. Huh, my understanding was that at least part of the Rover was recovered and used in some latter scene as some form of ceiling ornament. Wonder what Curt's doing these days? There might be a new recovery project for him here...:-) OM -- ]=====================================[ ] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [ ] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [ ] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [ ]=====================================[ -- Greg Moore SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available! Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html |
#20
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OT Forget rocket engines...and also walls and wounded animals
Anthony Frost wrote: How is he with wet sand? Port Meirion is on an estuary with a decent tidal range, at low tide there's a lot of reasonably flat surface that's firm enough to race your Mini Moke across, the rest of the time the currents are moving things around a lot. Some tourist will probably get the fright of their life when it pops up in front of them one day. I found a photo of the original Rover: http://bp2.blogger.com/_kKnTAJvZ5rI/...over_wrong.jpg A couple of cartoons about it he http://www.theunmutual.co.uk/roverone.htm Pat |
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