Jet-powered Nausicaa Glider Project

SuperElectric writes "As reported on slashdot.jp, Opensky is a project led by media artist Kazuhiko Hachiya to implement a working, jet-powered version of Moewe, the vehicle (pic) that the heroine rides on in "Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind". They've successfully test-flown (.mov, 8.6MB) a 1/2 scale model, and are moving into phase 2, which includes interviewing for test pilots (women only!). Can anybody knowledgeable in experimental aeronautics speculate on how doable this is? While it's not designed for general production (riders must be less than 50 kg/120 lbs), this would certainly beat Segway any day!"

It's a cartoon

And Nausicaa wears no underwear. Not that I was looking or anything...

Don't pay any attention to the stacks of Sailor Moon and tentacle porn DVDs under my bed!

Re:It's a cartoon

typical first-time nausicaa viewer.

she wears white pants. very similar to stretch pants. aerodynamics and all.

Re:It's a cartoon

*sigh*

Try the Nausicaa.net FAQ [nausicaa.net]:

Q: I heard that cuts were made in "Warriors of the Wind" to cover Nausicaa's bare bottom. Is it true?

A: That's a nasty rumor which just won't die. Even in a recent article by Reuters, she was called "a bare-bottomed heroine on a glider" @_@; Nausicaa *is* wearing pants. That's not a mini skirt she is wearing. It's her coat. Notice that the men in the valley are dressed as Nausicaa is. And they are not Scottish. ^_^

Jet-powered Nausicaa Glider Project

Cool when can I have one , and does it play mp3's ?

Re:Jet-powered Nausicaa Glider Project

The real question is could a beowulf cluster of them carry me?

Oh man...

You know these things [petworks.co.jp] look cool in cartoons, but you'll probably have bugs in yer eyes, wind noise in your ears, sore arms and it really won't really be any fun.

Well, off to join my buddy Wile E. Coyote, walking off cliffs and holding up little signs and waving bye-bye before I fall and that sort of thing.

You better have the reflexes of a barn swallow

It would be much worse than riding a fast motorcycle, because most'cycles (even fast ones) have enough stablility to be ridden hands-off.

That flying wing sure isn't going to. Just the pendulum instability from the offset between CG and CL (that's center of gravity and center of lift for you 'dotters who never study anything but web engines and FPS technique) is going to drive you bats, and each change in thrust or drag is going to result in pitch moments. If designed badly, these can be fatal; if you have any doubts about this, you should look into the history of "interesting" airplanes like the original Mignet HM-14 Flying Flea [valkyrie.net].

There is a very real possibility of any such craft having serious PIOs (pilot-induced oscillations). Have them in a situation where you have no time to recover, and you can lose the airframe along with the crew.

While I am a firm believer in the value of Darwin Awards, I thnk that such a machine should not be flown with a human aboard. No matter how utterly fucking kewl all those anime fans would think it was, their refusal to recognize the distinction between cartoon physics and reality is not worth someone else's life, or undamaged brain, or functional spinal cord. It's appropriate that such a machine fly with only a dummy aboard; if it cracks up, you've got a hilarious photo-op rather than a tragedy.

Re:You better have the reflexes of a barn swallow

> Just the pendulum instability from the offset between CG and CL ... is going to drive you bats, and each change in thrust or drag is going to result in pitch moments.

Flying wings, even well designed ones that don't have the problems you identified, have 3 instabilities that are more problematical than on conventionally tailed planes.

The first is a lack of pitch stability. To be stable they must have a reflex curve on the trailing edge (or similar) to give a downforce at that point so that as lift is lost approaching a stall the wing pitches down (no longer held up by the reflex). Without this they stall viciously.

Unfortunately the short lever given by the lack of length makes this reflex very sensitive to small changes and the wing 'nods'.

The 2nd problem is directional instability, even with wing tip fins the plane does not fly in the direction it is pointed.

The 3rd is more serious and is conic instability. When the wing banks and turns the outer wing is faster than wing on the inside of the turn. This gives more lift to the outside wing which then causes more banking. This can happen to tailed planes but with flying wings there is insufficient control leverage to avoid going pear shaped and winding up in an inverted spin.

Hang gliders cope with these because they have very large pendulum stability.

Re:Oh man...

