An anonymous reader writes to tell us that some crazy California enthusiasts have built a 21-foot long model of an X-Wing. While this might be impressive in its own right, this model actually flies. Powered by four solid-fuel rocket engines the group has high hopes for their launch next week. Let's hope the built-in R2 unit makes it out ok.
This is what happens when people with too much money and creativity decide to do something completely useless. How about they strip off the rockets and find a way to make a house for homeless people?
So why are you anonymously trolling on Slashdot instead of out there feeding the poor, curing cancer, or rescuing lost puppies?
We are called to serve with humility, not arrogance. By coming on a public board and making a rant about not helping the homeless, you only hurt yourself. Be humble, and serve those that need your service. It isn't your position to attack others for not being as much of a humanitarian as you. If you brag about your own works they will burn as straw, but if you humbly serve wanting nothing in return they will be eternal.
How about the homeless build their own damn house? Why do people with jobs, and houses, have to support every one that does not.
Because a society without such safety nets will accumulate large amounts of disenfranchised people who have nothing to lose but their chains, and the choices at that point are brutal oppression to keep them down or a bloody revolution. And once the homeless are under the iron heel, what's stopping those higher up in the social ladder than yourself from putting you under it too ?
I, for one, prefer to live in a relatively peaceful and free society. And the only way to achieve those qualities simultaneously is to have social justice, at least enough that people have more to lose than gain by making trouble. Humans are predators, and a hungry predator is a dangerous predator, especially if it also hates your guts for the perceived injustice of being hungry and homeless while you have a job and house and refuse to share any of your resources.
"Every man for himself" might seem good on paper, but it's good to remember that when Social Darwinism rules, "cutthroat competition" stops being a metaphor.
You'd probably wind up embedded halfway up a cliff in Arizona after you miss a turn. Do you have a bumper sticker saying "How's my driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT"?
I keep seeing this story in various places. They all say "this model actually flies." The thing is, afaict, it's only ever "flown" in simulation. I don't mean to be mean, but you can't really say an aircraft flies until it actually gets up off the ground.
I used to hang out with model airplane enthusiasts and after watching flying snoopy doghouses, flying witches on brooms, flying lawn mowers, flying pizza pans, carpets, flags, picnic baskets, etc, people would just say, "You can make a brick fly if you put a big enough engine on it".
The builders of this have not called it an "aircraft". It is a rocket. I see little reason to doubt that it will get off the ground in some fashion, as building it obviously required quite a bit more technical sophistication than the simple thrust to weight comparison need to ensure liftoff. One of the builders quite straightforwardly rates structural failure during flight "likely". Don't worry about being mean by suggesting that this is some overly geeky guys presenting their geeky thing as more than it i
Even with the aluminum rods, however, there's the possibility of structural damage. We asked Andy about how he expected the flight to go: "it's likely we will have a structural failure in the wings, but we are hoping it will hold."
"R2, that stabilizer has broken free again... see if you can't lock it down...
While I applaud the effort, I have a bad feeling about this. If one of the four solid rocket motors fails to ignite or ignites early/late, you're going to have a 22 foot (or more) long pile of scrap wood and aluminum.
I wonder if they will try to "rail" launch it? The rails will guide if for the first 10 ft or so, giving all engines time to kick in. One would presume with a project this size, there is a bunch of amateur rocketeers in the mix to pick apart the launch. Either it flies which would be pretty cool, or it blows up, or crashes into the ground. Either way a pretty cool You-Tube video (I'm hoping for the fire ball, more entertaining:)
All we need is for the empire to think there is a rebel base here, and they will send the death star to blow up Earth. In which case that thing better fly and it better have one hell of a pilot.
"We are greatly saddened today when we learned that while testing the rocket powered X-Wing fighter, a rocket powered bionic arm developed by the US military came out of nowhere and punched a hole through the engine compartment. Jek Porkins Jr., the pilot of the craft was quoted as last saying, 'NO, I'm all ri-- Aah!' as the plane plummeted to an unknown location."
From my extensive model rocketry background getting multiple rockets to fire all at once is incredibly hard. getting 4 of them to fire at once spread out that far apart will be a nightmare. clustered together one misfire or late fire will not affect the trajectory too much, that far apart it will affect the trajectory dramatically, one not firing on one side will spin it out of control as soon as it leaves the launch rod. one late firing will turn it really hard at the end of the burn.
