Viper weight

[warhammerdriver]

Anybody have any info on how much Vipers weigh?

Still researching my fanfic.

[Damocles]

Anybody have any info on how much Vipers weigh?

Still researching my fanfic.

You are not going to like this.

Using real world physics and a set of assumptions based on visually seen performance on film;

How much does a Viper mass?

The compactly designed Colonial Viper Mark II rocket fighter with its stub radiator wings
http://users.sisna.com/roguewing1/schematics/galactica/cv.gif

Estimated length 10 meters.
Estimated width 2.25 meters
Estimated height(without landing skids) 2.25 meters
maximum estimated delta vee acceleration in a vacuum(based on a progression of ten lengths per second as seen on film in a static frame of reference shot when using "turbo") 100 mps.

Comparable Earth aircraft in size and volume.
http://www.luftfahrtmuseum.com/htmi/itf/p40.htm

Note that the Viper MkII is a relatively dense and compact rocket with three reaction engines; presumably Tylium fueled..

Allowing for a rather dense construction material we obtain an empty weight of 25,000 kilograms(assumption mass based on 5x steel density and tensile strength material).
Pilot and consumables at 1% is negligible and rolled into total vehicle mass.

Energy to move a MK II Viper to velocity of 100 mps using ultima propulsa?

1.25x10^8 joules. meaning 2.5x10^4 kilograms fuel consumed per second.(25 metric ton/second)
5000 burn seconds=6.250x10^11 joules=1.25x10^8 kilograms fuel consumed.(125,000 tons of ultima propulsa fuel-hereafter to which referred as TYLIUM or negative matter)

Mass density of Tylium can now be calculated based on a two meter volume for the fuel tank in the Viper.
75,000 tons per cubic meter
0.075 tons per cubic centimeter
75 kilograms per cubic centimeter.
Lead has a density of 11,340 kilograms per cubic meter or 11.34 tons per cubic meter.
or is less than 6600 times as dense as Tylium.
Viper MkII with fuel load= 125,025 tons with <0.015% being vehicle and the rest being fuel.
That will be tough to catapult out of a launch bay; unless TYLIUM consists of WIMPS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP

Summary-little inertia, but tremendous mass that you would not see. Photons zip through it like it was not there. How would you bunker such WIMP fuel? I have no idea.

[Breea]

That is soooo cool..now, mind you, I have no idea what you're talking about but man....that will blow your mind.

[Damocles]

That is soooo cool..now, mind you, I have no idea what you're talking about but man....that will blow your mind.

All mass to enercy calculations ultimately start with E=mc^2

That is energy in joules=mass in kilograms multiplied by the speed of light multiplied again by itself.

In this case?

Additional equations;

KE = 1/2 (M * (V * V))
M = KE / (V * V)
V = KE / (1/2 * M)

KE is kinetic energy in joules.
M is mass in kilograms
V is velocity in meters per second.

I fudged a little, here, using Mister Newton instead of Mister Einstein, but the results in these equations at these relatively low velocities are such that the difference in outcome is one part in a million or less.

Sourcing for vehicle mass was frankly based on a volume equivalent Earth fighter.

Most fighters around a Viper's size weighed about 4500-5000 kilograms heavily loaded- so if the Viper were built to the same material logic but with the material equivalent to Cylon armor(see http://forums.colonialfleets.com/showthread.php?t=12061



Posted by Damocles

Well lets look at that round shall we?

7.62x51 NATO (typical firing 10-12g bullet at 750-850 m/s, and developes around 3,000-4,000 joules at impact within effective range)

That will(when using an armor piercing bullet) pierce about 8mm of of RHA steel

So your Cylon is in trouble.

http://www.wallacecollection.org/i_...gate_armour.htm

A human using a couched lance on horseback at the gallop generates about 8500-10000 joules at the point of impact.

No wonder those steel faced inch thick wooden shields knights wielded were used to deflect lance points!

The modern battle rifle bullet delivers comparable energy with far higher penetration capability.

The average suit of armor weighed about 30 kilograms at 1mm thickness.

If Mister Cylon wore a 5mm human sized skin(about what you'd find on a 1957 Chevy, he'd be one hefty 150 kilograms of Centurion-not including the innards which for convenience we'll extrapolate weighs as much as his armor does. We've seen Colonials move Cylon Centurions on screen. Extrapolation-Mister Cylon weighs as much as a medieval knight.

He might have 5x strength steel rolled homogenous armor for skin and might wear a Nissan Sentra overcoat 1mm as a result, but if he was dented by high powered air rifle pellet fire(1.5 grams at 600 mps), then he's going to be swiss cheesed with entry and exit holes by anything armor-piercing above pistol caliber ammunition size and velocity.