Well, they had some pretty damn big bugs in Nausicaa, so that's a significant point of concern.

MOV

So Ya, Post a 8.6MB Movie file on the front page of /. and see what happens... GOOD JOB!!

Re:MOV

MIRROR!!
I'm crazy but what the heck:
Site: Site [fibersnet.net]
Movie: Movie [fibersnet.net]

Doesn't matter

Totoro died [nausicaa.net], I have no reason to live anymore.

Slashdot.jp??

WTF.. how long has this been around?

Re:Slashdot.jp??

Well, according to this [japan-guide.com], Japan (as a unified country) is about 1600 years old. Slashdot.org is roughly six years old. A weighted average of slashdot.jp -- 8 characters slashdot, 2 characters jp -- reveals that slashdot.jp is 325 years old. Aren't statistics grand?

Re:Slashdot.jp??

You forgot about the "." (as in ".jp"), which Sun used to claim to have ("we're the dot in..."). Maybe they still do; I don't kept up with who runs the root DNS servers.

If we figure them in, they've been around for about 22 years. So we have (8*6+2*1600+1*22)/13=251 years old. Quite a bit younger than your proposition.

Re:Slashdot.jp??

slashdot.jp is great.

to wit: This sight (Slashdot Japan), use was started on 2001 May 28th as the Japanese edition of Slashdot which is the popularity sight of US.

Slashdot is news for the high-tech mania which is started in 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda and Jeff "Hemos" Bates and the sight for chatting. It is the mammoth sight which starts hitting 3000 ten thousand page views in month, but to tell the truth most is supported by many volunteers and enthusiastic ???? and the user which repeats comment.

It has such enlightening articles that you just can't get in the states. Like:

The mouse which designates "the swallow" as motif

Amendment plan such as virus compilation crime and the criminal law Code of Criminal Procedure which includes mail log 90 day retention

Comet probe Rosetta it launches, or the distance where is long to the comet

I love the fish. [altavista.com]

Re:Slashdot.jp??

You haven't lived till you've clicked a Goatse link from Slashdot.jp

Re:Get a 5 digit user id!

I am now Richard Stallman on slashdot.jp. Lord help me use this to troll wisely.

I think the Segway would win

Why? Those people who can use this gilder are either: naturally small and/or fairly in shape. The Segway, however, has no such restrictions, and allows anyone to go fast without effort.
In shorter: wider (figuratively) audience == good.

Crazy anime fans

This is taking "cosplay" to a whole new level. Now with real working props!

Cool...

Yes, but now to the real question: can they make the Batplane?

Women only?

which includes interviewing for test pilots (women only!)

Actually, I remember the FAQ saying that women are preferable, weight and all :) Though I'm not that proficient in Japanese, and babelfish spits out mostly nonsense, so might have missed something. Don't forget, Nausicaa wasn't the only one able to fly such a glider well...

P.S. Please stop with those underwear jokes! See the movie(and watch what people are wearing), RTFF at nausicaa.net and keep in mind the messed up colours, too.(OT: read the manga too :)

It will fly

The simple fact that they've flown a 1/2 scale model indicates they have the aerodynamic controlls down well enough to get it into the air. From just looking at the model, it seems like it would be inherently unstable and require some respectably fast computer mediation of the controls.

Would _I_ fly it? (assuming I was the size of an "Anime babe") I would have to say "Maybe." If it had a recovery chute, it would probably be safe enough - and a real hoot to fly.

Though laying on TOP of a running jet engine doesn't seem like fun. Worse than piloting an old style racing sidehack...

doable

They've successfully test-flown a 1/2 scale model, and are moving into phase 2, which includes interviewing for test pilots (women only!). Can anybody speculate on how doable this is?

Well, all they really need to do now is find a midget to fly the thing and its done!

Wait, Nausicaa?

We're stabbing Picard in the heart, again?

Not for the american market :)

(riders must be less than 50 kg/120 lbs) Sooo, this excludes like 95% of all americans.....

Landing?

I'm curious about the degree of comfort when landing this thing. The undercarriage looks awfully small and your feet would most probably hit the ground before you go down to a decent speed. I'd hate to have to jump off in mid-air and perform a bad-ass roll everytime I have to go somewhere! (While also destroying my mean of transportation in a spectacular crash.) (These people might have played BF1942 before and realized that's how everyone land in that game, so it must be the best way to do it...)

