"Get to the hellicarrier!" doesn't have quite the same ring

[@nunya3163]

The angled flight deck leading to the turbo-prop is a safety feature, as it finely chops up any damaged craft rolling off the end of the deck, and thus reducing fiery impacts on the city below.

[@Red_Lanterns_Rage]

LMAO!!! wrong wrong wrong but so funny lol

[@bobsterclause342]

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t breath. Too much laughing

[@boobah5643]

With that fan sucking stuff down, it'll chop up any undamaged craft flying off the end of the deck, too. Ideally. Less ideally, it'll _try_ and then jam.

[@jlvfr]

lol good one.

[@nunya3163]

@@boobah5643 If it is like a modern carrier, the angled deck is for landings only, while the one in line with the keel is for take offs.

[@pikadragon2783]

"Salt water is concentrated hate." Me looking at a globe: Oh well, that might explain a lot.

[@jessetheunending9357]

And some people think the oceans are rising... We are doomed, aren't we

[@RorikH]

@@jessetheunending9357 The live action Atlantis Remake is looking promising.

[@GodOfPlague]

Loved that part

[@JohnDoe-nq4du]

Yes, 70% of Earth's surface is covered in the goo from Ghostbusters 2. Yes, it does explain quite a bit.

[@deusexaethera]

Yeah, I don't get the whole "Mother Earth" mythos. When I think of a blob of red-hot magma covered with poop and corrosive solvents orbiting an unshielded fusion reactor and bombarded by mountain-sized rocks from outer space, I don't think of a loving nurturing mother, I think of a grouchy old man.

[@andreasmuller4666]

The heli carrier is one of the few things where i let the "rule of cool" take over my otherwise cynical tech brain. Flying carriers are just too cool to be taken apart from a sensible pov.

[@hungarianviking8713]

There were some attempts around the ww1 period where the Americans tried to make hang a couple of fighters under a zeppelin. There also was some form of hook the planes then could hang back on the zeppelin. Wasn’t really successful, t he zeppelin’s in general were pretty weak when it came to bad weather, but a cool idea that could use a bit “rule of cool” to make it happen

[@nicholashodges201]

I thought I could to, until I actually saw it on screen. I just couldn't get the image of it getting 20 ft off the deck & then just cracking like the Titanic...

[@cheeseninja1115]

@@hungarianviking8713 then during the cold war there were several ideas with b-52s and 747s for flying carriers that never came to be do to being "impractical"

[@justinthompson6364]

I randomly saw a video about a real flying carrier concept- the CL 1201. Basically a giant, nuclear powered plane with either 22 fighters slung under the wings, or three modified Boeing passenger jets to ferry troops and equipment to the ground. The project was scrapped over cost concerns, as one might expect.

[@boobah5643]

@@hungarianviking8713 I was going to complain that _Akron_ and _Maycon_ weren't zeppelins, but whether or not that is the case it turns out they were Zeppelins. That is, manufactured by Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation. Worth pointing out that these airships had an actual hangar on the bottom of the cabin, although hooks were used in deployment and recovery operations.

[@fix0the0spade]

Ah yes, the flying unnatural disaster. You've got to wonder why Hydra felt they needed guns on the Insight model. Just fly those puppies around at 5'000feet and they could level cities with the downdraught.

[@barrybend7189]

Macross: who needs thrust when Anti grav does the job.

[@arthurmoore9488]

Because they weren't trying to kill everyone. They literally believed they had a magic algorithm that would kill everyone who would resist them taking over. The entire idea was that they could kill a fraction of the population, gain total control, then use the carriers to keep everyone else in line. That entirely ignores that killing a portion of the population, especially the portion with initiative would completely destroy the country. But this was done before Covid and the general realization exactly how massive small reductions in population or a workforce can cripple an economy.

[@christophernemeth421]

@@arthurmoore9488 there are precidents for this idea. Both the Soviets and the CCP eliminated large numbers of people with initiative in their societies to eliminate dissent.

[@mondaysinsanity8193]

@@christophernemeth421 and they ended up with just the best economy. If only they didnt the us might be the superpower now....

[@DrewLSsix]

@@arthurmoore9488 that's a whole nother' set of questions, are all these dissidents in the DC area? Is no other military in the world going to take umbrage with these things as they slowly make their way from America to elsewhere? Are there plans to keep these things stocked with arms for the next several years? Are there contingencies for the targets raking the likely tactic of..... hiding?? It just seems like something that's going to make a mess then fail miserably no matter how well ot goes.

[@ComradePhoenix]

I always thought Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow was like, this hallucination I had as a kid of a movie commercial.

[@thatguybrody4819]

it's 100% real and it's a trip the entire way through. i watch it at least once a year.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

The story of its production and filming is quite fascinating.

[@noahdoyle6780]

"you're experiencing a dynamic stability problem with your aircraft carrier" USS Wasp: 😬

[@enoughothis]

The problem with the Helicarrier is the fact that to be able to fly it would be flattening everything underneath it to generate enough thrust to get this ridiculous thing off the ground.

[@RorikH]

That's actually in the thumbnail, just not the video.

[@justinthompson6364]

That depends on how close it is to the ground, and in some strange way the fact that it launches from water actually solves that particular problem with takeoff.

[@Attaxalotl]

If you fly high enough then the downwash spreads out enough that it doesn't make a difference. That's why you can stand underneath normal helicopters and not feel anything. It'd have to be tens of hundreds of feet, but if you take off and get to altitude from the middle of nowhere then you're probably fine.

[@CrescentGuard]

Ace Combat actually had an interesting couple aerial carrier designs which, while definitely still utterly bonkers, at least were the sort of things that could glide if the situation demanded it. The *Aigaion* in particular seemed designed with a crash in mind since it was 1) a flying wing and 2) very clearly a gargantuan seaplane.

[@electrohalo8798]

Not to mention the other aircraft carriers, the type mentioned at 12:16, the salvation inator itself

[@The_Viscount]

The only way I can see the Agaion flying is if it used some form of mega-nuclear power for the engines, and even then. There just isn't enough space aboard for fuel tanks capable of keeping it aloft.

[@electrohalo8798]

@@The_Viscount I mean the Aigaion was designed by belkans, who managed to fit a high energy laser on a fighter, in 1995 along with a ICBM interception system, also a giant laser, so I wouldn’t put it past the belkans to have cramed in a few nuclear reactors

[@SacredCowShipyards]

"Seaplane flying wing". Well there's a phrase.

