Sail powered lev-carriages...

TMLutas · Post by **TMLutas** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 7:28 am

Ann Vole wrote:One point of interest: have the Rac Conan "discovered" the wheel yet or did they just skip that invention due to lack of need?

Yes they have the wheel. I suspect that they might not have asphalt or good concrete/mortar.

Anthony Lion · Post by **Anthony Lion** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 10:55 am

Kerry Skydancer wrote:Draco's got it right. You need something to push against to tack. Balloons -always- float with the wind. To tack an airship requires propellors (or jets) to provide a force vector in some other direction than the wind. A ground drag would work, but eliminate most of the use of being an airship. A rock anchor for an emergency brake wouldn't work at all... You throw it out, the lower weight makes the ship rise, and you have a ship with a rock dangling off the side. Not particularly helpful...

Nope, balloons doesn't always have to float with the wind...

You should read up on polar expeditions from around the turn of the last century...
Some daft buggers tried to fly to the North Pole using a hydrogen-filled balloon that was steered with long ropes that was dragged along the ground(or water)

You can read more about Andrée and his design Here

Interestingly, they managed to get up to 30° deviation to either side of the wind-direction, just by using those trailing lines.

NydaLynn · Post by **NydaLynn** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 1:42 pm

Anthony Lion wrote:
Kerry Skydancer wrote:Draco's got it right. You need something to push against to tack. Balloons -always- float with the wind. To tack an airship requires propellors (or jets) to provide a force vector in some other direction than the wind. A ground drag would work, but eliminate most of the use of being an airship. A rock anchor for an emergency brake wouldn't work at all... You throw it out, the lower weight makes the ship rise, and you have a ship with a rock dangling off the side. Not particularly helpful...
Nope, balloons doesn't always have to float with the wind...

You should read up on polar expeditions from around the turn of the last century...
Some daft buggers tried to fly to the North Pole using a hydrogen-filled balloon that was steered with long ropes that was dragged along the ground(or water)

You can read more about Andrée and his design Here

Interestingly, they managed to get up to 30° deviation to either side of the wind-direction, just by using those trailing lines.

Bet it would have worked if not for that leak, the ice, and certian choices were changed.

Anthony Lion · Post by **Anthony Lion** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 2:08 pm

Maybe...

But even thinking that the balloon would hold the hydrogen for two weeks, which was the shortest estimate for the trip, was rather... too optimistic...

They also assumed that the temperature would stay within the same range for the whole trip, which is rather daft...
A day of sunshine and no wind(a completely windless day is unlikely, but still) would have caused the hydrogen to expand enough to stretch the fabric, and possibly damaging the seams.
A dark fabric didn't exactly help, either, as it will tend to increase the temperature differentials between day and night. (And yes, there is a difference even during the midnight sun in the summertime)

The control-lines was a new system that had never been properly tested, and THAT was lunacy.(Short trips doesn't count)

Cuerden · Post by **Cuerden** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 2:22 pm

nick012000 wrote:Except that they should be able to tack against the wind.

That requires sufficient resistance. Air provides a lot less resistance than water, so it'd need a HUE rudder, and a Huge... aww, what d' ye call 'm... those fin-shaped things you stick in the bottom of a boat so that they tend to go forwards by default?

Cuerden · Post by **Cuerden** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:10 pm

Chaser617 wrote:Rather abbrupt one too.
Its a whole heckavalot more tricky to drive a GEV than a boar or airplane, but we've provven it can be done, heck, if the Mythbusters can do it.....

Aye, I used to work with pigs. Nice animals, but the ones I worked with were bigger'n me, and compared to a Racconan....

Shyal_malkes · Post by **Shyal_malkes** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:34 am

Cuerden wrote:That requires sufficient resistance. Air provides a lot less resistance than water, so it'd need a HUE rudder, and a Huge... aww, what d' ye call 'm... those fin-shaped things you stick in the bottom of a boat so that they tend to go forwards by default?

I think that would be the keel.

Kerry Skydancer · Post by **Kerry Skydancer** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:02 pm

shyal_malkes wrote:
Cuerden wrote:That requires sufficient resistance. Air provides a lot less resistance than water, so it'd need a HUE rudder, and a Huge... aww, what d' ye call 'm... those fin-shaped things you stick in the bottom of a boat so that they tend to go forwards by default?
I think that would be the keel.

It require resistance, and it requires a difference in motion in the first place. A keel in an airship would do -nothing- unless it either made contact with the ground or was sufficiently long to stick into a mass of air moving in another direction.

EdBecerra · Post by **EdBecerra** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 5:59 pm

Kerry Skydancer wrote:
shyal_malkes wrote:
Cuerden wrote:That requires sufficient resistance. Air provides a lot less resistance than water, so it'd need a HUE rudder, and a Huge... aww, what d' ye call 'm... those fin-shaped things you stick in the bottom of a boat so that they tend to go forwards by default?
I think that would be the keel.
It require resistance, and it requires a difference in motion in the first place. A keel in an airship would do -nothing- unless it either made contact with the ground or was sufficiently long to stick into a mass of air moving in another direction.

Y'know, now THERE'S the idea... a 'keel' that's nothing but lux. Semi-incoporeal, so to speak. Half real, and half 'not-real' in such a way that it passes through solid objects the way a normal solid keel passes through liquid water, offering JUST enough resistance to counter the effect of the wind on the sails.

Hmm... sounds like something the artificers and lux-crafters should get together and work on.

TMLutas · Post by **TMLutas** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:15 pm

A quick (and incomplete) review of the boats in this world doesn't show one of them with a keel. They're all pole craft, flat bottomed.

Maxgoof · Post by **Maxgoof** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:38 pm

TMLutas wrote:A quick (and incomplete) review of the boats in this world doesn't show one of them with a keel. They're all pole craft, flat bottomed.

I would suspect that that is because they don't really have a large enough body of water to make sailing worth it.

Capnregex · Post by **Capnregex** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am

Heh, Boats..
One of the best sailing boats are flat bottomed, or nearly so.
They are also of american origin.
Their keel was typically either centerboard or daggerboard, either way they would be retractable for shallow water conditions..

Rather than the size of the pond, consider the wind conditions