I hope they are completely ok with it pinwheeling out of control along the ground as the chances of that happening are higher than most suspect.
well, you could have some sort of release mechanism holding the plane, so that it just releases the plane when all four rockets have ignited. For example, have someone with a trigger mechanism observe the ignition and release the plane as soon as all rockets are on.
Of course, you'd have to build a structure strong enough to support the force of multiple rockets, but that's beyond me. And you'd still have to consider one rocket ending sooner than others. Nothing is perfect.
I presume they'll be using Aerotech, but I'm curious what impulse level they're planning. At the take off weight, this is going to need some serious thrust. I'm not a high-power guy but a casual BAR (born-again rocketeer); I build and fly black-powder based models with my 5 year old, and just got my first composite mid-power kit airborne last week. Back in my day, mid/high power didn't even exist, as far as I know - the Estes D was the "big one". Those are little engines nowadays.
As for those asking "Why?" the answer is simple - because they can. Model rocketry is fun, and a bit of a show-off hobby (like many others). I don't have the spare change to go out and drop 4 figures on a big rocket, and then several hundred per flight on the propulsion. All depends on your priorities and what makes your nipples hard.
I hope it flies well and has a safe recovery. It's neat to see the hobby get some legs; it's one of those applied-science areas that kids can get involved in that's also a lot of fun.
The X-Wing fighter will be launched (weather permitting) on Sat. October 6 at Plaster City, CA near El Centro. The rocket will be powered by 4 "M" class solid rocket motors. Each year Tripoli San Diego and DART rocket clubs hold their annual 4-day event called Plaster Blaster. This year it is titled Plaster Wars in honor of the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars movie. Andy Woerner of What's Up Hobbies usually builds a wild and outrageous project for the event. With this years theme, he decided to build the X-Wing fighter. Another group is bringing a 9-10' (estimated from the picture) Y-Wing fighter and other attendees are encouraged to bring other Star Wars inspired rockets. If you are in or near southern California and want to come see this, visit plasterblaster.com for information, directions and saftey notices. There is no cost to come and watch. If you would like to launch your own rockets (A-M class), there is a flyers fee to cover the cost of permits and porta-potties. Several vendors will also be on site for all of your rocket buying impulses. You must have a certification card to buy H class and above propellent kits. This is really a fun event for all ages and the price is right. Chances are good that local news teams will be on hand to cover the event.
Tech: Getting all of the motors to light is one of Andy's specialties and I've never seen him fail in it. It could happen, but the chances are small. There is no guidance system on hobby rockets as it is against the law. The X-Wing will be launched a fair distance from the flight line for safety and announcements will be made well in advance of the launch so everybody will pay attention. I have never seen anybody injured at a rocket launch in over 5 years that I have been back in the hobby. It is very safe.
The wings were for mounting weapons and maneuverability. There's no atmosphere to push on, but the engines are mounted such that it could turn pretty easily.
Sorta-right, sorta-wrong. The wings are there because they're S-foils [wikia.com], a term which crops up mostly in the video games (most notably in X-Wing, where you had to press a button to open or close them for combat or hyperspace travel respectively). Since the wings were there, it made sense to mount the weaponry in a distributed setup.
I'm pretty sure we've seen X-Wing fighters do atmospheric maneuvering.
Sheesh, we've seen X-Wing fighters do atmospheric maneuvers in hard vacuum. And face it, that's just silly.
That's why I prefer the other "X-Foil" spaceship [wikipedia.org] in pop SF TV canon. At least Babylon 5 came up with apparently realistic physics for spacecraft movement and a feasible rational for the X-style "wings": maximizing rotational moment available from the thrust of the engines for maximum slew rate.
Hmmm... I've got a fever, and the only prescription, is a flying scale model of a Starfury Thunderbolt. Yah. Definitely.
Except that we have seen them fly in an atmosphere (Yavin, Hoth, Dagobah, etc.). You could chalk that up to having sufficient thrust to overcoming the need for wings, but even if the wings weren't actually aerodynamic, they would still be affected by aerodynamic forces. Even a sheet of plywood can fly, just not far and not well.
