Falling from Orbit. And living.

[Greyaxe]

Shaking off one or two laser blasts and living to tell the tale of it is not the same thing as falling from orbit.

I have a full conversion Cyborg who went to Phase World and tricked himself out with: combat computers; Full Environmental Upgrade, making him space worthy; an integrated Contra-Gravity Pack; and a super heavy Naruni integrated force field, 320 md total; powered by an internal nuclear reactor.

I have a theory that he could leap from a spacecraft, fly towards a planet and effectively fall into the gravity well. The FF would take the brunt of the reentry damage, possibly all with good rolls. (I have parachuting as a skill which is part of the reason I am full conversion) Then when terminal velocity is reached as I enter the lower atmosphere engage the Contra-Gravity pack and lower myself to safety.

What do you guys think?

[glitterboy2098]

sounds like a high tech MOOSE. not sure i'd be crazy enough to try it. the only problem i can see is that by canon forcefields allow the passage of atmosphere thru them, so using a force field as an aerobrake probably wouldn't work too well.

[Greyaxe]

Up until the friction was high enough to cause megadamage i would agree. That just means i would fall into the atmosphere further before the force-field would be come effective.

PS. Cool reference by the way.

[The Galactus Kid]

You have a built in contragravity pack. Why do you have to fall?

[Cybermancer]

You have a built in contragravity pack. Why do you have to fall?

This.

[Alrik Vas]

It would work, but yeah, you can just fly.

[glitterboy2098]

yep.. use your engine to slow down from orbital speeds and come pretty much straight down.

[flatline]

I was going to ask why you would be making an uncontrolled re-entry even though you have a grav pack, but the others have beaten me to it.

--flatline

[taalismn]

I have a cyborg chassis(actually it's an adapted Manhunter power armor) designed for this sort of thing. Dynamic entry from space, disguised as a meteor shower(or, if your enemy is already genre-savvy and wise to that trick, the scattered debris of your destroyed carrier craft). High-tech enemies with the right sensors will be able to pick out active CG-propulsors, so you don't want to go live until the last possible safe moment, ideally out of LOS of your enemy's triple-A positions and close enough/deep down enough in the gravity well that ground clutter will help obscure your position.

[cornholioprime]

Shaking off one or two laser blasts and living to tell the tale of it is not the same thing as falling from orbit.

I have a full conversion Cyborg who went to Phase World and tricked himself out with: combat computers; Full Environmental Upgrade, making him space worthy; an integrated Contra-Gravity Pack; and a super heavy Naruni integrated force field, 320 md total; powered by an internal nuclear reactor.

I have a theory that he could leap from a spacecraft, fly towards a planet and effectively fall into the gravity well. The FF would take the brunt of the reentry damage, possibly all with good rolls. (I have parachuting as a skill which is part of the reason I am full conversion) Then when terminal velocity is reached as I enter the lower atmosphere engage the Contra-Gravity pack and lower myself to safety.

What do you guys think?

Putting aside the other posters' observation that you have a working contra-gravity drive....

What gives you the idea that re-entry friction causes mega-damage? It doesn't even do that in the real world, now -high heat isn't necessarily indicative of how much damage is being caused.

Cornholio_Prime -even after 30+ years, still hates that Kal-El's spacecraft in the 1980 Superman movie went through the heart of a star without a scratch but crumpled like aluminum foil when it entered Earth's atmosphere

[Nightmask]

Shaking off one or two laser blasts and living to tell the tale of it is not the same thing as falling from orbit.

I have a full conversion Cyborg who went to Phase World and tricked himself out with: combat computers; Full Environmental Upgrade, making him space worthy; an integrated Contra-Gravity Pack; and a super heavy Naruni integrated force field, 320 md total; powered by an internal nuclear reactor.

I have a theory that he could leap from a spacecraft, fly towards a planet and effectively fall into the gravity well. The FF would take the brunt of the reentry damage, possibly all with good rolls. (I have parachuting as a skill which is part of the reason I am full conversion) Then when terminal velocity is reached as I enter the lower atmosphere engage the Contra-Gravity pack and lower myself to safety.

