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Project OpenSky Takes Off

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:42 PM
from the hard-to-believe-these-spores-could-kill-me dept.
Anime Science
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."
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[+] Jet-powered Nausicaa Glider Project 346 comments
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!"
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  • Hm... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zptao (979069)
    Isn't this sort of thing illegal here in the states?
    • You would have to get FAA clearance to fly it if it does not fall under the classification of an ultralight aircraft [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:Hm... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by megaditto (982598)
      No, not really, all is legal. It just has to be slow (100 mph I believe) and weigh less than 200 lb (100 kg).

      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)

        by kfg (145172) *
        It just has to be slow (100 mph I believe). . .

        That would kilometers/hour. 55 knots. 63 mph.

        . . .and weigh less than 200 lb (100 kg).

        155 lbs. for unpowered craft; 255 lbs. empty (maximum fuel load of 5 gal.) for powered craft.

        KFG
    • Isn't this sort of thing illegal here in the states?
      U.S. jurisdiction does not (yet) spill over into Japan, so this is sort of irrelevant.
      • U.S. jurisdiction does not (yet) spill over into Japan, so this is sort of irrelevant.
        Give them a chance! The current administation only just got started on Sweden.
    • In the States everything is illegal. Excepting that which is compulsory of course
    • Actually US restrictions on Homebuilt/Experimental aircraft are about the most liberal in the world. The odds are it is more likely to be legal in the US than most other countries. Check out EAA.org for more information.
      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)

    by DoctorMabuse (456736) on Friday June 16 2006, @11:50PM (#15553606) Homepage
    Is anime heroin better than black tar heroin or china white heroin? I'm going to have to go to Tokyo and ask a heroine.

  • usage -10 (Score:4, Informative)

    by leed_25 (156309) on Friday June 16 2006, @11:51PM (#15553611) Homepage
    In think that you may have meant 'heroine' instead of 'heroin'.

  • Call me.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Visceral Monkey (583103) on Friday June 16 2006, @11:53PM (#15553621)
    when they get the purple tentacles down so I can start my pr0n career.

  • I'd prefer if they created an Ohmu :-) (Score:3, Informative)

    by joneshenry (9497) on Friday June 16 2006, @11:55PM (#15553633)
    But would Ohmu's be forced to register with the government ...

  • Mehve? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mish (50810) on Friday June 16 2006, @11:58PM (#15553639)
    ...have taken upon themselves to build a real-size, fully functional Mehve (japanese website)
    Did anyone else read this and find their brain filing "Mehve" away as the Japanese word for "website"? For a minute I found myself wondering what was so special about putting together a Japanese website.

  • Every kid's dream machine (Score:5, Informative)

    by ashitaka (27544) on Saturday June 17 2006, @12:09AM (#15553675) Homepage
    Anyone who's seen the opening sequence from "Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa [nausicaa.net]" (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind ) can understand the type of flight experience they are trying to produce here.

    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)

      by joneshenry (9497) on Saturday June 17 2006, @12:52AM (#15553785)
      My dream machine (although it turned out to not be a machine) as a kid would have been an EVA from Neon Genesis Evangelion. I would not have had a qualm about even killing another kid if given an order to do so if obeying such orders was the price of being an EVA pilot. The power to level cities, and if in EVA Unit 01, power without limit, would be in my opinion the most common modern dream in the post video game younger generation, not peacefully flying on a jet-powered glider.

      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.

  • Nobody knows the trouble I see, nobody knows the sorrow.

    Disruptive technology is a tree watered by the blood of the brave. Otto Lelienthal is somewhere watching this.
  • heroinEEEEEEEE!!!!!! there's an E!!.

    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.

  • Impressive work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thagg (9904) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Saturday June 17 2006, @12:55AM (#15553794) Journal
    I had seen their previous RC models -- which really didn't look too much like the glider from the movie -- and thought "OK, that's pretty cool".

    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
    • With a fast enough onboard computer, robust software and suitable servos, one could have an aircraft that constantly monitors and corrects for the instabilities inherent in such an aircraft.

