Hovering and Water

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Evex
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Hovering and Water

This is just a question that popped into my head, but can mobile suits and ships with hovering capabilities cross bodies of water ? What I mean by bodies of water is lakes, and oceans. I would think suits like the dom series wouldn't have a problem "water skating" , since they can hover the same goes for the big tray class of ships.
Massignifico
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Re: Hovering and Water

In Mobile Suit Gundam: The Ace Pilot for Gamecube the Doms became much slower when on water, even more than regular walking mobile suits. Maybe they aren't powerful enough to hover on water
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Sabersonic
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Re: Hovering and Water

Well they should, and without a difference in performance. After all, why would any one invest in ground-effect craft like the LCAC in the first place?
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Dark Duel
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Re: Hovering and Water

I know it's outside Gundam, but in the SRW anime, machines like the Gespenst which are shown to hover in a fashion similar to the Dom are shown to do so over water equally well.
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Kuruni
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Re: Hovering and Water

Same as in G Generation series, I think it is the point of hover ability.
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Deathzealot
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Re: Hovering and Water

Unicorn has LCACs doesn't it??

EDIT:

Yup!
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Lord Dearche
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Re: Hovering and Water

In real life anything with the ability to hover above the ground can do so over water so long as the thrust can connect with enough of the surface of the water.

Even if it's water, it's still a surface. It's just not a solid one and won't give you the same effect as when the thrust is hitting on solid ground, so there will obviously be a huge lost of force.

The problem with mobile suits is that even if they can hover a bit, there's a limit to how long their thrusters can stay active before running out of prolellent or over heating. Unless it's a unit that's capable of free atmosphereic flight, but in that case you can fly so who need to float on water?
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Gelgoog Jager
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Re: Hovering and Water

Massignifico wrote:In Mobile Suit Gundam: The Ace Pilot for Gamecube the Doms became much slower when on water, even more than regular walking mobile suits. Maybe they aren't powerful enough to hover on water
IIRC, in Gundam Crossfire Doms can hover over the water surface as long as they keep moving (or was it boosting?). I'll check to confirm and see if the same applies to Gundam 0081.
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: Hovering and Water

Lord Dearche wrote:In real life anything with the ability to hover above the ground can do so over water so long as the thrust can connect with enough of the surface of the water.
With the exception of hovercrafts (which literally float on a cushion of high-pressure air contained beneath them by their skirts, so the skirts need to maintain contact with the surface beneath them) and ground effect vehicles (which fly via the ground effect, a quirk of aerodynamics between a lifting surface like a wing and a solid surface like the ground), things that can hover midair do so entirely by producing enough lift to counteract their weight, and it doesn't matter if they can "connect" with the surface or not.

Given that the Dom hovers via downward-facing jet engines in its legs, it should be able to hover over basically any surface at basically any altitude (up until it hits its service ceiling, anyway) without problems. This isn't how it's portrayed at all, of course, but that's how the technology should work.
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Ceiling_Squid
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Re: Hovering and Water

Brave Fencer Kirby wrote: Given that the Dom hovers via downward-facing jet engines in its legs, it should be able to hover over basically any surface at basically any altitude (up until it hits its service ceiling, anyway) without problems. This isn't how it's portrayed at all, of course, but that's how the technology should work.
Really, any altitude? Didn't the same article you linked also say that in order to achieve ground effect, a certain proximity with the ground itself is required?

Specifically: "When an aircraft is flying at an altitude that is approximately at or below the same distance as the aircraft's wingspan or helicopter's rotor diameter..."

That pretty clearly states that there's a low upward ceiling on ground effect, based on wingspan or rotor diameter. That's not a lot of wiggle room as far as possible altitude is concerned.

I mean, it's entirely possible that the Dom could achieve higher altitude, and it probably can generate the necessary lift to pull it off, but the very non-aerodynamic humanoid configuration seems to suggest that its not really capable of the kind of extended flight you describe. Just strapping jet engines to a massive humanoid form isn't going to guarantee a long operation time for flight, let alone any reasonable control while doing so. It doesn't have any wings or rotors to generate further lift, nor any effective control surfaces.

I wouldn't say it'd be "without problems", given that its losing the benefit of ground effect the moment it exceeds a certain very-low altitude. At that point, the Dom becomes entirely reliant upon the lift it can generate, instead of getting a helping hand from proximity to the ground.

