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The events reconstructed below are based on actual phenomena reported to have occurred in an unknown location in the South West of england.
Do not adjust your set...
Do not adjust your set...
Take me to your launcher đź‘˝
- Thread starter Y3kankerous
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Chapter 1
A few months ago found myself lying awake at 3am. At first I was unsure as to the reason for my sudden awakening... and then came the little voice in my mind, very thin and very shrill.
To my surprise, it was an extraterrestrial! An other-worlder which had been marooned on planet earth and was contacting me telepathically for help to reach its mothership.
Naturally I was delighted to assist and cancelled my plans for the day so I could immediately set about researching a suitable launch vehicle. I found a suitable and well proven blueprint and quickly constructed the saucer. We got the disc ready for lift off, in hopped the tiny Space explorer, my nipper pressed the big red button, and off it went!
Back to the stars!
When we retrieved the saucer, we were amazed to find that our unexpected visitor had left behind a memento, an image emblazoned on the saucer by some holographic technique of infinite maturity and perfection, as if the workmanship were that of another planet, perfectly capturing a frozen moment in time as the alien bid us farewell.
Our task complete, we returned to our everyday lives, wondering if we would ever see the extraterrestrial again.
Some months later, just when I had started to put thoughts of the extraordinary encounter behind me, I was amazed to see the little green person again... wild-eyed outside my front door.
It called out to me.... "You've gotta come back with me!". I was amazed, "Where?" I asked and it replied...
"Back to the launcher!"
TO BE CONTINUED...
A few months ago found myself lying awake at 3am. At first I was unsure as to the reason for my sudden awakening... and then came the little voice in my mind, very thin and very shrill.
To my surprise, it was an extraterrestrial! An other-worlder which had been marooned on planet earth and was contacting me telepathically for help to reach its mothership.
Naturally I was delighted to assist and cancelled my plans for the day so I could immediately set about researching a suitable launch vehicle. I found a suitable and well proven blueprint and quickly constructed the saucer. We got the disc ready for lift off, in hopped the tiny Space explorer, my nipper pressed the big red button, and off it went!
Back to the stars!
When we retrieved the saucer, we were amazed to find that our unexpected visitor had left behind a memento, an image emblazoned on the saucer by some holographic technique of infinite maturity and perfection, as if the workmanship were that of another planet, perfectly capturing a frozen moment in time as the alien bid us farewell.
Our task complete, we returned to our everyday lives, wondering if we would ever see the extraterrestrial again.
Some months later, just when I had started to put thoughts of the extraordinary encounter behind me, I was amazed to see the little green person again... wild-eyed outside my front door.
It called out to me.... "You've gotta come back with me!". I was amazed, "Where?" I asked and it replied...
"Back to the launcher!"
TO BE CONTINUED...
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Chapter 2
Once I got over my initial amazement at seeing the extraterrestrial, I realised something else important, there was now not one but two of them, as another had stepped out from behind a fence.
Two aliens!
This changed everything as there wasn't room in the first saucer for two individuals so I decided I would have to build a new model! And it would need more thrust.
I liked the original construction so used aspects of this, but added a second motor, both still 13mm, with more sturdy build using balsawood bulkheads to take the extra stress. The nice thing about a double mount was that the rod holes could go through the centre.
This was the first cluster I had built so I did a little bit of looking around and canted the mounts a bit, as well put some raised ridges on the top to get some spin and even out any differences in thrust or mount placement.
Once I had finished, I named it "Disco Volante", showed it to the aliens and tried to describe how the cardstock contruction worked.
"The saucer is composed of two hulls, one at the top and one at the base, joined by T shaped irons, which render it very strong. Indeed, owing to this cellular arrangement, it resists like a block, as if it were solid. Its sides cannot yield; it coheres spontaneously, and not by the closeness of its rivets; and the homogeneity of its construction, due to the perfect union of the materials, enables it to defy the roughest launches." The little green people seemed happy, although perhaps slightly confused by my strangely verbose account, "I'm sure I heard that before somewhere", said one of them. Putting this to one side, we agreed to go the launch site.
The saucer lay in the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat.
Everything was loaded and we initiated the launch.
However, it all went wrong. One of the A10-PTs CATO'ed, spat out of the mount while the saucer jumped off the rod and span like a wheel. When it came to rest, the space dudes jumped out looking disorientated but unharmed.
They were quite understanding, "A 13mm motor CATO? Yeah at the moment that seems to be happening quite a bit on our planet too... "We checked for damage, mounted new motors and tried again.
This time success!
I really thought this would be last time I would see the extraterrestrials, and didn't consider we might meet again, but sure enough several months later I caught sight of a familiar green figure, only this time it did not have a single companion, but there were four of them.
A single thought was on my mind:
"We're going to need a bigger motor..."
To be continued...
Once I got over my initial amazement at seeing the extraterrestrial, I realised something else important, there was now not one but two of them, as another had stepped out from behind a fence.
Two aliens!
This changed everything as there wasn't room in the first saucer for two individuals so I decided I would have to build a new model! And it would need more thrust.
I liked the original construction so used aspects of this, but added a second motor, both still 13mm, with more sturdy build using balsawood bulkheads to take the extra stress. The nice thing about a double mount was that the rod holes could go through the centre.
This was the first cluster I had built so I did a little bit of looking around and canted the mounts a bit, as well put some raised ridges on the top to get some spin and even out any differences in thrust or mount placement.
Once I had finished, I named it "Disco Volante", showed it to the aliens and tried to describe how the cardstock contruction worked.
"The saucer is composed of two hulls, one at the top and one at the base, joined by T shaped irons, which render it very strong. Indeed, owing to this cellular arrangement, it resists like a block, as if it were solid. Its sides cannot yield; it coheres spontaneously, and not by the closeness of its rivets; and the homogeneity of its construction, due to the perfect union of the materials, enables it to defy the roughest launches." The little green people seemed happy, although perhaps slightly confused by my strangely verbose account, "I'm sure I heard that before somewhere", said one of them. Putting this to one side, we agreed to go the launch site.
The saucer lay in the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat.
Everything was loaded and we initiated the launch.
However, it all went wrong. One of the A10-PTs CATO'ed, spat out of the mount while the saucer jumped off the rod and span like a wheel. When it came to rest, the space dudes jumped out looking disorientated but unharmed.
They were quite understanding, "A 13mm motor CATO? Yeah at the moment that seems to be happening quite a bit on our planet too... "We checked for damage, mounted new motors and tried again.
This time success!
I really thought this would be last time I would see the extraterrestrials, and didn't consider we might meet again, but sure enough several months later I caught sight of a familiar green figure, only this time it did not have a single companion, but there were four of them.
A single thought was on my mind:
"We're going to need a bigger motor..."
To be continued...
This has been really fun to read so far.
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Chapter 4
The little green fellas all trooped into my house and explained that there had been a big accident with their scout vessel. One of them brought out a futuristic looking radio which they had been using to try and contact the mothership.
He spoke into the transmitter once more “Can you answer?” he listened to the silence of the receiver for a long time, then once more tried ship frequency. When he noticed how low he was speaking, almost whispering, he stopped and cut off the set.
“Why can’t you just beam up?” I asked, trying to be helpful, or so I thought.
“This is reality, human” replied one of the aliens tersely. They didn’t seems as friendly as the previous ones.
“OK OK”, I said, “I’ll see if I can make another saucer for you. But its going to take longer, I mean there are four of you now!”
“That’s good, said the alien, but you will need to do as we say, this is very important, no messing around." He continued, "They brought all sort of crackpot schemes up here – still do. The only thing wrong with the schemes is that, given our present state of knowledge, the schemes won’t work”
“Uh fine”, I said feeling that this sounded oddly familiar….