[@captaindookey]

Imagine how much noise the wings would make...never mind the engines

[@ferro9926]

I am both ashamed and amused by the ball thing actually scaring me just by appearing suddenly

[@TarsonTalon]

Ironically, the best helicarrier design actually comes from the 'Tailspin' animated series. Don Carnage's 'Iron Vulture' is a hybrid craft, that is part zeppelin and part helicopter. Pretty much solves the issues other helicarriers would have by being part zeppelin, giving a lot of redundancy, both in number of vertical propellers, and its helium tanks. The chances of the ship just dropping out of the sky are extremely low, as if it loses too many engines or too much helium, it will likely descend to the ground softly before the rest of the propellers or helium tanks are destroyed.

[@Comicsluvr]

There was a Vincent Price movie way back when called Master of the World that had a hybrid ship like that. Now I need to look up Dr Carnage's Iron Vulture.

[@Krahazik]

Loved that cartoon and I think you might be right on that. To further expand on that. It was 2 zeppelins side by side with the hangar in between them. The planes launched from within the hangar out the front. Recovery was done at the top going down the center-line. They also had a drop door in the belly of the hangar where they could just drop stuff, including a wrecked Seaduck in one episode. The vulture was also very long.

[@weaselwolf]

Came here just to praise the iron vulture myself lol

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

fun fact: hybrid zeppelin planes (where the while body acted as a wing to generate lift) were considered in ww2 for a flying aircraft carrier and a cargo vehicle. and are now being considered again in the modern age for cargo and passenger aircraft.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

I did, in fact, hear (in my head) the sound of the red ball hitting things.

[@jaywerner8415]

sounds something like "Donk"

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Hah!

[@Pyre]

"Saltwater hates everything that isn't saltwater" Even having only lived in a seaside town through college, can confirm. It's like the sheer eldritch horror that is the ocean sends little tendrils of itself out to shore in the form of everything nearby decaying.

[@akizeta]

The worst thing about salt water, SCS? Human beings are, like, 70% salt water. Or maybe that's the worst thing about human beings.

[@benholroyd5221]

So seas are 70% human? Is that why you're not supposed to drink sea water?

[@CuAnnuvin]

Hummies are only 70% condensed, liquid hate? Sounds a little low...

[@travcollier]

Salt water is concentrated hate, so, yeah, that checks out.

[@Orinslayer]

All life on earth has roughly the same composition which is almost the same as actual water.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

It certainly explains... something.

[@doktor_ghul]

Even as a child, I got the notion that a flying aircraft carrier is basically a table supported by columns of downdraft that would leave huge tracks of destruction behind it, making the idea of keeping it SECRET kind of impossible. I was introduced to the idea by both the original comic book Helicarriers and my favorite, the CLOUDBASE from Gerry Anderson's CAPTAIN SCARLET AND THE MYSTERONS. I loved both, but even then, I knew that the Mysterons wouldn't need to do much more than land a vehicle on the moon, mine a huge rock from the surface, drop down the gravity well of Earth, and drop it on Cloudbase to cut the head off the Spectrum organization. Oh, well...

[@sixhundredandfive7123]

Sky Captain is one of my favorite films. There is something to be said for style, efficiency isn't always beautiful.

[@thatguybrody4819]

the artstyle just makes it that much better.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

The movie definitely had style.

[@26th_Primarch]

The best flying aircraft carrier design I've seen is the Aigaion from Ace Combat 6

[@fix0the0spade]

I think the Arsenal Bird is more practical, making it all drones cuts out all that weight needed for people to live in it. Although I dread to think what the radiation from the Space Elevators microwave emitors did to the people of Selatapura.

[@justarandomtechpriest1578]

@@fix0the0spade and it's aps And the lasers

[@kyleaugustine6886]

My only issue with that design is the recover of aircraft. I'd hate to think what kind of vortexs would be created in the wake of that bird. Actually it would be cool if someone did a wind tunnel test with a mock up of the Aigaion.

[@26th_Primarch]

@@fix0the0spade ah the the giant drone plane that's resupplied via mass drivers

[@fix0the0spade]

@@26th_Primarch Everything's better with railguns.

[@thatguybrody4819]

the fact alone that you know about Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow makes me so happy. but the fact that you apparently love it makes me wish i could subscribe again somehow.

[@greenrena8503]

"The submersible aircraft carriers worked better than *that* thing!" Ouch, that really hurt!

[@Commander_Raveth]

The fact that you're right is making me mad! But you *are* right!

[@xenozilla0723]

Wait till he hears about the arsenal bird

[@sski]

That initial 'salt water' rant was glorious. I lived on or around Absecon and Brigantine Islands for over 20-some years. Having moved to the upper Midwest I see a lot less degradation in all metal things I own as opposed to when I lived on the East Coast. Especially my fishing/water gear/hunting gear and weapons. My musical gear doesn't show corrosion as badly on metal parts as well. Salt air down the Shore was bad for jack plugs and potentiometers. It is indeed a most hateful substance. Thanks for the video, Dockmaster! And I'm glad to see you're diversifying your output delivery. Cheers!

[@thatguybrody4819]

i've heard horror stories about the Rustbelt.

[@sski]

@@thatguybrody4819 You've heard stories about people who produce Metal \m/(>

[@SacredCowShipyards]

"I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to be... green."

[@sski]

@@SacredCowShipyards LOL!

[@terranceroff8113]

I was always somewhat concerned about someone taking a cat shot off the engled deck ...right over the top of a giant ducted fan thats holding up somewhere around 200,000 TONS of air born carrier. Brings a whole new meaning to a launch that sucks@

[@IRMentat]

one would HOPE that the reverse angle would eb that of a take-off, but then that would make the take off opposite to the direction of travel and straight through the "conning tower" turbulence to boot so eff knows what engineer in their right mind would have submitted this design without doing it as a bad joke or going all "hail hydra!" on the procurement team.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

They just flip the polarity on that rotor during launch. No big deal.

[@philvanderlaan5942]

I should have , but forgot Sir Isaac Newton untill just now any action has an equal and opposite reaction. Any aircraft launched off the rear flight deck would get sucked into the rotor that is pushing several thousand Newton’s of force down in an impressive effort to not be an extremely large extremely annoying lawn ornament.

[@BobMcBobJr]

Maybe they land and take off on the same side of the runway?

[@Ithirahad]

Maybe they're variable pitch and the autoguidance+inertia just eats the momentary powerslide while the plane gets clear...?

[@tarmaque]

This whole concept only works if you assume some kind of anti-gravity technology and that those big turbines (not helicopter blades) are just propulsive, used for control and motivation. If you assume that, then it makes a whole lot more sense. That said, the flying "Red Room" in _Black Widow_ still makes no sense whatsoever. In a movie filled with "WTF" and Florence Pugh, the only redeeming factor is Florence Pugh. (Gods that movie had a lot of WTF. And Deus ex Parachute.)

[@philmitchell8109]

The Japanese actually built several submarine aircraft carriers the I-400 class. While they never actually took part in action due to their later development in the war they could have been effective if used against the west coast of America. Not on a large scale but the panic would have been a significant factor.