What do you guys think?

Putting aside the other posters' observation that you have a working contra-gravity drive....

What gives you the idea that re-entry friction causes mega-damage? It doesn't even do that in the real world, now -high heat isn't necessarily indicative of how much damage is being caused.

Cornholio_Prime -even after 30+ years, still hates that Kal-El's spacecraft in the 1980 Superman movie went through the heart of a star without a scratch but crumpled like aluminum foil when it entered Earth's atmosphere

Maybe it suffered damage from doing just that for why it eventually crumpled like aluminum foil?

[Alrik Vas]

Pffft...a star's power is nothing compared to the invincible barrier around the center of the universe, our planet Earth.

[flatline]

Putting aside the other posters' observation that you have a working contra-gravity drive....

What gives you the idea that re-entry friction causes mega-damage? It doesn't even do that in the real world, now -high heat isn't necessarily indicative of how much damage is being caused.

This is where game mechanics don't mesh well with reality.

For instance, we all agree that modern nuclear weapons would cause megadamage and modern small arms don't, but we have no non-arbitrary test for any of this. The Shuttle doesn't (usually) burn up on re-entry because it has a heat shield built specifically to allow it to survive re-entry, yet there's no way a SAMAS could do the same even though the heat shield can be damaged by your finger and the SAMAS armor is virtually indestructible by modern standards. Even if the SAMAS itself survived, the pilot would be cooked inside.

Go figure.

--flatline

[Alrik Vas]

Yet, there would be technology that could be applied to protect the pilot, wouldn't there be?

[flatline]

Yet, there would be technology that could be applied to protect the pilot, wouldn't there be?

If a force field can prevent the heat from reaching the power armor, that would work.

If the plasma created during re-entry is allowed to contact the surface of the power armor, then I don't see any way to protect the pilot for long enough. If the temperature of the plasma is greater than the temperature of the radiating surface used by the power to expel internal heat, then there's no way to protect the pilot.

Your best bet would be for the power armor to sit on top of a shell that acts as a heat shield during re-entry.

--flatline

[cornholioprime]

Putting aside the other posters' observation that you have a working contra-gravity drive....

What gives you the idea that re-entry friction causes mega-damage? It doesn't even do that in the real world, now -high heat isn't necessarily indicative of how much damage is being caused.

This is where game mechanics don't mesh well with reality.

For instance, we all agree that modern nuclear weapons would cause megadamage and modern small arms don't, but we have no non-arbitrary test for any of this. The Shuttle doesn't (usually) burn up on re-entry because it has a heat shield built specifically to allow it to survive re-entry, yet there's no way a SAMAS could do the same even though the heat shield can be damaged by your finger and the SAMAS armor is virtually indestructible by modern standards. Even if the SAMAS itself survived, the pilot would be cooked inside.

Go figure.

--flatline

Side question:

Are any of us even sure that a relatively low-mass object, traveling at a relatively low speed, would even burn up on re-entry in the first place?

Objects like the space shuttle and meteorites are typically traveling at thousands of miles an hour (the former because of the speeds involved in interplanetary/interstellar travel, the latter because it has to maintain a certain speed to maintain a given orbit) relative to the planet, not the falling Power Armor/Full Conversion Cyborg in the OP scenario.

[Greyaxe]

yep.. use your engine to slow down from orbital speeds and come pretty much straight down.

Ok. Is a contra-gravity pack trans atmospheric?

[flatline]

yep.. use your engine to slow down from orbital speeds and come pretty much straight down.

Ok. Is a contra-gravity pack trans atmospheric?

Yes. Artificial gravity does not require an atmosphere for lift or acceleration. Nor does it require a gravity well to "push" against. It is the ideal propulsion system for non-FTL purposes because it counters inertia directly so your acceleration isn't limited by the amount of g's your body can withstand.

--flatline

[glitterboy2098]

for slowing down you wouldn't need to be that fast.. just be able to put out a steady accelleration/decelleration. and IIRC, a CG-pack will function in space so thats not an issue.