I was rather under the impression that the Dom absolutely relied upon ground effect in order to hover with any sort of efficiency or effectiveness. The additional lift provided must be the missing element that prevents the Dom's engines from having to carry all that weight by themselves, and burning rapidly through their fuel supply.

I'm no expert in the subject, so kindly correct me if I'm off as far as my plausibility meter goes.

All that said, what would we classify to be the Dom's "wingspan" as far as the ground effect calculation goes? It's feet? They are notably the widest flat ground-parallel surface on the suit. It would also go a long way to explaining why the Dom's feet are designed so large, even with the jet-engines factored in.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Hovering and Water

Ceiling_Squid wrote:
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote: Given that the Dom hovers via downward-facing jet engines in its legs, it should be able to hover over basically any surface at basically any altitude (up until it hits its service ceiling, anyway) without problems. This isn't how it's portrayed at all, of course, but that's how the technology should work.
Really, any altitude? Didn't the same article you linked also say that in order to achieve ground effect, a certain proximity with the ground itself is required?

Specifically: "When an aircraft is flying at an altitude that is approximately at or below the same distance as the aircraft's wingspan or helicopter's rotor diameter..."

That pretty clearly states that there's a low upward ceiling on ground effect, based on wingspan or rotor diameter. That's not a lot of wiggle room as far as possible altitude is concerned.

I mean, it's entirely possible that the Dom could achieve higher altitude, and it probably can generate the necessary lift to pull it off, but the very non-aerodynamic humanoid configuration seems to suggest that its not really capable of the kind of extended flight you describe. Just strapping jet engines to a massive humanoid form isn't going to guarantee a long operation time for flight, let alone any reasonable control while doing so. It doesn't have any wings or rotors to generate further lift, nor any effective control surfaces.

I wouldn't say it'd be "without problems", given that its losing the benefit of ground effect the moment it exceeds a certain very-low altitude. At that point, the Dom becomes entirely reliant upon the lift it can generate, instead of getting a helping hand from proximity to the ground.

I was rather under the impression that the Dom absolutely relied upon ground effect in order to hover with any sort of efficiency or effectiveness. The additional lift provided must be the missing element that prevents the Dom's engines from having to carry all that weight by themselves, and burning rapidly through their fuel supply.

I'm no expert in the subject, so kindly correct me if I'm off as far as my plausibility meter goes.

All that said, what would we classify to be the Dom's "wingspan" as far as the ground effect calculation goes? It's feet? They are notably the widest flat ground-parallel surface on the suit. It would also go a long way to explaining why the Dom's feet are designed so large, even with the jet-engines factored in.
up until it hits its service ceiling
It has a very low service ceiling. (smile)

The Dom doesn't have >1g thrust-to-mass ratio, so it cannot fly(even at empty weight), the hovering can last for, if I recall right, 360 mins, before it over heats.
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: Hovering and Water

Ceiling_Squid wrote:Really, any altitude? Didn't the same article you linked also say that in order to achieve ground effect, a certain proximity with the ground itself is required?
Yes, that's true of ground-effect vehicles, but the Dom isn't a ground-effect vehicle. As you point out, the ground effect comes into play when a lifting surface is very close to the ground. The Dom doesn't even have any lifting surfaces! It's just got jet engines in its legs. The jet engines thrust down, which lifts the Dom up -- no ground effect required. There's no reason why this shouldn't work at any altitude up to the service ceiling of the jet engines (ie, when the air gets thin enough that it stops working properly). You're right in that it probably has a limited operating time and that it'd certainly have control issues (given that it doesn't have any aerodynamic control surfaces -- ie, flaps, rudder, etc) but that's true at ground level as well, and it seems to do just fine there.
Ceiling_Squid wrote:All that said, what would we classify to be the Dom's "wingspan" as far as the ground effect calculation goes? It's feet? They are notably the widest flat ground-parallel surface on the suit.
The Dom's "wingspan" is zero, because it doesn't have any wings. The ground effect doesn't apply to just any surface oriented horizontally to the ground, it only comes into play with airfoils, like a plane's wings or a helicopter's rotors.
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Evex
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Re: Hovering and Water

So from what I'm reading the basic jist is as follows. Mobile suits like the dom can hover over water, but the mobile suit itself needs to be in continuous motion. Otherwise the mobile suit risks falling into the water it is hovering over. The question is how deep can this water get ? For instance can they hover across a lake, or even on the surface of say an ocean as long they can make it back to a ship to land on ?
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