Next Step...

This just in:
Scientists at an unknown and undisclosed location are researching into how to create giant bugs that clean up pollution. Plans have been made for a test run of these bugs in New Jersey. Details at 10!

Extraordinarily dangerous...

Anime is one thing, but bringing this idea to life as a jet powered aircraft which could potentially take the life of the person piloting it in some, not too pleasant ways is yet another.

GJC

Re:Extraordinarily dangerous...

You just don't get it, do you?

We've got to start training twelve-year-old schoolgirls to pilot advanced military weaponry at some point. Otherwise, who's going to defend us against giant killer robots?!

Oh, Yoshimi, they don't believe me. But you won't let those robots eat me.

Speculation

Can anybody knowledgeable in experimental aeronautics speculate on how doable this is?

IANAAE (I am not an aeronautical engineer), but I am willing to speculate that it is not doable with legos. Not even with Mindstorms.

Noise?

Last time I checked, at the best of times, jet engines ain't quite.

...erm?!.

Watching the video, I was about to comment that shouldn't they consider including a dummy pilot in their half-sized flight model?

Then I saw the end of the film.

THAT THING'S FREAKING HUGE!

Seriously, there *is* a dummy pilot on their test model, but she's about the size of a 12-inch Star Wars doll. What's that going to put the full-sized mehve at, like a thirty-foot wingspan?!

It's waycool work and all, I don't deny that, but Nausicaa's mehve was a personal aircraft she could drag about tossed over her shoulder, and it was mostly steered by shifting her body weight, non unlike a hangglider. The big difference was that its jet propulsion gave it enough speed that it didn't need to be so large as a hangglider in order to generate sufficient lift.

That's what made it so amazing, and that's what made too fantastic to replicate in real life. These designers' trick? Make the thing so UNGODLY HUGE that the pilot has a minimal impact upon its aerodynamics and center of gravity.

So, waycool that they built it and all, but not nearly as cool as the tiny personal aircraft in the original manga.

My worry

I hope the guy who invented this glider doesn't use performance-enhancers, go insane, and start blowing up New York while wearing a Green Goblin costume.

It was cool

I had a go of the first prototype, but it made me nauseous

score: -1 pun

Aerial seppuku?

I didn't know suicide was still a popular thing to do in Japan. The aircraft in the photo looks spectacularly unstable.

Feasibility

"Can anybody knowledgeable in experimental aeronautics speculate on how doable this is?"

IANAAE (I-am-not-an-aeronatical-engineer, yes folks, a new acronym is born) but I think this thing is pretty dang doable.

Which illustrates the point...why would you consult slashdot for aeronautical advice?

Re:Feasibility

Which illustrates the point...why would you consult slashdot for aeronautical advice?

Where is Grokflight, when we need it?

Inherently unstable

I flew hang gliders for years. This thing looks like a death trap. The center of mass is on top of the wing. It should be hanging underneath like a hang glider. Just look at bag fags (I mean parapente pilots) to see the extreme case of a wing stabilized by the mass hanging underneath. So to turn it, you oooch over a little bit to lean it, oooch too far and over she goes. Front, back left or right, it doesn't matter. Maybe it flies well upside down though. Guess they'll find out. Hope they have enough altitude when they do though. How do you land it? You can't flare it like a hang glider.

Sheesh.

It's called a "Mehve" = "Mowe,"

From the German for "Seagull".

The opening sequence in Nasuicaa where she glides over the desert is really fantastic if you're into flying although you know in the back of your mind something like this would never be stable.

IAAAE (I am an aeronautical engineer)

There is nothing that says that this thing cannot fly ever. Sure, there are many calculations to perform, but the design isn't inherently unusable.

First of all, the main thing to notice is the lack of a tail. The main difficulty with the lack of a tail is that you need to balance both Cm (moment coefficient) and AOA (angle of attack) with the trailing edge of the same airfoil, namely the wings. While possible, it's not an easy thing to do. Essentially, for the vehicle to be stable, it needs to have a positive pitching moment at zero AOA (Cmo) and a negative derivative of the pitching moment with respect to AOA (Cmalpha). With a flying wing, the positive Cmo is not difficult to achieve, it's the negative Cmalpha that's difficult. Think of it this way, if the plane is disturbed such that the nose goes up (ie: updraft), the plane needs to have the nose tend down. Tails are really good for this, but without a tail, it's pretty difficult.