[ShadowLogan]

Putting aside the other posters' observation that you have a working contra-gravity drive....

What gives you the idea that re-entry friction causes mega-damage? It doesn't even do that in the real world, now -high heat isn't necessarily indicative of how much damage is being caused.

This is where game mechanics don't mesh well with reality.

For instance, we all agree that modern nuclear weapons would cause megadamage and modern small arms don't, but we have no non-arbitrary test for any of this. The Shuttle doesn't (usually) burn up on re-entry because it has a heat shield built specifically to allow it to survive re-entry, yet there's no way a SAMAS could do the same even though the heat shield can be damaged by your finger and the SAMAS armor is virtually indestructible by modern standards. Even if the SAMAS itself survived, the pilot would be cooked inside.

Go figure.

--flatline

Side question:

Are any of us even sure that a relatively low-mass object, traveling at a relatively low speed, would even burn up on re-entry in the first place?

Objects like the space shuttle and meteorites are typically traveling at thousands of miles an hour (the former because of the speeds involved in interplanetary/interstellar travel, the latter because it has to maintain a certain speed to maintain a given orbit) relative to the planet, not the falling Power Armor/Full Conversion Cyborg in the OP scenario.

For your side question, the heat generated during re-entry is a result of the speed (or velocity depending on how technical you want to be). So if you hit the atmosphere at slower and slower speeds (velocity), you can reduce the demands being placed on the thermal protection system.

Current propulsion systems are not practical to the task of launching a craft into orbit and then slowing it down to the point where a thermal protection system would not be needed (at least for Earth). That is why RW craft execute a de-orbit burn that is sufficient to take it out of obit, but also subject it to extreme thermal loads. You can see this in actual play on the Moon with the Apollo landers, while the Moon's atmosphere is practically non-existent, both stages have similar propulsive capacities.

[Tor]

What gives you the idea that re-entry friction causes mega-damage? It doesn't even do that in the real world, now -high heat isn't necessarily indicative of how much damage is being caused.

This could depend on the speed of re-entry though. IRL, I had thought astronauts returning tended to come in at an angle to slow themselves down so heat didn't build up too fast.

I think we need some rules on fall damage into water too, since that presumably is slightly less damaging than falling onto land.

hates that Kal-El's spacecraft in the 1980 Superman movie went through the heart of a star without a scratch but crumpled like aluminum foil when it entered Earth's atmosphere

LOL, did this occur in the same film or something? Maybe um... it was a special star or an illusion star?

there's no way a SAMAS could do the same even though the heat shield can be damaged by your finger and the SAMAS armor is virtually indestructible by modern standards. Even if the SAMAS itself survived, the pilot would be cooked inside.

I thought environmental body armor helped regulate your internal temperature and that power armor tended to be even better than normal EBA in that regard. Do we know what the limits are and if re-entry would exceed them?

It seems to help them well enough against Bursters and Fire Dragons.

[Slight001]

there's no way a SAMAS could do the same even though the heat shield can be damaged by your finger and the SAMAS armor is virtually indestructible by modern standards. Even if the SAMAS itself survived, the pilot would be cooked inside.

I thought environmental body armor helped regulate your internal temperature and that power armor tended to be even better than normal EBA in that regard. Do we know what the limits are and if re-entry would exceed them?

It seems to help them well enough against Bursters and Fire Dragons.

you should look at the common traits of powered armor and body armor again. I'm at my sisters away from my books right now otherwise I'd give you a proper page number / quote to show that the temperature range these systems protect against is surprisingly low given the types of weapons that are encountered upon the rifts battlefields.

[glitterboy2098]

Most of the heat generating weapon in rifts only last less than a second, and expend most of that energy burning/melting armor. The heat resistance limits listed are for sustained heat, like walking thru fire or hot climates.

For reentry, even if the armor is proof against the damage inflicted, heat bleed thru buy the multi thousand degree fireball your creating for several minutes due to friction would likely kill you.