      As is the case with the F-117 "Stealth" aircraft.
    • You seem knowledgable on aerodynamics, so maybe you can answer this. Would it help if the center part of the wing (where the pilot is located) was lowered? You would also have to lower that duct thing on the front, but that seems like it would lower the center of gravity. That may also screw up the whole likeness to the anime though.
      • Increased dihedral [wikipedia.org] really doesn't affect pitch stability, only roll stability. Dangling the weight like a pendulum below the aircraft isn't very effective either, you'd end up fighting phugoid [wikipedia.org] oscillations. Normally, the key for pitch stability is to have your center of gravity in front of your center of (wing lift) pressure. Such a configuration would cause the plane to nose dive like a lawn dart if it had no tail or canard. An unswept flying wing avoids this, essentially, by building the tail into the bac
    • Surely the obvious answer is to build in a real jet? The extra mass of metal from the turbine etc would drag the CG down again.

  • As a model-aircraft designer... (Score:3, Informative)

    by inflex (123318) on Saturday June 17 2006, @01:31AM (#15553862)
    I give these people full credit for persuing their idea this far. However they're going to have a very difficult time with a design like this as it is inherently unstable. While it may fly fine when straight and level, perhaps doing gentle moves, it'll be very happy to snap back with some very ugly characteristics when pushed outside of its stability envelope.

    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 :D

    Looking forward to seeing what they end up with... especially for the turbine motor.
  • I used to fly paragliders pretty seriously, and there is NO WAY on this planet you would get me up on one of those things until a few people have died flying them.

    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

  • Build a fully functional EVA! YAY!!! (Yes I'm in love with Rei Ayanami, so what? You know you are, too) :D

  • Very cute, but wing area a problem (Score:3, Informative)

    by Animats (122034) on Saturday June 17 2006, @01:47PM (#15555544) Homepage

    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]

    • The Fuel Inside You. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by twitter (104583) on Saturday June 17 2006, @12:25AM (#15553721) Homepage Journal

      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)

      by Baddas (243852) on Saturday June 17 2006, @12:38AM (#15553751) Homepage
      Fuel density:

      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?
    • Well, there's this guy [gizmag.com]. Granted it was a flying start, but four minutes at about 50 feet off the ground doing 115 mph is pretty impressive for some fold-up fairy wings and a couple of model airplane engines.

      From TFA:

      At 7:30pm on June 24, 2004 Rossy dropped from 4000m over the Yverdon airfield. After opening the wings, he glided to 2500m, ignited the engines and waited 30 seconds for them to be able to stabilize and begins to open the throttle. At 16m, he achieved horizontal flight for more than 4 minute

    • The smallest biplane ever flown is the Bumble Bee II, designed and built by Robert H Starr of Tempe, Arizona, USA. The plane was 2.69-m (8-ft 10-in) long, with a wingspan of 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in). On May 8, 1988 after flying to a height of 120 m (400 ft) the Bumble Bee II crashed and was totally destroyed. The pilot suffered serious injuries, but went on to make a full recovery.

      That was one guy almost 20 years ago. If these professional aircraft designers cant get this thing to work, I bet Burt Rutan can.

    • There are lots of glider pilots who use small compressed air or gasoline engines to take off and then switch to glide mode once airborne.
    • there is no contradiction there, if that's what you are implying.

      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.

      • Strangely, regulation of homebuilt aircraft is less stringent than you might assume. The result is that homebuilt aircraft are more likely to have safety features (e.g. modern auto engines, ballistic parachute systems) than commercially built aircraft, because the commercial aircraft would have to undergo extensive safety testing to have these systems fitted. The result is that homebuilt aircraft have as good a safety record as commercially built designs.

        Uh... neither the FAA nor EAA nor Kitplanes magazi

      • Re:small jet-powered glider? (Score:5, Informative)

        by rossifer (581396) on Saturday June 17 2006, @02:27AM (#15553980) Journal
        The result is that homebuilt aircraft are more likely to have safety features (e.g. modern auto engines,

        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:Glider? (Score:3, Informative)

      by bombman (87339)
      Well - sort of - in the animated movie, the jet is used only occationally (liftoff etc)
      and the wing is often used as a glider.

    • to be needlessly pedantic, if it's going to be jet powered, won't it cease being a glider?
      The space shuttle is a rocket powered glider - it doesn't descend under power.

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