There are sun powered planes. I think this should be the thing. Or even better: Especial things at airports, solar powered, that could let you “charge” your aircraft. That way you will have to go to airports a lot.
[quote=“StopSignal, post:21, topic:4867”]There are sun powered planes. I think this should be the thing. Or even better: Especial things at airports, solar powered, that could let you “charge” your aircraft. That way you will have to go to airports a lot.[/quote]which will, of course, have a LOT of zombies 
I imagine jets or other such aircraft would be fairly limited to airports anyway, because you need runways to land and take off. Helicopters would have more range. Hot air balloons wouldn’t really need anything other than a steadily-burning fire but you wouldn’t be able to easily travel anywhere.
Flying should be a fuel hog yes, but I think you should be able to draw from whatever resources your vehicle uses to begin with.
Helicopter blades/Jet Turbines should work like wheels, competing with things like vehicle weight to see if you ‘lack’ or have ‘enough’ to fly.
Lift could be the value of how easily your craft can ascend and stay aloft
Thrust could be the value of how much you can speed up or slow down once airborne
Helicopter blades have more lift than thrust
Jet turbines have more thrust than lift
Also, should they be easily modifiable? Because i know that you need to be almost an expert on how air actually works to make a good paper plane, EVEN MORE an aircraft…
I’d say I’m biased since I’d try to make a true all-terrain vehicle, in the sense that it can traverse land, sea and air.
But yes, you should definitly be able to chop-shop aircraft together.
[quote=“StopSignal, post:25, topic:4867”]Also, should they be easily modifiable? Because i know that you need to be almost an expert on how air actually works to make a good paper plane, EVEN MORE an aircraft…
[/quote]…to pass FAA regs. but seeing as this is taking place in the zombie apocalypse i’m pretty sure the FAA isn’t going to be a problem.
Just a note
Solar powered aircraft? A balloon maybe. A helicopter? No. A plane? No. You can’t pull enough power from solar panels to keep an aircraft in the air.
“But it’s the future-”
Shut up. The entire skin of the aircraft could be solar panels and you couldn’t pull it off, it’d be too fucking heavy. Cars in CDDA are already pushing the limit by reasoning of “it’s the future” because we didn’t want to cover the cars in solar panels and because with just two “they don’t charge fast enough” (because god forbid something petty like clouds fuck up solar power.) Solar power isn’t the cure-all environmentalists would have us believe it is. Hell, the fucking plasma engine is /weaker/ than the large electric engine, am I the only one who finds this odd?
But this is about air-vehicles so here we go:
Rotors for non-planes. Powered by Nuclear, some impressive battery reserves. Preferably an aircraft engine. "Aviation Grade Fuel"
Jet Engines or Propellers for non-jets. “Aviation Grade Fuel”
The game could really use Diesel fuel, but this keeps it on the “simple” level it’s on now without making it possible to drive a car on jet fuel or a jet on car fuel.
Personally I think that the plasma engine should leave everything else in the dust, even V12s. But let’s forget that and move to the topic at hand. Futuristic ways to fly.
An argument for ‘airship’ style balloons.
[spoiler=Vacuum Airships]In the future, airships may go one better than gasses like hydrogen and helium, by literally using nothing: a vacuum. Using cavities ‘filled’ with vacuum, a vessel could obtain the maximum possible static lift airship technology would be capable of.
Using the same materials and configuration, a vacuum airship would only get about 18% more lift than an identical vehicle using helium. However, with helium relatively expensive and worldwide supplies of it thought to be limited, vacuum airships would offer a more efficient alternative.
A number of technical hurdles remain before vacuum airships could be made practical, such as coming up with materials and a design with a strong enough weight to mass ratio to keep the lifting chamber from collapsing from external pressure. With the near-future development of stronger advanced composites and carbon nanotube materials, however, a practical vacuum airship design should be possible.
Vacuum airships would probably look and handle very similarly to modern and near-future advanced airships already discussed; an outer fabric skin would still be necessary for a practical aerodynamic shape, solar cells over the top would still prove useful for power generation, and so on.
The inner lifting chambers would have a different character, either reinforced cylinders or tetrahedral or geodesic spheres for optimized strength. These may be anchored at multiple points to the craft’s main skeleton, for extra structural reinforcement. Whereas gas bladders on earlier types of airships were designed to keep the gas pressure in, here the emphasis would be on keeping the atmospheric pressure out.
Mobile airtight partitions on their interiors may allow outside air to be filled in or be pushed back out as needed, altering the lifting volume and allowing a dynamic buoyancy system very similar to that discussed for other airships. Since there’s no lifting gas to compress or re-inflate, the operations of a vacuum-based buoyancy system may be considerably faster.
It should also be noted that if a major mishap were to occur to one of the lifting chambers, instead of bursting into flames like the Hindenburg, a vacuum airship would instead implode violently. Also, where minor piercings in the gas envelope on an earlier airship might result in a slow but easily repairable leak, a minor hole in a vacuum chamber could implode the entire thing. Even if it survives without collapsing, the violent influx of air into the chamber could skew the airship’s maneuvering with the unexpected thrust, and would of course negate a significant portion of the vessel’s buoyancy very quickly.
