Dear GURPSnet, the 250-ton helicopter for Traveller (which the GM sprung on us, I just calculated what it means to carry an ATV) made me wonder ...
With the 3E Vehicles rules, you need 0.083 kW per lb. of loaded weight to lift a twin rotor helicopter, 0.1 kW for a single rotor, and 0.25 kW with ducted fans. Or to put it the other way around, a twin rotor helicopter has less than 12 lbs. left per kW of power, a single rotor has less than 10 lbs., and a ducted fan flyer has less than 4 lbs. That's for the hull, the rotors (if any), the power plant, and the fuel (if any). If the structural weight optional rule is NOT used, structure for large vehicles gets relatively light due to square-cube. The rules allow no more than two rotors for a helicopter, but it can get very large -- not really realistic limits. A million ton helicopter is probably something for April Fools' Day. A ducted fan flyer can have any number of fans. Call it an aircraft with six 2,000,000-kW ducted fans (2,400 tons) and a pair of 6,000,000-kW experimental fusion reactors (VXii26, 14,000 tons). That leaves 7,600 tons for the structure and payload, less if I want a safety margin and/or a decent ceiling (optional rule). A single reactor saves 1,000 tons, and since it can't fly on half power, redundancy is probably pointless. A 20,000-ton ship might be 4,000,000 cf and 150,000 sf. An advanced, extra-heavy hull is 225 tons and DR 100 advanced metal are 1,125 tons. Composite saves a few hundred tons. So a heli-carrier is possible with 3E TL8 technology, it seems. Not the chameleon system, maybe, but the rest of it. So are there reasons why this shouldn't work? And if the carrier works, how about a heli-battleship? With TL9 tech, it gets even easier, and with TL10 it is almost routine. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
