So you want to fly? What, When, Where, Why, How

Weird Harold wrote:

Graydon wrote:If the Empire of Charis needs an airplane soon, the obvious power plant is a pulse jet.

What kind of aircraft would you mount your pulse jet in and/or where would you mount your steam catapult?

Where are you going?

What are you going to do?

Where are you going to land?

IF.

It's a big if, because scouting aircraft are much, much less useful with no radios.

Only really plausible use I can think of is mail, and that kinda depends on range. And whether or not the OBS has a freakout. If a distant test doesn't provoke the OBS, I can see being able to send fast mail between the far-flung islands of the Charisian empire being worth the development effort. I still wouldn't even think about trying it until I had 20 knot oil-fired liners in service.

Weird Harold wrote:

Zakharra wrote: ... because Merlin isn't in sole control of the database OWL has anymore. There are others using and studying it and they can see the history of Earth and its technological development. They can see the advantage IC engines give ...

If they have the history of Earth, they will be able to see the environmental problems ICEs bring as well as the advantages.

True, but being human, do you think most of them would really care about any disadvantages IC engines give? I'm thinking they wouldn't care as it gives a fairly immediate advantage fairly quickly, and its not as if they can't steer technological development to better systems to replace the IC (in Charis at least). I don't think Merlin would move to stop anyone else from developing a good IC engine because Merlin's task is to encourage the technological mindset. Even if it means developing some technologies some consider environmentally destructive.

cralkhi wrote:I can see Safehold skipping internal-combustion engines for many purposes -- it's harder for us now to convert to renewables since we've built a power grid and an infrastructure that "expects" fossil fuels or at least pretty constant power. OTOH Merlin/OWL probably know how to make fusion power plants so they may not need solar etc.

Even so, airplanes are one of the applications where liquid fuel and internal combustion make the most sense.

Unless Merlin used the manufacturing base in OWL's cave to build a Federation level manufacturing unit to make the Federation level technology of skimmers and such, Safehold is going to have to advance through every technological step to being able to understand as a society modern (Federation level) technologies. Just handing out the advanced tech base (which would have tom by its scarcity, only go to a few places at first, which would severely limit control of it) isn't serving Merlin's purpose.

Graydon wrote:

Weird Harold wrote: quote= Graydon If the Empire of Charis needs an airplane soon, the obvious power plant is a pulse jet.

What kind of aircraft would you mount your pulse jet in and/or where would you mount your steam catapult?

Where are you going?

What are you going to do?

Where are you going to land?

IF.

It's a big if, because scouting aircraft are much, much less useful with no radios.

Only really plausible use I can think of is mail, and that kinda depends on range. And whether or not the OBS has a freakout. If a distant test doesn't provoke the OBS, I can see being able to send fast mail between the far-flung islands of the Charisian empire being worth the development effort. I still wouldn't even think about trying it until I had 20 knot oil-fired liners in service.

Yeah. They'd be better off using fast steam ships for sea delivery then using railroad/steam barge for physical messages or ones that needed to be kept secret.

Philip Stanley wrote:Without aluminum, the weight of any projected flying machine is going to be probably close to twice what it could have been otherwise - a major obstacle.
Philip Stanley

The H4 "Hercules" was, and still is, the largest fixed wing aircraft ever built -- it's better known as "The Spruce Goose."

Building aircraft out of wood isn't really that much of a problem until you start talking about Transonic and supersonic flight.

If Merlin could convince Charis to build these: http://3dcontentblog.files.wordpress.co ... iathan.jpg
http://my.amanzcdn.com/wp-content/uploa ... iat_05.jpg
http://wotw-goliath.com/productionblog/ ... eColor.jpg


I would reconsider pushing for IC engines.

Edit: I can't resize the pictures, they are too big, so the links will have to do.

Zakharra wrote:

Graydon wrote:Only really plausible use I can think of is mail, and that kinda depends on range. ... I still wouldn't even think about trying it until I had 20 knot oil-fired liners in service.

