Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

21 minutes ago, NightmarePlus said:

So how exactly do Thermonuclear Reaction weapons work in depth? 

Thermonuclear reaction weapons are a practical form of pure fusion weapon.

Put simply, a modern thermonuclear weapon (a hydrogen bomb) uses a uranium or plutonium-based nuclear fission warhead as a "primary" explosive to create the temperatures and pressures needed to induce fusion in the hydrogen isotopes that are the secondary warhead filler.  This use of a smaller fission-based nuke to kick-start the fusion reaction that makes the H-bomb go is also why hydrogen bombs still leave behind hazardous radioisotopes.

A thermonuclear reaction weapon omits that fission-based primary explosive and replaces it with heavy quantum.  By exciting the heavy quantum with fold wave resonance, the heavy quantum's huge mass suspended in higher dimensional space drops into realspace and the intense gravitational force crushes the hydrogen fuel until a runaway fusion reaction starts and you get a thermonuclear explosion where almost all of the energy is released as heat and light.  Because there's no fissile material involved, they produce little-to-nothing in the way of neutron radiation and no lingering radioisotopes to contaminate the blast area.

[sketchley]

3 hours ago, NightmarePlus said:

So how exactly do Thermonuclear Reaction weapons work in depth? 

The Macross Chronicle article on them: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRtechnology/09aReactionWeapons.php

 

and for those that are interested, the article on Dimension Weapons: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRtechnology/13aDimensionWeapons.php

[JB0]

7 hours ago, NightmarePlus said:

So how exactly do Thermonuclear Reaction weapons work in depth? 

If I recall, it is basically "nuclear fusion, only the trigger mechanism is a small amount of heavy quantum instead of a tiny fission bomb"

Which makes sense, really. It creates an area of significantly boosted gravity in the heart of the bomb to keep the fusibles in one place longer once the reaction starts* AND gives you a simpler detonator(probably), without going whole-hog into REALLY exotic technology.

 

*This is apparently a major hurdle in actual nuclear weapon development. Once the chain reaction starts, the things you are trying to react are flung violently apart by the explosion, and the reaction stops well before all the fuel is consumed. Every additional microsecond that everything stays together results in a larger yield for the same amount of fuel, or less fuel to get the same yield.

 

 

Edit: Oh. Literally everyone already said this. Didn't realize I was a page behind.

Edited February 18, 2021 by JB0

[pengbuzz]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Thermonuclear reaction weapons are a practical form of pure fusion weapon.

Put simply, a modern thermonuclear weapon (a hydrogen bomb) uses a uranium or plutonium-based nuclear fission warhead as a "primary" explosive to create the temperatures and pressures needed to induce fusion in the hydrogen isotopes that are the secondary warhead filler.  This use of a smaller fission-based nuke to kick-start the fusion reaction that makes the H-bomb go is also why hydrogen bombs still leave behind hazardous radioisotopes.

A thermonuclear reaction weapon omits that fission-based primary explosive and replaces it with heavy quantum.  By exciting the heavy quantum with fold wave resonance, the heavy quantum's huge mass suspended in higher dimensional space drops into realspace and the intense gravitational force crushes the hydrogen fuel until a runaway fusion reaction starts and you get a thermonuclear explosion where almost all of the energy is released as heat and light.  Because there's no fissile material involved, they produce little-to-nothing in the way of neutron radiation and no lingering radioisotopes to contaminate the blast area.

So essentially, you get a true miniature sun of an explosion. Unbelievable gravitational forces courtesy of the heavy quanta compress the hydrogen into fusion.

Isamu's head must be filled with heavy quanta to contain all that massive ego in one small space.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

So essentially, you get a true miniature sun of an explosion. Unbelievable gravitational forces courtesy of the heavy quanta compress the hydrogen into fusion.

Yup.

It's also worth noting that, unlike a conventional thermonuclear reactor, this is why it's absolutely possible to turn a thermonuclear reaction furnace (AKA "fold reactor") into an ad hoc thermonuclear bomb as Misa did to the reactor underneath Mars Base Salla in "Bye Bye Mars".  The reactor uses a Gravity and Inertia Control system to produce and control the heavy quanta needed to compress fuel and achieve fusion, so all you need to do to make the reactor into a bomb is put a LOT of fuel into the reaction chamber and produce a lot of heavy quanta, and then excite the heavy quanta all at once.

[Podtastic]

On 2/18/2021 at 2:04 AM, sketchley said:

and for those that are interested, the article on Dimension Weapons: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRtechnology/13aDimensionWeapons.php

Fascinating.

