Star wars ships

[Drax]

Has anyone ever noticed how relatively slow the star wars space ships fly? For instance Slave 1 had a max speed of 1000 kilometers per hour in atmosphere while a T-65b x-wing could fly at 1050 kph. That's roughly 621 miles per hour for Slave 1 while an F18 super hornet fighter jet can fly at 1190 mph. Obviously the F18 cant go into hyperspace but still it can outfly Slave 1 by a significant speed. Just thought it was interesting.

 

[Delta13Mike]

Well Slave 1 is not most areodynamic ship, so it seems natural it can not break sound barrier (1236Km/h). It was just deign for space usage mostly, and we have ships like Imperial Star Destroyer that can not enter the atomosfere as it is not capable of maintaing attitute in gravity field of palnet. On the other hand it is intresting how these ships (like Slave 1 or X-wing) could obtain enouth attitiude? for example space shuttles had [SIZE=-1] 4,828 Km/h when take off, SR-71 Black Bird 3529,56 Km/h and was able to obtain 36.500 meters. I that in space areodynamics are no use but you have to get into space first, and I belive we can assume most of SW have similar gravity as earth.

That is intresting
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[Drax]

That's a really good point, I didn't even think about how that would get into space. I just assumed that if the ships had enough constant thrust then they would eventually break free of a planets gravitational pull no matter what speed they did it at. That being said though I would assume as well that in space there is less friction when moving because of the lack of atmosphere. So are the ships perceived to accelerate when traveling from atmosphere to space due to less friction or is it not even noticeable?

 

[Delta13Mike]

Well in case of planes the problem with high attitute is thiner and thiner air what causes less lifting force, higer velocyti can help with it as Lifting force is qual lifting force factor (that is complicated) * densiti of evniroment * lifting plane * (velocity^2)/2 So yes, you can loose lifting force at high attitute when moving to slow, and that actualy happend to some planes with early US Navy "space program". We have to assume that our Slave I have very small lifting plane, wings that it has are just too small for wegiht of whole thing, when delcered weigh of cago is 40 metric tons. As you notice it have small speed so it would not be capable of reaching orbit. Actualy I'm not sure if it can fly with no additialn help like some kind of gravity repulsor. What works for it, is energy source, jet engines need air mostly oxygen for burning fule so less oxygen in air means trubles with engine. We can assume Slave 1 engines do not need oxygen so that is no problem. Any way I'm not an expert in this topic so I may be terribly wrong!

But I noticed in Wookipedia that is have "Maximum aceleration" that is equal 2,500G it means it is 2,500 times earth acceleration That is a lot... So I assume that have to be "space speed" as it is almost 90,000 Km/h. That is destructive speed in atmosphere.

 

[remo032]

In response to the oxygen needed to power the engines. It would be possible to provide the engines with the needed oxygen through stored oxygen in tanks that can feed the engines (similar to what is done when rockets are launched into space). I would imagine the best type would be LOX (Liquid Oxygen) due to the higher storage capacity in a smaller space (when compared to GOX Gas (Oxygen)). Many real time aircraft use this for breathing oxygen such as the C-130 Hercules. As an aircraft mechanic I have serviced LOX several times and when it purges it does look somewhat similar to the (steam) that is shown discharging from the Millennium Falcon when it is sitting on the landing platform or in the hangar bay. I also think I saw some discharging from Slave 1 when it was on the landing platform at Cloud City.
There is also the possibility of having some sort of an oxygen enriched fuel however it could not be anything conventional. Since oxygen is an oxidizer and will combust whenever mixed with any type of oil or petroleum substance it would have to be something not of our world or not invented yet.

 

[Delta13Mike]

You are right, rockets and space shulltes use LOX as part of fule mixture so do planes But I assumed that Slave 1 use Ion Engines like Deep Space 1 whitch have ion thruster that convert electric energy into propultion. For now such engine is not powerfull enougt to take a vessel into space, but lets say Slave 1 engines are much more powerfull. So onboard generator will allow to power engines with constant power no mather the oxygen level. That would be also importand when diferent planets can have diferent gas mixture in atmosphere, or don't have any.

Wookipedia:

The F-31 drive engine was a sublight drive produced by Kuat Systems Engineering[1] sometime in pre-32 BBY and 3 ABY[2]. It was capable of a maximum atmospheric speed of 1,000 kph, and a sublight speed of 70 MGLTs. Owned by the infamous bounty hunter, Boba Fett,[1] it was used on his Firespray-31-class patrol and attack craft, Slave I.[3] Along with the four XF-16 power generators it took up two thirds of the mass[1] of the Mandalorian's transport.[4]


2/3 of the vechicle mass are engines and reactor!!??

so rest of the ship plus 40 metric tons of cargo are just 1/3 of it... ?

