Questions tagged [flight]
For questions related to the act or process of flying through an atmosphere. Includes any means of propelling oneself through the atmosphere of a world, including biological or technological. Does not include flight outside an atmosphere (compare [space-travel]). Compare [aircraft] and [airships], which are about the machines themselves.
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What muscles would get sore if humans had wings and could fly?
I'm intrigued by the idea of humans with feathered wings as a 6th appendage, but with prolonged flight, if such a thing were actually possible for humans naturally as it is in my book, I'm not sure ...
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Is this Wingspan Enough/Necessary for My World's Parameters?
I have a species of sapient humanoids in my world capable of flight using 24 foot wide wings. The world's being used for a science-fantasy world, so I'd like some realism, but some can be handwaved. ...
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Can this animal glide?
I'm designing an animal that's kind of like a draco lizard that has evolved to be semi-bipedal like a theropod but is still maintaining its ability to glide. On the real draco, the wings are elongated ...
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Is it possible for rockets to exist in a world that is only in the early stages of developing jet aircraft?
More specifically, is it possible for rocket engines comparable to those of the mid 1960s to exist in a world where in atmosphere jet engines are only in their early stages of development?
This world ...
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How would having decent/good/great ability to fly naturally affect a species air, land, and water vehicle creation and usage?
I had posted a similar question about this not too long ago, only it was just asking about aircraft. It got closed for whatever reason. I am asking a similar question, because I realized that air-...
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Wing positioning for this hexapodal wyvern-like creature?
Which pair of limbs should the wings be attached to for this bio-engineered creature? (A or B) The creature itself does not have a set weight and is built to fight other similarly sized creatures. It ...
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How advanced and/or important would aircraft be for a species capable naturally of decent to good flight? [closed]
I am wondering how a species capable naturally/supernaturally(with limits) of decent to good flight, i.e capable of flying for hours and possibly can hover, would treat aircraft like passenger jets ...
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Could a 1-2 foot tall (30-60 cm tall) human fly with giant artificial insect wings attached to their back?
I'm creating a sub-race of extremely short and technologically advanced humans in my book. These humans, which are dubbed 'faeren' or 'faeries' have created backpacks that have insect wings attached ...
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How or would these mechanical wings work?
I have a character with 2 pairs of mechanical engined wings and I have been wondering if they’d even work or what would be the best type of wings for this character. They’re a military fighter, ...
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How much lift would this multi-winged flying ship generate at 100 kph?
I would ask on aviation, but since this is a hypothetical aircraft, it isn't allowed there.
Context:
In this alternate history dieselpunk world there are the military branch of the "aeronavy&...
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Two sets of fins, two different functions?
Let's say you had a fish analogy organism in the oceans of an alien world. Assuming it's ancestry allows for more the number of limbs, would it be possible for it to have one set of fins for swimming ...
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What is the best engine type for linear acceleration?
Linear Acceleration: A form of transit in space flight where a spacecraft points toward a destination and accelerates for half of the distance it needs to travel, then decelerates for the other half, ...
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What would the aerodynamics of ships sailing on clouds look like (and thus their design)?
I'm currently working on a TTRPG setting where there is an ocean of caustic clouds surrounding the continents instead of a regular ocean. Tech level is roughly Age of Sail with some deviations due to ...
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What should be the "golden ratio" for lifting on a land glider?
Following the comment suggestions, I changed the question from directly asking for real world examples to this.
Context:
In this setting, some decades after the 2020's, earth had some climatic ...
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With infinite propellant, would a solid offer more thrust than say a liquid or gas?
I've been refining the design and inner workings of my spaceships lately and one thing I've been asking myself was what propellant would work best. I needed my ships to travel astronomical distances ...
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How can we make dumbfire rockets more accurate?
I am using rockets as a main weapons platform for my vehicles. Currently they are fired from a railgun like apparatus. A rocket is at the center of three rails arranged in the fashion of a triangle. A ...
