YF-29 (canon, in-series info)

[anime52k8]

YF-1R

VALKYRIE DESIGN, not animation error that was half-assedly retconed into a crappy English adaptation from the 80's that nobody in their right mind cares about.

Edited January 18, 2011 by anime52k8

[Product9]

admitedly when you move closer to large bodies like asteroids, space colonies and the planets they would be orbiting smaller craft would be more useful. You wouldn't have small MANEUVERABLE craft though. The problem is that as you get closer to large bodies in space, gravity becomes a huge factor in how you move. put simply you can't rapidly accelerate, decelerate, or change directions while under the influence of gravity because you'll either be pulled into the source of said gravity or be flung out into deep space.

I disagree. If you were maneuvering close to a planet, sure, gravity would be an issue. But other celestial bodies with less mass than earth wouldn't cause much of a problem to navigation. Especially in a future where thrust-to-weight ratios are far above 2:1. As for control, the flight control system will handle it. It is there to keep you flying in a straight line regardless of external forces. Now, if you were close to something super dense, or some other strange circumstance, I could see it affecting your handling. However, why would any pilot in his right mind put himself in such a situation?

The problem is you'd never want to/be able to hide in an asteroid field. It's not like in the movies where you have hundreds of slow moving large objects with room to zip between. An asteroid field is going to have hundreds of large objects, thousands of medium size objects and hundreds of thousands of small objects all moving at high speeds in different directions, all of which will take out your ship if they hit you. If your opponent where to enter an asteroid field you'd be better off calling it a day and heading home, as the other guy will probably be crushed/pelted to death by the millions of high speed projectiles in that asteroid field.

I hate to reference Star Trek, but even they had a solution for small, quickly moving objects. I don't know how practical a 'deflector dish' is, but considering the current advancements in force-field-like technologies (plasma window, and cold plasmas in general) I can see a solution to this in the near (and especially distant) future. Of course, the large asteroids will, well, crush you no matter what, but this is something that is dependent on the exact situation. There is a lot more cover in space than just asteroid fields, so I feel my point still stands.

Of course, it's hard to really imagine what the future will hold as far as technology is concerned. Sure is fun, though. I mean, if humans can figure out how to, for example, control gravity, then a lot of the problems go right out the space window.

[SchizophrenicMC]

VALKYRIE DESIGN, not animation error that was half-assedly retconed crappy English adaptation from the 80's that nobody in their right mind cares about.

u mad?

[biggooftoybox]

The YF-29 just looks odd to be each and every way i look. I just can't get into it. As a space fighter i can see having the weapon tubes on the wigns make sense but when in atmosphere the weapons tubes got to affect the lift for sure.

Still i wish Bandai would just stick to a certain line or scale. I find it is very difficult to get all the Valkyries in the same size or line. I thought VF100s was going to do it till they canned it and moved on to the VF Hi-Metal.

[Letigre]

I rather like it, weirdness and all; though I wish that had not gone through the trouble of sweeping the wingtips forward, just so it can be differentiated from the VF-27.

[Graham]

The YF-29 just looks odd to be each and every way i look. I just can't get into it. As a space fighter i can see having the weapon tubes on the wigns make sense but when in atmosphere the weapons tubes got to affect the lift for sure.

They are not 'weapons tubes'. They are engines that just happen to have some micro-missiles launchers built into the outside of the engine nacelles.

The YF-29 is a 4 engined variable fighter, just like the VF-27. Not sure what the endurance is like though, as in space, using 4 engines, it's going to burn through fuel at a fearsome rate.

Graham

[frothymug]

Wait, I was under the impression that these are thermonuclear reaction engines. If so, they could feasibly run for ridiculous amounts of time without needing to be refueled.

[ff95gj]

The Macross version of Minovski particles.

Graham

And Max turns out to be a Newtype... or Prototype.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Wait, I was under the impression that these are thermonuclear reaction engines. If so, they could feasibly run for ridiculous amounts of time without needing to be refueled.

In an atmosphere, yeah, but they burn fuel insanely fast in space.

We had a discussion about that a couple years back. We figured it was something to do with using air as thruster reaction mass instead of the reactor fuel, in an atmosphere or something, but in space, they had to eject reactor fuel as it super-expands in the engines. I dunno, it accounted for the fuel efficiency differences.

[frothymug]

Yeah, but when you convert mass into energy by fusion, you're getting a lot of power for so little mass. It's kind of the same reason that nuclear subs and carriers can run for years without needing to be refueled.

[Graham]

IIRC, in an atmosphere VF engines extract hydrogen from the air and use that for fuel, so basically its a 'free lunch drive' allowing the VF effectively unlimited range/endurance.

In space, it's a diifernt story and the VF has to rely on internal fuel, so when that is gone, the VF is dead in space.

