Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi → The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B.
Chapter 36 is back up. The new title is Joseph's Sword. It doesn't include feedback from other reviewers yet. Originally, when stuff blows up in Joseph's face, God told him it was due to insufficient faith. That would have required changes in numerous earlier chapters to show his increasing doubts, rather than his Gomer Pyle naiveté. I decided I prefer the latter, until this moment in the story, when serious sh*t happens.
Bombs away! (Hint)
Thanks
Dirk
I have a mission...
Lets see what I can carve out of my evening at work tonight...
A
No rush. I'm going to incorporate everyone else's feedback while I wait for more reviews.
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Amy, I got the following from Wikipedia:
Many EMS services and hospitals are now using IO as their first line solution for vascular access in both adult and pediatric cardiac arrest victims, enabling administration of lifesaving drugs much earlier than previously possible with traditional peripheral IV placement.
Why does IO allow administration of the drugs faster than an IV? In either case, you still need blood flow to get the meds moving. Yes?
IO's are easy to place, eliminating the time wasted by trying to get an IV in a person who has no blood pressure (no flow equals flat veins and multiple attempts)
IO's have a wide bore needle. The thicker the needle, the faster the flow. IV's have different gauges (widths). Imagine the flow of a garden hose vs a small IV. Which one passes more water? It's an extreme example, but applicable. The width of the catheter is what matters. Not the length of the catheter. That is immaterial.
IO's go into the bone, which is EXTERMELY vascular. There is only one drug that we can't put into an IO needle, because it's half-life is like 5 seconds. Every other drug for a cardiac arrest can go into the quickly-placed, wide-bore IO needle.
Ironically, we don't use them much where I work, but that is because of user familiarity and tradition. We are also freaking amazing at placing IV's. However, EMS and the Army uses them all the time.
Blood flow to make meds moved is provided by CPR. It only matches about 30% of normal cardiac output, but good CPR makes a pulse that can be felt in the groin or elbow.
Amesome! What is the common site on the body to do an IO? I read it's the upper tibia.
I'm considering splitting the chapter into three, rather than have three scenes in one endless chapter. At this point into the book (almost done), I don't mind if the remaining chapters are short. It would give me room to expand them, especially Apollo's revival, which is currently only two pages.
Thanks!
Dirk
Insertion is usually in the upper tibia, but EMS likes to put them in the head of the humerus (upper shoulder). Yeah, they hurt, because you are essentially breaking a bone to put it in, but usually the person is an arrest, so they don't complain much.
K caused trouble on the playground today. He noted (quite rightly) that the flight mechanics in my dogfight look an awful lot like atmospheric flight. I checked through my old posts and realized I had never actually settled on a reason for why my flight mechanics work. Flight cocoons are no longer in the running. Too complicated. There are two remaining possibilites:
1. It's space opera. Deal with it. -- Not my favorite option.
2. A combination of specially mounted thrusters that can fire in any direction (including reverse), and maneuvering jets. Asimov would not approve, but he's dead, so I win. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since the thrusters can fire in any direction, the maneuvering jets are simply there to point the ship in the direction you're trying to move in. That keeps your lasers and missiles pointing in the right direction, even while your thrusters/computer are working like crazy to overcome the momentum from your last course and get you on the new one. It's a little like ice skating. I should add that there's an inertial dampener ("splat inhibitor") so you don't turn into pancakes when the thrusters kick into a new direction.
Is option 2 possible? I have no intention of explaining it in detail, but would like to know if I understand it correctly. I can throw in a few buzz words in the story like omnidirectiional thrusters ("the omnidirectional thrusters canee take much more captin").
Thanks
Dirk
Turn to keep the weapons pointing in the right direction. Turn to keep the big thrusters pointing in the right direction; saves weight to have small thrusters for rotation (as far from the center of mass as possible) and big ones for actually changing your overall velocity (speed and direction).
Correct me if I'm wrong, when you say turn to keep the big thrusters pointing in the right direction, the desired turn (humans pushing flight controller) is *not* the same as what the big thrusters are doing, since the computers need to adjust for the momentum of the earlier course. Yes? (I may be using the word momentum wrong.)
Aircraft bank through turns so that their main 'thrusters' -- the wings -- aim their lift in the direction needed to change the aircraft's course. The aircraft's engines provide forward impulse (momentum) which is drained (induced drag) by the wings to provide the 'upward thrust' -- lift.
Your spacecraft operate differently, so your main (forward) thrusters have to also serve for 'lift'. This means that your craft should point toward the center of the arc in which they are turning. Acceleration in a circle does not change the magnitude of the velocity (ie, the speed) because it is always at right angles to the direction of travel.
If you are accelerating at the same time as you turn, the direction of thrust won't be at that right angle and the arc won't be a circle, but ... I think the spacecraft will point to the center of the circle tangent to the path at that point (the 'osculating circle'). I might have that part wrong. It will take me a couple of hours with vectors and calculus (probably not actual vector calculus with the Heaviside dels) to work it out for sure. I haven't done stuff in that detail over half my lifetime. Let me know how important those details are to you. It will be fun (PLAY ALGEBRA!) but I'll have to set time aside for it.
I really regret not taking physics in high school and university. It would have been a great minor in addition to comp sci. Your explanation is over my head. Let me switch to examples. Assume a 2D plane to keep this easy.