So anyway, since then I have been working hard on a new flying saucer. I used a lot of the elements from the previous one, but made it larger - 27 cm dia and quite a bit stronger. I started with one central 18 mm mount...
but once the wood reinforcement and glue fillets added up, I could see that I would need more sauce, so added another two 18 mm boosters.
I put some vanes on the top canopy again to try and get a spin and balance any thrust steer, and ever so slightly canted and offset the boosters. Because its now about 200 g without motors, I added an ejection cap so that a set of small streamers could be stowed in an upper compartment which although not big enough to decelerate much, but may break the aerodynamics of the dome and reduce terminal velocity by a good bit. I also put a small set of three vanes on the underside on one side only in the hope that it might help with making it tumble a bit.
Because the central motor now has to provide ejection, I added a retainer based on a bolt put through the mount wall which could be cable tied on to the motor. There was also plenty of internal volume, so I added a small hatch for an altimeter (and to aid alien embarkation natch).
View attachment VID_20220211_152017.mp4
I named the saucer "Disco Fury" and tried a test flight on 3 x B6-0, plus a 1/4A in the ejection pod. It went nicely! But as expected didn't get enough height for ejection prior to landing so was lying upside down and spat the empty central motor. Worked in principle tho!
Now all is ready! Flying day is tomorrow and the aliens have advised me that I should launch on 3 x D9, which should get ~80 m altitude.
Flight report to follow....
The little green fellas all trooped into my house and explained that there had been a big accident with their scout vessel. One of them brought out a futuristic looking radio which they had been using to try and contact the mothership.
He spoke into the transmitter once more “Can you answer?” he listened to the silence of the receiver for a long time, then once more tried ship frequency. When he noticed how low he was speaking, almost whispering, he stopped and cut off the set.
“Why can’t you just beam up?” I asked, trying to be helpful, or so I thought.
“This is reality, human” replied one of the aliens tersely. They didn’t seems as friendly as the previous ones.
“OK OK”, I said, “I’ll see if I can make another saucer for you. But its going to take longer, I mean there are four of you now!”
“That’s good, said the alien, but you will need to do as we say, this is very important, no messing around." He continued, "They brought all sort of crackpot schemes up here – still do. The only thing wrong with the schemes is that, given our present state of knowledge, the schemes won’t work”
“Uh fine”, I said feeling that this sounded oddly familiar….
So anyway, since then I have been working hard on a new flying saucer. I used a lot of the elements from the previous one, but made it larger - 27 cm dia and quite a bit stronger. I started with one central 18 mm mount...
but once the wood reinforcement and glue fillets added up, I could see that I would need more sauce, so added another two 18 mm boosters.
I put some vanes on the top canopy again to try and get a spin and balance any thrust steer, and ever so slightly canted and offset the boosters. Because its now about 200 g without motors, I added an ejection cap so that a set of small streamers could be stowed in an upper compartment which although not big enough to decelerate much, but may break the aerodynamics of the dome and reduce terminal velocity by a good bit. I also put a small set of three vanes on the underside on one side only in the hope that it might help with making it tumble a bit.
Because the central motor now has to provide ejection, I added a retainer based on a bolt put through the mount wall which could be cable tied on to the motor. There was also plenty of internal volume, so I added a small hatch for an altimeter (and to aid alien embarkation natch).
View attachment VID_20220211_152017.mp4
I named the saucer "Disco Fury" and tried a test flight on 3 x B6-0, plus a 1/4A in the ejection pod. It went nicely! But as expected didn't get enough height for ejection prior to landing so was lying upside down and spat the empty central motor. Worked in principle tho!
Now all is ready! Flying day is tomorrow and the aliens have advised me that I should launch on 3 x D9, which should get ~80 m altitude.
Flight report to follow....
Soon you will have a little devil alien appear on one shoulder, whispering into your ear. Hopefully a little angel alien will appear on the other shoulder!
