Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi

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You can google "Hyundai New Horizons Studio" or "Hyundai Elevate" I remember seeing the principle proposed for helicopter landing gear (for landing on uneven, unstable rocky terrain), but can't remember exactly where. You can see why Hyundai bought Boston Dynamics.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv3oBnZdL14


Which sort of demonstrates why the "Dragonfly" has this sort of landing gear. It's obviously designed to operate in and around very rough and unprepared terrain. In the specific case here, terrain dominated by bombed out structures. The four engine pods give it the same sort of maneuverability you see in small 4 prop drones now without the worry of clearance for rotors.
 
The heavy legs are effectively control actuators, landing gear and heavy shock absorbers for combat landings combined into single units.

The weight of the vehicle rests on legs that stick out *sideways.* Take a look at the wide, wide world of actual aircraft and see if you can spot any aircraft *ever* that had articulated landing gear that projected any distance *sideways.*
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One of these is not like the others. Those Cessnas have *fixed,* not articulated, gear, and the legs don't stick out sideways so much as at an angle. The "Dragonfly" not only has the landing gear cantilevered out sideways, they are on at least *three* hinge points.

True. Sorry, I was in a hurry and I didn't want to shamelessly recycle Robunos' MiG picture. But Sferrin makes a good point re F-18 and Mirage F1 gear, that point being that if the engineers need to cantilever the landing gear, they do.

And coming back to your point about the engines digging holes. I'm not so sure that would be that big of a problem. It doesn't seem to be for the F-35B despite all those claims about it melting decks.

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And coming back to your point about the engines digging holes. I'm not so sure that would be that big of a problem. It doesn't seem to be for the F-35B despite all those claims about it melting decks.

Let's see the F-35B land on *dirt.* The Dragonfly would come in and touch down next to a bombed-out building and toss rocks and dirt and sand and skulls and pages from better Terminator fan-film scripts all willy-nilly into the air to be sucked up by the inlets of the same engines.
 
And coming back to your point about the engines digging holes. I'm not so sure that would be that big of a problem. It doesn't seem to be for the F-35B despite all those claims about it melting decks.

Let's see the F-35B land on *dirt.* The Dragonfly would come in and touch down next to a bombed-out building and toss rocks and dirt and sand and skulls and pages from better Terminator fan-film scripts all willy-nilly into the air to be sucked up by the inlets of the same engines.

Which is why they're angled outwards...

 
Let's see the F-35B land on *dirt.* The Dragonfly would come in and touch down next to a bombed-out building and toss rocks and dirt and sand and skulls and pages from better Terminator fan-film scripts all willy-nilly into the air to be sucked up by the inlets of the same engines.

Which is why they're angled outwards...

You say that like it means anything. The dragonfly's engines are angled outwards by something like ten degrees... but note that the "feet," which seem to have a contact area measured as a few square inches, are right at the edge of the jet. As the jets dig holes in the dirt, the "feet" slide right into them, and keep sliding as the holes dig deeper.

The design would be substantially less stupid if:

1: The engines had a decent bypass ratio. These engines look to be straight turbojets (looks like two per nacelle), which are great for high transonic/supersonic flight... which this thing ain't doing.
2: The arms were substantially shorter
3: The arms were raised upwards, moving the engines further away from the dirt
4: The landing gear was separate.

Turn this thing into an X-22, even an X-22 with the ducts on articulated sci-fi arms, and it makes a lot more sense.
 
Speaking using your zero-bypass engines as feet, and SF.

The moment you've got gravity generators and FTL, willing suspension of disbelief goes "sput." I can buy this layout because I can assume that as the ship comes in to land they fire up the repulsorlifts and antigravs, so the effective weight of the ship drops by 99%. So the engines only need to provide a trivial - and safe - amount of thrust.
 
Has anyone here read much of Stanislaw Lem? The Invincible, Fiasco and Peace on Earth would be of great interest to people interested in military technology and the strategies and doctrines that arise from it, while His Master's Voice and Memoirs Found in a Bathtub would at least amuse those interested in the political basis of technological development. I'm currently grinding my way through his Summa Technologiae in its English translation (delayed due the the fact that few translators could cope with his mulitidisciplinary scope and neologisms). On the centenary of flight, Aviation Week listed HG Wells as one of the 100 greatest contributors to the history of flight (apparently because of his prediction of the influence of air power and nuclear weapons, but he also deserved a place for DEWs, transnational organisations, the tank, the 'ecological' nature of war and wargaming). Lem certainly deserves a place for his anticipation of the importance of VR, cybernetics, swarming drones, and the balance of terror.

I liked The Cyberiad.
 
Let's see the F-35B land on *dirt.* The Dragonfly would come in and touch down next to a bombed-out building and toss rocks and dirt and sand and skulls and pages from better Terminator fan-film scripts all willy-nilly into the air to be sucked up by the inlets of the same engines.

Which is why they're angled outwards...

You say that like it means anything. The dragonfly's engines are angled outwards by something like ten degrees... but note that the "feet," which seem to have a contact area measured as a few square inches, are right at the edge of the jet. As the jets dig holes in the dirt, the "feet" slide right into them, and keep sliding as the holes dig deeper.

The design would be substantially less stupid if:

1: The engines had a decent bypass ratio. These engines look to be straight turbojets (looks like two per nacelle), which are great for high transonic/supersonic flight... which this thing ain't doing.
2: The arms were substantially shorter
3: The arms were raised upwards, moving the engines further away from the dirt
4: The landing gear was separate.