[@RorikH]

Ah, sort of the Japanese equivalent of the Doolittle Raid, which did little, but proved that we could attack Japan, and thus was great for our morale. I've heard we sunk them because if we hadn't we would've had to share them with the Soviets.

[@Philistine47]

The I-400 class were AFAIK the first subs to carry multiple aircraft with the intention of using them to attack targets, but they weren't the IJN's first stab sit aircraft-carrying submarines. They built a _bunch_ of subs carrying a single aircraft each for scouting purposes. As for their effectiveness... eh, they _might_ have gotten in _one_ shot. After that they'd have had a whole bunch of people hunting them. and by 1945 the USN was _really good_ at hunting submarines. Especially big, slow-diving subs that could only make a reasonable speed while surfaced.

[@philmitchell8109]

@@Philistine47 I agree it would have been a one shot but can you imagine the effect of attacking the Golden Gate Bridge or blowing up the Hollywood sign in 1945. America had no real attacks on the main land (I know about the balloons but I'm being serious here). The effect would have been massive

[@jakeaurod]

@@philmitchell8109 U-boats shelled the east coast.

[@maj.romuloortiz7832]

@@jakeaurod Didn't they miss Rhode Island?

[@idminister]

If 1 engine is lost, the opposing engine would have to be immediate switched from thrust to balance mode and the craft begin emergency landing. The problem with balance mode would be that it is a massive rotor with massive blades and balance would almost certainly require the ability to instantaneously switch thrust direction and output to maintain proper orientation to not crash catastrophically. As balancing the carrier would be a positive feedback system, instability is ultra high.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

"What's that smell?" "Oh, that's just the bearings burning."

[@ferrusmanus184]

Every day SCS uploads is a good day. Eventually i want to show whatever being this is my ship designs.

[@firstadam2k]

Anyone who's ever flown a drone with four props knows the issue he's talking about I have had a motor fail mid-flight and yes you get the spinny cartwheel of Doom it may be different when you have six to eight running in concert but with floor motors one fails you're on the ground.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

When you have enough redundancy - and a flight controller that's adaptable enough - it should be able to recover. Still wouldn't want to actually /be/ on it while it recovered.

[@lechking941]

@@SacredCowShipyards and thus emergancy landing

[@barrybend7189]

Sky captain and the world of tomorrow, Captain Scarlett and the Valiant from Doctor Who all say hi. Those at least make sense as they don't bother with stealth like how the MCU Helicarrier does.

[@autisticgamer4949]

The Valiant atleast makes more sense since it was designed by a legit evil genius(By Human Standards, by his species standards he's batshit insane)

[@thatstarwarsnerd6641]

The Valiant was designed by an alien genius, using reverse engineered alien tech, and in my opinion looks at least 20 times cooler and more original than what is essentially just a normal aircraft carrier with massive propellers strapped on it

[@Zayfod]

and the Spectrum Skybase is not just a flying aircraft carrier, its an atomic powered, luxuriously furnished, permanently airborne, base of operations for a global intelligence agency. It's dumb and impractical, and I love it.

[@thatguybrody4819]

also the sky pirates from Tailspin.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

As with everything else in the Whoniverse, the Valiant is magic dressed in technical trappings and deliberately so.

[@Sarafimm2]

I blame the comic artists. Not sure if they talked to anyone about concepts, but it just LOOKS cool. When they drew the artwork, they didn't know they were going to be turned into movies.

[@electrohalo8798]

12:16 *chuckles in the alicorn class submarine carrier from ace combat*

[@martysdogs8]

Where flying aircraft carriers are concerned, I think Planetside 2 does it best with the Bastion Fleet Carriers. The lore of the game is honestly pretty fantastical, as game mechanics like respawning & spawning vehicles are explained in-universe, and the importance of these abilities directly connects to the “why” of players’ objectives. Anyways… Bastions solve the whole staying up problem by using space magic thrusters. Large and powerful ones exist on the rear and underside in line with the center of mass, and a number of smaller ones exist on the sides, top front and top rear for maneuvering. Also due to the nature of how Bastions operate, while they don’t suffer from roll stability issues, they would be fine even if they did. Bastions never get close to the ground (let alone salt water), and even at full readiness they only run in-atmosphere for around an hour before returning to orbit (a fuel-costly process I would assume). With Oshur’s upcoming release however we do get to see their larger cousins the Exodus Fleet Carriers landing on water to be used as logistics hubs. While Bastions have an array of artillery and anti-air weaponry, these weapons are too small to influence its flight, and the only single weapon large enough to do so is mounted right under the center of mass to minimize its effects. Flight operations on a Bastion are massively simplified for 2 key reasons. Firstly, all munitions, arms, and vehicles are manufactured on the spot out of swarms of nanites, meaning no hangar deck, and no munitions or fuel storage areas to act as vulnerabilities. Secondly, all aircraft in Planetside 2 are VTOL crafts, so no lengthy runway launches. The flight deck space is instead (in lore) used for aircraft to land for repair & rearm (in gameplay it gives enough room so multiple aircraft deploying at once don’t run into one another). Likewise since all vehicles are made of nanites, and players don’t fear death because THEY TOO ARE ALL NANITES, aircraft recovery doesn’t happen as they fight until death, disassemble back down into nanite swarms, and just return to the global “cloud” of omnipresent nanites that the Bastion pulls from. Honestly Planetside 2’s whole lore is low key lovecraftian horror. And it sounds entirely believable that a stranded human expedition discovering the ruins of an ancient alien civilization who cracked the secret to immortality and supply logistics by just uploading everyone into nanites and making everything out of nanites, would look at the whole thing and immediately use that knowledge to wage a brutal and endless war where death doesn’t stop you and the fighting never ends. Also nobody’s fighting over food or fossil fuels, no, this war of indeterminate length (though by lore they’d been cut off from earth for around 200 years when it started) is being fought over the extremely valuable resource known as bandwidth! Yep, since every soldier and gun relies on the ability to give orders to nanites on site, a territory’s control lays firmly with the faction that controls its network terminal (the game’s capture points). Also means that a territory needs a cabled connection back to a faction’s home base (warpgates) to be fully operable. Like I said, Planetside 2’s lore is wonky and a bit terrifying, albeit while mostly making good sense.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

I seem to recall a Black Mirror or Electric Dreams or something similar episode disturbingly similar to that.

[@pseudonym9599]

After watching this, I feel like the Iron Vulture from Tailspin was the best flying carrier design. Two banks of 6 helicopter engines spaced well away from the flight deck on each side, for plenty of redundancy, a watertight hull to land in the ocean, and a large internal hanger for maintenance. Though having the drive engines at the end of the flight deck and the bridge directly below the flight deck forward must have provided some hair raising experiences.