[flatline]

there's no way a SAMAS could do the same even though the heat shield can be damaged by your finger and the SAMAS armor is virtually indestructible by modern standards. Even if the SAMAS itself survived, the pilot would be cooked inside.

I thought environmental body armor helped regulate your internal temperature and that power armor tended to be even better than normal EBA in that regard. Do we know what the limits are and if re-entry would exceed them?

It seems to help them well enough against Bursters and Fire Dragons.

you should look at the common traits of powered armor and body armor again. I'm at my sisters away from my books right now otherwise I'd give you a proper page number / quote to show that the temperature range these systems protect against is surprisingly low given the types of weapons that are encountered upon the rifts battlefields.

EBA: RUE p267: "Insulated, high temperature resistant shielding for up to 200 degrees centigrade. Normal fires do no damage. Nuclear, plasma, and magic fires do full damage"

So if I pour gasoline on you in your armor and light you on fire, the armor will be undamaged since it's normal fire, but the 900C flame will cook you on the inside. Of course we don't know how quickly the internal temperature control will be overwhelmed.

Power Armor is described the same on p271 except it protects up to 400C, so a gasoline fire will still cook you just fine if given enough time.

--flatline

[flatline]

Most of the heat generating weapon in rifts only last less than a second, and expend most of that energy burning/melting armor. The heat resistance limits listed are for sustained heat, like walking thru fire or hot climates.

For reentry, even if the armor is proof against the damage inflicted, heat bleed thru buy the multi thousand degree fireball your creating for several minutes due to friction would likely kill you.

I agree with your post, but I thought I'd point out a common misconception that I've bolded in your post above. The heat isn't due to friction, but to compression. You're falling through the air faster than the air can move out of your way, so the air in front of you is compressed which, of course, raises the temperature according to the ideal gas law. Raise it enough and it become a plasma like it is for the space shuttle.

--flatline

[The Beast]

...I think we need some rules on fall damage into water too, since that presumably is slightly less damaging than falling onto land...

Actually that's only true at low speeds and low (comparatively) heights.

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/water-sports/cliff-diving3.htm

[Tor]

EBA: RUE p267: "Insulated, high temperature resistant shielding for up to 200 degrees centigrade. Normal fires do no damage. Nuclear, plasma, and magic fires do full damage"

So if I pour gasoline on you in your armor and light you on fire, the armor will be undamaged since it's normal fire, but the 900C flame will cook you on the inside. Of course we don't know how quickly the internal temperature control will be overwhelmed.

Power Armor is described the same on p271 except it protects up to 400C, so a gasoline fire will still cook you just fine if given enough time.

I just don't think I'm really aware of how hot normal fires can get.

Bust out the molotovs against the Super-SAMAS, folks. They're not just useful for Inquisitors against demons in terms of MDC combat anymore.

Please tell me at least robots are protected... picturing UAR1 enforces and Spider-Skull walkers being deactivated via molotov-throwing vagabonds.

Phase weapons are seeming less worth the money now.

...I think we need some rules on fall damage into water too, since that presumably is slightly less damaging than falling onto land...

Actually that's only true at low speeds and low (comparatively) heights. http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/water-sports/cliff-diving3.htm

Where on this page does it say that water does the same damage as other surfaces? I'm well aware it can wreck you at enough height/speed, just not sure if it occurs at the same level as other surfaces at equivalent height/speed. We can accept that falling 10ft onto water is less damaging than falling 10ft onto concrete, but would falling 1000ft onto water be the same as falling 1000ft onto concrete, or maybe still less and more like 500ft onto concrete?

[flatline]

EBA: RUE p267: "Insulated, high temperature resistant shielding for up to 200 degrees centigrade. Normal fires do no damage. Nuclear, plasma, and magic fires do full damage"

So if I pour gasoline on you in your armor and light you on fire, the armor will be undamaged since it's normal fire, but the 900C flame will cook you on the inside. Of course we don't know how quickly the internal temperature control will be overwhelmed.

