Angel Aircraft's VTOL Capabilities
Moderator: Spectrum Strike Force
A technical question! Is an Angel aircraft actually capable of effecting a vertical take-off? I'm envisaging a scenario in which one of them has come down on a woodland track, and needs to get airborne again in a situation where there is no possibility of finding a runway. Mindful of Symphony's landing in similar circumstances in "Manhunt", it seems likely that they actually can rise vertically into the air, and the following description (lifted from the official description to bypass the need for anyone to check it) appears to support that view:
The aircraft itself is actually based on the World Army Air Force "Viper" jets of 2065. The angel's Interceptors are armed with air-to-air and air-to-ground rocket-launchers, as well as a main machine-gun cannon (firing heat seeker and armour-piercing shells, etc). These Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL)/Very-Short Take-Off and Landing (VSTOL) jet-fighter combat craft are powered by twin, turbo-jet compressors feeding twin Spectra-Fan air ramjets. The Angels Interceptors are 60 feet long, have a 35 foot wide wing-span, weigh 35,643 Lbs (15.91 Tons), have a flight ceiling of 40,000 feet (height of Cloudbase) and a top speed of 3,000 MPH.
So it doesn't need a runway at all, right?
DocBrown
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DocBrown
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chrisbishop
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The only other instance I can recall is in Manhunt - and surely Symphony must have landed vertically there - she's amongst a whole forest of trees.
BTW - and off topic - I also wonder if the Angel Jets have a chameleon camouflage capability because - whilst Blue pounces on the medallion Symphony has lost - neither he nor Scarlet notice the bloody great jet parked next to the trees!
Mind you, men are good at ignoring the blindingly obvious.....
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Marion W
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Marion W
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DocBrown
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DocBrown
(Come to think of it, HOW are the helijets able to operate up there, and worse HOW is ANY aircraft (fixed- or rotary-wing) going to be able to operate at 60000 feet??!!)
Cheers!
CAPTAIN RUDDY
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Captain Ruddy
QED, or so I thought.
Someone else responded, rather dogmatically, in my opinion, that the Angels could not have VTOL, as Gerry never missed a chance to show off all the capabilities of his various machines, and no Angel interceptor was ever shown in a vertical take-off or landing. As further evidence, my respondent offered the examples of Thunderbirds One and Two, which went up and down like yo-yos. I was not convinced by this argument.
So I am prepared to stick my neck out and say yes. Gerry might not have actually shown it (at least, not in the final edited versions of the programmes) but I believe the Angel interceptors have VTOL capability.
Hazel K
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Hazel K
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[* Apart from anything else, it means that I don't need to invent another way to get the wretched thing into the sky...]
As far as your helijets are concerned, Captain Ruddy, I imagine there's rather more to a helijet than meets the eye. The most straightforward explanation would probably be that they employ a variant of the same propulsion technology that keeps Cloudbase itself aloft. If so, then presumably a basic aircraft as we understand the term now wouldn't be able to reach Cloudbase, any more than we'd be able to fly one up to Thunderbird Five. A sensible move from a security point of view - at least it means you don't need to worry about anything flying into it!
DocBrown
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DocBrown
Captain Ruddy wrote:If I remember correctly VTOL jets burn a tremendous amount of fuel on the "vertical" part as opposed to the "horizontal" part of their flight. Maybe something similar with the Angels, though I don't know what kind of fuel they use.
They use the special fuel derived from the oil refinery at Bensheeba. ("Fire at Rig 15").
Captain Ruddy wrote:(Come to think of it, HOW are the helijets able to operate up there, and worse HOW is ANY aircraft (fixed- or rotary-wing) going to be able to operate at 60000 feet??!!)
It's the future, this don't have to make sense.
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mb2000
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It's the future, this don't have to make sense.
Sorry to disagree but - future or not, I think it does have to make sense. Science is science, after all - whenever the time is. And even if something isn't explained HOW it's done, it doesn't mean it CAN'T be. The question asked by Mary is quite legitimate.
And I MAY have an explanation: remember that the helicopter in question are called 'Helijets' . So that may be they are equiped with more advanced technology than today's helicopters.
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chrisbishop
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It is true that 40Mft (12.3 km) and 60Mft (18.5 km) are both in the stratosphere - 40M being just about the 'dividing' line between the troposphere (where all the turbulent weather happens) and the stratosphere (where things are relatively calm, comparatively speaking, which is probably the main reason why Cloudbase is located there in the stratosphere to begin with.)
It is also true that the most dramatic drop in air pressure occurs in the first 5.5 km of altitude - where, in millibars, the pressure/sqcm drops from 1013 mb at sea level to approx 600 mb. My research indicates that further decreases above 5.5 km are more gradual, but the mb's do continue to drop, just at a slower rate, and approach near zero at any altitude above 36 km.
Close scrutiny of the pressure/altitude chart I located indicates that the pressure in mb is approx: 175 mb at 40,000 ft and 80 mb at 60,000 ft - a total decrease of about 53.5 % over that 20,000 feet of altitude. Which seems significant enough to me that it would have to make quite a difference in Cloudbase's ability to stay aloft efficiently. Which doesn't mean it's aerodynamically impossible for Cloudbase to stay up at 60,000 feet, just apt for it to be more difficult and less energy efficient. I would have to think that 40,000 is optimum - in the calm air of the stratosphere, but deep enough in the atmosphere to have sufficient air to run the combines effectively. I don't know quite how to calc that out without knowing more about Cloudbase's engineering specs, and (I have admitted this before) I doubt I'm mathematically inclined enough to want to speculate about it in that sort of depth anyway......
Everyone have fun!
Doc Denim
I can advise my research sources, if anyone cares enough to see them.....
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Doc Denim
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I suggest you forward your observation to Gerry Anderson's team of consultants for the new CGI series...
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chrisbishop
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