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

Given the sheer mass of that thing, the heli-blade-banks ould hardly have been enough. If, however, the bulging hull contained what amounts to an airship on each side, then that MIGHT work towards mitigating the overall mass the heli-banks need to lift.

[@vespervespertilianus8868]

@@ranekeisenkralle8265 I kind of always figured there were hydrogen or helium tanks along the whole outer section of the lower hull in the Iron Vulture, given the shape. It would definitely have to have something like that to keep it aloft.

[@thatguybrody4819]

i have the theme song stuck in my head again. i'm not complaining, but screw you.

[@pseudonym9599]

@@thatguybrody4819 Oh eeee yah! Tailspin! Oh eee ey! Tailspin!

[@pseudonym9599]

@@ranekeisenkralle8265 Yeah... There is that. I kinda ignored the power limitations and reliability issues of that era. Considering the stuff the Seaduck could do with two 1930's civilian engines, I assumed that this universe had found ways to increase engine power. As a kid, I always thought those purple bulges on the side were filled with lighter-than-air materials making this a hybrid of a ridgid airship and flying helicarrier. Too bad that

[@aaronpaul5990]

I wonder if they would die quicker from the vibrations of the air from being moved with such force or the first low altitude turbulence that said: hey this side now wants to be 10 meter below the rest of the rotors ...

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Just imagine the potential vortex ring state when these are taking off.

[@Krahazik]

Turbulence would have very little effect on these things due to their sheer mass. Different aircraft experience the same amount of turbulence differently depending on the mass of the craft. What is mild turbulence to a jumbo-jet might be extreme turbulence to a small 2 seat airplane, and effectively no-turbulence to one of these helicarriers.

[@talinpeacy7222]

Ya, there are a few sky carrier designs I kinda like but the general notion has a lot of snags. It would actually be more realistic and affordable to just make space capable supersonic warplanes you could operate out of a traditional airstrip

[@jlvfr]

First time I saw those 4-prop-carriers, I went "wtf disaster alert". As for the heavy guns on the carrier? Once, in a forum, one guy came up with: "well, they must be recoiless guns!"... yeah...

[@dragonace119]

Even if they were upscaled 105 Recoiless Rifles, whats the point of having a gun system (thats not CIWS) isntead of having SAMs or Cruise Missiles. So regardless its extremely dumb. And also Recoiless Rifles aren't exactly recoiless similar to that of things like MANPADs.

[@jlvfr]

@@dragonace119 I know right?! I was so stunned by the dumbness of his idea, at the time I simply could not find a reply...

[@dragonace119]

@@jlvfr Yeah, sometimes people forget that things have both an equal and opposite reactions and of why missile systems like the LAW and RPG have a hole in the back and why there's even backblast.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

"Recoilless guns" are kind of like "military intelligence".

[@jlvfr]

@@SacredCowShipyards I think as a kind of false advertising: "Wth dude you said this had no recoil and look at that!" "What? It stayed in place, you don't have to drag it..." "But it shook like hell!" "Ah well, that wasn't in the contract"

[@eliasgordon4321]

Another perfectly serviceable episode! If you wanted to compress a helicarrier into a cube, a good start would probably be dropping it nose first out of the sky 💁

[@atigerclaw]

Helicopter is best described as 10,000 parts flying in close formation. It is job of mechanic to ensure formation is as tight as possible. Helicarrier is best describes as 10,000 helicopters trying to break formation on regular basis. It is job of mechanic to see this and get as drunk as possible.

[@deusexaethera]

3:40 - OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT. I _can_ hear the sound of them hitting something just by seeing a picture of one. I didn't even realize I had that memory from my childhood.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Lulz.

[@deusexaethera]

@@SacredCowShipyards : As it happens, I can also hear the sound of being hit in the face with a kicked soccer ball. I'm "lucky" it hit me straight-on, because if it had hit at an angle it would've broken my nose.

[@klikkolee]

For objects resting on supports, there is a concept called a support polygon* that allows you to assess whether a (rigid) structure is stable. Draw the smallest convex surface that contains all points of contact. If the center of gravity is over, on, or under the polygon, the structure is some degree of (passively) stable. Further from the edges is more stable. If the center of gravity is outside or is exactly over/on/under the edge, it is unstable. Further from the edges is in a sense more unstable. You can mentally play around with what this will look like with 4 points of contact, and you should find that it's impossible to place 4 points of contact such that losing any 1 point of contact always gives a stable structure. Think of it like blowing up a leg of your table. taking out any 1 leg will be the end. If you use a 5-leged table, it actually is possible to ensure that the structure is able to survive losing any 1 leg. more legs is too complicated for me to work out in my head, but I think 6 legs still only guarantees the ability to survive one lost leg. Some variations of losing 2 legs give a stable result, but others don't. You can apply a similar concept to something like a helicopter, treating the engine positions as the points of contact**. You can show that it is impossible for a quadcopter to be (passively) stable after losing an engine. There is also a complication with helicopters that isn't present for the normal structure -- when you magically disintegrate a table leg, the contact forces at the other points of contact change nearly instantly so that the points of contact stay put. With the helicopter, you will need to change the speed of the surviving engines, which may take substantial time. If this process takes too long, the craft can tilt and may eventually tilt to a point where the center of gravity is no longer over or under the support polygon -- becoming unstable. If the center of gravity is over or under the support polygon (as opposed to perfectly on it), it is possible to use tilting to recover from the unstable state. However, getting to this point can require reversing some engines (or doing a somersault to get there the "long way"), and if the center of gravity is close to the support polygon, the needed tilt can be very dramatic. Tilting the craft as a whole without tilting the engines means that there is a net horizontal force on the craft, so vectorable engines will likely be required. Even though the support-polygon concept seems to say a helicarrier can be "passively" stable, that isn't true -- because a helicarrier is not a table. Just like how the contact forces nearly-instantly change when a contact point disappears, they also change nearly-instantly when the table is gently nudged, and everything is gently being nudged all the time. The helicarrier needs to constantly monitor its tilt and tweak the speeds of the engines. It is only actively stable. Unlike with the passive stability of the table, the active stability of the helicarrier can be extended to the case of the center of gravity being right over/under the edge of the support polygon. In this situation, either all but two engines have come to a full stop, or at least one engine is in reverse -- effectively adding to the weight of the carrier! I think this would've been a cool detail to see in the Marvel movie -- when one of the engines died, the opposing should have come to a stop and gently quivered in place. The active stability can even extend to the case of the center of gravity being completely outside the support polygon. However, this requires some of the engines to constantly be in reverse -- even worse for fuel economy and for the max thrusts the engines need to be designed for. *it's called a support "polygon", but it can be any surface for which all orthographic projections are convex. It's basically shrink-wrapping around the supports, and while gaps between supports become straight edges of the support polygon, convex curved edges of the supports will result in curved parts of the support "polygon". That doesn't really apply for the helicarrier because thrusters function like point-supports, even if they have wide fans or nozzles. What does apply is that if the support points aren't planar, the support "polygon" is also not planar and thus not a polygon. However, this quibbling doesn't really change how you use the technique. The ideas of "above", "below", "on", and "outside" are still easy to figure out. **Even though it's common to think of a force as applying to a specific point, it applies to an infinite line. I gave up trying to find a good way to expand the contact polygon idea to incorporate these lines of thrust. Fortunately, treating the thrusters as "points" of support gives the correct results.

