Re: GEVs

Bell, Brian wrote:

> Take a ship of 10 tons. Mark the waterline on the hull of the ship
while it
> is at rest. Compute the suface area of the marked area of hull. This
is 
> the minimum area that a GEV, of 10 tons (minus the mass of the air in

> the skirt) would need to cover to float on the air trapped in the
skirt alone. 

Not entirely correct. Only the area of the vertical projection of the
underwater part of the ship counts (since the horisontal component of
the pressure tries to push the ship sideways, not keep it afloat), and
since the pressure varies quite rapidly with the depth of the water you
get more buoyancy from a deeper hull than you get from one with less
draught. 

See my other post for the depth a GEV might sink to :-/

> To take your example and add the output of a Saturn V rocket engine 
> through the skirts, you can now hover your 80 ton block (but you
better 
> have good gyros to keep it from tilting).

If you add the output of a Saturn V through the skirts, you'll blow the
skirts off and use the reaction force from the engine to "hover" - IOW;
you are a VTOL rather than a

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry