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from the blinky-blinky-whirrr-whirrr-whirrr dept.
If you ask those of us who grew up somewhere in the 1950s to 1970s what our car would be like in the year 2020, we might have described an Avrocar. This top secret vehicle from Canadian Avro was part hovercraft and part jet-powered vertical takeoff vehicle. There were two prototypes actually made and [Real Engineering] has a short video[*] on how the prototypes worked, how the real design might have worked, and even has a lot of footage of the actual devices.
The designer, [Jack Frost], experimented with ground effect and the Coanda effect. The Canadian branch of Avro, a British company, worked with the U.S. military
[...] The ground effect is well understood by anyone who has seen a hovercraft working. The Conada effect is a little more obscure. This is the effect where a fluid — and for this purpose, air is a fluid — will hug a convex shape. According to the video, the Conada effect inspired the shape, but might not have been very significant for the actual operation.
[Frost’s] saucer was airflow neutral, but with some carefully-placed jet engines, the craft could create a virtual airfoil. In theory, the craft could take off and land vertically, but also be made to perform well at both subsonic and supersonic speeds.
Of course, a theory is one thing and practice often another. The aerodynamic center of pressure was too far away from the center of gravity. The craft was unstable and the mechanical systems of the day couldn’t tame it.
[*] Video is available on YouTube.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 06 2020, @05:27AM
how about another joke.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday February 06 2020, @08:14AM (3 children)
Never try to transfer Coanda effect from aerodynamic domain to electromagnetic domain.
Not even theoretically.
That was forbidden by Powers that Be for a purpose.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 06 2020, @01:23PM (1 child)
yeah, this. also never combine gravity and electromagnetism. dah satellit in orbit with jamming rays will totally feed the mogwai after midnight...
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday February 06 2020, @01:28PM
I didn't mentioned gravity. I thought you already fixed that issue with dark matter patchwork.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 06 2020, @02:49PM
I'm going to need a little bit more information to figure out what crackpot theory you're espousing. Who is keeping this one down, Big Electricity? Big . . . hmmm. The anti-Coanda lobby? Who are anti-Coandaists anyway? Who did Coanda piss off?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 06 2020, @09:27AM
the video blend in an (sf audiobook) ad at the end...
CYA
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday February 06 2020, @12:43PM (5 children)
Sounds like exactly the kind of thing a modern computer could handle quite easily. Time to try again?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 06 2020, @02:46PM (1 child)
You're right, I think now is the time. They can even work in some software to watch out in case the nose points up and it can automatically point the nose down.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday February 07 2020, @04:30AM
Not at all a problem, provided you tell whoever's driving all about how it works.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday February 06 2020, @06:31PM (1 child)
Both the F-117 and the B-2 of the U.S. Air Force have unstable flight characteristics, if not for the flight computers making thousands of adjustments to the flight surfaces per second the plans would never get off the ground, This is particularly true of the F-117 which was described as having an "impossible diamond" air frame design.
Someone should definitly take another look at the Avro design and see what a modern flight control system could do with the air frame.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 06 2020, @10:20PM
Forget the Avrocar, let's have a modern take on this [laesieworks.com]Avro beastie..
The rest of the site is worth a visit, if you're bored and into this sort of thing..
http://www.laesieworks.com/ifo/ [laesieworks.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 12 2020, @07:12AM
That was exactly my theory.
Actually my theory is the US Government already did it 40-50 years ago and that is where all the UFO sightings come from.
Just because something was made to be a 'public flop' doesn't mean it actually was one.