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Jim Bullis · 09-06-2010, 02:47 PM

Hi euromodder,

Your observations and thoughts make sense.

Lifting the airship does not require more than four wheels. The six wheel articulated system is elaborate as shown because of the original goal of making a car that would also take up half a lane on a highway. That actually was the beginning of my involvement in futuristic vehicles.

I started when there was not a lot of talk about energy, but I always had in mind that anything narrow had to be a big fuel saver. But then when I began to fit an aerodynamic body on the articulated system, it was natural to go to an elevated arrangement, and the body of revolution was a logical and simple choice. Being a little CAD limited, it was easy to use their canned geometric solid shapes. And the combination of the cone, sphere, and cylinder was an easy way to draw the airship form, which was still lying there on the page in my old fluids book as the best ever shape.

Now that things have evolved some, and the requirements for solving energy problems are much clearer, I can see that the articulated system could perhaps wait for a later time. I also recall wise advise from the past that told me that it was a bad idea for a program to try to change too many big things at one time.

So I am with you now on priorities. The four wheel system works if the vehicle is made somewhat wider than the design at miastrada.com and the wheel trains are much simplified, but still include provisions for fairing in the wheels with batteries and motors in between.

If you can get the published patent application from 2007 that is on the miastrada.com site you can see on Fig. 18 and 19 how I carried that as an alternative, since even then the merits of simplicity were being considered. (That patent is now in the late prosecution stages.)

Thanks for your insightful comment.

09-06-2010, 02:47 PM	#46 (permalink)
Jim Bullis EcoModding Lurker Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: California Posts: 80 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	Hi euromodder, Your observations and thoughts make sense. Lifting the airship does not require more than four wheels. The six wheel articulated system is elaborate as shown because of the original goal of making a car that would also take up half a lane on a highway. That actually was the beginning of my involvement in futuristic vehicles. I started when there was not a lot of talk about energy, but I always had in mind that anything narrow had to be a big fuel saver. But then when I began to fit an aerodynamic body on the articulated system, it was natural to go to an elevated arrangement, and the body of revolution was a logical and simple choice. Being a little CAD limited, it was easy to use their canned geometric solid shapes. And the combination of the cone, sphere, and cylinder was an easy way to draw the airship form, which was still lying there on the page in my old fluids book as the best ever shape. Now that things have evolved some, and the requirements for solving energy problems are much clearer, I can see that the articulated system could perhaps wait for a later time. I also recall wise advise from the past that told me that it was a bad idea for a program to try to change too many big things at one time. So I am with you now on priorities. The four wheel system works if the vehicle is made somewhat wider than the design at miastrada.com and the wheel trains are much simplified, but still include provisions for fairing in the wheels with batteries and motors in between. If you can get the published patent application from 2007 that is on the miastrada.com site you can see on Fig. 18 and 19 how I carried that as an alternative, since even then the merits of simplicity were being considered. (That patent is now in the late prosecution stages.) Thanks for your insightful comment.