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Flying a Cessna On Other Worlds: xkcd Gets Noticed By a Physics Professor
djl4570 writes "xkcd's 'What If' series consists of humorous takes on highly implausible but oddly interesting hypothetical physics questions, like how to cook a steak with heat from atmospheric re-entry. The most recent entry dealt with flying a Cessna on other planets and moons in the solar system. Mars: 'The tricky thing is that with so little atmosphere, to get any lift, you have to go fast. You need to approach Mach 1 just to get off the ground, and once you get moving, you have so much inertia that it’s hard to change course—if you turn, your plane rotates, but keeps moving in the original direction.' Venus: 'Unfortunately, X-Plane is not capable of simulating the hellish environment near the surface of Venus. But physics calculations give us an idea of what flight there would be like. The upshot is: Your plane would fly pretty well, except it would be on fire the whole time, and then it would stop flying, and then stop being a plane.' There are also a bunch of illustrations for flightpaths on various moons (crashpaths might be more apt), which drew the attention of physics professor Rhett Allain, who explained the math in further detail and provided more accurate paths."
It is a cessna engine, it doesn't run on air but on money.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
"plane would fly pretty well, except it would be on fire the whole time"
I think Boeing has a plane that meets part of the criteria already.
It would be an X-Plane!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
If your plane is on fire and not a plane anymore then you are having a bad problem. You will not fly on Venus today.
Not to mention when he says that Venus' upper atmosphere is "room temperature" - duh! rooms on Venus would have a very different temperature from Earth's rooms! What and idiot.
sic transit gloria mundi
You can't hand-waive away physics.
Sense of humor, on the other hand, is commonly waived.
FTFA: The motor is electric, and the fuel tanks are replaced with Li-Ion batteries. But I'll give you style points attempting to stifle scientific hypothetical inquiry and outside-of-the-box thinking with cynical non-imaginativism. Keep it up and you might win the scientific curmudgeon of the year award!
They also didn't point out that if attempting to fly in the Sun's atmosphere, you may last longer if you do it at night. :P
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You must be great at parties.
Wow, you mean he's wrong and the Cessna would fly awesome and not just fall to the ground?
Glad we had you here to set things right. I'm going to get started on my plan to fly to Mars!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.