Yeah. They'd be better off using fast steam ships for sea delivery then using railroad/steam barge for physical messages or ones that needed to be kept secret.

So...

Neither of you would even bother developing a method of mail delivery twice or five times as fast as the fastest surface transport?

Even a sailplane type is faster than a steamship and given a sufficiently high lift by a balloon before launch or adequate updrafts from a catapult launch, sailplanes can have much greater range and endurance than one might think.

As for reconnaissance, WWI commanders had to wait until the photo planes landed for a quick verbal brief and several more hours for the film to be developed; Reconnaissance doesn't have to be 24/7 real-time coverage in order to be useful.

Zakharra wrote:If Merlin could convince Charis to build these: ...


I would reconsider pushing for IC engines.

I don't think Merlin would push for something so far beyond possible/realisitic.

He might push for a steam powered version of the Graf Zepelin or Hindenburg, though. Wood or steel framed Zepelins would have to be about 50% bigger than aluminum framed, but they're well within current Charisian tech capability. They'd be faster than mail ships by a good bit.

Weird Harold wrote:

Zakharra wrote:
Yeah. They'd be better off using fast steam ships for sea delivery then using railroad/steam barge for physical messages or ones that needed to be kept secret.

So...

Neither of you would even bother developing a method of mail delivery twice or five times as fast as the fastest surface transport?

Even a sailplane type is faster than a steamship and given a sufficiently high lift by a balloon before launch or adequate updrafts from a catapult launch, sailplanes can have much greater range and endurance than one might think.

As for reconnaissance, WWI commanders had to wait until the photo planes landed for a quick verbal brief and several more hours for the film to be developed; Reconnaissance doesn't have to be 24/7 real-time coverage in order to be useful.

Sailplanes simply are not good enough. They are more of a sport than useful for long range communication. You cannot guarantee enough thermals so they could soar that far and a steam catapult can only throw one so high before it would break apart. You -might - get one to be useful as reconnaissance in the immediate area, ie around an army in the field, but that's about it. For long range communication on land? no. Across the ocean? Forget it.

It takes a skilled pilot to keep one aloft and one that knows the thermals in the area, or is damned good at finding them. You can't guarantee any on the ocean, let alone one trying to cross several thousand miles of ocean. There would likely be a lot of potential pilots being hurt or killed in just trying to teach them how to use a sail plane. This is something Merlin can't really help in since as far as I know, he never used a sail plane when human. And any pilot trying to cross the ocean would literally need the Word of God to successfully cross the ocean and land safely. not to mention that pilot would be exhausted after how many days staying awake in one position?

The idea might look good on paper, but I don't think it's feasible for reality.

Weird Harold wrote:

Philip Stanley wrote:Without aluminum, the weight of any projected flying machine is going to be probably close to twice what it could have been otherwise - a major obstacle.
Philip Stanley

The H4 "Hercules" was, and still is, the largest fixed wing aircraft ever built -- it's better known as "The Spruce Goose."

Building aircraft out of wood isn't really that much of a problem until you start talking about Transonic and supersonic flight.

I wouldn't exactly have that much faith in a wooden plane that large staying intact for very long. The vibration of the engines and just traveling through the air would be problematic. With ships, they at least have water supporting them and can be repaired. Something happens with a wooden plane and you could very well end up crashing. There's a whole new type and level of stress involved in larger planes than in ships and smaller ones. You might get some small medium sized ones, but I wouldn't trust anything larger made out of wood.

Zakharra wrote:I wouldn't exactly have that much faith in a wooden plane that large staying intact for very long.

Aircrew of the DeHaviland Mosquitoes would probably disagree with you. The Mosquito was much smaller than the Hercules, but it flew a much more stressful flight profile than would be expected of a huge cargo-lifter.

Zakharra wrote:The vibration of the engines and just traveling through the air would be problematic.

Yet another disadvantage of reciprocating ICEs.