A little indulgent plane-planning for Sanguine Tensor.First up, some good news for me and bad for yo
A little indulgent plane-planning for Sanguine Tensor.First up, some good news for me and bad for you. This month is nutty for me for (mostly!) good reasons. I probably would have finished Aphelion around New Years, but I’m pretty sure I can’t now. I’m fine, just swamped.So for now all I can show is some alternate history goofy planes. Top and Top Right: The US in Sanguine Tensor loves seaplanes for some stupid reason (probably a Pearl-Harbor-esque attack that made people feel aircraft carriers too vulnerable). So aircraft carriers are supplemented by fast little attack ships that drop seaplane fighters into the ocean from a gantry. Floats are huge and draggy so they just inflate and deflate thick canvas floats. I was thinking of giving these to the USSR but they have fewer year-round ports available so it makes less sense, they need land based planes (the again… ekranoplan…). I’ll think of something nice and goofy for the Soviets, don’t worry.Top Left and Lower Right: This practice of little ships that carry fighters continues into the present (well, the eighties). There’s a historical period where people were REALLY concerned about supersonic fighters on carrier aircraft. Supersonic planes tend to land fast and need big runways so if you’re already pretty good at water takeoffs and landings maybe you consider sticking with that instead of controlled crashes into boats. Pitfalls include Oh God There Is Salt Everywhere, How Do I Control This Thing Skimming Over The Sea Without Dying, and Engines Need Air Not Water. Pitfall one, well you just have to deal with the salt, that’s it. Pitfall two is fixed by using hydrofoils to control the aircraft for takeoff and landing. Pitfall three is a little tricky because for high angle-of attack maneuvers you want the engine inlets able to get nice fresh air so putting them high above the wings like the Convair F2Y Sea Dart isn’t desirable. BUT you can open up aux inlets, like the Harrier, JSF or MiG-29. So I think this is all plausible enough and it doesn’t have to be perfect because nobody is paying me for this and it’s just for fun.Bottom Right: XB-70 style passenger plane. Very loud, very inefficient, very ostentatious, and very cool. Need to think about this more but I am excited. -- source link
#sanguine tensor#aerospace#worldbuilding