Flying/aerodynamics question. How does this work? – Page 2 – Chat Forum

andrewh · 2010-11-19T00:32:18Z

We all know how fixed wing aircraft work; [imgEven with my limited knowledge of physics I know how helicopters, hot-airballoons, airships and ornithopters work (or don't work in the case of ornithopters) However, in this picture of a magic carpet the front is half rolled up in the usual way [IMGbut I beleive this design for the leading edge would create a vortex as the air passing to the underside would follow the surface of the carpet around and end up trapped in the fold, the bottom set of arrows in my picture, making it extreemly unstable, or at least creating an enormous amount of drag. Am I missing something or the design intended to be unstable in the same way that, for example, a Eurofighter is? Also, on the one in the photograph there appear to be very few, if any, controls for the pilot. How does the autopilot system work on these? There's nothing on the Boeing, GE or BAE websites about this. We have a carpet fitter at work at present in the top floor office, I asked him, assuming that someone who worked in the industry would know but he was clueless on the matter.

Markie

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If you can get hold of it, Captain Lockheed & The Starfighters is a great take on the whole Starfighter story.

One of my favorite concept albums!

Posted : 21/11/2010 1:57 pm

andrewh

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Topic starter

ononeorange - Member
I wondered if it was soemthing to do with the thickness of the magic carpet - in your picture it looks much, much thicker than your average Allied Carpets rug effort. Perhaps that is the secret?

Cougar - Member

They manage this by having a huge potential magic difference between the surface of the carpet and the lining underneath which is made from a different material with a massively higher magical conductivity.

So it's all in the lining and I've been looking in the wrong place all along? Does a thicker lining always help or do we hit a point of diminishing returns where the extra weight more than cancells out the extra lift?

Posted : 23/01/2011 11:51 pm

CountZero

Posts: 33973

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Just worked it out. Static electricity. The bloke and the bird have been at it like the battery bunny, creating a huge static charge through friction on the carpet that's caused the carpet to react negatively to the earth's natural electromagnetic fields, thus creating lift. Like a maglev monorail. Simple.

Posted : 24/01/2011 12:28 am

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