Anthony replied to me: > > Say I have a 20,000-ton aircraft with a 1,800,000-cf body and two > > 100,000-cf wings. If I made no math errors, the Expansion > > 2 rules give a stall speed of about 380 mph. > > Let's see. I have some actual aerodynamics code floating around. Base > wing area is 13,000 sf (wings are x2 area? I haven't looked at VE2 in > ages), base body area is 90,000 sf (30% efficiency as lifting body > iirc?), so its lift area by VE2 logic is 79,000 square feet. We'll > call that a planform area of 3,670 m^2.
I'm using the table rather than the optional rules, so the area is 15,000 sf * 1.5 per wing, which leaves 11,250 sf per wing side. No lifting body so far, since I didn't want the stability penalty that brings. Lift area 31,500 sf. > During takeoff we benefit from ground effect; if that doubles lift, > that drops stall to 364 mph. I suspect Vxii is assuming ground effect > in its stall speed. I was planning on vertical takeoff with power from six lift fans and two vectored lift/thrust fans. The runway for a 20,000-ton aircraft boggles the mind. Thanks for the numbers. I'm going with the published rules, but it is good to hear their results are in the right ballpark. Another question: Say I have 2,000 tons payload. How to spend it? A skycarries makes me think of The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., but I'm going with 'canonical' TL8, no alien tech or superheroes :-) * The dry weight for a heavy TL8 fighter might be 15 tons, internal fuel 7.5 tons, external loads 7.5 tons. * Is it reasonable to assume that every mission involves a full ordnance load? There could be patrols where not a single shot is fired, not a bomb is dropped, but jet fuel is burned. * OTOH, there should be a variety of loads to choose from, AAMs and drop tanks, cruise missiles and bunker-busters. So maybe there is one ordnance load for each fuel load. * A fighter with five 'full loads' is 90 tons. That would allow 22 fighters and little else. * A TL7 wet navy carrier has about 30 air wing crew per aircraft, plus 3,000 ship crew. The TL8 sky carrier will have fewer crew, but how much fewer? What is a sky carrier good for, anyway? It is smaller and faster than a sea carrier. Rapid reaction? 'First day of war' with SEAD and bunker-busters against the enemy C4I? Commando transport with stealthy helos and unmanned drones? Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