[@noahdoyle6780]

"If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to."

[@epicstyle1000]

in the marvel comics the hellicarrier's crash so often its a meme and a death sentence to be assigned to one

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Seems accurate.

[@tba113]

The 'Aigaion' carriers in the Ace Combat series of games, and the 'Banshee' carriers in the novels and anime Yukikaze, used a cavernous central hangar for flight operations. Of course, they weren't _heli_ carriers by any stretch: they were designed to remain airborne indefinitely. The Banshees used nuclear jet propulsion - a real technology, and not nearly as horrifying as it sounds, but never pursued for any production aircraft - while the Aigaions' more conventional jet engines required something like six KC-130 refuelers every day. That said, both airships existed mostly to get shot down, and it's unclear what advantages they gave that made them better than existing systems like fighters, bombers, and ballistic missiles by enough to justify making them. I mean, sure, they're powerful ships, but if they're, say, twice as powerful as a conventional fighter wing at 10X the cost, you could get the same 2X impact at only 2X the price by building twice as many conventional fighters.

[@Attaxalotl]

6 KC-130s every three days, and it was also fully refueled whenever it landed for maintenance; near the oil refinery that it was constructed at. I'd assume the KC-130s also weren't able to refuel it all the way and it was more of a stopgap.

[@thomasjenkins5727]

How to make a working helicarrier. Step one: Magic energy source. You want this thing to exert enough force to hold a ridiculous amount of mass at extreme heights, start with a magic energy source. Step two: Magic propulsion. Instead of relying on helicopter propulsion, do sci-fi magic like antigravity or repulser or whatever. Step three: Decoy helicopter structures. These need to be there to call it a helicarrier. They need to be big enough to provide enough lift to actually hold the helicarrier, but they're really just decorations. For the structure, I'm thinking something like this... So, you have the helicopter blades sticking out the middle, no exterior ring, just blades. You have a central stack that houses most things, and on the top and bottom you have runways so that plains can land wherever is more convenient. Also you'll need your magic propulsion somewhere, depending on how it works. When people ask you how it flies, you tell them it helicopter flies. When they ask you what it runs on, you tell them sunshine and rainbow farts. Might want some decorative solar panels somewhere. When they keep asking questions, you conquer faster so that you can stop pretending you don't have magitech.

[@nunya3163]

As it takes 3 points to make a plane, a ship floating on three engines, rather than 4 could stay aloft. It would really depend on weight distribution. If you break one of the legs off of your kitchen table, or you chair, it can still remain upright, you just cannot put the weight above the broken 4th leg. Given that the 4 engines on the helicarrier where not even symmetric to begin with, it would have to have the advance vectoring controls described, just to hover. As for two engines, they would have to be in opposite corners, and aligned through the center of gravity. Then you could conceivably have a spinning crash, where you slow the rate of descent, while spiraling down, that might slow the descent and prevent flipping over enough to maybe have some survivors at the bottom.

[@jakeaurod]

Or they could just it to have two rotors, if they are far enough above the center of gravity. The Chinook and Osprey both use two rotors in two different configurations.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

The problem is that as soon as the first engine fails, the ship started listing, and apparently SHIELD had never heard of tie-downs before, because all of their cargo and planes and whatever else started sliding towards the lower part of the ship. Which will only aggravate the situation further.

[@nunya3163]

@@SacredCowShipyards True, just that that 747 trying to take off out of Afghanistan a few years back, the cargo broke loose as it was taking off in a steep assent. This caused the tail to go straight down, and the nose straight up, as it crashed down tail first.

[@Nails077]

I always thought a submersible aircraft carrier made more sense. What you gain from having a carrier being able to launch aircraft from already in the sky doesn't seem to be as significant as being able to hide one in the ocean where your opponents can never be too sure where they are and they can just pop up anywhere. Not to mention hide again if they come under attack.

[@someone110]

"Submarine aircraft carriers make more sense than this" Nobody tell him about the Alicorn

[@TheDowntimesfl]

I loved the saltwater commentary, tonight's project is playing in the bilge of my boat replacing and servicing things.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

My condolences.

[@TheDowntimesfl]

@@SacredCowShipyards the Joy's of boat ownership.

[@patrickstewart3446]

“I’ve had the same car since I was 19 and it’s ever given me a problem. Yet this thing falls out of the sky every other Thursday.” Maria Hill on the Helicarrier, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

[@peternordgren]

I had this idea that the original helicarrier design by Jack Kirby had six propellers along its sides. Turns out it has three things along each side… and the front ones aren’t propellers, they’re some sort of gubbins… and the others do house big propellers that look like they extend over the fight deck. Oh well. At least there was one catamaran design with a bunch of pods looking like they held repulsors along each side, the Samuel Sawyer, but that was for a miniseries that was only slightly in continuity.

[@deusexaethera]

Actually you _can_ support a four-cornered helicarrier if one of the propellers fails, but it's complicated. The diagonal pair of propellers that still work will have to provide _all_ of the lift, while the third propeller that still works will have to either provide a little extra lift _or_ run in reverse to provide downforce, depending on whether the corner it supports is heavier or lighter than the corner with the failed propeller. For that to work, each of the propellers would have to be overengineered not by 50% but by _150%,_ so two propellers could provide all of the lift required to maintain altitude, indefinitely, without running at their mechanical limit. But regardless of all that, it's completely impractical to operate a helicarrier on a planet with Earth-equivalent gravity.

[@shadows4400]

This channel is comedy gold! Facts, common sense and pure anger!.....LOVE IT!

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Welcome to the madhouse.

[@Maj_Kasul]

That’s one hell of a footnote

[@steveo9284]

Thank you! Every time I've ever seen one of these, I had similar concerns. Don't get me started about safety lines and tethering!

[@aidanpysher2764]

Submersible aircraft carrier, you say? Salvation time.

[@LtCWest]

You know, your rant about submarine CVs reminded me of the Atlantis-class submarine super carrier from "Supreme Commander" which was a rather usefull unit to have on sea maps, especially since it could produce its own air wing. ^^

[@FlyingMonkeyDeathGod]

For that matter, the Aeon Czar - SupComs answer to the flying aircraft carrier - makes more sense than most of the contenders in that it's a literal flying saucer kept in the air by mysterious alien supertechnology rather than any known laws of aerodynamics, and it's two principal air to ground weapons are the city destroyer beam it fires directly down directly under it, and the mass of the Czar itself once the enemy actually manages to shoot it down and it comes crashing down in the direction it was flying when you killed it - which means that the principal use of it in most competitive games is less a flying aircraft carrier, and more like the most massive guided air to surface missile imaginable.