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What could a flying vehicle possess that enables it to move in all direction?
So I was wondering what a flying vehicle could possess that would enable it to move in all directions at almost any angle. For example it could move upward diagonally while upside down, crazy stuff ...
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Is lighter-than-air flight possible in animals? [duplicate]
Is it possible for a human to be genetically altered to be able to fly, but instead of wings, they use internal cavities filled with a lighter-than-air gas (possibly hydrogen) which, paired with ...
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Is it possible for a plane to be fast yet strong enough to be able to pierce a plane in the air?
Is it possible for a plane to be able to pierce a plane in the air?
These planes is ejected from another plane which acts as a fuel hub for the other planes. These little planes are small, yet has an ...
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What kind of tactical situation/s would be best approached with trained jetpack pilots?
I'm writing a story where there's a civil war fought by people with weapons and technology based on 50s experimentals, kind of like a subtle "What-if" aesthetic.
How can I manipulate what ...
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At what point do you release aircraft from an orbital lander
So I have a definitely-useful-definitely-not-way-too-big-mega-size-orbital-lander(tm) that is making planetfall. Some of the goods and passengers aren't that important and can be risked by unloading ...
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How would one go about designing a carrier sailing ship for flying mounts? [duplicate]
Specifically, I am looking for a good design for a sailing ship with circa 17th century Earth technology that can carry a large swath of flying animals ridden by very small humanoids. The animals ...
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What fighting style/martial arts, techniques etc. would work well for flying people? [closed]
Like in dragon ball, people can just levitate and defy gravity to move freely through the air. What techniques, methods, martial arts, and principles would be the most practical in a battleground ...
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Antiballast for flying ship
Your miners find some strange stones - they float to the ceiling of mines.
With those stones you can easily build an airship - just fill a sleek wooden hull with them and give the rowers some wing-...
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How much energy would it take to keep a floating city aloft?
My fantasy novel features a floating city. I wanted to know how much energy (joules/second) it would take to keep a floating city aloft, but the definition of joules has "distance displaced" ...
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Is there any plausible way for a creature to fly in the way characters like superman does? [duplicate]
I'm making a superhero comic a little more grounded in reality. One of the characters in it is a genetically modified soldier who has abilities very similar to superman. How would such a character fly ...
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Shape for injector spikes that provide the best seal
In the near-future story I'm working on the protagonist is prepared for a wide range of possibilities, including getting outnumbered and surrendered.
For that possibility i though about a Banshee Box ...
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Size cap of vertebrate fliers on "Flyers' World" (10atm, 0.5g)
On Earth, unlike what's often claimed, the largest current flying birds don't approach the size limit for flight with Earthly biology. Quetzalcoatlus might be getting close to the limit, though. A big ...
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Could human-powered aircraft be practical on a low gravity world?
On a world with a third of Earth’s surface gravity, with an atmosphere with the same pressure, makeup, and temperature as Earth’s, could pedal powered aircraft be a viable and easy method of ...
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How fast can this guy safely fly?
I have a character that has powerful psychic abilites, these enable him to, among otherthings fly at high speeds and create transparent forcefields. However since these force fields are transparent, ...
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Heated Hydrogen Zeppelin Cells
(Before I begin, I would like to assure everyone present that, yes, I'm fully aware of the lunacy of this idea.)
Let us assume this takes place on a parallel Earth sometime in the early 1900s, during ...
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Evolution of flying animals on a windy planet
I'm thinking about the evolution of flight on a tidally locked planet where winds normally are 70 km/h (45 km/h) and can easily reach 120 km/h (75 mph). I've recently asked about clothes humans wear ...
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What's a reasonable timeframe for civilian survivors to learn how to fly a helicopter on their own?
Post-Apocalyptic modern world, a group of civilian survivors about three dozen in number find themselves trapped in a military base. They have no way out except by air.
The military base has a dozen ...
