From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #524 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Sunday, 26 November 1995 Volume 05 : Number 524 In this issue: Re: Toroidal propulsion Re: Toroidal propulsion Re: Toroidal propulsion Re: Toroidal propulsion re: mystery plane See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Windle Date: Sat, 25 Nov 1995 13:29:11 Subject: Re: Toroidal propulsion BaDge wrote: >Any one see the Beyond 2000 show where this team prototyped a LAV that >was essentially a large spinning sphere of helium and a wrap-around body. > >Supposedly it takes advantage of the lift of spinning as well as being >Light. Side 'jets' ?? for stearing. This would be a demonstration of the 'Magnus Effect ?' Most commonly observed when slicing a tennis or golf ball I understand. Who built the prototype..and what size was it ? Thanks D ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Sat, 25 Nov 1995 12:23:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Toroidal propulsion On Sat, 25 Nov 1995, David Windle wrote: > BaDge wrote: > > >Any one see the Beyond 2000 show where this team prototyped a LAV that > >was essentially a large spinning sphere of helium and a wrap-around body. > > > >Supposedly it takes advantage of the lift of spinning as well as being > >Light. Side 'jets' ?? for stearing. > > This would be a demonstration of the 'Magnus Effect ?' Most commonly > observed when slicing a tennis or golf ball I understand. Jeeze, yeah, that's what they called it "Magnus FX". Thanks David! > Who built the prototype..and what size was it ? That, I don't know since I was programming on the PC as well as watching the tube, and didn't catch it all for laughing. The prototype size as about 20 feet tall, with the real deal gonna be 11 stories tall. It was a hoot. ;-) regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Sat, 25 Nov 1995 14:39:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Toroidal propulsion The airship BaDge referred to was not the Magnus FX, but the Cyclo-Crane. Aerolift Inc. built the 'Cyclo-Crane' for $4.5 million, sponsored by the FERIC (Forrest Engineering Research Institute of Canada) and the four biggest lumber companies of British Columbia, CA. The airship had a ring with wings attached to it, with an engine placed at the tip of each wing. The ring with the wings and engines was supposed to rotate around the blimp in flight to make it more stable (maybe the idea was based on the German World War II Triebfluegel project from Focke-Wulf). After the USFS (United States Forest Service) invested another $850,000, the vehicle crashed in November of 1982. But there was also an airship, which utilized the Magnus effect: The Van Dusen Development Co. of Ottawa, developed the 'Magnus-effect heavy- lift dirigible', designed by Frederick Ferguson, for $2.5 million. A 1/20 scale test vehicle with a 20 ft-diameter helium sphere was built. The sphere was rotating around a horizontal axis, at which the gondola, which resembled a 'Manta ray, hugging a ball', was attached to it. The proposed full-scale vehicle was supposed to have a diameter of 60 ft, using 2.1 million ft^3 of helium, and should have been able to lift 70 tons. The prototype and the proposal were powered by two engines in movable nacells, attached at both sides of the rotation axis. The project cost for the full-scale vehicle was another $4.5 million. There were also a lot of other more or less unsuccessful LTA projects in the 1980s, but that would be too off-topic. I have compiled a little list of LTA vehicles and projects for a German jounalist, which I can forward to interested individuals, just drop me a note. - -- Andreas - --- --- Andreas & Kathryn Gehrs-Pahl E-Mail: schnars@ais.org 313 West Court St. #305 or: gpahl@raptor.csc.flint.umich.edu Flint, MI 48502-1239 Tel: (810) 238-8469 WWW URL: http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~schnars/ - --- --- ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Sat, 25 Nov 1995 15:26:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Toroidal propulsion Ah, I'm getting everyone confused. The Manta ray hugging a beach ball was what I saw on the tube. I think it was Popular Mechanics on the Discovery channel. Thanks Andreas! What I meant by Magnus FX, was not the name of a ship, just a short hand, meaning I recalled the Magnus effect being mentioned. Sorry about the confusion, it was all mine. ;-) regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: albert.dobyns@mwbbs.com (ALBERT DOBYNS) Date: Sat, 25 Nov 95 20:21:00 -0500 Subject: re: mystery plane > Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 23:07:52 -0500 (EST) > From: Wei-Jen Su > Cc: skunk-works@gaia.ucs.orst.edu > Subject: re: mystery plane WS> On Fri, 24 Nov 1995, ALBERT DOBYNS wrote: > > discussion about JPL's experiments being flown in an A model. As you > > can imagine I was green with envy about the kids and the guy getting > > so close to an SR-71. I wonder if......... nah, nevermind. > >=20 > > --- WS> =09Hey!! Welcome to the 90's!!! Now you can "walk up" (in my case)=20 > to the closest Aerospace museum and have a look of a Blackbird. I live in= > =20 > NYC and you can go to the Intrepid Air/Space/Sea Museum and take a look=20 > of the A-12, before you could even touch the A-12 but now they restricted= > =20 > because everybody was taking a screw out of that airplane!!! (I tried but= > =20 People are removing screws from the plane?? That's not nice!! Maybe they should post guards near the plane. > =09Even you can touch the F-117 at Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. I have to admit it's hard to resist touching the planes on display, but it's strongly discouraged according to the signs I've seen. Maybe if you were wearing doctor's gloves, you wouldn't do much damage. WS> =09P.S.: Of course, you can not see everything because they took out=20 > a lot of parts of the aircraft like the avionics system. Well, we're not supposed to see such classified items! I'm surprised the museum got one so soon after the public announcement. - -Al- - --- þ SLMR 2.1a þ I did it again! I out an important word!!! ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #524 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". 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