The little devil is proposing a ring of many canted motors around the circumference of a saucer with a thick launch rod in the center...
The little devil is proposing a ring of many canted motors around the circumference of a saucer with a thick launch rod in the center...
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The extraterrestrials approve of this scheme and suggest it be called "superrotating spinner of Armageddon", or something along those lines (no idea where they got the name from?). They also said it would be for interplanetary warfare not a transport vehicle as at 1600 RPM even their superior brain structures would be instantaneously reduced to mush.
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The following classified document was leaked by an unknown operative at an non-declared listening site on the Goonhilly satellite earth station, south west england.
Emergency Operational Bulletin #TK421
Classification: TOP SECRET
<Bulletin start>
At time index 7453.3351.00754 listening station alpha kilo two four niner intercepted a non standard communication type signal originating from a unregistered transmitter estimated range 130 nautical miles 800 mil. Algorithmic analysis corroborated by operator indicated a Code Blue Book.
Special operations unit was scrambled for maximum priority investigation
Transcription of verbal flight recorder report follows:
“There was a signal coming from the surface. an acoustic beacon signal, which repeats at intervals of twelve seconds. Not of human origin.
When we traced it, we found an alien spacecraft like nothing you or anyone else has ever seen.
The ship was a derelict. Crashed, abandoned..."
<Bulletin ends>
Emergency Operational Bulletin #TK421
Classification: TOP SECRET
<Bulletin start>
At time index 7453.3351.00754 listening station alpha kilo two four niner intercepted a non standard communication type signal originating from a unregistered transmitter estimated range 130 nautical miles 800 mil. Algorithmic analysis corroborated by operator indicated a Code Blue Book.
Special operations unit was scrambled for maximum priority investigation
Transcription of verbal flight recorder report follows:
“There was a signal coming from the surface. an acoustic beacon signal, which repeats at intervals of twelve seconds. Not of human origin.
When we traced it, we found an alien spacecraft like nothing you or anyone else has ever seen.
The ship was a derelict. Crashed, abandoned..."
<Bulletin ends>
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Chapter 4 Part 2
It had been a somewhat spectacular but thankfully benign crash, as the saucer made a couple of tight turns as it came off the rod, hit the deck then skidded to a halt a few metres away. Looking on the bright side, the ejection system worked, which was nice. The extraterrestrials had immediately convened a crash investigation committee which, after re-checking that the pre flight stability calcs were correct, quickly come to the following conclusion...
"Excess thrust steer caused by non synchronous thrust peaks in insufficently canted and/or rotated motors. Root cause – earthling inferior brain capacity"
There was one particular part of this report the aliens had seized upon and now often chanted it at me in unison.
"Insufficiently canted
Insufficiently canted!
INSUFFICIENTLY CANTED!!!"
I forgave them their frustrations as they had been left in something of a predicament. Although the crash had not caused any real damage to the saucer, the high G forces had instantaneously reduced it's occupants to a sort of thin slime.
This in itself was not what troubled them as it was just a reversion to their basic biology. It transpired they had emigrated originally from another star system, probably Proxima. Several thousand years ago they had settled on Mars and Titan, doing very well at agrarian pursuits. They were developments of the original unicellular amoeba, quite large and with a highly organised nervous system, but still amoeba.
I had been able to scrape the slime up and contain it in a tub, which is where they now resided.
What they resented more than anything was that their individual slimes had all become mixed together into a sort of faintly luminescent amoebic agglomerate. Although completely harmless, existing in this condition was apparently a great humiliation to them and could not be reversed until they returned to the sophisticated technology of their own world. Worst of all it meant their telepathy was now indiscriminate and they could not avoid broadcasting every slightest thought to anyone within a five-mile radius.