Leaving the scarcity of Fold Quartz aside...

 Is there any technobabble way to combine the Heavy Quantum Reaction Gun and Dimension Eater technology? Imagine tremendous Zentraedi Mobile Fortresses equipped with Grand Cannon scale HQRG's where the beam is not only destructive of itself, but leaves DE over a wide area in its wake for yet further mass destruction.

I have a dream.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Podtastic

[camk4evr]

Sorta. The Macross Frontier fleet was able to convert their conventional beam cannons into dimension eater cannons fairly easily.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Podtastic said:

 Is there any technobabble way to combine the Heavy Quantum Reaction Gun and Dimension Eater technology? Imagine tremendous Zentraedi Mobile Fortresses equipped with Grand Cannon scale HQRG's where the beam is not only destructive of itself, but leaves DE over a wide area in its wake for yet further mass destruction.

I have a dream.

Yes and no.  It doesn't work quite like you describe, but it's absolutely possible to convert a heavy quantum beam gun or heavy quantum reaction beam gun to use dimension eater technology.  Micro Dimension Eater (MDE) beam weaponry basically produces a particle beam made of micro-singularities.

It's not necessarily more powerful than an equivalent heavy quantum reaction beam cannon of the same class/scale, but you could say it's the last word in armor piercing since those micro-singularities that make up the MDE beam cannon's output draw the matter they come in contact with into fold space.  They were extremely effective against the Vajra, who had evolved their natural energy conversion armor to become resistant to thermonuclear reaction weapons and low-powered heavy quantum beam weapons late in the Macross Frontier TV series.

To date, we have not seen a large-scale application of MDE beam weaponry along the lines of a warship-mounted offensive weapon.

The VF-27 Lucifer's heavy quantum beam gunpod was upgraded to the MDE specification late in the Vajra conflict (TV ver.) to address its diminishing effectiveness against the highly adaptive Vajra.  The YF-29's improved version of the VF-25 Tornado Pack's TW1 heavy quantum beam cannon turret (the TW2) was built as a MDE beam cannon turret which is noted to also be used by aircraft carriers (presumably as a point-defense gun).  The novelization of Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy also gave the YF-30 an ordnance container that was outfitted with a twin-barrel MDE beam cannon turret.  (In the game, this option is not present and the YF-30 is only ever armed with the missile container.)  The VF-171EX's new gun pod was a combination unit that combined a 30mm machine gun with MDE shells with a larger MDE beam cannon.

[no3Ljm]

@borgified posted this on the DX VF-31 toy thread:

[Bolt]

That looks bad ass!

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, no3Ljm said:

@borgified posted this on the DX VF-31 toy thread:

Does he have any without the reflected light from overhead lightning blurring the text?

Sorry for the potato quality, I hacked the below image together real quick from the above and some published VF-31A line art from an old pamplet that did the rounds around the time the Macross Delta TV series first premiered.  Had to do it in MS Paint since I'm on my work computer and don't have access to Photoshop.

So... it's another custom VF-31 that more closely follows the design of the VF-31A?

All in all, I am unimpressed.  If I didn't know better, I'd have dismissed this as someone's fan art or a rejected Master File design rather than promotional material.

The differences from the stock VF-31A Kairos don't seem to be very significant either.  The canopy now tapers to a point on the nose and the sensors there have been rearranged to accommodate it.  The canards have been redesigned slightly, and the winglets of the double delta wing have been stretched forward a little bit to more closely resemble those from the Sv-262Hs Draken III command spec.  The mounts for the fold carbon/fold quartz inserts have been redesigned a bit too.  The only other noteworthy changes are the railguns on the VF-31's forearms have been enlarged significantly to almost gunpod size, the beam gunpod itself has also been enlarged, and the ordnance container has grown a spike with no immediately evident purpose.

It looks like it's largely unmodified, otherwise.  All the existing design features of the VF-31A are still present, including all of the weapons systems barring the enlarged railguns and larger gunpod.  There are some slight changes to panel lining in the part of the wing where the arms are stored, but otherwise this looks to be a less extreme modification than the five existing (four surviving) Delta Flight VF-31 Customs.

One thing I will say is that I feel like the winglets give the game away... this VF-31 was designed with a Windermerean pilot in mind.  Probably whoever's the new White Knight now that Keith and Roid have contracted a bad case of dead.  That would, by literal process of elimination, mean that this VF-31 belongs to Bogue Con-Vaart unless some new pilot will be introduced.  It won't be the twins because writers are loath to break up a set and Hermann's too old.  If this is a collaboration between Xaos and Windermere, I wonder if it has the same derated FF-3001/FC2 engines used by the Siegfried customs or if it'll use the Draken III's more powerful FF-2999/FC2 engines.

