Project OpenSky Takes Off 148
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."
Hm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hm... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unpowered verstions of paragliding and hand gliding are very popular and have been around for decades. Re: http://www.ushga.org/ [ushga.org] and http://www.paragliding.net/ [paragliding.net]
And the only reason the story made the front page is because it had 'anime'
Check your state law, however, as some states have certain restrictions on flying over populated areas, cities, etc.
Also, you might get shot down if you try to fly one
Re:Hm... (Score:3, Informative)
That would kilometers/hour. 55 knots. 63 mph.
. .
155 lbs. for unpowered craft; 255 lbs. empty (maximum fuel load of 5 gal.) for powered craft.
KFG
Re:Hm... (Score:1)
Re:Hm... (Score:2)
Powered hang-gliders and paragliders (aka paramotors) are also gaining in popularity these days - they attach a small engine and propellor to the pilot's harness (usually either around the pilot's feet for a hang-glider or to the pilot's back for a paraglider). Note that these are different from microlights, which attach a wing to a trike-type fuselage/engine/seating arrangement - powered hang-gliders and paraglid
Re:Hm... (Score:1)
Re:Hm... who cares (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hm... who cares (Score:2)
Re:Hm... who cares (Score:1, Offtopic)
ping thepiratebay.nete bay.org (83.140.176.146): icmp_seq=1 ttl=40 time=138 ms
PING thepiratebay.net (83.140.176.146) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from hey.mpaa.and.apb.bite.my.shiny.metal.ass.thepirat
Re:Hm... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hm... (Score:1)
Re:Hm... (Score:1)
Re:Hm... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hm... (Score:2)
This post reminds me of the posts that showed up when some restrictions on High Power model rocket engines talked about on Slashdot. You had a bunch of idiots talking about how much better things where in the EU. Then it turned out that the motors that where going to be restricted in the US
"anime heroin" (Score:5, Funny)
Scooby doobie doo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"anime heroin" (Score:2)
Re:"anime heroin" (Score:1)
I can totally confirm that... ^_^
np: Underworld - Mmm Skyscraper I Love You (Underworld 1992-2002 (Disc 1))
Re:"anime heroin" (Score:2)
Re:"anime heroin" (Score:1)
See, there's those things called "anime DVDs", but I guess you freeloading people who automatically equate "anime" with "bittorrent" probably never heard of those...
np: Underworld - Mmm Skyscraper I Love You (DubNoBassWithMyHeadMan)
Glider? (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:Glider? (Score:3, Informative)
and the wing is often used as a glider.
Re:Glider? (Score:2)
Depends on it's mode of operation... (Score:2)
hmm... (Score:1)
usage -10 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:usage -10 (Score:2)
Call me.. (Score:3, Funny)
I'd prefer if they created an Ohmu :-) (Score:3, Informative)
Mirror! For the love, mirror! (Score:1)
http://www.petworks.co.jp.nyud.net:8080/~hachiya/
-theGreater.
Re:Mirror! For the love, mirror! (Score:2)
http://www.petworks.co.jp.nyud.net:8090/~hachiya/m ovie/testflight060526_1.mov [nyud.net]
http://www.petworks.co.jp.nyud.net:8090/~hachiya/m ovie/testflight060526_p.mov [nyud.net]
http://www.petworks.co.jp.nyud.net:8090/~hachiya/m ovie/fly_01web.avi [nyud.net]
http://www.petworks.co.jp.nyud.net:8090/~hachiya/m ovie/fly_02web.mov [nyud.net]
http://www.petworks.co.jp.nyud.net:8090/~hachiya/m ovie/pilot_cam_web.mov [nyud.net]
http://www.petworks.co.jp.nyud.n [nyud.net]
Mehve? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mehve? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mehve? (Score:1)
that is all.
Re:Mehve? (Score:1)
Re:Mehve? (Score:1)
Re:Mehve? (Score:1)
Re:Mehve? (Score:2)
I didn't even find myself considering that an outlandish possibility given past stunts that have appeared here (real life pac man, das blinkenlights, light saber idiocy, goatse, etc)
It would be an art installation, with a rectangular frame that depicts the website and the guy is in some cable and pulley driven airplane doing stuff on t
small jet-powered glider? (Score:1, Redundant)
jet: jet-propelled vehicle, especially a jet-propelled aircraft.
glider: A light engineless aircraft designed to glide
That is quite an invention.