Graham

[anime52k8]

IIRC, in an atmosphere VF engines extract hydrogen from the air and use that for fuel, so basically its a 'free lunch drive' allowing the VF effectively unlimited range/endurance.

In space, it's a diifernt story and the VF has to rely on internal fuel, so when that is gone, the VF is dead in space.

Graham

I've actually never heard it explained that way . I've always been under the impression that in an atmosphere the VF uses internally carried Hydrogen to run a fusion reactor, which super-heats air brought in by the intakes and then expels it out the back for thrust (like how a real Nuclear turbojet works except for sci-fi fusion reactors instead of conventional fission reactors.)

As for in space, I don't recall any official explanation but I believe the two most likely answers are it either functions as a Nuclear thermal Rocket where it simultaneously uses on board hydrogen to sustain a fusion reaction, and as a propellant that gets heated by the fusion reactor. alternatively it's simply a fusion reactor that vents the the helium byproduct of the fusion process as a source of thrust. (or perhaps it's a combination of the two.)

:edit:

also, I don't see how the engine could efficiently extract hydrogen from the atmosphere, given that there's almost none just floating around up there.

Edited January 18, 2011 by anime52k8

[valkyriechild]

And the small thrusters around the aircraft for maneuver in space, i believe it needs fuel directly as propellant, besides for the reaction in main engines as well.

It's not needed in atmospheric flight, that's why a VF burns fuel much quicker in space.

Edited January 18, 2011 by valkyriechild

[Product9]

From what we see in Frontier, it seems like they aren't using thermonuclear jets/rockets at all. I know that they probably are, but from the animation style and the... well, lack of noise, it seems like they are using some kind of electrical propulsion, like magneto plasma dynamic engines or something. If you look around for some videos of small ones firing, it actually looks rather like the VF-25's engine exhaust.

However, MPDs aren't very powerful. I suppose if you had unlimited electrical power you could generate thrust sufficient for a fighter to use, but we're talkin about some serious current. Especially if you wanna sustain it.

I have toyed with the idea of making an MPD for my senior project, but I'm not sure I have the skills to pull it off from a fabrication standpoint. Man, I shoulda gotten into metalwork BEFORE I got into electrical

Say, I wonder if the -29 will have any extra armament packs. Oh wait, someone said it has VF-25 leg fast packs already... never mind. Still, rather have a Tornado equipped -25, or a -27. The -29 is just too ugly, even if it will have magic.

And the small thrusters around the aircraft for maneuver in space, i believe it needs fuel directly as propellant, besides for the reaction in main engines as well.

It's not needed in atmospheric flight, that's why a VF burns fuel much quicker in space.

This popped up as I was posting. The vernier thrusters for attitude control COULD be MPDs. Don't know if they are or aren't. Also, in Macross they use them pretty heavily in atmosphere. I guess they provide sufficient thrust to be used in forward flight in an atmosphere, which is all kinds of cool btw.

Edited January 18, 2011 by Product9

[sketchley]

In short, the thermonuclear turbine engine uses a fuel to power the engine, and a gas to expand and eject out the rear end. In atmosphere, the fuel uses are negligible (it's unclear if the air itself is being converted to fuel or not), but a good many VFs are listed as having "unlimited" combat range in atmosphere.

In airless environments, VFs use fuel as both the fuel to power the engine AND the gas to expand and eject out the rear end. Because of that, craft like the VF-1 basically only had enough fuel to defend their airbase/carrier in the void of space. Which prompted the development of FAST packs and Super Packs.

Vernier thrusters do use fuel, and it's unclear what exactly is used. Presumably it's the same as the thermonuclear turbine engines, just via combustion, not fusion. Though, there are a few verniers on the engine nacelles of the space optimized VF-19 and so forth, that use diverted engine exhaust.

What fuel is used in the engines? VFMF:VF-19 Excalibur states that the Super Parts carry a "hydrogen-oxygen slush" as fuel. So, it's not much of a stretch of the imagination to consider that in atmosphere the thermonuclear turbine engines use ambient oxygen. However, I haven't read a source that says that elements are extracted. Of course, that doesn't mean that such information hasn't been printed.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Yeah, the above is basically what we came up with when we did that thread, regardless of what canon we'd read or not.

[frothymug]

I have so many questions and refutations for this, but I'm just gonna take it as I see it discussed here.

[Graham]

I'm pretty sure there is an official source that stated that fuel is extracted from the atmosphere, but I forget what the source is.

I thought that this was well known and commonly excepted, as we've certainly discussed it enough times over the years.

Graham

[frothymug]

Compared to the tenure of you many of the members on this board, I'm still quite the fledgling.