 

[Sanity is Optional]

I've got to agree with the SV-262 heritage showing. Both with the new wing design and also the underslung gunpod, which has some similarities to the SV-262 gun.

[David Hingtgen]

If it somehow gets Roid's coloring though, it would look amazing as a new Elvis-valk...

[no3Ljm]

12 minutes ago, David Hingtgen said:

If it somehow gets Roid's coloring though, it would look amazing as a new Elvis-valk...

Elvis Valk you say? I'm IN! 

 

[no3Ljm]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Does he have any without the reflected light from overhead lightning blurring the text?

Apologies, @Seto Kaiba.  @borgified seems to got that image from a Facebook user.

 

[Master Dex]

I made some comments in the other thread before reading here.. I'll discard those as again Seto provides a better set of points.

We did see a Delta 06 in green coloring in the teaser so that could be Bogue in this. We also saw Mirage was sporting a new variant with these wing tips though.. perhaps all of the Delta Flight Valks are now instead of the FSW versions from before.

[Sanity is Optional]

5 hours ago, Master Dex said:

I made some comments in the other thread before reading here.. I'll discard those as again Seto provides a better set of points.

We did see a Delta 06 in green coloring in the teaser so that could be Bogue in this. We also saw Mirage was sporting a new variant with these wing tips though.. perhaps all of the Delta Flight Valks are now instead of the FSW versions from before.

Didn't Mirage end up in the SV-262 because her 31 was destroyed in the last movie? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.

[Master Dex]

3 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Didn't Mirage end up in the SV-262 because her 31 was destroyed in the last movie? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.

No that happened, but the teaser for the new movie clearly has her in a new 31, with modifications like seen above. It's likely not 5 minutes after the first one ended after all. 

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Didn't Mirage end up in the SV-262 because her 31 was destroyed in the last movie? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.

5 hours ago, Master Dex said:

No that happened, but the teaser for the new movie clearly has her in a new 31, with modifications like seen above. It's likely not 5 minutes after the first one ended after all. 

Says a lot about the movie that I legitimately couldn't remember and had to look it up. 

Both Hayate and Mirage were shot down in the dogfight on Al Shahal midway into the movie, but it's never made clear if their respective VF-31 Siegfrieds were destroyed or simply disabled.  Hayate's VF-31 is shown crashing at a relatively low airspeed and should be basically intact.  However, sloppy editing later in the film implies that Hayate had ejected from his VF-31 and that it exploded in midair due to having reused the scene from Macross Delta Ep13 where Hayate's VF-31 was incinerated by the detonation of a reaction weapon the NUNS used to try to destroy the Protoculture ruins on Ragna.

Looking back at it, it's actually pretty weird that the Aerial Knights only recovered one of the three downed Siegfrieds for study.  None of them were heavily damaged, but for some reason they only recovered Messer's which was missing its ordnance container and apparently ignored the other two?

During their escape, Hayate took Messer's VF-31 and Mirage made do with a Sv-262Ba Draken III after changing its transponder codes.

 

EDIT: Actually, it's even weirder if you think about it... Hayate and Mirage stole two fighters from the hangar of an Aerial Knights warship WHILE THE SHIP WAS AT BATTLE STATIONS.  What's more, NOBODY noticed.  That's a level of failing a spot check above and beyond even the worst blunders of the Imperial Stormtroopers in Star Wars.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

EDIT: Actually, it's even weirder if you think about it... Hayate and Mirage stole two fighters from the hangar of an Aerial Knights warship WHILE THE SHIP WAS AT BATTLE STATIONS.  What's more, NOBODY noticed.  That's a level of failing a spot check above and beyond even the worst blunders of the Imperial Stormtroopers in Star Wars.

That's because they couldn't see a thing in their helmets.

Edited February 24, 2021 by pengbuzz

[Bolt]

18 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

If this is a collaboration between Xaos and Windermere, I wonder if it has the same derated FF-3001/FC2 engines used by the Siegfried customs or if it'll use the Draken III's more powerful FF-2999/FC2 engines.

A collaboration would be interesting.  The Draken drives would be cool. 