I wonder if Cylons wear Interceptor IV armor?

Then the Viper would have a 5mm skin of that material and would be a very heavy rocket fighter at its empty weight. I already knew that the Viper would need thousands of tons of fuel to attain Saturn 5 performance. I was just astonished at the total fuel mass for a rocket with a 5000 burn second time(1.38 hour fuel supply at maximum sustained thrust) using ultima propulsa. Sometimes I forget to envision the magnitudes of the forces that we see the Colonials use.

So I was surprised as much as anybody else at how much our little Viper"weighed".

[warhammerdriver]

Looks like the one variable we don't know is how much potential energy is available in 1 kg of refined tylium.

125,000 tons is simply not feasible. Just think of the recoil from launching that heavy a projectile from one of the launch tubes.

Thanks for the data tho.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but 2000 kg = 1 metric ton.

Thanks again.

[Damocles]

Looks like the one variable we don't know is how much potential energy is available in 1 kg of refined tylium.

125,000 tons is simply not feasible. Just think of the recoil from launching that heavy a projectile from one of the launch tubes.

Thanks for the data tho.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but 2000 kg = 1 metric ton.

Thanks again.

1000 kg=1 metric ton.

We do know how much energy you can extract from ultima propulsa(TYLIUM).

It is E=mc^2 within your local frame of reference.

WIMP mass is not interactive with the electromagnetic influence or strong nuclear influence. As such it exhibits no inertia or measurable mass to us easily; since it is those two binding forces that are the operators in distributing inertia in our universe in what we see as "normal" matter. Hence that mass has to use GRAVITATION and the weak nuclear influence as its mass operators. The qualities make it almost "massless" as far as we are concerned and negatively gravitational influenced as to its functionality in quantum mechanics. It pushes instead of pulls.

Thus; containment is the problem with WIMP mass. It wants to spread out violently. A WIMP bottle rocket exuding negative matter out its nozzle would be a fearsome sight to behold if you could even see its exhaust(You can't. Photons won't interact with WIMPs.)

When you think of TYLIUM in those terms, just consider what you see normal matter do, and flip the properties backwards.

[Breea]

Thus saith our scientific genius....... :salute: ...forget about laymans terms...LOL
I am 100% lost and will be the first to admit it.

[_No_Name_]

I think you made an error in your calculations. Using the following assumptions
You are not going to like this.

Estimated length 10 meters.
Estimated width 2.25 meters
Estimated height(without landing skids) 2.25 meters
maximum estimated delta vee acceleration in a vacuum(based on a progression of ten lengths per second as seen on film in a static frame of reference shot when using "turbo") 100 mps.

<snip>

Allowing for a rather dense construction material we obtain an empty weight of 25,000 kilograms(assumption mass based on 5x steel density and tensile strength material).
Pilot and consumables at 1% is negligible and rolled into total vehicle mass.



The question now arises on how does the propulsion system works. First lets assume a traditional rocketry type system. Since momentum is convserved in the real universe, the first law of rocketry dictates R Ve = M a, where R = mass ejected by the engine, Ve = velocity of ejected mass, M = mass of craft, and a = acceleration. Assuming an acceleration of 100 m/s^2 and the "dry" mass of the Viper, that requires a thrust of 2.5 x 10^6 N. If we assume Ve=0.1 c (I want to maintain a mass ratio of about 1.0 so I need a high velocity), we have R = 0.084 kg/s. For a mass of 0.084 kg to reach a velocity of 0.1c, you need 3.77 x 10^13 J. Assuming a matter/antimatter conversion, that would require 420 micrograms (or 839000 kg of gasoline if you could burn it in one second). Thus, the minimum requirement is


Minimum thrust: 2.5 x 10^6 N
Minimum mass ejection rate: 0.084 kg/s
Minimum fuel consumption rate: 420 ug/s


The Space Shuttle main engine (which is one of the best) by comparision generates 513,000 lbs of thrust, which is 2.28 x 10^6 N and requires tremendous amount of fuel. Using 5000 "burn seconds" yields a minimum fuel load (ejected mass plus matter/antimatter) of 422 kg, which is about 2% of the "wet mass" of the Viper. From an extrapolated science basis, the Viper is feasible without resorting to exotic materials.

Now lets consider a photon-based propulsion system. The relativistic momentum of a photon is h / lambda, where h = Planck's constant and lambda = wavelength of the photon, thus shorter wavelength photons have more momentum. Note that the Viper's engine appears white (as does the Galactica's), which means there is mix of photons from red to blue. If we assume a Planckian distribution centered in the ultraviolet wavelengths, say 300 nm, we still get the white engine glow. Conservation of momentum requires a fluence of 1.13 x 10^33 300 nm photons per second (the fluence is actually different if you account for the Planckian distribution, but this should put us in the right ballpark). To generate that many photons requires 7.5 x 10^14 J, or 8 mg of matter/antimatter.

