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Old 12-02-2019, 09:22 PM   #7
Ulzgoroth
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Default Re: [Cyberpunk Engineering Challenge] #1 Hurricane Hopper

So while I agree with those arguing that this is a totally absurd specification, I'd like to take a stab at what might be able to actually get somewhere near it.

So. You can't 'land' on a helipad, or any other reasonably constrained landing area, because the wind isn't going to let you be at rest either in the air or on the ground. Unreasonable solution: a deeply-seated mooring with very strong cables.

The 'landing' device would probably resemble a ground-penetrating bomb, and be filled with mechanisms (behind the armored tip) to extend braces laterally through the ground from where it comes to rest to get it really set in there. Maybe don't drop this on a helipad!

Drop that from high enough that you're not going to be slammed into anything by turbulence while you wait for the mooring to finish installing itself. It's probably not going to be very precise! Then you can winch yourself down the cable while using your propulsion to generate lots of lift so that you may be swinging about a bit on the end of your string but you're not getting flung into the ground prematurely.

You probably want as few exterior aerodynamic surfaces as possible, because those are going to be liabilities in the storm. A sturdy streamlined box (or disk as Fred Brackin suggested) with powerful vectored thrust jets would be my design concept, which is pretty common in cyberpunk and soft near-future SF anyway. You might need to be clever about the intake design to make sure they won't flame out if you get the wrong angle relative to the wind.

How you get anybody in or out of this thing once you've gotten it on the ground is Not My Problem.
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