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USS Titan 3D pic????

Very nice, Sean...

Is it my imagination or are the subtle "tweaks" to the design (besides the old mismatch issue with the fantail details which you addressed long ago) in there?
 
There's one thing I don't "get" about the design.

Why does the saucer rim have flat portions -- one port, one starboard -- on the leading edge? Every time I see the 2D schematics and 3D model, those areas look like Bezier curves that someone forgot to round off at a particular control point.

Is there supposed to be some special technology in those areas, or was this purely an aesthetic decision?
 
FalTorPan said:
There's one thing I don't "get" about the design.

Why does the saucer rim have flat portions -- one port, one starboard -- on the leading edge? Every time I see the 2D schematics and 3D model, those areas look like Bezier curves that someone forgot to round off at a particular control point.

Is there supposed to be some special technology in those areas, or was this purely an aesthetic decision?
I don't want to answer for Sean, but if I remember correctly it was because it was designed by an Efrosian, and they may have different asthetics than humans do.
 
quick update on the Physical Titan Model and Tour info...

Gene Rizzardi and his crew have started on the model, and plan on having completed by 01/09/2008.

As for the Tour, I have been told they are filming a segment on the second
on board the U.S.S. Titan with Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Wesley Crusher (Wil Weaton). Unfortunatly they were not able to get Mr Frakes for Riker.

I will post WIP shots as I get them, none as of yet.
 
candida said:
NiteTrek said:
Scatter said:
gawd damn that is one butt fugly ship.

I agree. I hate the downward facing nacelles. Damned ugly.

I'm not mad about the downward facing nacelles on this ship , but they do fulfil one of the obvious cardinal rules of routing warp plasma transfer conduits - that the conduits should be relatively straight, as the power requirement to constrain plasma obviously increase if you are trying to change its direction - the power to bend plasma around a corner would be much greater than to send it in a straightish line. The original and TMP Enterprises managed this, the Mirandas had a sharp curve and the Excelsior a completely stupid visible 90 degree bend and implied t-shaped split on the top of the secondary hull. The 1701-D was at least big enough that the curves could be gentle and it took two PTCs off the warp core so no t-junctions, but the worst offender of all was the NX-01, where the conduits go through about fifteen bends each before reaching the engines. Put the nacelles on a straight tube and the damn thing would have reached about warp 15 (old scale, of course ;)).


I don't know if this has been responded to yet. I haven't had a chance to read everything. But if you want to proclaim that particular rule, then how would you explain the USS Voyager and other intrepid class vessels? The pylons on those fold, which obviously has certain problem areas according to what you said. The conduits not being in a straight line for one thing, and for two, getting the plasma through that hinge without there being a weak point. Obviously they found a way to make it work, so just accept it.
 
Kaziarl said:
candida said:
NiteTrek said:
Scatter said:
gawd damn that is one butt fugly ship.

I agree. I hate the downward facing nacelles. Damned ugly.

I'm not mad about the downward facing nacelles on this ship , but they do fulfil one of the obvious cardinal rules of routing warp plasma transfer conduits - that the conduits should be relatively straight, as the power requirement to constrain plasma obviously increase if you are trying to change its direction - the power to bend plasma around a corner would be much greater than to send it in a straightish line. The original and TMP Enterprises managed this, the Mirandas had a sharp curve and the Excelsior a completely stupid visible 90 degree bend and implied t-shaped split on the top of the secondary hull. The 1701-D was at least big enough that the curves could be gentle and it took two PTCs off the warp core so no t-junctions, but the worst offender of all was the NX-01, where the conduits go through about fifteen bends each before reaching the engines. Put the nacelles on a straight tube and the damn thing would have reached about warp 15 (old scale, of course ;)).


I don't know if this has been responded to yet. I haven't had a chance to read everything. But if you want to proclaim that particular rule, then how would you explain the USS Voyager and other intrepid class vessels? The pylons on those fold, which obviously has certain problem areas according to what you said. The conduits not being in a straight line for one thing, and for two, getting the plasma through that hinge without there being a weak point. Obviously they found a way to make it work, so just accept it.
Interesting. :) Perhaps that explains why Voyager's warp engines went offline anytime anyone so much as sneezed in their general direction. ;)
 
Titan Designer said:
quick update on the Physical Titan Model and Tour info...

Gene Rizzardi and his crew have started on the model, and plan on having completed by 01/09/2008.

