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How would you launch an ornithopter from a sailing ship?


assault

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On 4/15/2023 at 4:46 PM, Opal said:

 

If they're sufficiently bird-like, magical ornithopters might be able to roost on the spars and take off and land (alight) from there?

 

At that point weight becomes an issue; you really want to minimize topside weight on a sailing vessel.  If you care about it remaining upright, anyway.

 

Admittedly we know next to nothing about these ornithopters, specifically whether or not they can float, whether or not the are capable of VTOL and, if, not, what their minimum airspeed is.  And most importantly, whether they are African or European.

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With sufficient wing span, one could do it in the method German submariners did in the months before radar was added to the U-Boats. Place the ornithopter on a towed raft and go full speed into the wind. The pilot guides the craft up to a safe minimum altitude and kicks the wings on.  With the Germans originally it was an unpowered, towed autogyro to get altitude enough for long distance observation. I’d see the ornithopter behaving in a similar fashion.  

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10 hours ago, Old Man said:

And most importantly, whether they are African or European.

 

This bit is easy, since I am working with southeast Asian and Pacific island inspired vessels.

 

They're neither African nor European!

 

Roosting on the spars wouldn't be an option giving the sail rigs involved.

Edited by assault
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If by "sailing ship" you mean a square-rigged tall ship, by the time of those they could make a planed bottomed small craft fairly easily. Rather than launch from the ship, use a crane to lower a boat-bottomed ornithopter (basically a flying boat) over the side and let it take off under it's own power. Reverse the procedure for recovery.

 

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52 minutes ago, Sundog said:

If by "sailing ship" you mean a square-rigged tall ship, by the time of those they could make a planed bottomed small craft fairly easily. Rather than launch from the ship, use a crane to lower a boat-bottomed ornithopter (basically a flying boat) over the side and let it take off under it's own power. Reverse the procedure for recovery.

 


Wrong kind of ship.

However, since ornithopters are technological anomalies, the option of flying boat/seaplane type builds for them are possible, and look like the most viable option from what people have suggested. The cranes involved are a bit unlikely though.

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11 hours ago, assault said:


Wrong kind of ship.

However, since ornithopters are technological anomalies, the option of flying boat/seaplane type builds for them are possible, and look like the most viable option from what people have suggested. The cranes involved are a bit unlikely though.

Primitive cargo cranes were quite common on Roman-era docks. All that's needed is a counterweighted arm and a fulcrum - could even be disassembled when not in use.

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 Have you seen how large a hot air balloon is? A simple 1 person craft is 5 to 7 meters in diameter, the greater the mass to lift the greater the diameter needs to be. My greater problem though is how to heat the air in the envelope, an open flame on a wooden sailing vessel regardless of design is playing Russian roulette with death. Now with magic one could heat such a device fairly easy. The idea of an open flame on a wooden ship.... shudder.

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17 hours ago, GDShore said:

 Have you seen how large a hot air balloon is? A simple 1 person craft is 5 to 7 meters in diameter, the greater the mass to lift the greater the diameter needs to be. My greater problem though is how to heat the air in the envelope, an open flame on a wooden sailing vessel regardless of design is playing Russian roulette with death. Now with magic one could heat such a device fairly easy. The idea of an open flame on a wooden ship.... shudder.

 

One doesn't need open flame for that purpose.  Even in midevil time,  they knew about other ways of lifting. The biggest problem was cost,  they tended to be WAY more expensive than flame was so flame tended to be used the most. You can go for one of these alternatives instead of flame. 

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Okay, I will grant that heating the air in the envelope is not an issue, the size of the envelope however is. It would be improbable to impossible to do so on a single hulled three masted vessel, and only slightly more feasible on a large catamaran. The ornithopter by definition flaps its wings, the German device is a helicopter a small one but nonetheless a helicopter. A catapult or ballistae device is possible on a very large scale vessel, on the same point on the same scale vessel so is the balloon launch, also using a seaborne launch and landing is possible, (I would avoid pontoons, they create drag a lot of drag, use a single hulled vehicle) but if you have a magic society the simplest solution is to use a levitation spell. Something independent of a magic caster probably with charges that could be recharged. IT is how I am using it in my world. 

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Assault, the crane need not be an insurmountable issue. Design your crane to operate from the center of you linking deck, use a telescoping boom to reach beyond the edge of the deck. Use four braces (these braces would be removeable) that attach to your deck and also to the vertical beam, when not in use the crane can be lowered to the horizontal, with proper design into a recess flush with the deck. Thus will be removed a drag force while sailing and a failure point in a storm. The problem you would now have to solve is take off with a vehicle that flaps its wings. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/19/2023 at 12:46 AM, Sundog said:

If by "sailing ship" you mean a square-rigged tall ship, by the time of those they could make a planed bottomed small craft fairly easily. Rather than launch from the ship, use a crane to lower a boat-bottomed ornithopter (basically a flying boat) over the side and let it take off under it's own power. Reverse the procedure for recovery.

 

 

I was thinking a crane for recovery as well. But the ornithopter would be a mostly ship=to=land vehicle since you'd need very calm seas to both land the ornithopter and to recover it. That's somewhat similar to the role of the first aircraft launched from ships.

 

For launching, I was thinking from a raiseable platform on the aft mast. Ropes and pulley to get the aircraft to the top of the mast. Furl the ship's sails so you don't have the slow aircraft working against the momentum of the ship.

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On 4/19/2023 at 12:43 AM, assault said:


Wrong kind of ship.

However, since ornithopters are technological anomalies, the option of flying boat/seaplane type builds for them are possible, and look like the most viable option from what people have suggested. The cranes involved are a bit unlikely though.

Cranes on a lot of sailing ships were just the Mast, with the sails struck or furled, and an auxiliary Timber and a couple of bocks and snatchblocks added to maneuver the new "arm timber", and lift the freight.  Quite do-able, storeable, it just takes time to make the mast clean enough to act as the center pole for the arm.

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