Re: What is a "conventional engine"?

Whether a flitter moved its wings or not would not
really make a difference.  That only has meaning when
you are flying through an atmosphere, with air to push
against your wings.  If a flitter leaves the
atmosphere, true it brings an air buble away with it,
but moving its wings would not make a difference
because pushing against the air is not the issue.  The
air bubble it brought with it would not be big enough
to have enough air to push against.  A bird flys
because it is "swimming" through an ocean of air.
Imagine there is a column of air inderneath the bird's
wings, with the earth all the way at the bottom of it.
 The land on the other side of the column of air holds
the other side of the air colum steady and pushes it
back.  But with no land, ocean bottom, or other stable
platform a the edge of a free floating bubble of air
there is nothing to push on "the other side" of the
air the flitter's wings would push on if they moved,
the air at the edge of the bubble would just move away
as the flitter's wings moved, giving them no
resistance or motive force.  The edge of the bubble
would just distort and ripple, and the flitter would
go nowhere.

Now, that is explaining it using physics.  At issue
here is really that there is a magical force pushing
against the flitter's wings, propelling the ship.
This force does not even really need the wings to move
for it to act upon them, but they're usefull as foci.
The propulsion magic is not a powerful enough force to
achieve spelljamming speeds, but it can propell the
flitter at "conventional" speeds.  It is a magic that
is worked into the nature of the ship.  The wings
aren't really necessary at all, but most magics need a
foci of some sort, and the more that foci is attuned
to some mental image we have that is related to the
goal of the magic the eeasier it is to make the magic
work.  Wings make us think of flight, so wings are
nice foci for flying magic.

But if you can't imagine a flitter working without
wings that move, them make their wings move.  As far
as physics go it is not an issue, so think in terms of
pure magic.

--- David Shepheard <david_shepheard@???????.com>
wrote:
> >From: "Tauster" <chefseehund@???.de>
> >Subject: [SPELLJAMMER] What is a "conventional
> engine"?
>
>
> >another thing that bugs me: does the elven flitter
> move its wings when
> >flying? the name implies that, but i didn´t read a
> description yet. the
> >same goes with the dragonfly, damselfly or wasp: do
> their wings move or do
> >they just "glide"?
>
> >i am for the moving-wings- version, because the
> description of the flitter
> >states that it can go OUT of an atmosphere, which
> would be kind of
> >difficult with a glider- the pilot would have to
> rely on upwinds that
> >actually blow his ship out of (!) the athmosphere.
>
> A kite is capable of achieving lift without
> "flapping its wings" all that is required is
> to point it into a wind. Perhaps the elves use some
> sort of magic to give lift from a
> world and use the angle and direction of the ship
> for stearing it (hence the controls).
>
> Looking at the picture of the elven flitter, I think
> it looks like the wings are fixed.
> The elven ships seem to be grown like plants and
> plant ships would seem to imply no
> movement or very slow movement in the wings.
>
> Alternatively, perhaps the flitter (and other
> similar elven craft) has a small degree of
> movement in the edges of its wings that makes them
> act similar to flaps on an aircraft.
> However, I think I'd prefer it if the wings were
> solid and the elven made body of the ship
> had some sort of rudders and other controls for
> steering.
>
> David "Big Mac" Shepheard
> Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
>
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
> http://virtualeclipse.aboho.com/
>
>
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