As for the Tour, I have been told they are filming a segment on the second
on board the U.S.S. Titan with Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Wesley Crusher (Wil Weaton). Unfortunatly they were not able to get Mr Frakes for Riker.

I will post WIP shots as I get them, none as of yet.

I plan to go to the ST Tour when it hits Long Beach later this month, and I really look forward to seeing a physical representation of the U.S.S. Titan.
 
Kaziarl said:I don't know if this has been responded to yet. I haven't had a chance to read everything. But if you want to proclaim that particular rule, then how would you explain the USS Voyager and other intrepid class vessels? The pylons on those fold, which obviously has certain problem areas according to what you said. The conduits not being in a straight line for one thing, and for two, getting the plasma through that hinge without there being a weak point. Obviously they found a way to make it work, so just accept it.
No, no, no... that's wrong on two levels.

First, you're TELLING SOMEONE ELSE WHAT THEY MUST ACCEPT. And second, you're making a major logical fallacy... the "if it's been done, it must be a good idea" one where everything is either 100% good or 100% bad.

I've spent some time involved with hardware on the V-22 Osprey. The aircraft DOES FLY. But there are a LOT of people who think that it's a particularly bad idea (especially the fact that the thing can't autorotate at all... meaning that if the aircraft loses power and falls from as little as 35 feet, everyone on-board is expected to die).

There are all variety of extraordinarily complicated mechanisms on that aircraft. Yes, it flies... and SOMEONE thought that it was a great idea at some point (just like hinged pylons, I'm sure, seemed like a great idea to somebody). But remember this... "The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain" (NOT a Scotty original.. but made famous by him in ST-III).

The comment you were responding to, where the poster makes a point about plasma containment being the most efficient in "straight run" passes, requiring more in curved runs, and requiring a LOT more in bends, is entirely reasonable, and entirely consistent with REAL SCIENCE. Think, for instance, of the plumbing in your house. You lose pressure head from the inlet port at the water main as water flows through the network. Every sharp bend you go through has an associated loss coefficient (meaning the loss is associated with the rate of flow through the plumbing at that point... the faster the flow, the greater the pressure loss at a bend). It's POSSIBLE (and not really even unheard-of) to design a house's plumbing network so that you barely get a trickle out of the upstairs faucets. This is a HUGE part of why that's often the case.

Now, for PLASMA containment... it might be different. If you assume that the plasma is actually flowing through the tubes, the same rule would apply without modification. However, if you assume (as I do) that you're really using the dissociated plasma as a conductor for electromagnetic charge-based power (not "electricity" per-se but very close to it), the plasma itself would not be flowing, and thus the bends would not impact in the fashion discussed above.

However, if it's a CONDUCTOR as I think... well... the most efficient conductor (again, the least amount of loss) is always obtained with the shortest length of conductor element used. So, a straight line, again, is better.

The hinged "Intrepid" design works with my idea... it's much less wieldy with a "plasma FLOW" based model. But in NEITHER CASE is it really a GOOD IDEA. Because you have a very complicated little area there... and the more complicated it is, the more likely it is to fail.

I don't agree with the post you were disputing... but I don't agree with YOUR statement either. At least the other poster was making a point about a technical issue... showing some thought. You, on the other hand, basically told him to "shut up and just accept it." You really, REALLY shouldn't do that. If it's a PLASMA FLOW network... he's 100% right, and there's no way to "redefine" things to say otherwise. I just don't think there's any mass flow present. Since it's all fictional, and we're discussing this FOR FUN... he has a right to his own point of view. Nobody ought to tell him to "just accept" anything that's not logical to him.

Make sense?
 
I never understood why the pylons had to move. The Intrepid-class ships are supposed to have "variable-geometry nacelles," ie the ship can go to warp without the nacelles in the "up" positions.

Or is my physics out?
 
Cary L. Brown said:
I've spent some time involved with hardware on the V-22 Osprey. The aircraft DOES FLY. But there are a LOT of people who think that it's a particularly bad idea (especially the fact that the thing can't autorotate at all... meaning that if the aircraft loses power and falls from as little as 35 feet, everyone on-board is expected to die).
Two points here - it would be particularly bad day if you lost both engines in the V-22 (you can still hover on power from one), and no helicopter can autorotate from a height of 35 feet and zero forward airspeed (I assume you know the "Dead man's chart"?).
 