Power Armor is described the same on p271 except it protects up to 400C, so a gasoline fire will still cook you just fine if given enough time.

I just don't think I'm really aware of how hot normal fires can get.

Bust out the molotovs against the Super-SAMAS, folks. They're not just useful for Inquisitors against demons in terms of MDC combat anymore.

Please tell me at least robots are protected... picturing UAR1 enforces and Spider-Skull walkers being deactivated via molotov-throwing vagabonds.

At some point the surface to volume ratio gets small enough that even if the whole surface is covered with burning gasoline, it can't heat up the vehicle faster than the vehicle can expel the heat. Of course, we don't know the capacity of the climate control system in the Spider-Skull walker, but I'll go on the record that it can probably handle it. Even if it eventually succumbs to the heat, I'd guess it would take longer than the gasoline would last.

--flatline

[Tor]

I guess that gives some useful incentive to robots, they were kind of lacking it except for the range of their weapons in terms of cost. Human life is cheaper to shove into mass amounts of low-quality PA.

[flatline]

I guess that gives some useful incentive to robots, they were kind of lacking it except for the range of their weapons in terms of cost. Human life is cheaper to shove into mass amounts of low-quality PA.

You've almost certainly heard me say this before, but if you want to make robots relevant, don't let PA have nuclear reactors (which also greatly restricts their ability to fly long distances which makes jets and other flyers more relevant).

--flatline

[Tor]

This would also lead to cool things like SAMAS climbing on top of a Death's Head and hitching rides, if the inside was full. Which they might already do due to the added speed.

[nilgravity]

Wouldn't a phase field work better than a force field?

[Qev]

*shrugs* Just take a thermal aeroshell with you when you fall out of orbit. It can do all the work dealing with re-entry (and, properly designed, it keeps you from tumbling until your limbs fly off), then once you're in the thicker bits of the atmosphere you can discard it and fall the rest of the way. I'm not even sure, going by RUE, that falling/collision damage will affect MDC gear. Assuming you can tank about 16d4 of SDC damage inside your armor, you probably don't even need a parachute. XD

[drewkitty ~..~]

Reentry is a artifact from the Moon Race days. When the they were coming back to the earth.

De-orbit is the technical term for stoping orbiting to make a landing on a planet.
-------
The using the CG pack to stop your orbital movement is the right way. Cours you would need to vector the thrust equivalent of the pack to maintain your altitude till you got down to a 'safe' speed to just drop vertically. Which would take some skill at orbital mechanics.
Just dropping vertically does not heat up something as much as de-orbiting as demonstrated by SpaceShipOne when it went about winning the Ansari X Prize

And you'd need to look out for things in orbit that you might crash into once you are no longer going the miles per second orbital speed. And that any 30 mile or 200 mile radar will just let you know there is some sort of trouble that way ...just in time to let you know you are dead. So it is best to make sure there will be nothing conflicting with the 'flight plan' before jumping.

"Make Haste Slowly" Sun Tzu.
An Interpretation: Make sure you have everything you need before leaving your base behind. Otherwise you might leave behind something you will need.
Modern day equivalents: Making sure all your ducks are in a row. Making sure to dot your i's and cross your t's.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Just play a Frank Sinatra OCC. He fell out of orbit and survived.

"Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars....."

[Tor]

Frank Sinatra fell out of orbit and survived.

a challenger appears!

[Tor]

You call THAT a lighter?

[sirkermittsg]

Basically build a moose with a contra grav instead of a parachute.

[Zer0 Kay]

sounds like a high tech MOOSE. not sure i'd be crazy enough to try it. the only problem i can see is that by canon forcefields allow the passage of atmosphere thru them, so using a force field as an aerobrake probably wouldn't work too well.

Because super heated air isn't atmosphere anymore, it's plasma and force fields stop plasma last I checked. As the air becomes more dense and the heat increases the shield should become more effective as an aerobreak.

[Zer0 Kay]

Most of the heat generating weapon in rifts only last less than a second, and expend most of that energy burning/melting armor. The heat resistance limits listed are for sustained heat, like walking thru fire or hot climates.