You could chalk that up to having sufficient thrust to overcoming the need for wings, but even if the wings weren't actually aerodynamic, they would still be affected by aerodynamic forces.
The X-Wing doesn't fly in atmospheres whilst in the X configuration, as any rookie starpilot straight out of training knows. To fly in an atmosphere, the X-Wing must first close it's wings, creating two wings out of the usual four and allowing atmospheric flight.
Unlike Earth aircraft, which only have a curved upper surf
That's why they don't have wings. They have S-foils.
And anyway, X-wings are quite capable of atmospheric flight. Just as long as you aren't damn fool enough to land one in a swamp; you'd never get it out.
You guys need to turn in your fan club id cards and your back issues of Bantha Tracks.
The X-Wing doesn't "fly". It hovers. It uses the same hover/propulsion mechanism as a landspeeder or a speeder bike when it's in an atmosphere. It's like the USS Enterprise (any of them, CVN-56 included). It doesn't need to be aerodynamic to "fly". It needs to not burn up in the atmosphere when it's moving through it.
Keep in mind that the X-wing fighters did classical banked-turns in the dogfights in and around the Death Stars. Not only do you need wings for a banked turn, you need an atmosphere. If you assume that the major motive force is all from the main engine(s) you realize that in a turn the engines will be firing essentially away from the center-point of the turn. In other words, the thrust in an atmospheric banked turn is almost (almost because of "forward" thrust) 90 degrees off of a turn in a vacuum. Beyond
My impression from the movies was that they have some form of anti-gravity for taxiing, which could also make up for lack of lift during atmospheric flight.
Ah. That explains a lot.
'Hmm. Disconnected in the rough landing the main cable to the antigravity device was. No wonder it is, that get this ship out of the swamp he cannot. Reconnect it I will, before to lift it through Force powers I attempt. Impressed will young Skywalker be, and respectful!'
What makes you think Yoda was averse to a little swamp dive? That little sucker could live on any remote and abandoned planet in the galaxy, and he chose a swamp planet, because he loves swamps so much. Well, that and it's a great excuse for not cleaning up his hovel. Any place not waist-deep in muck is considered clean on Degobah.
I am going to take a guess (Score:5, Funny)
Referenced for the younger /.'ers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I am going to take a guess (Score:5, Insightful)
So why are you anonymously trolling on Slashdot instead of out there feeding the poor, curing cancer, or rescuing lost puppies?
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Re:I am going to take a guess (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I am going to take a guess (Score:5, Funny)
I say why strip off the rockets?
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Daddy! I WANT and Oompa-Loompa! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I am going to take a guess (Score:5, Funny)
One can only hope so.
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Re:I am going to take a guess (Score:5, Insightful)
Because a society without such safety nets will accumulate large amounts of disenfranchised people who have nothing to lose but their chains, and the choices at that point are brutal oppression to keep them down or a bloody revolution. And once the homeless are under the iron heel, what's stopping those higher up in the social ladder than yourself from putting you under it too ?
I, for one, prefer to live in a relatively peaceful and free society. And the only way to achieve those qualities simultaneously is to have social justice, at least enough that people have more to lose than gain by making trouble. Humans are predators, and a hungry predator is a dangerous predator, especially if it also hates your guts for the perceived injustice of being hungry and homeless while you have a job and house and refuse to share any of your resources.
"Every man for himself" might seem good on paper, but it's good to remember that when Social Darwinism rules, "cutthroat competition" stops being a metaphor.
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With enough thrust.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Does it fly? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Will it blend?
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The builders of this have not called it an "aircraft". It is a rocket. I see little reason to doubt that it will get off the ground in some fashion, as building it obviously required quite a bit more technical sophistication than the simple thrust to weight comparison need to ensure liftoff. One of the builders quite straightforwardly rates structural failure during flight "likely".
Don't worry about being mean by suggesting that this is some overly geeky guys presenting their geeky thing as more than it i
"Actually Flies" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good thing for R2 (Score:5, Insightful)
"R2, that stabilizer has broken free again... see if you can't lock it down...
While I applaud the effort, I have a bad feeling about this. If one of the four solid rocket motors fails to ignite or ignites early/late, you're going to have a 22 foot (or more) long pile of scrap wood and aluminum.
