Can Serenity Fly in Hover Mode?

[Lancelot59]

You're comparing a Saturn V to a Firefly??

I am fairly certain the Wright brothers would take one look and an F104 Starfighter and laugh their butts off.

I tend to agree here. Just because it's unconventional doesn't mean it wouldn't work. That vertical moment looks like it could be balanced out. The clockwise moment from the cockpit balanced by the counterclockwise moment of the rear end, which sits lower than the pylons, and the centre of mass.

 

[DaveC426913]

I tend to agree here. Just because it's unconventional doesn't mean it wouldn't work. That vertical moment looks like it could be balanced out. The clockwise moment from the cockpit balanced by the counterclockwise moment of the rear end, which sits lower than the pylons, and the centre of mass.

Yes. We don't actually know how the mass is distributed internally. For all we know, the bilge is very dense.


Additionally, as far as the aerodynamic stability Henry is concerned about, even aircraft today must be computer-controlled to be stable. Many modern jet fighters are minutely controlled on the order of 30 times per second to remain in stable flight, without which they would break up faster than they could fall out of the sky.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that a spacecraft an indeterminate number of centuries in the future might be similarly sophisticated.

 

[Lancelot59]

Yes. We don't actually know how the mass is distributed internally. For all we know, the bilge is very dense.Additionally, as far as the aerodynamic stability Henry is concerned about, even aircraft today must be computer-controlled to be stable. Many modern jet fighters are minutely controlled on the order of 30 times per second to remain in stable flight, without which they would break up faster than they could fall out of the sky.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that a spacecraft an indeterminate number of centuries in the future might be similarly sophisticated.

As some people pointed out to me when I first had this idea, it wouldn't be an easy thing to accomplish. However it is certainly within the realm of possibility. It might not fly as well as it did on the show, but it could certainly fly. We've certainly made much stranger things take flight:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=xSg...sult&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=true