Flying and Gravity

drakinn · Unread post by **drakinn** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:04 pm

Under the fly spell that allows the caster to go 35mph how high can the caster go? Can they break through the atmosphere and get into outer space? I guess what I am wondering is the impact gravity has on the spell.

The Beast · Unread post by **The Beast** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:16 pm

Fly Like the Eagle has an altitude limit, which I forget at the moment. It's a fairly low limit when you compare it to the mutant power of Sonic Flight, which has a ceiling of 40,000 ft.

Qev · Unread post by **Qev** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:07 pm

Shadowmagic wrote:Fly has an Alt. Max of 1000ft and is 35 mph. Fly as the Eagle does not list an Alt. Max and is 50 mph. This is coming from BoM, didn't check all sources.

In any case, If you aren't in a full EBA, you will suffer from lack of air and from cold long before you reach an altitude that is even close to entering outer-space. Once you reach that distance, you have a little concept called "escape velocity" to consider.

Escape velocity only applies to objects traveling ballistically. Without an altitude cap, the spell's constant velocity ought to let you fly into space, albeit very, very slowly. If it's Rifts, mind the killsats (although that makes me wonder if they're programmed to detect such slow-moving 'launches'). :lol:

The Beast · Unread post by **The Beast** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:29 pm

Qev wrote:If it's Rifts, mind the killsats (although that makes me wonder if they're programmed to detect such slow-moving 'launches').

I would say they're programmed to target the 10% (or whatever number) of objects that make it through the counter-orbital debris ring.

Talavar · Unread post by **Talavar** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 6:24 pm

Qev wrote:Escape velocity only applies to objects traveling ballistically. Without an altitude cap, the spell's constant velocity ought to let you fly into space, albeit very, very slowly. If it's Rifts, mind the killsats (although that makes me wonder if they're programmed to detect such slow-moving 'launches').

Is that right? If so, shouldn't the super power Sonic Flight have no altitude cap then?

sasha · Unread post by **sasha** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 6:41 pm

You can't fly higher than 1,000 feet. The spell up to that altitude, however, does defy gravity.

drewkitty ~..~ · Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:53 pm

Shadowmagic wrote:Fly has an Alt. Max of 1000ft and is 35 mph. Fly as the Eagle does not list an Alt. Max and is 50 mph. This is coming from BoM, didn't check all sources.

In any case, If you aren't in a full EBA, you will suffer from lack of air and from cold long before you reach an altitude that is even close to entering outer-space. Once you reach that distance, you have a little concept called "escape velocity" to consider.

1000' max. altitude for the object being ridden, for the Fly spell.

Nether Fly nor Fly as the Eagle protects the rider nor flyer from the elements.

Mouser13 · Unread post by **Mouser13** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:56 pm

My memory going bad, but in the palladium world is their a area of demons and monsters that is blocked off and it says their is not way to fly over, because the fly spells are to low of altitude limit.

JTwig · Unread post by **JTwig** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 4:50 pm

Mouser13 wrote:My memory going bad, but in the palladium world is their a area of demons and monsters that is blocked off and it says their is not way to fly over, because the fly spells are to low of altitude limit.

Thats not quite true (I'm assuming your talking about the Land of the Damned). You can easily fly to it if you go over the Sea of Dread, its when you attempt to fly threw the Northern Mountains that you are going to have problems. The peaks are incredible treacherous with wind gust and extremes of weather, not to mention that several of the peaks are significantly taller than Mt. Everest.

As for the initial question, doesn't the HU2 book Aliens Unlimited Galaxy Guide mention something about this?

The Beast · Unread post by **The Beast** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:44 am

I read a magazine article in Iraq that said geese have been know to fly around 30,000 ft. It was in a flying magazine and they were talking about bird strikes.

Qev · Unread post by **Qev** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:59 am

Yup, there are geese that routinely fly over Mt. Everest on their migrations. The highest bird ever recorded was, I think, a vulture that got sucked into an aircraft engine at 37000 feet. :shock:

Rallan · Unread post by **Rallan** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 8:16 am

Qev wrote:
Shadowmagic wrote:Fly has an Alt. Max of 1000ft and is 35 mph. Fly as the Eagle does not list an Alt. Max and is 50 mph. This is coming from BoM, didn't check all sources.

In any case, If you aren't in a full EBA, you will suffer from lack of air and from cold long before you reach an altitude that is even close to entering outer-space. Once you reach that distance, you have a little concept called "escape velocity" to consider.

Escape velocity only applies to objects traveling ballistically. Without an altitude cap, the spell's constant velocity ought to let you fly into space, albeit very, very slowly. If it's Rifts, mind the killsats (although that makes me wonder if they're programmed to detect such slow-moving 'launches').

Qev's right. Escape Velocity isn't some universally enforced speed limit that makes it impossible for slow-moving objects to get into space. It's just that if you throw an object slower than that, Earth's gravitational pull will make it fall back down before it can get into orbit. If you've got an object that can ignore gravity and travel at a constant speed (like, oh I dunno, a dude with "Fly As The Eagle"), he could quite happily drift off into space at a constant speed of 50mph as long as he can keep recasting the spell whenever it's about to run out.