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:1)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2, Insightful)
Consider that the Space Shuffle is actually a glider over most of the re-entry (called glide-approach).
A cruise missile [af.mil] is a jet-propelled glider... as opposed to a Russian Satan ss-18 [usec.com], 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 [airforce-technology.com]) is a glider.
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
I believe cruise missiles run their engines constantly so they're not gliders (and with those little wings they'd make pretty bad gliders anyway). SS-18's are ROCKET propelled ballistic missiles.
A fighter running on afterburners almost always uses it's wings for flying. A few fighters are capable of actually flying on their engines but don't do it very often.
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Of course, if you can find a better way to describe what a mehve is while being similarly succinct, be my guest, or are
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Uh... neither the FAA nor EAA nor Kitplanes magazi
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:5, Informative)
Gotta stop you right there. Automobile engines and aircraft engines are very different beasts for very good reasons. Automobile engines normally run at 20% of rated power with occasional bursts to 80% rated power and only the rarest burst to 100% rated power. Aircraft engines normally run at 80% rated power and will routinely spend several minutes at 100% power during each flight (takeoff and climbout). That critical "expected normal load" results in a very different engine design.
If you try to put an automobile engine in an airplane without substantial redesign to account for the different expected loads, you're basically guaranteeing premature catastrophic failure.
The result is that homebuilt aircraft have as good a safety record as commercially built designs.
Check your facts. Homebuilts have a much higher accident rate per flight-hour. Still pretty low, though.
Regards,
Ross
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:2)
Okay (Score:1, Funny)
Nausicaa wears pants. (Score:4, Informative)
They're close to skin color, so unfortunately it isn't terribly obvious. This isn't that kind of anime. Sheesh.
FAQ [nausicaa.net]
Every kid's dream machine (Score:5, Informative)
The freedom with which Nausicaa sails around the skies on a flying machine light enough to carry yet strong enough to carry out some hairy aerobatics has figured in many a daydream. Hayao Miyazaki takes our daydreams and puts them on the big screen.
Of course the reality of FAA regulations and principles of aerodynamics tend to get in the way of truly realizing the dreams but I give kudos to these guys for trying.
Re:Every kid's dream machine (Score:4, Interesting)
Nausicaa was a scientist who performed careful experiments that led her to her ultimate conclusions about the role of the deadly fungus and forest in the ecology of the post-apocalyptic world. Genre fiction since then has generally preferred to reject science as the mode of enlightenment, preferring anything else from heredity to magic.
I guess this point I am more a cynic about what young people really want if freed from the thin vaneer of civilization, similar to the philosophy of Lord of the Flies.
Re:Every kid's dream machine (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Every kid's dream machine (Score:2)
Re:Every kid's dream machine (Score:2)
I see dead people. (Score:2)
Disruptive technology is a tree watered by the blood of the brave. Otto Lelienthal is somewhere watching this.
Re:I see dead people. (Score:2)
editors of what?? (Score:2, Redundant)
else it's under the jurisdiction of the ATF.
on second thought, maybe the editors purposefully insert egregiouss errors to troll readers into commenting, thus increasing ad revenue.
Re:editors of what?? (Score:2)
Impressive work (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Impressive work (Score:3, Interesting)
As is the case with the F-117 "Stealth" aircraft.
Re:Impressive work (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Impressive work (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Impressive work (Score:2)
flywheel? (Score:2)
Re:Impressive work (Score:2)
On such an aircraft, the pilot makes up ~80% of the drag and ~70% of the weight: this means that you get to choose between keeping the pilot very close to the aerodynamic center, and modifying the wing's trimmed angle for pitch control while retaining decent stability, or you keep the pilot away from it and try to purposefully use t
I know it's addictive, but... (Score:1, Redundant)
Mind you, my DVD shelf is testament to my occasional desire for a "Miyazaki fix." (And a "girls with guns fix." And a "post-apocalyptic adventure fix." And... well, you get the idea.)
Re:I know it's addictive, but... (Score:1)
As a model-aircraft designer... (Score:3, Informative)
A full time computer working on the stability will help a lot, however at some points no amount of computer intervention will re-establish stable flight (ie, tumbling).
Then again, similar things were said about the helicopter
Looking forward to seeing what they end up with... especially for the turbine motor.
