FTL or not FTL...

POSTED BY: BadgersHat
UPDATED: Friday, May 14, 2004 20:35
VIEWED: 17361
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FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, May 13, 2004 4:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
The kind of velocities a vehicle would experience on reentry would be plenty large enough that “holding on” to something would be pointless during a maneuver in which the vehicle was completely turned about.

Agreed

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
In fact, I doubt any current construction could even withstand those kinds of forces. The vehicle would likely be torn to pieces and burn up, certainly no one would survive, even if it didn't. They would be greasy stains on the wall.

Do you mean the crazy Ivan on re-entry? If so, agreed.

But, they didn't do the crazy Ivan on re-entry. They did it while taking off and only did the full burn after they did that maneuver.

Was it not done on reentry? I thought they entered the atmosphere before doing that, but I guess they were taking off.

I need to rewatch my Firefly episodes, I think I'm rusty.

GUNHAND

Thursday, May 13, 2004 5:10 AM

The Crazy Ivan was in the atmosphere.

As far as the FTL thing, I change my opinion everytime I watch the show but for the past while I'm thinking they do have it. They can manipulate gravity, no zero-gee on the ship normally, and that is one thing that would allow FTL.

I chuckled the first time they started the whole,"Can you do an Ivan" thing because I knew they were gonna call it a Crazy Ivan. Which is pretty shiny even though what Serenity does barely resembles a real one. If the show went any further I was interested in seeing if they'd try any other Russian naval/air maneuvers with the ship. A Kobra would be possible with Serenity and would be interesting to see.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

BADGERSHAT

Thursday, May 13, 2004 2:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Gunhand:
If the show went any further I was interested in seeing if they'd try any other Russian naval/air maneuvers with the ship. A Kobra would be possible with Serenity and would be interesting to see.

What's a Kobra?

--Jefé The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

GUNHAND

Thursday, May 13, 2004 2:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BadgersHat:
Quote:
Originally posted by Gunhand:
If the show went any further I was interested in seeing if they'd try any other Russian naval/air maneuvers with the ship. A Kobra would be possible with Serenity and would be interesting to see.

What's a Kobra?

--Jefé The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

A Kobra is a move that can only be pulled off in a Russian MiG-29 fighter, although I heard rumors that it was done once with a SU-27 but I don't really believe it.

Wish I had a drawing here...but I'll give it a shot.

Basically you start straight and level, then the pilot noses down a little, say 5 degrees to get a little extra airspeed, then pulls up into a straight ballistic climb, so the nose is pointing directly up. This bleeds off airspeed pretty quickly, the pilot keeps back pressure on the stick so the plane's nose actually points slightly backwards in the direction he was coming from so it winds up the plane is at an angle.

Cheesy attempt at a graph coming up here, but once the pilot is in a Kobra:

Plane lookes like \ in relation to the ground with the nose up while still travelling ---> in the original direction he was flying. Basically the tail is leading the way with the nose pointed slightly in "reverse" and up.

How long he can hold it is pretty much how big his cajones are, a really good pilot can even do it while still travelling in the same direction, nose pointed back a bit and at a low enough speed that he decends a bit while keeping forward motion.

What's the use of such a trick? Well it looks impressive as hell at airshows and the Mikoyan corporation includes that maneuver in it's sales videos so countries like India are impressed enough to buy some. But actually it's a pretty clever combat move, either with guns or more likely with an infared AAM that is hooked up to a helmet sight, he can shoot off center of the plane with that setup and with that move can snapshot a missile at a plane chasing him.

Bad pilots wind up stalling and spinning and even good ones can if they hold it too long, there's only so long you can ride the edge of physics. The reason the MiG-29 is the only plane that can do it is because it has the right balance between thrust, weight and doesn't have a fly by wire system. An F-16 has the right thrust to weight ratio too but the fly by wire system would prevent the plane from entering that radical an angle of attack.

Why would Serenity pull one? Well that would be one way to get an off angle away from a persuer and then kick in a full burn to escape. Seems to me that spaceships depend on angle in the 'Verse to a pretty realistic extent, open an angle wide enough and fast enough and you can get away from a persuer.

When Zoid checks in he can go over my aerodynamic facts that I'm probably a fair bit hazy on.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

BADGERSHAT

Thursday, May 13, 2004 3:07 PM

You know, for a description relying purely on text and a slash mark, you gave me a pretty detailed picture... kudos, Gunny.

I'm wondering what Zoid does, that he knows so much about aerodynamics and the like... hmmm... perhaps we have our own Book counterpart here...

--Jefé The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

GUNHAND

Thursday, May 13, 2004 3:12 PM

Gracias Jefé, I do try.

Zoid was a Zoomie so he has probably forgotten more about planes than I ever have known.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, May 13, 2004 4:00 PM

Out of curiosity, how does one go into a ballistic climb in powered flight?

As far as Serenity, it has swiveling turbine engines, which might in theory allow it to do a great many interesting things, assuming it would remain intact at high velocities. I am somewhat curious about whether the cinematic depiction of Serenity in endoatmospheric flight is consistent with current observations. I’ve seen several things that looked encouraging. The atmospheric heating and wake do to reentry in one episode I thought was a wonderful effect.

GUNHAND

Thursday, May 13, 2004 4:12 PM

Ballistic climb is pretty much a misnomer, but gets the point across. Sounds a little better than fly straight up I guess, the Soviets used to use it for whatever their nefarious reasons were. As a Kobra is a Russian combat move it seemed appropriate.

Crazy Ivans.

That's the term I know from reading their manuals, like I said my aerodynamics knowledge is pretty shallow and specific to capabilities and not how the physics of it all works except in a general way.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

BADGERSHAT

Thursday, May 13, 2004 4:18 PM

Wasn't the Crazy Ivan a submarine move?
They did it in "Hunt for Red October" as I recall.

--Jefé The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

GUNHAND

Thursday, May 13, 2004 4:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BadgersHat:
Wasn't the Crazy Ivan a submarine move?
They did it in "Hunt for Red October" as I recall.

--Jefé The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

Indeed! (dammit I need a David Lo Pan picture for that)

Soviet sonar technology was never as advanced as ours so they used the sudden turns in circles to allow their sonar to sweep all the way around the sub. American attack sub captains hate this maneuver because of the chance of a collision especially if the Russian sub does a depth change while an American or British one is "underhulling" the Russian. Basically that's when a US or British sub actually goes right under a Russian one to make recordings of all the machine noise.

Remember in Hunt For Red October when the skipper asked if they "knew" him? That's from underhulling, all the Soviet submarines ever floated have been underhulled at some point to record all their machinery sounds, which gives a thumbprint of sorts. But there always was a first time for a new boat so that's when they really, really hated the Crazy Ivan, if they were doing the premiere recording of a new Russian boat.

US subs don't generally do Crazy Ivans since our towed array sonar allows the subs to hear into the baffles, since it's towed it's behind the prop, covers the rear without any ambient machine noise from the US boat to interfere with passive sonar detection of anything back there.

Soviet towed array sonar was...well to be blunt go-se and so they had to generally rely on their main sonar at the front of the boat. Not many Sovier/Russian subs were ever operationally equipped with the stuff last I knew such things and seeing the state of the Russian Navy right now I doubt the situation has gotten better and probably is a lot worse.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

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