IMHO, a photon-based propulsion system is less feasible due to energy involved. One needs to contain the reaction in order to prevent the Viper from exploding. The traditional rocketry releases the energy equivalent of 10 KT per second (about one Hiroshima) while the photon system releases the energy equivalent of 100 KT per second.

[Damocles]

I think you made an error in your calculations. Using the following assumptions



The question now arises on how does the propulsion system works. First lets assume a traditional rocketry type system. Since momentum is convserved in the real universe, the first law of rocketry dictates R Ve = M a, where R = mass ejected by the engine, Ve = velocity of ejected mass, M = mass of craft, and a = acceleration. Assuming an acceleration of 100 m/s^2 and the "dry" mass of the Viper, that requires a thrust of 2.5 x 10^6 N. If we assume Ve=0.1 c (I want to maintain a mass ratio of about 1.0 so I need a high velocity), we have R = 0.084 kg/s. For a mass of 0.084 kg to reach a velocity of 0.1c, you need 3.77 x 10^13 J. Assuming a matter/antimatter conversion, that would require 420 micrograms (or 839000 kg of gasoline if you could burn it in one second). Thus, the minimum requirement is


Minimum thrust: 2.5 x 10^6 N
Minimum mass ejection rate: 0.084 kg/s
Minimum fuel consumption rate: 420 ug/s


The Space Shuttle main engine (which is one of the best) by comparision generates 513,000 lbs of thrust, which is 2.28 x 10^6 N and requires tremendous amount of fuel. Using 5000 "burn seconds" yields a minimum fuel load (ejected mass plus matter/antimatter) of 422 kg, which is about 2% of the "wet mass" of the Viper. From an extrapolated science basis, the Viper is feasible without resorting to exotic materials.

Now lets consider a photon-based propulsion system. The relativistic momentum of a photon is h / lambda, where h = Planck's constant and lambda = wavelength of the photon, thus shorter wavelength photons have more momentum. Note that the Viper's engine appears white (as does the Galactica's), which means there is mix of photons from red to blue. If we assume a Planckian distribution centered in the ultraviolet wavelengths, say 300 nm, we still get the white engine glow. Conservation of momentum requires a fluence of 1.13 x 10^33 300 nm photons per second (the fluence is actually different if you account for the Planckian distribution, but this should put us in the right ballpark). To generate that many photons requires 7.5 x 10^14 J, or 8 mg of matter/antimatter.

IMHO, a photon-based propulsion system is less feasible due to energy involved. One needs to contain the reaction in order to prevent the Viper from exploding. The traditional rocketry releases the energy equivalent of 10 KT per second (about one Hiroshima) while the photon system releases the energy equivalent of 100 KT per second.

Your error is in your .1c velocity That is properly loaded into the equation as approximately 30,000 meters per second. You cannot mis-scale mks that way and obtain valid results.

Plus you do realize that the accelerated mass is "wet" not dry initially and you have to factor that into the time delta?

Cheers

[_No_Name_]

Your error is in your .1c velocity That is properly loaded into the equation as approximately 30,000 meters per second. You cannot mis-scale mks that way and obtain valid results.

Plus you do realize that the accelerated mass is "wet" not dry initially and you have to factor that into the time delta?

Cheers

c = 3 x 10^8 m/s = 300000 km/s ([1] (http://www.google.com/search?q=speed+of+light&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official))

Thus, 0.1 c = 3 x 10^7 m/s

I ran the numbers again and got the same results.

I used the "dry mass" because I the mass is of fuel is unknown initially and the results would provide a minimum requirement. One could then iteratively solve for better numbers.

[Tabitha]

The Viper Mk2 weights 23 tons. Simple as that. Why? Because it sounds good and I just reimagined all your physics! So there! HA!

just kidding

tabbi

[WarMachine]

The Viper Mk2 weights 23 tons. Simple as that. Why? Because it sounds good and I just reimagined all your physics! So there! HA!

just kidding

tabbi

:rotf: SCORE ONE FOR TABBI!!! :rotf:

You totally rock, girl! ;)

[_No_Name_]

The Viper Mk2 weights 23 tons. Simple as that. Why? Because it sounds good and I just reimagined all your physics! So there! HA!

just kidding

tabbi

Your reasoning is as good as any...after all it is science-fiction not science-fact...