For reentry, even if the armor is proof against the damage inflicted, heat bleed thru buy the multi thousand degree fireball your creating for several minutes due to friction would likely kill you.

I agree with your post, but I thought I'd point out a common misconception that I've bolded in your post above. The heat isn't due to friction, but to compression. You're falling through the air faster than the air can move out of your way, so the air in front of you is compressed which, of course, raises the temperature according to the ideal gas law. Raise it enough and it become a plasma like it is for the space shuttle.

--flatline

So your saying NONE of the air escapes and NONE of the heat is from friction? Or are you saing the vast majority of the heat is from compression?

[flatline]

Most of the heat generating weapon in rifts only last less than a second, and expend most of that energy burning/melting armor. The heat resistance limits listed are for sustained heat, like walking thru fire or hot climates.

For reentry, even if the armor is proof against the damage inflicted, heat bleed thru buy the multi thousand degree fireball your creating for several minutes due to friction would likely kill you.

I agree with your post, but I thought I'd point out a common misconception that I've bolded in your post above. The heat isn't due to friction, but to compression. You're falling through the air faster than the air can move out of your way, so the air in front of you is compressed which, of course, raises the temperature according to the ideal gas law. Raise it enough and it become a plasma like it is for the space shuttle.

--flatline

So your saying NONE of the air escapes and NONE of the heat is from friction? Or are you saing the vast majority of the heat is from compression?

None, because friction with a gas does not exist in the way you're thinking.

Go read up on the kinetic theory of gases and ask yourself "what is air friction?".

--flatline

[Giant2005]

Most of the heat generating weapon in rifts only last less than a second, and expend most of that energy burning/melting armor. The heat resistance limits listed are for sustained heat, like walking thru fire or hot climates.

For reentry, even if the armor is proof against the damage inflicted, heat bleed thru buy the multi thousand degree fireball your creating for several minutes due to friction would likely kill you.

I agree with your post, but I thought I'd point out a common misconception that I've bolded in your post above. The heat isn't due to friction, but to compression. You're falling through the air faster than the air can move out of your way, so the air in front of you is compressed which, of course, raises the temperature according to the ideal gas law. Raise it enough and it become a plasma like it is for the space shuttle.

--flatline

So your saying NONE of the air escapes and NONE of the heat is from friction? Or are you saing the vast majority of the heat is from compression?

None, because friction with a gas does not exist in the way you're thinking.

Go read up on the kinetic theory of gases and ask yourself "what is air friction?".

--flatline

Air Friction

[Zer0 Kay]

Most of the heat generating weapon in rifts only last less than a second, and expend most of that energy burning/melting armor. The heat resistance limits listed are for sustained heat, like walking thru fire or hot climates.

For reentry, even if the armor is proof against the damage inflicted, heat bleed thru buy the multi thousand degree fireball your creating for several minutes due to friction would likely kill you.

I agree with your post, but I thought I'd point out a common misconception that I've bolded in your post above. The heat isn't due to friction, but to compression. You're falling through the air faster than the air can move out of your way, so the air in front of you is compressed which, of course, raises the temperature according to the ideal gas law. Raise it enough and it become a plasma like it is for the space shuttle.

--flatline

So your saying NONE of the air escapes and NONE of the heat is from friction? Or are you saing the vast majority of the heat is from compression?

None, because friction with a gas does not exist in the way you're thinking.

Go read up on the kinetic theory of gases and ask yourself "what is air friction?".

--flatline

Air Friction

Thank you

Also, flatline, if there was no friction from air molecules the concept of Tesla's bladeless turbine wouldn't work. Fluids including air have viscosity and will adhere to surfaces passing through them. If not how does the moisture collected on aircraft wings in flight not just drop off?

Heck flight wouldn't even be possible because the leading edge would just be compressing the air rather than splitting it and causing a low pressure area under the wing because the airflow going over the wing has more surface area to travel. No friction, no airflow adhering to the wing. Do you know what it's called when the airflow doesn't adhere to the wing? A stall. No friction, no adherence.