Vacuum airships would likely be significantly more expensive than gas-using airships to construct, but since the vacuum in their lifting chambers would never have to be replenished, their operating costs over a long period may be considerably less.
Vacuum airships were mentioned in the novel The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.[/spoiler]
Essentially these Vacuum Ballasts would draw off of a vehicle’s battery systems during takeoff ((To “fill” themselves with vacuum)) but consume nothing else during the flight, needing to likewise empty themselves for landings. The trade off here is that:
1) This does not lend itself for speedy escapes or landings, as both landing and take-off would be lengthy procedures.
2) If we do decide to go with a lift vs thrust system it would require additional propulsion, due to having nothing but lift.
Either way they would be a cool addition and key structural components in floating military assets ((stratostaions or airborne aircraft carriers anyone?))
Also, in regards to solar power and aircraft: I do have to concede the fact that they wouldn’t be able to generate the power needed to keep a heavy, non-dirigible craft in flight. Several ways to tackle that though.
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You don’t fly for extended periods. You fill up an array of storage batteries to provide your craft with enough juice to “leap frog” itself across the cataclysm. Take-off. Short Flight. Land. Recharge. Repeat.
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You attach wind turbines to your craft–which would be much more efficient at high altitudes–to help combat power loss.
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Follow in the footsteps of real life gliders and just build an aircraft that can function like a kite for extended periods of time for when you run low on solar power.
[quote=“HunterAlpha1, post:27, topic:4867”][quote=“StopSignal, post:25, topic:4867”]Also, should they be easily modifiable? Because i know that you need to be almost an expert on how air actually works to make a good paper plane, EVEN MORE an aircraft…
[/quote]…to pass FAA regs. but seeing as this is taking place in the zombie apocalypse i’m pretty sure the FAA isn’t going to be a problem. [/quote]
You actually know how planes work, dear? You would crash in two seconds with a homemade wing. To say that to completely change the plane’s direction, they only need to lift only a little part of a wing to make it makes anyone quite nervous about touching it…
Even more if it is made of scrap metal, that thing would now support air strenght.
Planes are quite finicky, but I could don’t think that someone with level 20 in mechanics couldn’t do it.
Plenty of people build aircraft on their own. There’s even a Kenyan with next to zero expertise on the subject that’s nearly finished building one out of car parts and scrap.
Also. The Wright Brothers.
[quote=“Logrin, post:32, topic:4867”]Plenty of people build aircraft on their own. There’s even a Kenyan with next to zero expertise on the subject that’s nearly finished building one out of car parts and scrap.
Also. The Wright Brothers.[/quote]yep, pretty sure the Wrights weren’t experts on airplane design, otherwise the first airplane flight would’ve been in something like an F16. all you need to make a flyable aircraft is some basic knowledge of aerodynamics, some building materials, and the will to make it happen.
In my mind the only flying vehicles left would be blimps and airships. The player could find these or make a really crapy one, they would have at least two lift fuels hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen would give a better lift off the ground but highly flammable. Helium less lift and not flammable. When your off the ground you can have propellers moving you though the sky powered by solar, gas, etc. but the more things you put on your airship the more lift gas you need.
Oh, ok then! I still think it would be a bit surreal, but i don’t know.
However, i think i would stick to planes and helicopters rather than airships. More realistic, challenging, and fun.
[quote=“StopSignal, post:35, topic:4867”]Oh, ok then! I still think it would be a bit surreal, but i don’t know.
However, i think i would stick to planes and helicopters rather than airships. More realistic, challenging, and fun.[/quote]
And code simplification…
[quote=“EkarusRyndren, post:36, topic:4867”][quote=“StopSignal, post:35, topic:4867”]Oh, ok then! I still think it would be a bit surreal, but i don’t know.
However, i think i would stick to planes and helicopters rather than airships. More realistic, challenging, and fun.[/quote]
And code simplification…[/quote]
At the contrary. An airship could fly normally and stop in the middle of the air, and then go vertically perfectly, until it lands. A plane needs a road to land, can’t stop in the middle of the air and can’t land vertically, unless it is an advanced plane.
Blimps are a thing. Have them spawn in or around stadiums instead of airports. Honestly if it wasn’t for the Hindenburg I’d bet they’d be all over the place.
Also it’s the future! Rule of cool says they should have airborne aircraft carriers, suspension of disbelief says those would need to be some sort of hybrid heli-dirigible.
If I was surviving a Cataclysmic event, especially a zombie related one, I would consider some sort of zeppelin or other ‘lighter-than-air’ craft simply because;
- It is easy as hell to make hydrogen; yes there are safety concerns but given appropriate precautions they would easily be less than those associated with horrible zombie related death.
- Loss of engine power or fuel is not a cause of immediate alarm.
- Aerodynamics are almost a trivial concern compared to those of an actual plane.
- Two Words: Sky Pirates
Codewise I’d think it much easier to simulate both building and flying a lighter-than-air craft simply because aerodynamics are of far less concern. There’s no need to ‘maintain speed’ or ensure the wings are facing the appropriate direction, calculations of drag, lift, wingspan, wing loading, G-forces, ect are all either vastly simplified or essentially non-concerns.
Heavy-lifting quadrotor drones of some sort are ostensibly in the near future for package delivery… might also look into these?
Rule of cool states that airships must be a thing.