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Project OpenSky Takes Off

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hard-to-believe-these-spores-could-kill-me dept.

Jesrad writes "As was reported two years ago on Slashdot, japanese artists, students and engineers under the lead of Kazuhiko Hachiya have taken upon themselves to build a real-size, fully functional Mehve (japanese website), the small jet-powered glider flying wing ridden by anime heroin Nausicaa. They have made a lot of progress, and are now test-flying the full scale, yet unpowered model by tow-launching it along with its thrilled pilot. They're having a lot of fun, too, judging from the movies of the testing sessions."

6 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Glider? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Not to be needlessly pedantic, but...well, what the hell...to be needlessly pedantic, if it's going to be jet powered, won't it cease being a glider?

    I mean, right now it's a glider, but as soon as it's jet powered it'll by definition cease being a glider, right? So what they've really got is a personal glider that they're hoping to develop in to a personal jet aircraft.

  2. Re:small jet-powered glider? by megaditto · · Score: 2, Insightful

    there is no contradiction there, if that's what you are implying.

    Consider that the Space Shuffle is actually a glider over most of the re-entry (called glide-approach).

    A cruise missile is a jet-propelled glider... as opposed to a Russian Satan ss-18, which is a jet-propelled ballista, though such things may use fins and such for stabilization.

    In other words, anything that uses wings for flying (and not solely for manuvering e.g. a fighter during afterburn) is a glider.

    --
    Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
  3. Impressive work by Thagg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I had seen their previous RC models -- which really didn't look too much like the glider from the movie -- and thought "OK, that's pretty cool".

    This is lightyears beyond cool.

    They are fighting a lot of aerodynamic issues to make a human-carrying glider that now looks remarkably like the one in the movie. The challenge in flying wings is to fight the tendency of most wings to pitch down. In addition to this natural tendency, this wing has two things going against it.

    1) The "jet" causes drag below the CG
    2) The person raises the CG so high that there is a tendency to be unstable

    Add to this the fact that the design allows very little sweepback (a typical way to get pitch stability in flying wings (see B2 and Northrop)) then you are really in a bind.

    They must have a fabulously high positive pitching-moment airfoil. It is possible to make reasonably efficient airfoils with some positive pitch moment, but unless they've invented something truly revolutionary -- the demands on this airfoil for stability might mean that the glide ratio would not be very good.

    Still -- unbelivably impressive. Way to go!

    Thad Beier

    --
    I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
    1. Re:Impressive work by firemangreg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You seem knowledgable on aerodynamics, so maybe you can answer this. Would it help if the center part of the wing (where the pilot is located) was lowered? You would also have to lower that duct thing on the front, but that seems like it would lower the center of gravity. That may also screw up the whole likeness to the anime though.

  4. Re:Every kid's dream machine by sabernet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    then again, an Eva had the battery life of your average Dell laptop.

  5. Re:Hm... who cares by tanek · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Isn't this sort of thing illegal here in the states?
    U.S. jurisdiction does not (yet) spill over into Japan, so this is sort of irrelevant.