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Strap enough propellant on! (Score:4, Interesting)
of the imagination.
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Especially if there was a BBQ afterwords ( during? ).
Re:Strap enough propellant on! (Score:5, Funny)
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Ob. (Score:3, Funny)
Won't this attract unwanted imperial attention? (Score:5, Funny)
All we need is for the empire to think there is a rebel base here, and they will send the death star to blow up Earth. In which case that thing better fly and it better have one hell of a pilot.
Update (Score:3, Funny)
-X-Wing fighter engineering staff
this will end badly. (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope they are completely ok with it pinwheeling out of control along the ground as the chances of that happening are higher than most suspect.
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well, you could have some sort of release mechanism holding the plane, so that it just releases the plane when all four rockets have ignited. For example, have someone with a trigger mechanism observe the ignition and release the plane as soon as all rockets are on.
Of course, you'd have to build a structure strong enough to support the force of multiple rockets, but that's beyond me. And you'd still have to consider one rocket ending sooner than others. Nothing is perfect.
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swamp landing (Score:3, Funny)
But does it have (Score:3, Funny)
What engines will it fly on? (Score:3, Insightful)
As for those asking "Why?" the answer is simple - because they can. Model rocketry is fun, and a bit of a show-off hobby (like many others). I don't have the spare change to go out and drop 4 figures on a big rocket, and then several hundred per flight on the propulsion. All depends on your priorities and what makes your nipples hard.
I hope it flies well and has a safe recovery. It's neat to see the hobby get some legs; it's one of those applied-science areas that kids can get involved in that's also a lot of fun.
Who What Where (Score:4, Informative)
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Plus it looks kinda neat.
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I'm pretty sure we've seen X-Wing fighters do atmospheric maneuvering.
Sheesh, we've seen X-Wing fighters do atmospheric maneuvers in hard vacuum. And face it, that's just silly.
That's why I prefer the other "X-Foil" spaceship [wikipedia.org] in pop SF TV canon. At least Babylon 5 came up with apparently realistic physics for spacecraft movement and a feasible rational for the X-style "wings": maximizing rotational moment available from the thrust of the engines for maximum slew rate.
Hmmm... I've got a fever, and the only prescription, is a flying scale model of a Starfury Thunderbolt. Yah. Definitely.
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Re:Except that (Score:4, Informative)
Except that we have seen them fly in an atmosphere (Yavin, Hoth, Dagobah, etc.). You could chalk that up to having sufficient thrust to overcoming the need for wings, but even if the wings weren't actually aerodynamic, they would still be affected by aerodynamic forces. Even a sheet of plywood can fly, just not far and not well.
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The X-Wing doesn't fly in atmospheres whilst in the X configuration, as any rookie starpilot straight out of training knows. To fly in an atmosphere, the X-Wing must first close it's wings, creating two wings out of the usual four and allowing atmospheric flight.
Unlike Earth aircraft, which only have a curved upper surf
Re:Except that (Score:5, Funny)
That's why they don't have wings. They have S-foils.
And anyway, X-wings are quite capable of atmospheric flight. Just as long as you aren't damn fool enough to land one in a swamp; you'd never get it out.
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Always with you it cannot be done...
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The X-Wing doesn't "fly". It hovers. It uses the same hover/propulsion mechanism as a landspeeder or a speeder bike when it's in an atmosphere. It's like the USS Enterprise (any of them, CVN-56 included). It doesn't need to be aerodynamic to "fly". It needs to not burn up in the atmosphere when it's moving through it.
It's rather like the space shuttle actually...
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If you assume that the major motive force is all from the main engine(s) you realize that in a turn the engines will be firing essentially away from the center-point of the turn. In other words, the thrust in an atmospheric banked turn is almost (almost because of "forward" thrust) 90 degrees off of a turn in a vacuum. Beyond
Re:Except that (Score:5, Funny)
Ah. That explains a lot.
'Hmm. Disconnected in the rough landing the main cable to the antigravity device was. No wonder it is, that get this ship out of the swamp he cannot. Reconnect it I will, before to lift it through Force powers I attempt. Impressed will young Skywalker be, and respectful!'
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