Oh yeah, I know that. But the Osprey performed SO badly that it's basically failed to meet every one of the original specification. It can't fly as fast as it was supposed to, it can't fly as far as it was supposed to, it can't autorotate AT ALL. So, instead of telling Boeing to go back and make the design match the specs, they altered the spec. In fact, the current spec no longer calls for autorotation to be a feature of the aircraft at all! There is no armament on the aicraft, nor any capability, other than a man with a 7.62 rifle at the back ramp. (The other weaponry was removed from the spec to save weight, since the aircraft came in so far below it's originally specified load-carrying capacity.)

You're correct, there is (theoretically) a linkage between the left-hand and right-hand engines. So, if you lose full output on one engine and have full output on the other, it should be able to hover. Can you point me to a successful field test of that capability? Because I'm aware of only a series of unsuccessful ones. Yes, in carefully controlled situations, where the pilot is prepared in advance and the aircraft is in a "lab" situation... in those conditions it's MARGINALLY possible but I'm talking about a FIELD TEST where the pilot is actually thinking about flying the aircraft, in a potentially hostile environment, when it happens. Even with it's "fly by wire" system, the aircraft's stability shifts so dramatically as you change altitude that it's a heavier chore to fly this than almost any other helicopter, according to the pilots.

Ultimately, I see the Osprey as a case of having been waaaay to ambitious up-front, selling people on a pipe-dream set of "thing it can do" and then when reality came along and proved all that to be bogus, it got protected in order to save jobs in various Senator's home states. In other words, it's a "boondoggle."

The Osprey should never have been green-lit without meeting the original program specifications. One of which was "the craft must be able to autorotate." When it proved unable to do so (as well as proving unable to do many other things it was supposed to be able to), the US Army, US Air Force and US Navy cancelled their orders. Only the US Marine Corp kept it alive (Not sure why... I'd rather fly on a CH-53K - the new three-engined Stallion variant - any day. It's a far superior aircraft for the Marine mission.)
 
Cary L. Brown said: The Osprey should never have been green-lit without meeting the original program specifications. One of which was "the craft must be able to autorotate." When it proved unable to do so (as well as proving unable to do many other things it was supposed to be able to), the US Army, US Air Force and US Navy cancelled their orders. Only the US Marine Corp kept it alive (Not sure why... I'd rather fly on a CH-53K - the new three-engined Stallion variant - any day. It's a far superior aircraft for the Marine mission.)
Yeah, it's not as if the Marines ever have to move their people into hostile territory under fire! :rolleyes: Holy crap, a lot of young men and women are going to die the first time the Osprey's are used to airlift into an active combat zone. No weapons capability for laying supressive fire?! And those big rotating engine mounts are going to make lovely targets for the enemy RPG gunners.

I hope those senators were well compensated for their support of such an awful pork-barrel project. :mad:
 
Cary L. Brown said:
Kaziarl said:I don't know if this has been responded to yet. I haven't had a chance to read everything. But if you want to proclaim that particular rule, then how would you explain the USS Voyager and other intrepid class vessels? The pylons on those fold, which obviously has certain problem areas according to what you said. The conduits not being in a straight line for one thing, and for two, getting the plasma through that hinge without there being a weak point. Obviously they found a way to make it work, so just accept it.
No, no, no... that's wrong on two levels.

Good sir, you misinterpreted what I was trying to say. And for that I apologize for not being more clear. By real science, yes, you would want straight pylons due to the massive amount of power it would take to move the plasma from one place to another. I was not denying that in the least and I agree that would be easier. What I was saying was that they had obviously made it work. The Voyager was not the prototype after all, and most things like that are what cause the prototypes not to be put out. Now, as to the idea of how Voyager's nacelles worked, I saw a design an engineering friend of mine came up with. It's a water pipe actually, had a couple of sharp bends in it, and roughly the same problem. You have water, under pressure, then you try to make it change direction. There's going to be a lot of stress on that corner.

Anyway, he found a way to reduce the stress of that corner by making a shell around the joint, and filling that with water that had been placed under pressure. It acted as kind of a cushion, reducing the stress to an extent. We ran water through it again, it took twice as much pressure to break the same joint design.

See, a simple idea that could have conceivably worked for Voyager as well. I did not mean to step on anyone's toes, or "force" them to accept anything.
 
I will be aload to post a few pics of the finished Titan
model on the 17th after the tour is officially opened.

I have seen the pics and they the ship looks really nice.

Gene did a great job. I was told the John Eaves came down
and applied the decals himself.
 
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