[Damocles]

R Ve = M a, where R = mass ejected by the engine, Ve = velocity of ejected mass, M = mass of craft, and a = acceleration. Assuming an acceleration of 100 m/s^2

300,000,000 mps -> 3x10^8 m/sec =c-> =c and 30,000,000m/sec-> 3x10^7m/sec = 0.1 c


Rx(3.0x10^7m/sec)=2.5x10^4kg/1x10^2m/sec^2


Rx(3.0x10^7m/sec)=2.0x10^2kg/m/sec^2


Rx(3x10^7m/sec)/(3x10^7m/sec)=2.5x10^2kg/m/sec^2/(3x10^7m/sec)


R= 8.33x 10^-5kg/sec

(8.33X10^-5 kg/sec)(5x10^3)

4.165x10^-2 kilograms fuel load.(TYLIUM)

4.165x10^1 gram fuel for five thousand seconds burn.

41.65 grams of TYLIUM.

You have a 25 ton Viper using a total conversion drive.

I missed my brain on this one.

You are right and I'm wrong. :salute:

[_No_Name_]

I missed my brain on this one.

You are right and I'm wrong. :salute:

I make the c=300000 m/s error *all* the time. It is interesting to note that the Viper's performance on the screen is not that farfetched.

[LadyImmortal]

Man, you guys and your long equations.

I like Tabbi's theory m'self! Good job, Tabs!

[Tabitha]

Oh yea, it works in everyday life as well, I got my car insurance bill and I called them and informed them that I was reimagining my billing and that now they owe ME four hundred thousand dollars. Ok, maybe it doesnt work in EVERY instance, but I tried!

tabbi

[Dawg]

Now consider that the building materials may be something other than steel or even ceramic - perhaps they use a material lighter than either but stronger than both.

Stick that in your equations and smoke it!

;)

I am
Dawg
:warrior:

[Tabitha]

I know... they used the same material that they make scrunchies out of! They dont break, and are flexible! Maybe they made them out of petrifies tweenkies! You know, noone has ever figured out exactly WHAT a tweenkie is made from not the cream filling. All I know is they have a shelf life somewhere near Uranium. And if you smash one, it eventually goes back into shape. Maybe they can make cars out of tweenkies!

tabbi

[peter noble]

The Viper is the most advanced machine ever built by man. At the end of the that's all anyone needs to know.

It blows Cylons up real good too! :D

[Damocles]

http://www.gordonengland.co.uk/xhardness/index.htm

Adamantium may be out there; but it is going to be a strange material.

It has to either be an alloy or a plastic. It cannot be a frangible crystal.

Here is a place to play with the characteristics of adamantium.

http://www.efunda.com/formulae/solid_mechanics/failure_criteria/calc_failure_criteria_brittle.cfm

Enjoy! :salute:

[Darrell Lawrence]

Simplest answer is- it's takes more than one person to lift it cuz it's HEAVY!

[warhammerdriver]

41.65 grams of TYLIUM.

You have a 25 ton Viper using a total conversion drive.

So that's 25 tons "wet"?

[LadyImmortal]

I think 'heavy' is the correct word here.

You might even say 'mega heavy' - as in more than we can lift :)

[Damocles]

So that's 25 tons "wet"?

Yes.

Incidentally my original workup was based on system potential/kinetic energy for a Viper. In the calculations I inadvertently introduced a four magnitude conversion error.

I should stick to kinetics.

Best wishes;

[gmd3d]

To many calulations , sensery overload :...: brain shutting down :/: :/: :/:

I thing the 23 tons is a good choice .. :thumbsup: anyone want to recalulate adding Jollys body weight after a round of :mushies: and a :beer: = :viper: how heavy..

[Tabitha]

Damocles, thank you for your note in another thread, your a sweety and a great man and restore my faith in all thats right.
That said, Ive got to ask, are you the twin brother of Dr. Hawking? The brother with the twin brains that never rests cus YOU ARE SO DANG SMART! Its not fair, some are born with brains, others with looks, the rest of us with whats left... Im so jealous! Man alive your smart guy!

tabbi

[Damocles]

Damocles, thank you for your note in another thread, your a sweety and a great man and restore my faith in all thats right.
That said, Ive got to ask, are you the twin brother of Dr. Hawking? The brother with the twin brains that never rests cus YOU ARE SO DANG SMART! Its not fair, some are born with brains, others with looks, the rest of us with whats left... Im so jealous! Man alive your smart guy!

tabbi

Tabbi,

When it comes to brilliance; I couldn't tie Dr. Hawking's shoelaces.

From this thread you see that I make many many mistakes.(I'm also a lousy typist.)

I'm just an average man.

Thank you for the kind words in reply.

D.

[Tabitha]

You sir, are far beyond average. If the number of nose bleeds caused by trying to figure out just what the hell you just said is a good meter for measuring your intellect, Id say you ARE the grading curve. Keep it up, you inspire me to want to learn more, just to not feel so stupid, and also to understand about 10% of what you post hahahahaha

tabbi