[twich]

I would wonder how much reinforcement the VF-31 airframe to be able to tolerate the increased stress of using the more powerful engines of the SV-262 in a VF-31. I like the idea though. Would they need to do like they did for YF-29 and upgrade the ISC. Also, wondering about the huge arm cannons on the new VF-31. I wonder if they are still rail guns or laser machine guns of large caliber. Cant wait to find out!

twich

[Bolt]

Happy to have more deculture. Even if it's now J-pop..

[pengbuzz]

5 hours ago, twich said:

I would wonder how much reinforcement the VF-31 airframe to be able to tolerate the increased stress of using the more powerful engines of the SV-262 in a VF-31. I like the idea though. Would they need to do like they did for YF-29 and upgrade the ISC. Also, wondering about the huge arm cannons on the new VF-31. I wonder if they are still rail guns or laser machine guns of large caliber. Cant wait to find out!

twich

The thing is: they could reinforce for the direct thrust of the engines, but there would also still be the issue of reinforcing for the added stresses of maneuvering with said engines at their operational speed. I would have to assume that at their operational standards, the Sv-162 engines are going to be pushing the craft at higher G's in the turns and other maneuvers. At some point, is "reinforcement" going to mean rebuilding the entire airframe?

On top of that, there's the issue of the fold reheat system; would a VF-31 (even with enhancements to the airframe) be able to handle that? What systems and sub-systems would they need to install to operate such a feature? Is there enough available room / power conduits/ engine connections/ computer linkage for control to include such a system?

I would assume the Sv-262 was designed with these things in mind, but the VF-31 was not.

Edited February 25, 2021 by pengbuzz

[Sildani]

It’s an uninspired redesign, gotta say. One more change they made is the wing roots, they’ve been extended forward and the canards have had their rear surfaces cut out to accommodate it. I wonder if the canopy is solid like on the 262 for the holographic imagery system. 

[Chronocidal]

3 hours ago, Sildani said:

It’s an uninspired redesign, gotta say. One more change they made is the wing roots, they’ve been extended forward and the canards have had their rear surfaces cut out to accommodate it. I wonder if the canopy is solid like on the 262 for the holographic imagery system. 

I don't think the wing roots have been altered, because that cut out doesn't exist on the underside, and you can see that space is taken up by what should be the traditional VF-31 shoulder block above the intake.  After looking closely at that pic, I think the line you're seeing as the cut out is actually a panel line on the canard.  There is still a small angled cut along the trailing edge, but not quite as significant as it looks at first glance.

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, twich said:

I would wonder how much reinforcement the VF-31 airframe to be able to tolerate the increased stress of using the more powerful engines of the SV-262 in a VF-31. I like the idea though. Would they need to do like they did for YF-29 and upgrade the ISC. Also, wondering about the huge arm cannons on the new VF-31. I wonder if they are still rail guns or laser machine guns of large caliber. Cant wait to find out!

Probably a fair amount of reinforcement would be necessary.

The FF-2999/FC2 engines used by the Sv-262 Draken III are more powerful than the derated FF-3001/FC2 engines used by the VF-31 custom "Siegfried" as-is (1955kN vs 1875kN), and the fold reheat also produces a greater performance increase than the fold wave system does (25-30% vs 15%).  The end differential is a ~18% difference in the engine's total deliverable thrust when all is said and done.

The Siegfried type's derated FF-3001/FC2 engines are already apparently more than the stock VF-31A airframe can handle, given that Hayate gets gently scolded by Makina about the amount of extra maintenance work his rough handling makes for the hangar crew.

The better ISC from the Sv-262 would be a nice improvement though.

The increased size of the forearm guns marks an odd reversal too.  The Siegfried type previously downgraded its railguns to a smaller caliber than the military spec, presumably for less possibility of collateral damage, and now they're wielding these outsize cannons?

 

 

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

On top of that, there's the issue of the fold reheat system; would a VF-31 (even with enhancements to the airframe) be able to handle that? What systems and sub-systems would they need to install to operate such a feature? Is there enough available room / power conduits/ engine connections/ computer linkage for control to include such a system?

I would assume the Sv-262 was designed with these things in mind, but the VF-31 was not.

All told, it shouldn't be too different from what the /FC2 engines are already doing in their primary accelerator stage... so it shouldn't be a huge additional burden on the airframe control AI or existing hardware.  It might have some nasty implications for frame stability though.

 

 

4 hours ago, Sildani said:

I wonder if the canopy is solid like on the 262 for the holographic imagery system. 

In the trailer, it appears to have a normal transparent canopy similar to previous VF-31s.

