Hover Technology

[xenologer]

this is all about imagination of course, but even so I like to think of imaginary technology of being consistent or having sense to it, so I can come up with good backstory and roles for my mocs

I was just thinking about hover vehicles

Theres the question of, what makes them different from spaceships and aircraft

also, what sorts of method they use for propulsion

and how to make sense of it

I'm thinking that functionally, the main difference between a hovership and other flying craft is that hoverships are limited to being a short distance above the ground.

This introduces problems logically though, depending on what propulsion method you're using....

Also consider the modern equivalent to a hovership, the helicoptor, both are generally used in the same role, but heli's aren't limited to staying only a few feet above the ground.

Starwars hovercars ?ep3? were also clearly flying regardless of the ground distance....

and does anyone remember the flying taxi in 5th Element?

some general themes I see for propulsion:

air jets

'repulsors'

gravity cancelling

other eletromag based propulsion?

The problem with those propulsion explanations I see... is that aside from the strange 'repulsor'(how would this work???) they theoretically have no reason to limit the flying height. Harrier jump jets use air jets and they have no height limit, gravity or eletromag methods, shoudlnt either, as long as you keep accelerating why should it stop?

So I'm looking for your inputs:

Can you come up with a good defenition of a hovership and it's flight abilities?

And a good way to explain their technology, that doesn't introduce inconsistencies?

At the moment, the only story I'm really happy with is: superscience technology that allows potential energy storage, so that the craft is weightless only for a height limited by it's engine power, kinda like how fish have a special organ that lets them change their density to go up or down

[SuvieD]

Look at google for what a real hovercraft does and how it works. It is basically air pressure in a mostly confined area that keep it only slightly above the ground. A large gap in the height will release the pressure to quickly thus causing the craft to no longer hover.

What you are talking about are scifi technologies. There are no limits in terms of height for those. Thus the flying cars. So make up what you want as it is all fictitious anyway.

[xenologer]

Yes I know how the real stuff works.

I don't have a problem with making up technology, what bother's me is that most of the common imaginary technologies are not internally consistent. It's ok to make up rules, as long as they don't break themselves.

For example:

Lets invent a magic anti gravity device that makes the hovership weight nothing.

Why is the hovership limited to 50ft off the ground? if it weighs nothing, can't it just fly off into space if it wanted?

Of all the hovership imaginary technology I've seen, they're always full of holes like that.

I'd like to have one theme that at least makes some sense, so I'm wondering if any of you have had good ideas.

To be more specific (since the world of MOCS is a bit large I guess), has anyone looked at the ExoForce theme long enough to know what they're explanation is? You've got HoverHawk, which seems to be a hovercar style, and Stealth Wasp, which would seem to be a helicopter gunship type hovership, and there's that scavenger drone combo model thing, that seems to just float...

[snefroe]

i agree with Suvie. look for sources on spacecraft, a book on physics would be nice as well, mostly chapters on magnetism, gravity, energy, nuclear reaction, then create some sort of a plausible theory on how your ship would work by identifying and creating the different components needed to pull it off.

in any case, the credibilty of the theory depends far more on the backstory (stories about every component, the creation of serial numbers for the components, test results, stuff like that,... ) than on the actual theory... also do what story writers of sw and star trek do: add a few difficult terms to the story, make it sound like you know what you're talking about...

[snefroe]

For example:

Lets invent a magic anti gravity device that makes the hovership weight nothing.

Why is the hovership limited to 50ft off the ground? if it weighs nothing, can't it just fly off into space if it wanted?

Of all the hovership imaginary technology I've seen, they're always full of holes like that.

I'd like to have one theme that at least makes some sense, so I'm wondering if any of you have had good ideas.

1) a hovertank doesn't fly. it doesn't use the principles of flight. it doesn't provide lift. so it can't fly away into space.