Rallan · Unread post by **Rallan** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 8:20 am

Talavar wrote:
Qev wrote:Escape velocity only applies to objects traveling ballistically. Without an altitude cap, the spell's constant velocity ought to let you fly into space, albeit very, very slowly. If it's Rifts, mind the killsats (although that makes me wonder if they're programmed to detect such slow-moving 'launches').

Is that right? If so, shouldn't the super power Sonic Flight have no altitude cap then?

Sonic Flight's a super power. It doesn't have much of anything to do with the laws of physics, so it's limited to 1000' because Big Kev said so.

Meanwhile, how exactly do you think escape velocity works anyway?

Talavar · Unread post by **Talavar** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:43 pm

Rallan wrote:Sonic Flight's a super power. It doesn't have much of anything to do with the laws of physics, so it's limited to 1000' because Big Kev said so.

Meanwhile, how exactly do you think escape velocity works anyway?

Sonic Flight's altitude is 45 000 feet actually. I really don't know anything about escape velocity, except that I thought it was based on speed - a rather high speed at that, if a consistently generated Mach 1 wasn't enough to break it.

Qev · Unread post by **Qev** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 4:53 pm

Well, the reason we don't have jets and things flying off into space is due to things like air-breathing engines needing air to continue working, and fuel being both heavy and limited in quantity.

If you had a vehicle that could maintain Mach 1 (relative to the surface of the Earth) no matter what, without needing air, it could easily leave the Earth's atmosphere. The moment the engines shut off, of course, it would immediately begin to fall back to Earth, since it's not in any sort of orbit.

drewkitty ~..~ · Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:41 pm

Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/sec. which is about 33 mach. But to just reach orbit you just need 7.8 km/sec. which is about 23 mach.

But if you add in the speed of earth rotation, about 1000 mph which is about 1.31 mach, then you can subtract that from the delta-V you need to get into orbit. This is why most launches into space are sent eastward.

So if you haven't figured it out, even Heros with sonic flight, can not reach orbit by themselves before level 22.

The Beast · Unread post by **The Beast** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:22 pm

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/sec. which is about 33 mach. But to just reach orbit you just need 7.8 km/sec. which is about 23 mach.

But if you add in the speed of earth rotation, about 1000 mph which is about 1.31 mach, then you can subtract that from the delta-V you need to get into orbit. This is why most launches into space are sent eastward.

So if you haven't figured it out, even Heros with sonic flight, can not reach orbit by themselves before level 22.

Uh, last I checked, sonic flight didn't increase as you leveled.

Rallan · Unread post by **Rallan** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:58 pm

Qev wrote:Well, the reason we don't have jets and things flying off into space is due to things like air-breathing engines needing air to continue working, and fuel being both heavy and limited in quantity.

Um... dude? A jet isn't held up by its engine. You may have noticed that on most jet airfcraft, the engines stick out backwards, not down at the ground. The reason jets have a ceiling altitude is because once you get high enough, the air's too thin for the wings to be able to generate enough downwards force to compensate for gravity.

drewkitty ~..~ · Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:32 pm

The Beast wrote:
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/sec. which is about 33 mach. But to just reach orbit you just need 7.8 km/sec. which is about 23 mach.

But if you add in the speed of earth rotation, about 1000 mph which is about 1.31 mach, then you can subtract that from the delta-V you need to get into orbit. This is why most launches into space are sent eastward.

So if you haven't figured it out, even Heros with sonic flight, can not reach orbit by themselves before level 22.

Uh, last I checked, sonic flight didn't increase as you leveled.

I don't know why, but I was thinking the sonic flight power inncressed 1M / level. Looked it up in both HUr and HU2 and both only get you to 1M.

Talavar · Unread post by **Talavar** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 4:07 pm

Can someone explain escape velocity? Say something - like a superhero - is generating flight thrust at Mach 1 that isn't dependent on pushing off of the surface of the earth, or atmosphere - they're already defeating gravity just by flying, right? So what keeps them from reaching orbit?

Qev · Unread post by **Qev** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 5:20 pm

Talavar wrote:Can someone explain escape velocity? Say something - like a superhero - is generating flight thrust at Mach 1 that isn't dependent on pushing off of the surface of the earth, or atmosphere - they're already defeating gravity just by flying, right? So what keeps them from reaching orbit?

Escape velocity is the velocity that a ballistic (ie. unpowered, like a bullet) object would need, starting from the surface of the Earth (or whatever massive body you're dealing with), in order for it to completely escape the gravitational influence of the Earth/Planet/Whatever. For Earth, the escape velocity from the surface is around Mach 33.

Orbit is the state where an object is traveling at a high-enough velocity that it can literally fall around the Earth without hitting it. There's no force or energy being expended to hold it up against gravity; it's in free-fall. To maintain an orbit 200 km above the Earth's surface, you'd need a (tangental) velocity of around 7.8 km/s, or Mach 23.

For a superhero with Sonic Flight (assuming no arbitrary flight ceiling), he or she could easily leave the Earth's atmosphere and fly to any arbitrary height, as they can fly at a fixed velocity. However, at no point are they in orbit; they'd still feel the full force of Earth's gravity pulling downward on them (more or less), and if they stopped using their power they'd immediately begin to fall back to Earth.

Actually, the hero with Sonic Flight could enter orbit around the Earth. At a distance of 3.5 million km, the orbital velocity is roughly Mach 1. :lol: