Richard Johnson comments on my idea about rotating thruster plates:
> Actually, I think the big deal with fixed thruster plates is
> that GDW didn't want to figure out the physics of fully
> articulated thrusters. I think it would be realy neat --
> you could run fast, stop on a dime, and perform marvelous
> acts of death-defying agility (a la Hawker Harriers).
This wasn't quite what I had in mind. I was thinking more along the
lines of rotating the plates *slowly*, and probably turning off each
plate while you rotate it. Since any naval architect worthy of the
name ought to install at least 2 plates on any vessel, you would
always have a minimum of 50% thrust even with one plate turned off.
Larger ships would have a whole series of plates which could be turned
off and rotated one at a time with only a small loss of thrust.
Thus the ship does not become super-agile or anything like that ...
just a little more comfortable to handle.
> I just can't justify any contraption that would be able to
> take the force and allow the thruster to move around inside
> the ship. Not to mention what moving this big thing is
> going to do to your center of gravity and bending moments.
Why not have *retractable* bracing which could be taken out of the
way while the plate is switched off and rotating, and extended again
when it is in the desired position? This would probably mean that
the plates could only be used in a few set orientations, as the
bracing allowed (e.g. aft-, belly- or forward-pointing). Personally,
I feel that TL 14 engineering ought to be able to cope with this.
............................................................................
: Alan Huscroft : Janet: [email removed] :
: Reading, England : Internet: [email removed] :
: 6-G takeoffs AND landings! : X-boat: [email removed].solomani_rim :
:............................:.............................................:
"Let's keep some aesthetic values in starship design ...
... and blow every Donosev class vessel out of the skies!" :-)