2) the behaviour of gasses on earth are not the same as on other planets,... i don't see where you're going with this. if i were to build a spacecraft, i'd use an energy source that's always at my disposal: solar energy.

3) second a hovertank, to my knoledge has two propulsion systems: one system to get it off the ground, another system, often a classic rotor, to push it forward... for that, it needs an atmosphere or a liquid, like a rotor of a sub

[xenologer]

Thats part of my problem actually,

I've studied a little too much physics as well as airplane/helicopter physics, and simple rocketry, that I'm not seeing anything that really works consistently.

Basically anything that is strong enough to get the craft more than a few feet off the ground, generally I don't see a good reason why they shouldn't go any higher, but this goes against the concept of hovership.

Real hovercraft are limited to the ground by the air pressure bubble they create beneath them, if you're already say 15 feet up though, and don't have a rubber skirt, 'common sense' would seem to say that you probably aren't relying on any ground effects at that point.

Which means you're going on pure thrust force (air jets, rockets, or magic esoterice forces) to cancel your weight. This puts our net acceleration as Positive, and as long as its pointed up, we should be able to keep accelerating up into the sky.

So really, by my own explanation hoverships can fly just as well as any other aircraft, the limit being only fuel capacity, or possibly air density at higher altitudes. In which case the term hovership doesn't really work, since theres no technological niche for them below other aerospace fliers.

This is why I'm asking Other people's opinions, can anyone convince me that there should be a difference between hoverships and any other flier?

*shrug* try not to take me too seriously, I guess for my own MOCs and storylines hoverships don't really exist separatly from any other flying vehicle.

So I only ask for how your own ideas work out of curiousity, lets not argue over it.

On a fun note: check this out, closest thing to the real thing

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/LLRV/Small/index.html

EDIT:

snefroe1 replied while I was still typing the above up....

You bring up a good point though, perhaps we need to be more specific

I think there are several different vehicles mixed up in this discussion that are actually pretty different:

hovercraft -modern, Real

hovertank/hovercars -same function as hovercraft, but advanced tech used

hovership -acts like a helicoptor, flies near ground, by may or may not have upper limits

[SuvieD]

I think you should work within the confines of the environment. Thus you can't have hovercars or make something up to limit a specific ability.

For example lets stick with the anti gravity source. Using a very sophisticated and breakthrough technology scientists have discovered a way to temporarily reverse the pull of gravity on Earth. Using a complex anti gravity engine people are cabable of maintaining a "hovering" position a small space above the ground. The engine runs in cycles. So that when you start it it takes a vertical thrust of some kind to get the initial lift and then the anti gravity engine begins to negate the effects of gravity and inertia allows the vehicle to remain in a constant forward motion with a little help from a low energy propulsion system. The cycles are set at 0.001 seconds apart so that the craft is actually "falling" during each off cycle when gravity is effecting the vehicle. It is only apparent that the vehicle is losing altitude after several hundred miles. This way you could hover at any height but it would take far too much time to do any decent vertical movement thus removing the "flying" concept as you have no lift.

By limiting the technology you can limit it's effect. Obviously, 50 years from this date a non-cycled engine will be in military use and 50 years from that point everyone will be using it in there Pinto X2X's. Eventually someone would make a reverse gravity capability and we could use it in commercial jets for cheap and efficient world travel.

As all technology comes in steps you could limit any technology in this fashion.

Magnetism could work the same way but this technology is very limited in a way that anti grav is not.

[xenologer]

the craft is actually "falling" during each off cycle when gravity is effecting the vehicle. It is only apparent that the vehicle is losing altitude after several hundred miles. This way you could hover at any height but it would take far too much time to do any decent vertical movement thus removing the "flying" concept as you have no lift.

I'm thinking that a joker in the passenger seat might pull out a fire extinguisher, point it at the ground out the window, and launch us straight up. Should work, since the engine lets it stay hovering at any height and the ship is more or less weightless.

Yeah, my friends like to mess around like that....