 

[remo032]

Good point Ion Engines would make sense. Most of the ships in the SW Universe do emit a similar glow from their engines. However with 2/3 of the ship being engines and reactor how much fuel (Xenon or similar substance that can be ionized) can Slave 1 hold. 1 pound of xenon is the equivalent mass of about 20 gallons (if my calculations are correct) light weight but takes up a lot of space. I know it can be compressed typically on earth to 3000 psi but how much would that reduce the mass?. Since the fuel is rare in the atmosphere it can't be pulled from the atmosphere on most planets and with more powerful engines I would assume that it would consume much more fuel when flying in an atmosphere or breaking free of the atmosphere. So I wonder what the burn or consumption rate would be in an atmosphere for Slave 1 and how much would it need for normal transportation between planets?

I know I'm thinking way to much into this seeing as how it's a sci-fi movie, but after all hasn't it been sci-fi movies that have inspired a large amount of humanities technological advancements.

 

[Drax]

Ya'll have already gone beyond me lol. Another thing to think about is the thrust that the ships need to generate to leave the surface. Slave 1 starts "laying down" so it needs to create enough thrust to get off the ground then it needs to generate more thrust out of just the top thruster to stand it upright. As Delta13Mike said it's not the most aerodynamic craft either so I could see if being rather difficult for it to fly in an upright position in atmosphere when its thrusters are behind it with such small wings.

 

[Delta13Mike]

I know I'm thinking way to much into this seeing as how it's a sci-fi movie, but after all hasn't it been sci-fi movies that have inspired a large amount of humanities technological advancements.

I agree, also lets look at it these way if it is sci-fi you can just say, "Oh the maximum speed in atmosphere is mach 4" and imaginary ship would have perfect sense. Also SW is realy belivable when it comes to thechnology for first sight. I mean ther is nothing that you would ask How is it even possible? (aside the force, but hey even that is somehow explained) Death Star have such firepower but it is huge, X-wing is not a tiny thing either, you look at AT-AT and you see it can actualy work, all vehicle look like it actualy can work. I don't need whole science behind it but why to make such statments when they don't have sense?

If I rememebr well comprest gas or liquid will have same mass, it is just possible to store more of it in for example cubic meter or cubic feet. So as you mentioned question is how big is consumption of fule? And how much can be stored? Unless the energy created by generators is all engines need with no fule aside of reactor one, like nuclear sub. But then it is not Ion engine in the way actual ion engines work.

I can't recall now, but is ther a scene in Yavin base as X-wing have some fule line attached?



For sure moving in atmosphere will consume much more energy / fule, and braking free lots and lots. When it comes to traveling from planet to planet we have to assume that hyperspace technology is deal breaker here and normal engines have smaller work.

 

[Drax]

I just had another thought to. Do we ever see any form of thrusters on ships like the Millennium Falcon's belly? I know theres multiple scenes of it taking off but I cannot remember seeing anything used to create lift. It would stand to reason that the ships would be equipped with some kind of gravity repulsor like Delta14Mike said earlier. I would also assume that for most interplanetary travel they use the hyperdrive. I wonder if the hyperdrive runs on the same fuel source as the normal engines or if its a completely different system that takes over for the smaller engines.

 

[Delta13Mike]

Actualy no, here : https://youtu.be/9k-941c-ZTc?t=2m
You can see that Falcon is in the air when main engine goes on and start emimt "ions". Ther is no even a dust coming up sugesting some form of engine was used under Falcon.

 

[remo032]

I agree with both of you when it comes to the lift required to fly in orbit. some sort of gravity repulsor must have been incorporated into the ships since they lack the aerodynamics required to create lift.
You are right when you refer to everything in the SW Universe being believable. However when these scripts / stories were originally written most of the technology was only conceptual. for instance in lasers. They had been invented but not perfected into use as a weapon. Now the navy has one ship that has a fully functioning laser weapon. We still haven't figured out how to make a light saber with a beam that ends at a pre determined distance though. However ion engines had been invented and tested at the time that the stories were written.
By the way I'm still waiting for my flying car that I was predicted (Back in the 60's) to have by now. LOL.
Sorry I think I may have gotten a little off topic.

 

[Delta13Mike]

You may not have a flying car but you have smarphone, and in SW "smarphones" use to be barrels wiht legs and they called it Astro mech lol: But it is funny when you whatch old Sci-Fi movies and they have these mixture of very futuristic ideas like flying cars on the one hand and videoconference payphones on the other.

But still why such low speed in atmosphere? Slave 1 would be slower then Airbus A-380 (1020km/h). That mean if I have landed in one place on tripple zero and I would have to get to the other side of the city... so well other side of planet actualy it would be faster to reach orbit, fly around planet and land again on the other side!

To compare XJ-6 airspeeder (the one Obi and Anaking chase Zam) max. speed is 720km/h and Zam's Koro-2 all-environment exodrive airspeeder 800km/h. And now a cheery on the top... Who is badass enought to "drive" over 500km/h with now windshield? Biker Advanced Recon Commando! Yes... BARC speeders can reach more then 500km/h.

I just found something! This is descripiton of ARC-170 Maximum atm. speed - 1,000 km/h to 44,000 (with deflector shields on) same thing for V-wing 1,050 km/hto 52,000 km/h (with deflector shields on)