Turn this thing into an X-22, even an X-22 with the ducts on articulated sci-fi arms, and it makes a lot more sense.

Because I think it does mean something, the jet blast strikes the ground at an angle, blowing debris away from the craft/crew compartment. The landing feet (claws) are on the inboard side of each pod, again directing jet blast away from the craft

Not actually sure that they are turbojets, at 0:33 secs in the clip you get a view of the jet outlets which look distinctly rectangular to me. That suggests that either combining the output of multiple turbojets or that the engines actually have a rectangular cross section(?) So possibly some sort of PDE or PDWE.

Admit it, waaaay cooler than the Cheyenne ;)
 
Admit it, waaaay cooler than the Cheyenne ;)

It was cooler than the Cheyenne in exactly the same way that immediately negating Terminator 2 in the first few seconds was an exciting and uplifting narrative choice.

I'll put it this way: I'd love to scratch build a fiberglass Cheyenne in 1/18 scale to go with the APC. The Dragonfly? No interest in it in any scale whatsoever.
 
Not at all Terminator-y, but this may be of interest to those interested in the history of industrial design: the mid-century modern design in Star Trek TOS (I look at TNG and all I can think of is 'beige... beige...').

Likewise Ken Adam, known for Dr Strangelove and James Bond, who was influenced heavily (pun intentional) by Brutalism:
 
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This division was charged with computerizing editing, sound design and mixing, special effects, and accounting for the company's books, as if this fourth challenge would be as difficult as the other three. Ed Catmull, who led the Computer Division, made me head of the Computer Graphics Group, which was tasked with the special-effects project. At Lucasfilm, we continued to develop the software needed for three-dimensional computer-generated movies. And we worked on specialized hardware as well, designing a computer, called the Pixar Image Computer, that could run its calculations four times as fast as comparable general-purpose systems — but only for pixels. We were still waiting for Moore's Law to get general computers to where we needed them — it did, but this strategy gave us a boost for a few years.

We didn't get one of our fully computer-generated movie sequences into a major motion picture until 1982, with our one-minute "Genesis" sequence in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It showed a bare planet catching on fire, melting, and then forming mountains and seas and green forests. We followed that groundbreaking piece of a movie with a brief sequence in Return of the Jedi in 1983, featuring a "hologram" of the Death Star... But then our Computer Graphics Group, now numbering 40 people, got the news that the Computer Division was on the chopping block.
 
On 8 September 1961, 60 years ago
The first issue of Perry Rhodan was sold in Germany,
Original planned as 50 issue Sci-fi pulp Series.

It now sold issue 3133 and still is running !
And with over 5000 publication the biggest Sci-fi story ever written.
with 3687 years of future history, from first contact in 1971 to year 2071NGZ
We're Mankind try to find its way in Univers full of wonders and Horrors.
 
Perry Rhodan - Death Star sized spaceships.
And already in 1965 that's BEFORE Star Wars and Star Trek...
Yes the series produce bigger things as space ships/factory/Bases

like OLD MAN a 200 Km size mobile Combat Station with 15000 space Ships
like show in post #273 what has 2500 meter in diameter.
PR_Lexikon1_Illu_OLD_MAN.jpg
 
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Michael Van do we want to tell the forum the yield of a single bomb from a Transform canon?

some explanation first
The Perry Rhodan universe has own laws of physics of Hyperspace and its interaction with Einsteinspace.
Transform gun "fires" large muon Fusion bomb true Hyperspace to a Target,
Similar to Star Trek Transporter, but bomb do not materialize properly and explode more powerful as normal detonation.

in begin in Series the year 2115 the first Transform guns fired 500 gigaton TNT warheads.
over time the Humans increase the Yield to 1000 gigaton and in year 2437 up to 2000 Gigaton.
in 35th century this reach from 4000 Gigaton to 6000 Gigaton for special design Transform gun.
This became necessary because new Technology in energy shields like the Paratron,
later they regulate Yield down under 4000 Gigaton with Treaty in 36th century.
Sadly after 600 years of peace, follow by the century long war, brought even bigger Yield up to 10000 Gigaton.
over following centuries these ultra large Guns were used more like Cold war weapon.
until 50th century or year 1331 NGZ were laws of physics in Perry Rhodan universe changes radical!
Technology working on Hyperspace physics suddenly stop working or reduce its functions.
So also Transform guns, fired now 500 megaton warheads,
in 2045 NGZ the Yield is now 1 gigaton...

...in other words in 2003 the Makers of series were be bored of Overkill on Yields so they cut it down.
 
I've been get back into reading sf/f, with varying degrees of success. I've bounced off a couple of books (this does not happen often).

CJ Cherryh writes some great s, including space opera (the Chanur series, Downbelow Station, Cyteen, and others) and her great Foreigner sequence. Iain Banks "Culture" series are highly recommended. I also recommend Tamsyn Muir's GIdeon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth and Charles Stross Dead Lies Dreaming and his vaguely related Laundry series (field agent for a secret agency fighting Lovecraftian horrors from somewhere else)

I second the recommendation for The Prefect.
 
Perry Rhodan - Death Star sized spaceships.
And already in 1965 that's BEFORE Star Wars and Star Trek...
Yes the series produce bigger things as space ships/factory/Bases

like OLD MAN a 200 Km size mobile Combat Station with 15000 space Ships
like show in post #273 what has 2500 meter in diameter.
PR_Lexikon1_Illu_OLD_MAN.jpg
They are intimidatingly huge designs, I can't help but see myself standing in front of a huge diagram with a very small "you are here" arrow though. :D
 
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