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Jet-powered Nausicaa Glider Project
SuperElectric writes "As reported on slashdot.jp, Opensky is a project led by media artist Kazuhiko Hachiya to implement a working, jet-powered version of Moewe, the vehicle (pic) that the heroine rides on in "Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind". They've successfully test-flown (.mov, 8.6MB) a 1/2 scale model, and are moving into phase 2, which includes interviewing for test pilots (women only!). Can anybody knowledgeable in experimental aeronautics speculate on how doable this is? While it's not designed for general production (riders must be less than 50 kg/120 lbs), this would certainly beat Segway any day!"
typical first-time nausicaa viewer.
she wears white pants. very similar to stretch pants. aerodynamics and all.
Totoro died, I have no reason to live anymore.
MIRROR!!
I'm crazy but what the heck:
Site: Site
Movie: Movie
which includes interviewing for test pilots (women only!)
Actually, I remember the FAQ saying that women are preferable, weight and all :) Though I'm not that proficient in Japanese, and babelfish spits out mostly nonsense, so might have missed something. Don't forget, Nausicaa wasn't the only one able to fly such a glider well...
P.S. Please stop with those underwear jokes! See the movie(and watch what people are wearing), RTFF at nausicaa.net and keep in mind the messed up colours, too.(OT: read the manga tooThe simple fact that they've flown a 1/2 scale model indicates they have the aerodynamic controlls down well enough to get it into the air. From just looking at the model, it seems like it would be inherently unstable and require some respectably fast computer mediation of the controls.
Would _I_ fly it? (assuming I was the size of an "Anime babe") I would have to say "Maybe." If it had a recovery chute, it would probably be safe enough - and a real hoot to fly.
Though laying on TOP of a running jet engine doesn't seem like fun. Worse than piloting an old style racing sidehack...
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
That's what intense physical training is about
Watching the video, I was about to comment that shouldn't they consider including a dummy pilot in their half-sized flight model?
Then I saw the end of the film.
THAT THING'S FREAKING HUGE!
Seriously, there *is* a dummy pilot on their test model, but she's about the size of a 12-inch Star Wars doll. What's that going to put the full-sized mehve at, like a thirty-foot wingspan?!
It's waycool work and all, I don't deny that, but Nausicaa's mehve was a personal aircraft she could drag about tossed over her shoulder, and it was mostly steered by shifting her body weight, non unlike a hangglider. The big difference was that its jet propulsion gave it enough speed that it didn't need to be so large as a hangglider in order to generate sufficient lift.
That's what made it so amazing, and that's what made too fantastic to replicate in real life. These designers' trick? Make the thing so UNGODLY HUGE that the pilot has a minimal impact upon its aerodynamics and center of gravity.
So, waycool that they built it and all, but not nearly as cool as the tiny personal aircraft in the original manga.
No no no.. that's Surly Naussican
Good try, though!
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
I flew hang gliders for years. This thing looks like a death trap. The center of mass is on top of the wing. It should be hanging underneath like a hang glider. Just look at bag fags (I mean parapente pilots) to see the extreme case of a wing stabilized by the mass hanging underneath. So to turn it, you oooch over a little bit to lean it, oooch too far and over she goes. Front, back left or right, it doesn't matter. Maybe it flies well upside down though. Guess they'll find out. Hope they have enough altitude when they do though. How do you land it? You can't flare it like a hang glider.
Sheesh.
Austin Meyer's X-plane is the perfect application to model this and try it. A number of companies use this software to model future crafts in order to fine tune them. Test pilots have also been known to use the software to brush up on the craft before construction is complete..
If you check out the main page, you'll see some pictures of a CarterCopter craft that was built/tested in X-plane and then put into production. Pretty neat stuff.
Anyhow, the Opensky people need only to model the craft in X-plane to get a feel for how feasible it is in real life.
(1) Females are strongly preferred.
(2) Weight limits of 35kg (77lbs) and 50kg (100lbs)
(3) Age limits of 20 and 35
(4) Two pictures: one which shows the face and another which shows the whole body.
Sounds more like an audition for a movie or something...
They have images from the onboard camera at:
d ex .htm
http://www.petworks.co.jp/~hachiya/aso_photo/in
They are the ones near the end.
From the German for "Seagull".
The opening sequence in Nasuicaa where she glides over the desert is really fantastic if you're into flying although you know in the back of your mind something like this would never be stable.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Everyone is messing up the first sentence. It's probably because 'imasenka' is not written in kanji. Though the use of 'wo' rather than 'ga' should have been the primary tip-off.
It doesn't make any sense to ask for another American engineer. He's saying, "Is anyone looking for a visa-holding American engineer?"
There is nothing that says that this thing cannot fly ever. Sure, there are many calculations to perform, but the design isn't inherently unusable.