[SchizophrenicMC]

And it was then that I realized I'd been here for 2 and a half years. 0_0

[twich]

I am curious as to how the improved energy shield aspect will come into effect. I know that with all 4 engines engaged the VF-27 can utilize the pin point barrier system while in fighter mode, I wonder if this will mean pin point barriers all the time, or if this will mean that there will be a full omni-directional barrier ala the SDF-1 over Toronto.

Also, I am curious, I know that the VF-27 has 4 engines that produce the 1370kN of thrust each, but the outer nacelles on the VF-27 are pretty big. I wonder what kind of thrust the YF-29 will have in the main engine to power everything and also what the smaller outer engines will have for thrust.

Twich

[sketchley]

More importantly than the PPB system, the energy conversion armour system can be used in fighter mode!

[Graham]

More importantly than the PPB system, the energy conversion armour system can be used in fighter mode!

Same as the Armored pack for the VF-25 IIRC, althought that uses the armor's in-built capacitors to power the energy conversion armour (again IIRC).

Graham

[sketchley]

Same as the Armored pack for the VF-25 IIRC, althought that uses the armor's in-built capacitors to power the energy conversion armour (again IIRC).

Graham

Sounds correct.

VF-25 Armour Pack: limited ECA use in fighter mode

VF-27: unlimited ECA use in fighter mode

YF-29: also unlimited(?)

[SchizophrenicMC]

Wait, I thought all VFs used ECA in fighter mode.

[Graham]

Wait, I thought all VFs used ECA in fighter mode.

No for most VFs the ECA can only be used in Battroid mode. There is an official explanation that if IIRC, in Battroid mode, the VFs engines generate surplus power, which can be used to power the Energy Conversion Armor.

I presume (I'm guessing) that activation of the ECA in battroid mainly applies if the VF is on the ground and not actually using it's engins to fly, boost jump or hover in battroid mode, which would otherwise draw a lot of power.

Presumably with the latest generation of VFs, the engines have so much power that not only can they run at full thrust, but still have enough surplus energy to power the ECA in all modes.

Graham

[sketchley]

That would be only the VF-27. The VF-25 doesn't have enough surplus power (blame ISC).

VFMF:VF-19 does indicate that there is an attack variant that can use ECA in fighter mode, but it's maxed out and the majority of systems aren't powered. Oh, it also has the lion's share of beam weapons removed from it's airframe.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Okay, that makes more sense.

So, Macross really is adding another Minovsky Particle. This Fold Quartz can do anything. Plot science for the lose.

[sketchley]

Minovski Particles are a Gundam plot device originally created to justify mobile suits having to close to hand to hand combat range to do battle and to keep big ships from crashing to Earth with no other visible means of lift.

'tis a bit different from Fold Quartz, and it's derivative technology: ISC - which only allows manoeuvrability beyond what the human body can handle.

[Graham]

In the UC Gundam universe, Minovski particles seemed to be able to do everything. Off the top of my head:

1) Power source for MS.

2) Power source for beam rifles/beam sabers.

3) Give MS flying ability (V-Gundam onwards).

4) Active jamming of all types of missiles (don't ask me how one particle can jam IR homing + radar homing + optically guided missiles).

5) jamming of RF communication.

Never liked Gundam tech.

Graham

[sketchley]

Glad I stopped paying attention to it after the first series (which is where my description comes from).

[SchizophrenicMC]

Super Dimension:

Power supply for large vessels

Makes beam weapons work

Gives Macross flying ability

Fold-Wave Tracking

Superluminal communication

Plus, it lets you listen to Ranka's song, mmkay?

Fold Quartz boosts at least some of those Super-Dimension things. I still feel my plot science call is valid. (And, at least the Minovsky Particle is described in real physics )

[Graham]

(And, at least the Minovsky Particle is described in real physics )

Where? Please cite source.

Graham

[Keith]

Where? Please cite source.

Graham

I think it has something to do with christian science

[anime52k8]

Where? Please cite source.

Graham

It's not, it just likes to pretend it is. The Minovsky Particle is supposed to be an as yet undiscovered elementary particle which has near-zero rest mass and can have either a positive or negative charge (which is so strong that it can disrupt all forms of EM radiation to some degree, and acts as a continuous EMP that fries unshielded electronics). The problem is that no such particle exists according to the standard Model of particle physics.

Now because the Standard Model is only a provisional theory (and therefor an incomplete one) there's room for more elementary particles to exist (things like Gravitons, and the X and Y bosons). That said, no proposed elementary particle has ever been described to behave like the Minovsky particle and there's no evidence that such a particle would ever exist.

So particle physics doesn't say that the Minovsky particle CAN'T exist, but nothing supports the possibility that it does exist.

Edited January 21, 2011 by anime52k8