[@JohnTrustworthy]

* Crushes hellicarier into a cube with a central fan thingy * * Weirdly, it becomes more stable *

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

_"Helicopters don't fly. They vibrate so badly the ground rejects them."_ -- Author Tom Clancy

[@159asmos]

If you over engineer the propellers so that two of them can hold the ship up. When one goes down you set the pitch of the opposite one to neutral so you are now balancing on opposing corners with the third one that is still functional being used to balance. If we to ones that went down in the movie were opposing corners, when the second one went down you would have lost your stability so you would want to try and sit down as quickly as possible. This is what they did in the movie.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Given the amount of thrust necessary to keep this thing aloft to begin with, 100% overengineering the drives would be both cost and mass prohibitive. Likewise, given that SHIELD doesn't appear to believe in tie-downs, as soon as that first engine fails and the ship starts taking on a list, it becomes an unrecoverable feedback loop.

[@max7971]

I love that names like Rumble are considered weird but KZbin is normal.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

I mean, I've been feeding humies through tubes for a while now. ... wait, what we were talking about again?

[@ClokworkGremlin]

10:30 I can think of at least 3 governments on our entire planet who would sign off on what is obviously a massive overcompensating makework program for their respective aerospace industires. And of the 3, Russia's the one I think would be most likely to actually succeed at the thing.

[@rangelo7281]

Russia would be guaranteed of succeeding IF Stalin had ordered it. :-)

[@JonBerry555]

Are the other 2 US and China? Cause here I could see it go for each country. China's domestic design fails so they steal for the US or buy an old one from Russia. Russia's will work, but it ain't pretty and they will only make one. Plus no need for a warm water port for such a ship for Russia. The US will over engineer it and the ammo for the AA guns will cost more than it cost to build the ship and equip it with aircraft. While building 15 of them.

[@wizzard4003]

and then they will complete 2 and cancel any future orders

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Russia does seem quite skilled at beating things into submission, even atmospheres.

[@ClokworkGremlin]

@@JonBerry555 Give the man a cigar, the other are the USA and West Taiwan.

[@thechroniclegamer4285]

Imagine the strength of the winds if it hovers over a city (would the vibrations shatter windows?)

[@aarongerard7277]

The noise alone would probably cause hearing loss in a lot of people.

[@fix0the0spade]

If one of these weighs as much a modern nuclear carrier (about 100'000tons) it would destroy the city, blast forests flat and push the water out of reservoirs, 100'000 tons of downwards air pressure is quite a lot.

[@thechroniclegamer4285]

@@aarongerard7277 it would probably break someone’s bone

[@thechroniclegamer4285]

@@fix0the0spade I’m feel like it’s larger than modern carriers tbh

[@henrycooper3431]

@@thechroniclegamer4285 its 100m longer than the Nizmit class apperently

[@abnegazher]

Hello SCS. It's me again! The guy who sent you that derelict, the USG Ishimura. I guess there was some time dilation through the Gate, so it not arrived yet. Just one thing... I made some salvaging on the universe where I discovered it... There was some ruins... Well... Anyways... If you find some double-helix black thing that looks like a DNA tree, just throw it on the nearest star or black hole... Just for precaution.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

ORLY.

[@waynecampeau4566]

Actually loosing any two adjacent engines (fore and aft too) would result in catastrophe I think even if they all could run-up to 300% lift. Also bear in mind that the "Insight" class appear to be much lighter that you would initially think. Note that when shown in the shipyard there is almost no visible support or graving cradles under the hulls. They might already be on repulsesers but that doesn't make sense in a confined space where heat dissipation and the effects of the lift field could be a big problem. Just another case of the art department ruling over any actual engineering concerns.

[@regalplays7135]

The avengers helicarrier sorta looks like someone took the Midway and replaced all the elevators with engines

[@kyleaugustine6886]

The big thing that I always saw was that they had AV-8 Harrier jump jets as part of it flight complement on what is essentially a full size Nimitz class that flys. That just asking for murphy's law to come knocking. You are arming your most advance/complex vessel with what is essentially one of the most accident prone aircraft in military service at the time. Actually still in service, although to a much smaller degree. But seriously who's idea was that? It hard enough to land one of those planes on a normal ship, imagine trying to land it on a platform a 20,000 ft! At that point your better off with a good old compliment of F/A-18s to fill the gap... Actually you'd be able to get more done with an wing of Hornets and have fair less maintenance. Which also bring up another issue, everyone on the flight deck has to wear O2 kits to work. That is one hell of a logistical nightmare even if you ignore OSHA also knocking on your door. Maybe they have some kind of Sci-fi BS super compressed tank. I mean just a glance from anyone who knows would tell you Firemen have longer lasting tanks then these guys. They'd have to change tanks after nearly every launch, at best thirty minutes to be safe.

[@RorikH]

"But seriously who's idea was that?" Notable Non-military Non-engineer Jack Kirby. (well, the ship, not the harrier jets)

[@Keestral]

You only need O2 above 10k feet and even that altitude can be increased with acclimatation. Since it's supplemental oxygen, you don't need large tanks either. It's a pretty simple problem to fix. In the movies, from the fact that they didn't use airlocks when going outside, it looks like this thing is not pressurized so they are not flying at an altitude where they would need masks anyway but if they did, you could have compressor stations all around the ship for people to refill their empty canisters. I'd be more worried about the high-altitude high-speed winds, low temperatures and wind chill factor that comes from said winds.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Just imagine the tethering necessary to avoid man-overboard drills. Although, I guess once someone goes overboard, there's really no recovering him.

[@kyleaugustine6886]

@@SacredCowShipyards I guess you could give the deck crew parachutes... But that would suck to walk around with a chute and a reserve all the time.

[@rdablock]

it'll probably be safer because you don't need to VTOL, just do short rolling takeoffs with less engine power. if you stall of the ramp you have more than enough altitude to recover

[@tonygreenfield7820]

Dont't forget Cloudbase from the original Captain Scarlet and Skybase from the New Captain Scarlet CGI series. On the plus side both used jet thrusters rather than rotors for lift as well as forward motion. Skybase was a better design as it had four flight decks, two being angled.

[@barrybend7189]

Cloudbase actually uses some antigrav like Airship one in Thunderbirds. The jets are for station keeping and movement. Watch the Century 21 tech talk episode on it.

[@James-rn7dx]

I guess my question would be this. If you have a two-level flight deck that looks to be one for landings and one for, take offs, why do you need an angled deck and don't say they can take off from the angle deck to because that would send them right into the blades.