[no3Ljm]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

21 minutes ago, no3Ljm said:

 

Yup... this little design feature, called Vortex Flow Control, has been well attested-to in coverage of the YF/VF-19 and later VFs over the years.

It's explained in some detail in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur and there's a diagram showing how it works in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah on page 30.

Long story short, this is a form of attitude control via negative pressure where gas in injected directly over the airframe surface to change the flow of vortices across the airframe and cause the nose to be pulled in the opposite direction of the gas injection.

Kawamori's inspiration for including this feature was the same experimental aircraft that inspired the YF-19's design in general: the Grumman X-29.

Grumman's X-29 was a USAF/NASA technology demonstrator used to evaluate a bunch of different technologies including triple-redundant digital fly-by-wire, forward-swept wings, supercritical airfoils, aeroelastic tailoring, close-coupled canard control surfaces, and attitude control via vortex flow control.

[no3Ljm]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yup... this little design feature, called Vortex Flow Control, has been well attested-to in coverage of the YF/VF-19 and later VFs over the years.

It's explained in some detail in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur and there's a diagram showing how it works in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah on page 30.

Long story short, this is a form of attitude control via negative pressure where gas in injected directly over the airframe surface to change the flow of vortices across the airframe and cause the nose to be pulled in the opposite direction of the gas injection.

Kawamori's inspiration for including this feature was the same experimental aircraft that inspired the YF-19's design in general: the Grumman X-29.

Grumman's X-29 was a USAF/NASA technology demonstrator used to evaluate a bunch of different technologies including triple-redundant digital fly-by-wire, forward-swept wings, supercritical airfoils, aeroelastic tailoring, close-coupled canard control surfaces, and attitude control via vortex flow control.

Thanks @Seto Kaiba!

To be honest, I'm really not that super knowledgeable when it comes to planes, like how it flies, tons of metal versus gravity, and etc. And just by looking and appreciating the toy with all this knicks-knacks on it, I thought that part was just like a lamp or light or something.

 

[pengbuzz]

On 2/25/2021 at 12:55 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

All told, it shouldn't be too different from what the /FC2 engines are already doing in their primary accelerator stage... so it shouldn't be a huge additional burden on the airframe control AI or existing hardware.  It might have some nasty implications for frame stability though.

 

I would have thought the fold reheat system would have been more robust and thus taken up more room and energy to operate properly. But yeah: the additional stresses on the airframe itself are a major concern, seeing as you previously mentioned Hayate was putting his fighter through stuff that was already incurring maintenance issues with just the onboard engines already.

I'm currently laughing to myself imagining Hayate successfully turning his VF-31 into a mecha-pretzel.

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

To be honest, I'm really not that super knowledgeable when it comes to planes, like how it flies, tons of metal versus gravity, and etc. And just by looking and appreciating the toy with all this knicks-knacks on it, I thought that part was just like a lamp or light or something.

One of the many reasons I love Kawamori and Chiba's collaborative efforts into technology porn is that so much of the futuristic-sounding technology used in VFs is actually very real... just obscure, or experimental.  Even really out-there stuff like the YF-21's variable camber wing are directly lifted from real world experimental or production technologies.

They show their work in a big way... and the engineer in me loves that.

 

8 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I would have thought the fold reheat system would have been more robust and thus taken up more room and energy to operate properly.

If we ever get a proper description of how it works, it'll be interesting to hear how.  

If I had to guess, I'd suspect they're using the superheavy quantum produced by the fold quartz in the reheat system for exhaust flow compression... similar to what's done inside of the turbine's thrust production stage, but on a more aggressive level.

 

Quote

But yeah: the additional stresses on the airframe itself are a major concern, seeing as you previously mentioned Hayate was putting his fighter through stuff that was already incurring maintenance issues with just the onboard engines already.

I'm currently laughing to myself imagining Hayate successfully turning his VF-31 into a mecha-pretzel.

It'd be interesting to see which would happen first... the loss-of-control accident or significant airframe damage.

Even properly reinforced airframes that have aerodynamic profiles that weren't designed for the amount of thrust they're being given can become incredibly unstable and prone to loss-of-control accidents.  Hakuna Aoba in Macross R got his reputation as the "Uncrowned King" because his VF-1X++ custom is using engines rated for nearly three times what it was originally designed to take and further supplemented by rocket boosters... turning it into a nigh-unflyable mess that's one accident away from being a carbonized smear and a spray of shrapnel all over the nearest course hazard.  The VF-9E supposedly had similar problems after General Galaxy tried to drop a VF-22 engine into it.  