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If a dragon could fly without magical assistance, how much force could a dragon exert in directed air attacks using the force of its wings?
I plan to have dragons in my fantasy setting and wanted to figure out just how much force their wings would need to generate in order for them to fly.
Rules for dragons in this setting:
Dragons, and ...
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Can a superhuman swim in air?
Assume the superhuman has no powers besides super strength, speed, durability and coordination.
What would be the optimal way for them to fly without any assistance?(no gadgets, suits and additional ...
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Is my character's wingspan designed well?
My question is simply whether my character as shown in the picture,
Would it be able to fly and
Would it look believable if it did fly?
I have seen similar posts but all refer to wing types more ...
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Powering a fixed-wing aircraft in the upper Venusian atmosphere
I am writing a short story about a fighter pilot on Venus, I was advised on my other post to break up the post into multiple others.
What are viable methods to power a fixed-wing aircraft in the upper ...
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Why broom made of broomcorn flies higher than those made of straw? [closed]
There are many different materials suitable to make a broom, however only brooms that are made of broomcorn and straws are the most sought after. Note that all broom-squires are muggles and back then ...
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Could a creature use reptile scales to fly?
I know that feathers evolved from scales, but I was wondering if a bird could have feathers that kept the scales' "hardiness". For this scenario I want to go over a few things.
Evolution
...
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How do migratory dragons avoid being blinded by sun?
These dragons are as big as double decker with wing span approaching 20m measuring from tip to tip, they migrate in large numbers and fly at an altitude between 10,000m to 20,000m above sea level. ...
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Powered flying baseball
Suppose you conceal a small flywheel in a baseball (something that spins very fast with a lot of momentum for its size and weight). The coupling between flywheel and the outer skin of the ball is ...
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Could membranous wings work along with an exoskeleton?
Essentially, my world has arthropod-like creatures with exoskeletons based on chitin, but while some are mostly like earth arthropods, one group specifically developed traits more observed in ...
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How much surface area would a dragon's wings need to let it fly?
The dragon is 350kg, and should be able to fly up to 2.5 km above sea level.
Gravity and atmospheric pressure are normal.
There isn't much of a limit for the muscle's strength and bone resistance, but ...
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Riding Flying Animals, sitting or lying on them?
A long time ago I asked a question about dragon saddlery(Dragon Riding Question) and later on how to pilot flying animals(How to pilot flying animals?), but recently I saw a lot of art on the internet ...
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If a hawk-person teaches a peacock-person to fly, what kinds of maneuvers will the peacock-person be capable of?
Imagine two races, both of human-level intelligence:
Hawklings are raptor-like (as in falcons, hawks, eagles, etc) flying humanoids who have six limbs: legs, arms, and wings. They live on high cliffs ...
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Would there be any ways to theoretically have powered flight before the invention of an engine?
Would there be any ways to theoretically have powered flight before the invention of an engine?
I am trying to design some way to power a plane before the invention of the engine. I need the plane to ...
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How Big Can An Ancient Bird Powered Glider Get?
What are the practical limitations of a glider made of bronze age materials and pulled by well trained birds?
Due to psychics able to control animals, and a cultural fixation with domestication, ...
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Is it effective for a dragon to have a bat-like wing structure with feathers?
To elaborate further, is it possible to fly if a creature has the wing structure of a bat, but instead of membranous skin, they have feathers?
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What adaptations would a winged humanoid species have to be able to live on a mountain peak?
Okay, so I have a species that are humanoid but have wings, and live up on mountain peaks, like where all the snow is. They are sentient like humans, and have the same level of intelligence. I'm ...
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What if large pterosaurs like Quetzalcoatlus had survived as isolates in New Zealand and ended up domesticated by the Maori?
The question.
Let's say a pterosaur like Q. Northropi survived as an isolate and thrived as apex predator in New Zealand for millions of years.
Without much evolutionary pressure its species remained ...
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