[@justarandomtechpriest1578]

Deconfliction

[@RandomGuy0400]

Also, I'm pretty sure all the craft on the helicarrier have vtol capabilities anyways...

[@sethgilcrist8088]

The angle is so that if something happens the crashing plane doesn't smash into the the launch deck

[@SacredCowShipyards]

What Seth said. If a landing craft missed its arrestor line and, for some reason, wasn't at full throttle, you don't want it pancaking the craft on the lower deck. Instead, it will be finely minced and turned into mist by the rotor keeping the helicarrier aloft.

[@sethgilcrist8088]

@@SacredCowShipyards shouldn't you have the bug catcher up if the plane is having enough issues that it can't bolt? Isn't that the whole reason they made the bug catcher for when your pilots can't pull a bolter Edit yes I know it's properly called a barricade but we Marines like to call it a big catcher

[@ro-gamingftw3327]

sub-carriers would probably be better for stealth recon or something like that rather than strike craft. so they would have their uses.

[@tailtaletsare]

Need more submersible carriers and c-130 spectre gunship -esque ships too! Thank you for all the videos.

[@douglascolquhoun8502]

All hail the Dockmaster! Scourge of poorly engineered vehicles and Lord of Cubes!

[@randorookie8587]

R/boss fight

[@malusignatius]

A robot being terrified of salt water is amusingly appropriate.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

EVERYTHING should be terrified of salt water.

[@robertharris6092]

Aye. Good to see some skycaptain love.

[@ailius1520]

What about the giant blimp variety of flying carrier, example Prydwen from Fallout 4? Amazing how they could park rotary winged aircraft and carry around thousand pound suits of power armor and still have the whole thing be less dense than air. Plus what ever armor the hull is made of. And it's going to need armor because it's a big stationary target.

[@barrybend7189]

Or the zeplin carriers from War of the Worlds Goliath.

[@carlborg8023]

there were some real world Rigid air ship carriers, The Acron and Makon.

[@RipRoaringGarage]

Regarding the 4 turbine hellicarrier. How to solve it if you can only do 4 turbines say for lack of space. (I will number the engines more akin to aicraft going port to starboard, front to back) 1. Ensure that the diagonals (eng1-4 and eng3-2) intersect atop the CG of the vessel. 2. If any given engine fails, have fast fuel transfers to shift the CG inside the triangle of the remaining three engines, and declare emergency and get that thing down ASAP 3. If 2 engines fail that are diagnoal to each other (ie, engines 1-4 or 2-3) then use fuel transfer to keep the CG along the line between the thrust vectors of remaining engines. The inertia of vessel being so heavy would keep it from weeble wobbling. Again, declare Mayday and set it down someplace. 4. If both port engines fail, or both starboard engines fail, or both fore engines fail, or both aft engines fail, declare mayday and stick your head between your legs and kiss you A goodbye. Prep for national day of mourning. Schools closed in the state. Month of funerals for those on the carrier and civilian casualties on the ground. Insurance companies asking for bailout from the government due to the trillion dollars of losses filed by survivors of the impact. Government prints money to bail out ins companies. Congress passes the HICCUP Act (HelICarrier Confined to Uninhabited Perimeters), much like with supersonic aircraft, prohibits helicarriers from flying over land, as well as contracting out a defense contractor for 1.27 trillion dollars to study the feasability of lasers mounted on frogs, welfare spending package for Crapistan and funding for paper bag manufacturing. Oh, and also funding for brand new Gulfstreams for all members of Congress and a 46% increase in salary. Two years later NTSB publishes findings, and FAA ground the vessels, but Navy argues that the helicarriers do not fall under the FAA jurisdiction as they are navy ships not aircraft. 8 years of litigation goes on, and another helicarrier goes down, this time taking out the cousin of a Hollywood A-lister and the daughter of a firebrand senator. Helicarrier is retired the following day, being retrofit into normal carriers, powered by Tesla. Result is the ships weight twice as much, are slower than a Hudson River garbage scow and routinely catch fire like the Felicity Ace. This is the complete Engine Out Checklist for the Clusterfox Class Helicarriers

[@jonathonspears7736]

Can I just say, I love your work. It's so accurate and things I have pointed out to people time and time again. Like "why the frak would you build it this way?!"

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Thanks!

[@merafirewing6591]

​@@SacredCowShipyards also the Soviets were going to design a helicarrier and it looks more sane compared to that Marvel Monstrosity.

[@LastGoatKnight]

The only way I think the Helicarrier would stay afloat without a rotor is that turning of one of the working ones and put the rest two on max drive. For example: left front rotor died then they turn off the right aft. Yes, there will be dynamic stability issues but it can be vectored better with a "backup" rotor. At least that's what I think would work, I'm not an engineer in aviation (sadly)

[@chrisdefresne3235]

Always embrace the concept of flying Battleships. It COULD NEVER go wrong. Also, for the submersible Aircraft Carrier concept look to Japanese submersibles in WW2.

[@your_local_bottom]

In defense of the steam-punk flying aircraft carrier, if they mounted the propellers correctly (facing upwards) then they would have to deal with the fact that now the aircraft that the carrier is supposed to launch can no longer do so without risking crashing into one of these propellers and potentially destroy the entire carrier + it’s strike craft compliment

[@TheArtikae]

Also I don’t think it matters much whether the rotors are above or below the COM. By that, I mean that there’s no stability benefit towards mounting the rotors above the craft.

[@hughreid5303]

I love this channel.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Thanks!

[@hughreid5303]

@@SacredCowShipyards It's interesting to see you diversifying what movies/books you make your videos about.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Oh, there's all kinds of 'verses out there that we haven't even touched on yet, like next week's episode.

[@hughreid5303]

@@SacredCowShipyards I'm looking forward to it!

[@rafale1981]

I can see a future where the true benchmark for any narrative media of earth is whether they hold up to the esteemed Dockmaster‘s standards

[@SacredCowShipyards]

I could live with being hired on as a technical advisor for Hollywood, if only to be able to tell a producer, "No touchy!" Unfortunately, they're far more interested in being pretty than right.

[@russellhallett]

Best way to get it to work would be to lighten it up and add some blimp like pontoons to help lift the weight so the propellers can run at 10-25% But it would make it more passive than front line due to making it more fragile to attack and you would have to redesign most of it

[@duddude321]

I would love to see the verbal aneurysm you would produce if you ever addressed Bowser's fleet of sea/air/space ships. Or the Starship Mario and Comet Observatory. Just a Super Mario Galaxy video in general if I'm being honest.