(Surprisingly, the VF-11MAXL is never described as having issues despite being upgraded with engines a generation newer and substantially more powerful... but then, those were one-of-a-kind made-to-order ace custom units for the elite of the elite... so skill and custom engineering may be bailing them out there.)

[pengbuzz]

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

One of the many reasons I love Kawamori and Chiba's collaborative efforts into technology porn is that so much of the futuristic-sounding technology used in VFs is actually very real... just obscure, or experimental.  Even really out-there stuff like the YF-21's variable camber wing are directly lifted from real world experimental or production technologies.

They show their work in a big way... and the engineer in me loves that.

 

If we ever get a proper description of how it works, it'll be interesting to hear how.  

If I had to guess, I'd suspect they're using the superheavy quantum produced by the fold quartz in the reheat system for exhaust flow compression... similar to what's done inside of the turbine's thrust production stage, but on a more aggressive level.

 

It'd be interesting to see which would happen first... the loss-of-control accident or significant airframe damage.

Even properly reinforced airframes that have aerodynamic profiles that weren't designed for the amount of thrust they're being given can become incredibly unstable and prone to loss-of-control accidents.  Hakuna Aoba in Macross R got his reputation as the "Uncrowned King" because his VF-1X++ custom is using engines rated for nearly three times what it was originally designed to take and further supplemented by rocket boosters... turning it into a nigh-unflyable mess that's one accident away from being a carbonized smear and a spray of shrapnel all over the nearest course hazard.  The VF-9E supposedly had similar problems after General Galaxy tried to drop a VF-22 engine into it.  

(Surprisingly, the VF-11MAXL is never described as having issues despite being upgraded with engines a generation newer and substantially more powerful... but then, those were one-of-a-kind made-to-order ace custom units for the elite of the elite... so skill and custom engineering may be bailing them out there.)

So then basically, even if the airframe can take the kick of the thrust, it does no good if the entire mess goes SPLAT because the pilot couldn't control it?

While we're at it: I wonder if starships could somehow use heavy quanta for power/ propulsion (if they don't already do so and I'm just being incredibly dense for not recognizing that in the various ships? And could they ever reach a point where fighters were running off of it instead of fuel (again with same disclaimer about my ignorance on the matter)?

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

So then basically, even if the airframe can take the kick of the thrust, it does no good if the entire mess goes SPLAT because the pilot couldn't control it?

Yup.

You might recall back in Macross Plus, Shinsei Industry's Dr. Jan Neumann attempted to puncture Isamu's inflated opinion of himself by pointing out what happened to the other very confident test pilots who'd boasted they could handle the YF-19's incredible performance.  Four were hospitalized with injuries from test accidents and the other died, one YF-19 was totaled and the other needed some serious TLC from the hangar crew before it could be flown again.  The YF-19's airframe could absolutely handle the output of its next-generation engines and the kind of high-g maneuvers the pilot could make it pull.  The pilots themselves?  Not so much.

And, of course, you might remember they never did really manage to fix that problem... leading to the New UN Forces, with the number of loss-of-control accidents in training being one of the major factors that killed the New UN Forces' plans to adopt the VF-19 stone dead.

Same deal with the VF-27, really... even with an inertia store converter the aircraft's performance exceeds what a flesh-and-blood human can withstand and therefore it needs to have specially hardened cyborg pilots.

One has to wonder if the Sv-262 crossed the line into that territory, necessitating the setting's most-powerful ISC to date.

 

3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

While we're at it: I wonder if starships could somehow use heavy quanta for power/ propulsion (if they don't already do so and I'm just being incredibly dense for not recognizing that in the various ships? And could they ever reach a point where fighters were running off of it instead of fuel (again with same disclaimer about my ignorance on the matter)?

Well, given that heavy quantum is almost certainly what a ship's gravity control system is using to produce gravitational effects... one could argue they very probably already are using the stuff for reactionless flight.  

I'd expect that using it /as/ a fuel would be problematic since it a fusion detonation in the stuff is so violent that it straight-up vaporizes whole starships.  Kind of like a more extreme version of the problems we'd have with the Project Orion concept (which used nuclear pulse-detonation thrust for high-acceleration spaceflight).  It also supposedly has a somewhat limited "shelf life", moreso than hydrogen which can be stored indefinitely with a suitably good magnetic trap.

[no3Ljm]

Hey @Seto Kaiba. Saw this at TagHobby. Not sure if the texts are clear enough.

 

Edited March 2, 2021 by no3Ljm