First of all, the main thing to notice is the lack of a tail. The main difficulty with the lack of a tail is that you need to balance both Cm (moment coefficient) and AOA (angle of attack) with the trailing edge of the same airfoil, namely the wings. While possible, it's not an easy thing to do. Essentially, for the vehicle to be stable, it needs to have a positive pitching moment at zero AOA (Cmo) and a negative derivative of the pitching moment with respect to AOA (Cmalpha). With a flying wing, the positive Cmo is not difficult to achieve, it's the negative Cmalpha that's difficult. Think of it this way, if the plane is disturbed such that the nose goes up (ie: updraft), the plane needs to have the nose tend down. Tails are really good for this, but without a tail, it's pretty difficult.
The simplest solution is to push back the aerodynamic center (AC) of the wing. Since most wing profiles have an AC at about 1/4 chord (25% from leading edge) for subsonic applications, a profile not used commonly must be used. Once again, this can be done... it's just not very common.
The winglets are a nice touch... helps decrease downwash and therefore overall lift. That, and I think winglets are sexy.
Yes, I'm an aeronautical geek. Deal.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
*sigh*
Try the Nausicaa.net FAQ:
Q: I heard that cuts were made in "Warriors of the Wind" to cover Nausicaa's bare bottom. Is it true?
A: That's a nasty rumor which just won't die. Even in a recent article by Reuters, she was called "a bare-bottomed heroine on a glider" @_@; Nausicaa *is* wearing pants. That's not a mini skirt she is wearing. It's her coat. Notice that the men in the valley are dressed as Nausicaa is. And they are not Scottish. ^_^
> Just the pendulum instability from the offset between CG and CL ... is going to drive you bats, and each change in thrust or drag is going to result in pitch moments.
Flying wings, even well designed ones that don't have the problems you identified, have 3 instabilities that are more problematical than on conventionally tailed planes.
The first is a lack of pitch stability. To be stable they must have a reflex curve on the trailing edge (or similar) to give a downforce at that point so that as lift is lost approaching a stall the wing pitches down (no longer held up by the reflex). Without this they stall viciously.
Unfortunately the short lever given by the lack of length makes this reflex very sensitive to small changes and the wing 'nods'.
The 2nd problem is directional instability, even with wing tip fins the plane does not fly in the direction it is pointed.
The 3rd is more serious and is conic instability. When the wing banks and turns the outer wing is faster than wing on the inside of the turn. This gives more lift to the outside wing which then causes more banking. This can happen to tailed planes but with flying wings there is insufficient control leverage to avoid going pear shaped and winding up in an inverted spin.
Hang gliders cope with these because they have very large pendulum stability.
BVMjets is a place where you can purchase the engine.
Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant. The population is growing.
Read up on the Wright brothers some time. They were losing pilots (and planes) at an alarming rate.
A large number of the losses were caused by pilots (barnstormers) trying to show off. The Wrights and others were constantly trying to figure out how to prevent this before bad press killed aviation.
Now we have enough experience in aerodynamics and control theory to say something *is* dangerous, and you get in a huff about some guy's "attitude" for pointing out the dangers.
Dreams and experimentation belong in the lab, not in PR stunts. Tools can be dangerous. Sometimes reality hurts.
You try to sound like you know what you are talking about, but you obviously don't. Flying wings can be every bit as stable as a conventional aircraft.
BTW: CL stands for Coeficient of Lift, what you meant was CP, Center of Pressure.
And WTF is pendulum instability? I've never heard the term by anyone in the aviation industry.
And yes I DO design aircraft for a living.
You seem to be forgetting that both the B-2 and the X-29 are computer-controlled. They're both inherently unstable to the point that a human could not react quickly or subtly enough to keep them in the air. The computer translates the pilot's human-speed and human-sized movements of the yoke/stick into more aerodynamically appropriate movements to produce the intended movement. In other words unless these designers are planning on installing the equvalent of a multi-million dollar fly-by-wire system, it isn't going to work as hoped.
Disclaimer: I am an aersopace engineering student.
The model they are building is significantly different from the craft from the anime series. The aerodynamic center of the aircraft seems to be more or less in the same location as the center of gravity, making the plane slightly statically unstable. Static instability is not a barrier to success, though, as the first Wright Flyer, the X-29, the F-18 and a number of other aircraft have been statically unstable. In order to fly it, there will need to be constant pilot input and it will have to have some way of generating a controlled pitching moment. The original craft pictured would simply flip over, stall and crash, because the only way to change it's pitching moment would be by shifting the pilots weight around all the time, which would be very difficult in an unstable aircraft. However, the model has swept wings. By putting elevators or elevons on the tips of the wing, making an elevator deflection changes the aerodynamic center of the wing, rather than simply the lift coefficient. Thus, you have a pitch control system, by changing the moment generated about the C.G. Also, since the aerodynamic center is near the c.g., by sitting carefully, the aircraft can become statically neutral in pitch and fly with much less pilot input.
Yaw stability.... well it is a flying wing... but they have really big wing tip stabilizers on the model. It is possible to fly an aircraft without a rudder, but it's harder. If they try flying simulated aircraft without a rudder, it will approximate what they will experience in flight and adequately prepare them for the challenge.