[@Pystro]

One point of clarity: The blades on a conventional helicopter being above the body does not do anything for it's tipping stability. Helicopters are inherently unstable and need to be stabilized by the reactions of the pilot or some electronics. However, the reason why they ARE above the body is to keep them as far away from anything they could interfere with. (Obstacles sticking out of the terrain, the terrain itself, humans walking to/from the fuselage...) The abomination at 3:02 does a decent job of keeping the downdraft as far away from the entities leaving and approaching the carrier (planes, because the downdraft is weaker above the rotor than below). But if you wanted to land that thing ANYWHERE, I can guarantee that at least one of the engines will loose it's blades in the process - even if they JUST hit water. And taking off can only be done from a pad that the hull can rest on while the engines are suspended above the ground. If you want to know more look up "pendulum rocket fallacy". The only point in time when the top-mounted rotor actually keeps the helicopter upright is when it's auto-rotating down. Because under that condition, the blades are only contributing drag, like a parachute.

[@triple7988]

Actually there have been successful implementations of drones that can fly with just two of its 4 motors running.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Sure, but they were purpose-built with that in mind. Overengineering the helicarrier's drives to that point would be... challenging.

[@adamczechowski614]

So.... Dockmaster... should we be sending you boxes of herbal tea? Too, you know... help calm those nerves? Neurons? SIlica Pathways? Or whatever you use? Appreciate the channel, keep'em coming!

[@Eulemunin]

More thruster! 8 or more. But the thrust needed and the amount of air will make some interesting down drafts when approaching for a landing would be messy.

[@ShahjahanMasood]

Ok, so how about the Giant Airships from Ace Combat? The P-1112 Aigaion from Ace Combat 6 has a pretty interesting design. It carries around a Squadron of Aircraft for Defence and Strike roles but the main purpose of the Giant fleet is Strategic Missile attacks. It is a launch platform for Cruise missiles. And it can saturate entire Cities in a volley. The Arsenal Bird from Ace Combat 7 is also really cool minus the shields. An Unmanned Aircraft carrying around Hundreds of other Unmanned Aircraft is super cool

[@jrw2electricboogaloo411]

I've been waiting for this one for a while

[@jrw2electricboogaloo411]

The second I saw this thing I love the fact that when you take off the one where you goes instantly straight into a repeal or if you were going fast enough to go see him without without being sucked in or if they had some sort of system to prevent that if your if the system failed you'll go straight into engine and send the whole thing down

[@originalSPECTER]

There’s a reason tilt-rotor aircraft took a long time to develop. The successful ones use double driveshafts. Same for Boeings Quad-tilt-rotor concept. You can’t risk one engine just quitting while in vertical hover unless you want to guarantee a horrific crash. You can take out an engine of an Osprey and it can still land just fine. But if you hit it hard enough to blow off the entire rotor-blade… Well, it’s going down anyway, probably breaking apart mid-air, no aircraft is surviving that kind of hit. Osprey went from having a dubious safety record in development to one of the best the Marines have ever had. Also, I’m surprised you didn’t mention that the 105mm artillery piece on the AC-130 actually changes the aircraft’s heading when fired and the pilots need to account for it. Same is actually true for the A-10 and its 30mm cannon. There is literally a minimum airspeed above stall you need to be at or you’ll induce a stall by firing a burst. So, yes. You can technically Tokyo Drift an AC-130, which should automatically trigger Eurobeat blasting from external speakers like some kind of weeb version of that scene from Apocalypse now. Alas, it does not… And funny the Navy should be mentioned, because they literally developed a new version of the 105mm specifically for the Air Force to put on their AC-130s. The weird looking muzzle break suggest that the midnight mid-air power-slide maneuver was not something the Air Force actually wanted the AC-130 to be able to perform.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Well, if they were going to do the whole "powerslide" thing, they'd have to install underglow lighting, and that'd be a WHOLE 'nother requisition form.

[@originalSPECTER]

@@SacredCowShipyards I believe the need for underglow neon is always implied in this context.

[@CraigLYoung]

Thanks for sharing 👍

[@steel8231]

Maybe the helicarrier guns are recoiless rifles that vent through to the other side of the ship to counter act the thrust from recoil?

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Recoilless rifles are kind of like military intelligence.

[@steel8231]

@@SacredCowShipyards they did make a 105mm howitzer that can be fired from the back of a Willis jeep without flipping it like a coin.

[@The_McFortner]

Yes, we soft squishie Humies love our Battleships. So much, we've done a whole franchise about taking one and making it a Space Battleship! I speak of course of "Space Battleship Yamato", aka "Star Blazers" in the U.S. I'd LOVE to hear your take on this bit of insanity. Just sayin'.

[@gigaspheal9439]

He confirmed for me that Yamato herself at least is on the list, cause I asked him politely if he'd consider doing the ships of the other factions as well, cause I think the design philosophies of the factions and their ship is rather interesting

[@fredwupkensoppel8949]

omg I watched Sky Captain on VHS as a child. Awesome movie!

[@topphatt1312]

To be fair the helicarrier wasn't meant to make sense it was supposed look really fucking cool, and I would say it achieved that.

[@redenginner]

The fact that a Helicarrier in the MCU has 64 on it is terrifying. It implies they built and commissioned 63 of the damn things before it,or they've crashed 63 prototypes. And if its not, somehow that flying boondoggle was built before the USS Enterprise CVN65,is nuclear powered,and doesn't vaguely look like a Forrestal class carrier.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Ship numbering is weird and doesn't always start at 1.

[@leerman22]

In Dr. Who Valiant is a flying aircraft carrier lifted by a whole bunch of turbofans (clearly it needs more), and it had multiple runways. The only way I think of powering that with tech of the period is a bunch of molten salt reactors circulating molten salt to thermal turbojet engines or just have a high temperature carbide fuel reactor inside each engine. Lots of redundancy tho. We never see it land into the liquid hate at least.

[@TheJBerg]

"Saltwater is condensed, concentrated HATE" Are you okay? Point on the doll where the Saltwater touched you.

[@F14thunderhawk]

i think the Dockmaster is a Sapient Fluidform composed of intelligent saltwater. or more likely Salted Acid.

[@snipersl270]

Takes doll and slowly submerges it in saltwater while maintaining eye contact.

[@jakeaurod]

The Dockmaster served as an officer in a saltwater navy for a time.

[@warblerblue]

Blonde: " if that last rotor goes, we'll be up here all day."

[@groundhero10casual]

Okay, what about the aircraft carrier design of “Crimson Skies” game series, using the zeppelin’s interior to housed the planes, equipment, and even the mechanism to launch the planes? Also no spinning propeller on the bottom or top of the ship just on the side for standard propulsion.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

That was a good game.

[@ciCCapROSTi]

I was wondering. When Tony goes around and around to keep the propellers spinning, wouldn't it have made more sense to simply apply his thrust upwards? I'm uncertain about the efficiencies of propellers, but looks iffy.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

The only problem then would be his limited contact patch versus the force he was applying.