View attachment luminous aliens.mp4
They were currently on stage 6 of the crash investigation. This involved attempting to find a consensus on which alphanumeric symbol best resembled the short flight path of the saucer. Opinion was split as to whether it was an upside down & or an @ with one of the aliens still holding out for symbols from the Greek alphabet, specifically a xi. I couldn't understand the significance of this, or even why they were using terrestrial symbols, except that it was a good way to needle me, understandable perhaps.
They left off debating symbols and continued their chanting...
"Insufficiently canted,
Insufficiently canted!"
I pointed out that as well as the successful lower power test flight and stability sims, I had downloaded thrust curves, rod clearance time, considered variable BP-AP ignition timings (although missed the ignition delay module in OR), given the thrust steer effect a lot of thought during design and the motors mounts had been both moderately canted *and* rotated.
The aliens continued their dirge-like drone rising into a mournful wail.
"Insufficiently, insufficiently, insufficiently..."
I knew this couldn't go on, I had a premonition they were going to start screeching and howling soon and didn't think I would be able to stand it. I had to get them off earth and back into space, whether by using a better motor configuration, or re-building the booster mounts with greater cant. At least in space, no one can hear them scream.
To be continued....
It had been a somewhat spectacular but thankfully benign crash, as the saucer made a couple of tight turns as it came off the rod, hit the deck then skidded to a halt a few metres away. Looking on the bright side, the ejection system worked, which was nice. The extraterrestrials had immediately convened a crash investigation committee which, after re-checking that the pre flight stability calcs were correct, quickly come to the following conclusion...
"Excess thrust steer caused by non synchronous thrust peaks in insufficently canted and/or rotated motors. Root cause – earthling inferior brain capacity"
There was one particular part of this report the aliens had seized upon and now often chanted it at me in unison.
"Insufficiently canted
Insufficiently canted!
INSUFFICIENTLY CANTED!!!"
I forgave them their frustrations as they had been left in something of a predicament. Although the crash had not caused any real damage to the saucer, the high G forces had instantaneously reduced it's occupants to a sort of thin slime.
This in itself was not what troubled them as it was just a reversion to their basic biology. It transpired they had emigrated originally from another star system, probably Proxima. Several thousand years ago they had settled on Mars and Titan, doing very well at agrarian pursuits. They were developments of the original unicellular amoeba, quite large and with a highly organised nervous system, but still amoeba.
I had been able to scrape the slime up and contain it in a tub, which is where they now resided.
What they resented more than anything was that their individual slimes had all become mixed together into a sort of faintly luminescent amoebic agglomerate. Although completely harmless, existing in this condition was apparently a great humiliation to them and could not be reversed until they returned to the sophisticated technology of their own world. Worst of all it meant their telepathy was now indiscriminate and they could not avoid broadcasting every slightest thought to anyone within a five-mile radius.
View attachment luminous aliens.mp4
They were currently on stage 6 of the crash investigation. This involved attempting to find a consensus on which alphanumeric symbol best resembled the short flight path of the saucer. Opinion was split as to whether it was an upside down & or an @ with one of the aliens still holding out for symbols from the Greek alphabet, specifically a xi. I couldn't understand the significance of this, or even why they were using terrestrial symbols, except that it was a good way to needle me, understandable perhaps.
They left off debating symbols and continued their chanting...
"Insufficiently canted,
Insufficiently canted!"
I pointed out that as well as the successful lower power test flight and stability sims, I had downloaded thrust curves, rod clearance time, considered variable BP-AP ignition timings (although missed the ignition delay module in OR), given the thrust steer effect a lot of thought during design and the motors mounts had been both moderately canted *and* rotated.
The aliens continued their dirge-like drone rising into a mournful wail.
"Insufficiently, insufficiently, insufficiently..."
I knew this couldn't go on, I had a premonition they were going to start screeching and howling soon and didn't think I would be able to stand it. I had to get them off earth and back into space, whether by using a better motor configuration, or re-building the booster mounts with greater cant. At least in space, no one can hear them scream.
To be continued....
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