:)

[snefroe]

if you're asking me, the hover tech is simply not good enough for spaceships or even for general craft., i think it doesn't go very fast, it's not very manoevarable, you're vulnerable because you can't get very high, and i think you're stuck to a limited weight. so i don't think you can do much with it...

the thing is, there is technology that's far easier: solar energy for instance. a ship like that can do whatever a hover craft can

a normal tank won't have any stability problem compared to hover tanks...

[SuvieD]

I think the real benefits to hover technologies would by that terrain is no longer an issue and that it is much cheaper than many other fuels sources (not solar obviously).

With all military vehicles there are drawbacks. A multi million dollar helicopter with a full payload of hellfires and rockets could be taken down by one man with a second rate rocket launcher and only one shot. That same man and several hundred more like him could be destroyed by one jeep full of better train and equipped soldiers. Every advancement or technology with have it's limitations.

I like hover technology for things like cars or freight but not tanks. Simply unusable due to the nature of tank armaments. Now even with laser weapons or more advanced balistics aiming with a hover tank will not be as stable as a ground based tank. I think you would need antigravity tanks with complete movement control to achieve the same advantage over terrain and not lose out on attack accuracy.

It's all fake of course but still fun to imagine.

[snefroe]

I think the real benefits to hover technologies would by that terrain is no longer an issue

i think it is... how would you cross the Alpes with a hover craft?

[Cutty]

I think the real benefits to hover technologies would by that terrain is no longer an issue

i think it is... how would you cross the Alpes with a hover craft?

Well by that rational any form of hovering device would be relative to "ground zero level" in concerns of height. But I'd say as the terrain raises the max. height a hover device could render increases with the underlying terrain. Whether any form of terrain (forests, water, snow...) is equally suitable to hover upon is another question (imagine a hover craft trying to cross the Mariana Trench and then tumbling 10,911 m into the depth *wacko* ).

Whatever any consistent theory on hover propulsion would have to work out whether its technology is based on forces either pushing (as in the "Matrix" movies) or pulling or simply defying gravity (think UFO)...

So all in all, I think you'd have no problem crossing the Alpes with a hovercraft unless you suck hard at manouvering ^^

my 2

[snefroe]

I think the real benefits to hover technologies would by that terrain is no longer an issue

i think it is... how would you cross the Alpes with a hover craft?

Well by that rational any form of hovering device would be relative to "ground zero level" in concerns of height. But I'd say as the terrain raises the max. height a hover device could render increases with the underlying terrain. Whether any form of terrain (forests, water, snow...) is equally suitable to hover upon is another question (imagine a hover craft trying to cross the Mariana Trench and then tumbling 10,911 m into the depth *wacko* ).

Whatever any consistent theory on hover propulsion would have to work out whether its technology is based on forces either pushing (as in the "Matrix" movies) or pulling or simply defying gravity (think UFO)...

So all in all, I think you'd have no problem crossing the Alpes with a hovercraft unless you suck hard at manouvering ^^

my 2

[SuvieD]

Futurisic. Not yet reality or never will be reality. This whole topic is on the future of feasible hover technology and whether you could even call it "hover".

Also as technology improves and innovation rises you will see more and more hover technology being used. Currently it is making big impacts in the recreational area. New Hovercraft a not as noisy, are many times more efficient in terms of fuel usage and are looking to replace boats. The advantages are huge in terms of cost savings and enen simple things like landing (which requires no dock or boat launch).

In the future who knows what will be used by the military. I doubt we will use hover tanks or tanks period. New weapons and advances will make modern day vehicles seem archaic. Consider the new torpedoes Russia and Germany have, the breakthroughs in micro technology in use with animals or even the prototype jets being designed. Way beyond what was available 30 years ago and 30 years from now they will seem obsolete.

Why would you want to cross over the Alps anyway? The foot hills are much nicer to look at. :biggrin: