Engineering Skydiver

Hi All,

In my comic strip, I try to keep everything as hard science as possible. As
such, putting in Skydiver raised a few eyebrows among my more science savvy
readers. I tried to explain away a few things and thought you might find the
explanation amusing:

Scott
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I like to keep hard science in the strip as much as possible. Skydiver is
probably the softest science I've used since I put a giraffe in the back seat
of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Skydiver's design problems can only be overcome with Advanced Handwaving
Technology, so don't try this at home kids!

Skydiver has two major design problems:
First it's not a very hydrodynamic shape. All those neat looking farings and
bulges do not make for a good streamlined, fast and quiet submarine. Skydiver
looks far more like a submersible than a true nuclear submarine. To explain
this, I have to borrow from Gerry Anderson's highly Advanced Professional
Handwaving Technology, and point out that Skydiver is actually a hydrofoil.
Yep, those tail fins are actually hydrofoils.

I presume that travelling on the foils is what allows Skydiver 1 to protect the
entire planet, no matter where the Aliens landed in the show. UFO coming down
in the UK? Send Skydiver 1. UFO coming down in Australia? Send Skydiver 1.

Hydrofoils. Obviously. ;)

The second major design problem is that of mounting an aircraft outside the
pressure hull of a submarine. Submarines made out of aluminum will be crushed
like a coke can by pressure, and airplanes made out of HY-80 steel do not so
much fly as plummet.

My compromise is that the boat is far more of a submersible than a submarine.
Looking at the design, it looks like it spends far more time on the surface
than it does underwater. Therefore, it probably doesn't dive very deeply.
Perhaps a couple hundred feet at the most. Build it with a carbon nanotube hull
and you might be able to pull it off. The hull of the submarine section could
be built more strongly, but you might want to pump high pressure air inside the
airframe of Sky 1 when you're at depth to keep it from collapsing.

Launching Sky 1 would be much like launching a missile from a normal submarine.
Compressed air shoots it away from the submarine hull. Solid rocket boosters
push the plane to altitude. The compressed air inside the airframe winds the
jet engine turbines up and gives them their first gulp of air as the jet
intakes come open.

The analysis of why Skydiver is militarily advantageous over a simpler design
like a hydrofoil equipped aircraft carrier is left as an exercise for the
reader. ;)

Scott

Scott Kellogg
21st Century Fox: The future's so bright, you gotta wear shades
http://techfox.keenspace.com



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