next »

[ap0r]

So this Saturday morning i was flying and i decided to have some fun with the plane and the sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wricoDYyk6U

So i was wondering, will Mythruna flying (as an avian) be just a way to go from point a to point b (like walking but while floating in the air) or we will be able to do anything we want (with some physical limitations like maximum speed before becoming hurt, a stall speed, G-force limits, etc) ?


PS: We should include a way to embed videos, clicking links is annoying

PS2: My phone seems to distort the image when it's at negative G forces (appr -0.5 G)... anybody know why? I suspect it has something to do with the image stabilization system that uses that tiny accel. sensor to avoid blurred photos... so sorry for the bad quality during negative G's

[pspeed]

Avian flying is sort of physics based using a simplified flight model.  You flap your wings (using the space bar) to provide additional lift and thrust, but otherwise your lift is based on how fast your are going and your velocity is based on momentum and gravity.

(I'm still writing this now so this conversation is based on design notes.)

So you can, in theory, glide like a real glider: dive towards the ground to pick up speed and then pull up to get lift and travel farther.  Maybe when there is weather and climate systems, I can even have thermals.

Speed will be limited by terminal velocity.

Your wings have a standard drag rate that is different perpendicular to the direction you are pointing.  So you can hover in place by keeping level and flapping your wings... kind of like swimming in place except you have to hit the space bar for each flap.  Quicker flaps will make you rise, slow even flaps will keep you in hover... no flaps and you will float to the ground at a non-lethal terminal velocity.

I hope I'm explaining it right.

[belgariad87]

sounds pretty cool. wonder how it will look in action...

[ap0r]

Yeah, sounds OK.

Still, how will you handle transition between vertical (i.e. hover) and horizontal flight?

Also, speed should not be limited by a "terminal speed". As wings are very aerodynamic, they can accelerate, and as they accelerate they produce more lift and more drag. So eventually drag is so high that wings snap back (you get hurt) or they snap up (bad in a real plane, in this case they'll just flap up) and you'll begin to fall but without hurting yoursef.

But i think flying should not be really easy, it should be like any other skill and take effort to master, and also be as believable as possible.

so)

a) If you do stupid things, like diving and flying at Vne (velocity never exceed) then you will get hurt.
b) Realistic g-effects (if you pull from a dive going near Vne and pull say 8 g's) then you will lose control (wings flapping up) and fall for a few hundred feet until you slow down some and can deploy your wings again.
c) Stall/Spin. The wings can stall at very low velocity or excessive angle of attack or excesive g's. Stalls can degenerate into spins

Also, we need a way to tell speed (maybe by the howling of the wind ), so as to avoid going too fast/too slow.

If i am making sense?

[Michael]

Every time i think of avian i think of a Yu-Gi-Oh card avian image. I forget the name of the card... (too lazy to find it).

[pspeed]

We'll see how it works out.  I will make it as fun as I can first.  There will be skill and penalty involved but since there's no way to die/injure now then I don't have to worry about it.

Whatever I end up with, though, there will always be a terminal velocity.  A wing can only fly you so fast before you cannot accelerate any more... even diving straight down.  And at some point, increasing lift is capped, too, as the pressures above and below the wing effectively equalize.

I will assume for now that your internal instincts prevent you from going so fast that you can't pull out of a dive successfully.  Just like I let players dive to the bottom of the ocean without their ear drums blowing out.