Yves Rossy has been there... (Score:1)
Re:Yves Rossy has been there... (Score:3, Informative)
I used to fly paragliders pretty seriously (Score:2, Informative)
Under the FAI [fai.org] definitions [fai.org] paragliders [google.com] and hang-gliders [google.com] are both in the same category of foot-launced unpowered aircraft, they both have loosely similar flight-characteristsics, tend to share the same airspace and consequently in many countries they (now) share a regulatory body.
Thus it was I came to be on an instructors' course some years ago
Next step in the project (Score:2)
All this and "fun" too? (Score:2)
What, were we supposed to believe this was "serious work" otherwise?
Someone should show this to Miyazaki (Score:2)
Very cute, but wing area a problem (Score:3, Informative)
It's impressive that they're doing this. Moewe has rather low wing area for the slow-speed maneuvering it does in Nausicaa, though. It's certainly possible to make a lively little aerobatic monoplane (the Sukhoi S-26 [sukhoi.org] is one of the best modern ones), but those little wings imply a high stall speed. If you want hang-glider type stall speeds, you need more wing area or less weight. The classic solution for slow flight is the biplane. Take a look at this old Sperry Messenger [af.mil], which has about the same wingspan as Moewe. The Messenger was a very maneuverable little plane. Sperry himself once landed one in front of the U.S. Capitol.
Moewe's tailless design creates a pitch stability problem from hell, but that's what flight-control computers are for. It's interesting to see what changes they made from the R/C model. The R/C model looks more like Moewe, with straight wings and a huge dihedral angle. The bigger towed model has a bent wing. They're trying for something that wants to fly straight and level.
There's much new interest in light aircraft today. The FAA has created a new category of "light sport planes", heavier than ultralights but lighter than general aviation aircraft, with less restrictive licensing. Take a look at this StingSport [aopa.org], which isn't much bigger than Moewe, even though it's a two-seater.
I expect the Open Sky crowd will build something that looks more or less like Moewe and flies reasonably well. And they'll do it long before Moller gets off the ground. [moller.com]
Re:The roll bar (Score:1, Funny)
That is why it is flown by a girl in the movie and graphic novel.
Re:The roll bar (Score:1)
KFG
Re:The roll bar (Score:2)
Re:The roll bar (Score:2)
The Fuel Inside You. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure you can keep it up for hours. See here [wikipedia.org] for a quick run down on human powered flight. Now consider the fact that a lawn mower, with it's tiny tank, provides ten to twenty times as much power as you can sustain and does it for hours on end. It's not far from there to the whole ultralight aircraft industry. [wikipedia.org]
Those things are too dangerous for me but are lots of fun for those who fly them. I like something with a little more power to get out of trouble. Ultralights get blown around and where the wind blows is not always good for you.
Re:Fuel (Score:5, Informative)
Kerosene (Diesel fuel): 11,000 watt-hours per liter, 13,000 watt-hours per kg
Typical ultralight engine: 30,000 watts
Assuming you are running at full throttle all the time (fairly unlikely):
a 10 liter tank will last you 3-odd hours and weigh right around 12 kg. Most ultralights have a fuel capacity between 8 and 35 liters.
Does the math work out better for you now?
Re:Fuel (Score:1, Informative)
This is proportionally much larger than what was depicted in the anime. [wikipedia.org]
If we lived in a fantasy world where the atmosphere was denser, then maybe everyone would be flying like this, but in reality things are a bit more difficult.
Re:Fuel (Score:1)
LA LA Land.
KFG
Re:Fuel (Score:2)
From TFA:
Re:Fuel (Score:1)
As others have addressed the longevity of flight issue perfectly adequately I will simply point out that I don't think the people involved in this project have ever intended it to be anything but.
Well, that and a real kick just to pull off.
KFG
Re:Fuel (Score:2)
That was one guy almost 20 years ago. If these professional aircraft designers cant get this thing to work, I bet Burt Rutan can.
Maybe Ducted Fan? (Score:2)
I am a friend of racing engine builder Gregg Hekimian at http://www.hekimianracing.com/ [hekimianracing.com] and he has built single cylinder lawnmower engines that can go over 50 Mph carrying a 300lb man running on 93 o
Re:Maybe Ducted Fan? (Score:2)
Re:tell me when they get Zefram Cochrane's ship ma (Score:1)
Re:tell me when they get Zefram Cochrane's ship ma (Score:2)
Kaneda's bike. [neo-fukuoka.com] Here too [theautochannel.com]