The simplest solution is to push back the aerodynamic center (AC) of the wing. Since most wing profiles have an AC at about 1/4 chord (25% from leading edge) for subsonic applications, a profile not used commonly must be used. Once again, this can be done... it's just not very common.

The winglets are a nice touch... helps decrease downwash and therefore overall lift. That, and I think winglets are sexy.

Yes, I'm an aeronautical geek. Deal.

Is it statically stable?

They're clearly trying for static stability. Look at all that dihedral [petworks.co.jp] and the big winglets. But big dihedral angles tend to induce Dutch roll. With no tail, that's going to be a problem. They're doing well with the model, but if you watch the videos, there's a 1Hz or so roll oscillation. That's a half-sized model, of course. The full sized one should oscillate at a lower rate.

It's possible to build very stable aircraft, but they have high drag, because the stabilizing aerodynamic forces are fighting each other. Engine power can overcome this, which is what they're doing. This isn't a glider.

If this thing is ever flown successfully by a human, it's going to be an experienced test pilot who flies the thing. Someone who's flown very unstable aircraft. It's not going to be steered by leaning; it will need a full set of control surfaces. And they'll have to figure out some way to attach the pilot to the craft.

My Zagi is just a smaller version of this...

color me unimpressed...

i've been flying Zagi flying wings [zagi.com] for about 2 years now..

bfd.

this thing doesn't even look as big or as fast as the new dual engine Zagi XT [zagi.com], which basically is just a $250 70 mph crash just waiting to happen. :-)

holy shit - those videos are crazy.. you have better be someplace where augering in at 90 mph is not a big deal... and you better have reaction times like a rattlesnake on a triple espresso.

Geez what a bunch of girls /. has become.

Someone build a fun new plane they have succesfully tested. Not some toy model but fully functional jet plane that can take of and land and is easily controlled by remote.

And what is the reaction? Oh it will never fly, it did fly. It is to unstable to control, they did control it and without a crash. Now most /. stories have a lot of uninformed opinions but usually there are at least a couple of people who happen to know what they are talking about. Where are the pilots today?

The thing does fly, wether it is safe with a human on top remains to be seen. But the aircraft without the pilot is not that different from a simple flying wing design. Flying wings are hardly new.

What is different is the placement of the payload. In the movie she lies down flat on top of it and stands on it. Most flying wing designs put the payload inside the wing.

First of laying on top of it. While this would be the most logical thing to do (look at a commercial airliner and replace the tube of the fuselage with a human body same idea) and not disrupt the aircrafts stability you would be just a passenger since there are no traditional controls (some way to move the ailerons) and you would be unable to affect the aircraft much with a shifting in weight (yes hanggliders can but the pilot is farther away from the wing making a small movement have a bigger effect). Depending on the size of the final aircraft you would also have to be carfull not to let the feet dangle in front of the exhaust. A running jet engine is not something you want to be close too. (carrier crew member around?).

Standing on top of it would create a huge amount of drag but would be doable. It is hardly a new stunt to stand on the wings of an aircraft. Don't forget that even the scale model is hardly small. The final aircraft would be pretty normal in wingspan to existing single seaters. As for controlling the aircraft in this way. Unless the aircraft is naturally very close to stable but not to stable I think it would be hard. Airliners are designed to be stable and the aircraft needs constant pressure to change its flightpath from straight and level. An F16 is extremely unstable and can only be flown by a computer. The pilot only telling the computer what the desired attitude is.

Both are not exactly designs you would want to control by shifting weights around. All but hanggliders control flight by altering the shape of the wing (correct me if I am wrong). This might be the hardest thing to do. BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. If the aircraft can be made stable enough of its own then a mere shifting of weight should affects its flightpath. Only direct control you can't do without is a throttle.

Moving between lying down and standing up would also significantly alter the profile of the aircraft. Unless the final aircraft is so big that the change in drag is meaningless.

I am not a flight engineer but I do have an avid intrest in flight and am the kinda idiot that devours books and docu's on flight pioneers. I think the makers of this plane know a lot more about flight then me and the people that have reacted so far.

Cool stuff.