[flatline]

I agree with your post, but I thought I'd point out a common misconception that I've bolded in your post above. The heat isn't due to friction, but to compression. You're falling through the air faster than the air can move out of your way, so the air in front of you is compressed which, of course, raises the temperature according to the ideal gas law. Raise it enough and it become a plasma like it is for the space shuttle.

--flatline

So your saying NONE of the air escapes and NONE of the heat is from friction? Or are you saing the vast majority of the heat is from compression?

None, because friction with a gas does not exist in the way you're thinking.

Go read up on the kinetic theory of gases and ask yourself "what is air friction?".

--flatline

Air Friction

Thank you

Also, flatline, if there was no friction from air molecules the concept of Tesla's bladeless turbine wouldn't work.

The transfer of momentum during an elastic collision between a gas molecule and a solid is sufficient to explain why it works. When you sum all of the collisions at a particular moment in time, the result is the impulse vector. When you sum all the impulse vectors over time, you get the force vector which causes the turbine to work.

Fluids including air have viscosity and will adhere to surfaces passing through them. If not how does the moisture collected on aircraft wings in flight not just drop off?

Surface tension is a property of liquids, not gases.

The boundary layer of gases near a moving surface is the result of gas particles colliding with that surface, having their momentum changed from the mean of the particles in the area, and then colliding with the particles that have not yet had their momentum changed by the moving surface. This transfer of momentum from the moving surface to the gas molecules is perceived as drag at the macroscopic scale. Again, it is the sum of the impulse vectors from each collision.

Heck flight wouldn't even be possible because the leading edge would just be compressing the air rather than splitting it and causing a low pressure area under the wing because the airflow going over the wing has more surface area to travel. No friction, no airflow adhering to the wing. Do you know what it's called when the airflow doesn't adhere to the wing? A stall. No friction, no adherence.

http://www.chem.hope.edu/~polik/Chem345 ... osity.html

Enjoy. The viscosity of gases is a macroscopic effect of many many many individual elastic collisions between (layers of) particles as they interact with a moving surface and layers of particles moving at different average velocities.

--flatline

[Zer0 Kay]

So your saying NONE of the air escapes and NONE of the heat is from friction? Or are you saing the vast majority of the heat is from compression?

None, because friction with a gas does not exist in the way you're thinking.

Go read up on the kinetic theory of gases and ask yourself "what is air friction?".

--flatline

Air Friction

Thank you

Also, flatline, if there was no friction from air molecules the concept of Tesla's bladeless turbine wouldn't work.

The transfer of momentum during an elastic collision between a gas molecule and a solid is sufficient to explain why it works. When you sum all of the collisions at a particular moment in time, the result is the impulse vector. When you sum all the impulse vectors over time, you get the force vector which causes the turbine to work.

Fluids including air have viscosity and will adhere to surfaces passing through them. If not how does the moisture collected on aircraft wings in flight not just drop off?

Surface tension is a property of liquids, not gases.

The boundary layer of gases near a moving surface is the result of gas particles colliding with that surface, having their momentum changed from the mean of the particles in the area, and then colliding with the particles that have not yet had their momentum changed by the moving surface. This transfer of momentum from the moving surface to the gas molecules is perceived as drag at the macroscopic scale. Again, it is the sum of the impulse vectors from each collision.

Heck flight wouldn't even be possible because the leading edge would just be compressing the air rather than splitting it and causing a low pressure area under the wing because the airflow going over the wing has more surface area to travel. No friction, no airflow adhering to the wing. Do you know what it's called when the airflow doesn't adhere to the wing? A stall. No friction, no adherence.

http://www.chem.hope.edu/~polik/Chem345 ... osity.html

Enjoy. The viscosity of gases is a macroscopic effect of many many many individual elastic collisions between (layers of) particles as they interact with a moving surface and layers of particles moving at different average velocities.

--flatline

Okey dokey... Thanks.