Ship is flying at high speed in the direction of the sun. Pilot wants to reverse course. As far as his controls are concerned, he pulls hard to the left (or right) until his maneuvering jets line up the ship in the opposite direction, away from the sun.. Pilot stops pulling the controls left (or right). The computer then manipulates the big thrusters to completely counter the ship's momentum toward the sun and to provide forward movement in the opposite direction. There is a fixed amount of time when the pilot is facing away from the sun but his craft is still moving toward the sun, even though the thrusters are trying to overcome the momentum of the ship's previous course toward the sun.
Have I got that right? And am I using the term momentum correctly?
I'll add to the example in my next post assuming I got the above correct.
Thanks!
You're correct so far...
note: Star Trek and Star Wars both break the laws of physics. Objects in space sometime bank as if travelling through a medium. Some objects drift to a stop despite lacking a brakign mechanism. I have a catch I've complained on here before where an object "blows" off Anakin's starboard wing.
So if your story makes some stretches, it's well within reason
Your use of 'momentum' is essentially correct. I'm not sure the controls would work like that. Remember that to rotate the ship will require using the maneuvering thrusters to start the rotation, and again to stop it. There are two ways out of this: rotate the ship using gyrowheels or start the rotation with maneuvering thrusters and end it by starting up the big engines asymmetrically, one a little before the other, to produce the torque you need. If the computer is managing everything, it might also fire the maneuvering thrusters on one side only, the side that provides impulse (delta in momentum) in the direction you want,
In the orginal =Star Wars=, when the =Falcon= escapes the Death Star it flips end for end. When the movie was re-released as =A New Hope= they changed it to rotation in-plane. But they got it right the first time: there is less angular momentum (rotational inertia) flipping the disk end-for-end.
Turns out banking as we understand it for atmospheric flight does have a use in space. My cadets execute banking moves as they arc toward/away from the Actium's main hangar bay, trying to overload the shield emitter while minimizing exposure to cannons surrounding the bay. As far as I can tell, it's doable using jets and omnithrusters. It helps that omnithrusters can apply thrust in any direction. 
It needs a different name than banking, though, to avoid further confusion. Any suggestions? I was thinking arcing...
I just updated the chapter (offline) to use just 'circle back' and 'come about'. Didn't even need 'arcing'. Now all I need is a design for an omnithruster. Sounds like a task for the Professor.
Pitch, yaw, and roll in flight. Traverse, elevation, and range in artillery.
Are you referencing the movement in terms of the largest visible object? When flying around their own ship, that becomes up and down. If there is a planet, then that beats the ship as largest object.
Are you referencing the movement in terms of the largest visible object? When flying around their own ship, that becomes up and down. If there is a planet, then that beats the ship as largest object.
Didn't understand this. They're flying in circles along the side of the enemy warship, hammering a shield emitter to destroy it.
I think the question asked is whether the directions are referenced to the ship (up, left, forward) or to an external body (north, east).
My cadets execute banking moves as they arc toward/away from the Actium's main hangar bay, trying to overload the shield emitter while minimizing exposure to cannons surrounding the bay
Not sure I get this one. Banking increases your radar cross section as well as presents a larger surface area for a cannon to hit.
Perhaps we each mean something different by "bank"
They're flying in circles along the side of the enemy warship
Did you mean encircling? Around?
Ont tiny word, so much difference in meaning. Any time I not that I'm not 100% certain where everyone is, just hunt for words like this and you'll get people like me on the level.
In regards to the topic in the other group (and in the interest of avoiding debate with CFB), I'd like to add that I don't mind when an author omits the "looking in" factors of the POV character.
"his eyes were red" or "he was disheveled" or "he paled" / "he went white as a ghost" I'd prefer (as a reader) these observations come via dialog from someone observing the M/C. If the M/C has to tell me, I feel like he's stepped out of the situation to keep me informed. I mean, if I walk into an elevator and see a tiger, the last thing I'm thinking is how pale I am.
When in doubt, imagine Paul Atreides blushing.
That said, in your case, the character's redness is very much of interest to the character, and he'd probably be thinking about it.
Another thought... I wonder if we all feel ourselves "go red". That might be part of the anti-beet-red segment's opinion. I've certainly never done it unless you count that time I did a 20 minute handstand as a kid. I can imagine what it feels like. I'm no shrinking violet, socially speaking. There isn't a dialogue we could have in public that would make me shy and awkward like that (I would expect no less of any e-type personality, movie star, or prince).
If you're up close and personal with a much larger enemy, you're probably visible all over the spectrum. RCS isn't going to matter much. Nor can we assume these ships have such a shape.
I eliminated the word banking because it was causing confusion, replacing it with come about or circle back. That allows for the possibility of using maneuvering jets and omnithrusters to fly in circles or arc toward or away from the target ship. They circle next to the target ship, not around it. They arc in, fire a few rounds, then arc back out. The reason for "arcing" is to avoid becoming an easy target for nearby novas. I assume the reader understands that they are not running in pure circles, since that would allow the nova operators to predict exactly where the attacking starfighters will be before they get close.
Better?
I eliminated the word banking because it was causing confusion
You poor thing. Here's a cookie
Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi → The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B.
