Something Flat and Broad

[Victorian Squid]

Hello everybody!

This is my first post, though I've been reading the forum as a guest for about six months I think! Thought it was time I signed up and joined in - I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts very much, especially the discussions about the novel, which is (of course!) my favourite book.

Anyhow, what prompted me to join was a question I have about a passage in chapter 17, "The Thunder Child". At the end of the chapter, when the writer's brother and the women are steaming to safety, HGW writes :

"Something rushed up into the sky ... slantingly upwards and very swiftly ... something flat and broad and very large, that swept round in a vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly and vanished again into the grey mystery of the night. And as it flew it rained down darkness upon the land."

What is this? Is it the experimental flying machine? The reason I'm unsure about this is because of the time frame - the invasion is only, what, six days old? Have the Martians established their central London pit by this point? Or, given the final line about darkness, is it a black smoke canister (though I assume the last line is metaphorical.) Or were the Martians signalling to each other - as we would fire a flare, were the Londonward Martians signalling to the ones on the coast to head back to camp?

Any thoughts?

Ta!

[lanceradvanced]

Victorian said:

Hello everybody!

What is this? Is it the experimental flying machine? The reason I'm unsure about this is because of the time frame - the invasion is only, what, six days old? Have the Martians established their central London pit by this point? Or, given the final line about darkness, is it a black smoke canister (though I assume the last line is metaphorical.) Or were the Martians signalling to each other - as we would fire a flare, were the Londonward Martians signalling to the ones on the coast to head back to camp?

It's generally agreed to be and illustrated as the Flying Machine, on a bombing run with the black smoke.... The seventh shot, which landed on Primrose hill, fell the night before, the martians having reached London on foot two days before (And is the last one Wells aparently tracked, the 8th, 9th and 10th shots land god knows where, unless they headed for venus)

[Hals]

Yes, I have always taken it to be the Martian Flying Machine. Being much more advanced technologically than us, you would have expected them to have conquered the (very thin) air of Mars.

I tend to think of the flying machine on Earth as a prototype (Earth's denser atmosphere and stronger winds, heavy clouds etc).

Even so, I still think the concept of the tripod as the main weapon of conquest as being the best idea, very frightening. A flying disk overhead I could stand, but hiding from a tripod stalking you... ready to fry you with the heatray (if you're lucky) or grasp you with a tentacle and toss you into the basket as main course for a hungry squidface...no ta !!

[lanceradvanced]

Hals said:

Yes, I have always taken it to be the Martian Flying Machine. Being much more advanced technologically than us, you would have expected them to have conquered the (very thin) air of Mars.

I tend to think of the flying machine on Earth as a prototype (Earth's denser atmosphere and stronger winds, heavy clouds etc).

Well, we also don't have martian dust storms, and their gravity is a lot lighter too, to compensate for the lower atmospheric pressure, so I think they were prepared to work out the kinks fairly rapidly.

[Topaz]

I don't think they'd have a terribly difficult time designing an aircraft for Earth, given their level of technology.

It's easier to fly in Earth's atmosphere - smaller wing area required, etc. Structures are harder to do, since you've got more gravity to mess up the strength-to-weight ratios of your structures. Might be balanced a bit by the denser air, though.

Learning to do stability and control in a much denser atmosphere would be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Very easy to change the density values in the appropriate equations.

One of the toughest things would be adapting engine technology. On Mars they'd have to deal with very little oxygen in the atmosphere, so it's unlikely they'develop engines based on chemical combustion using an external oxygen source. More likely either rockets or something like the aircraft-nuclear-propulsion schemes the USAF was working on in the '60's. In the latter case, you'd have to have intimate knowledge of the heat-transfer properties of our atmosphere, and the former doesn't really provide much range (not to mention having to cart a huge quantity of fuel to Earth before you can set up production facilities here).

Funny thing is, the Martian flying machine isn't likely to look too much different than our own aircraft designs. Aerodynamics is aerodynamics, no matter what planet you're on. Even more so with structures. I personally believe the Martians would favor flying wings, since they're better for conditions like Mars (thin atmosphere, light gravity) and easier to break down for transport in the cylinders. They'd 'build what they're used to doing' as a first go, until they were more experienced with our atmosphere and gravity.

Most of the NASA concepts for unmanned 'Mars Planes' were flying-wing-like, or nearly so.

[Victorian Squid]

lanceradvanced said:

The seventh shot, which landed on Primrose hill, fell the night before, the martians having reached London on foot two days before

I was about to argue that the seventh cylinder wouldn't have landed until that evening, but, thinking about it you're quite right Lancer, that ties in, I forgot that the Martians wait until the second cylinder has opened before leaving the first pit.

And, even if the seventh hadn't landed yet, there's no reason why the flying machine couldn't have come in one of the earlier cylinders - the fifth and sixth are both in London suburbs - and was flown to Primrose Hill. I suppose the only reason why we don't hear more of the flying machine is because neither the writer or his brother witness it in action as they are respectively trapped in Sheen and abroad by Wednesday evening.

VSx

[McTodd]

At one point, the Martians appear to have carried the flying machine from one location (west London) to another (their base at Primrose Hill). The artilleryman says:

"They've gone away across London," he said. "I guess they've got a bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky is alive with their lights. It's like a great city, and in the glare you can just see them moving. By daylight you can't. But nearer--I haven't seen them--" (he counted on his fingers) "five days. Then I saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the night before last"--he stopped and spoke impressively--"it was just a matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they've built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly."

I don't know why, but I just love the image of a couple of Martians in their fighting machines carrying the flying machine between them, rather as they carried away their wrecked comrade at Shepperton & Weybridge.

[Topaz]

You know, I've often thought the same about that passage. It may be that, instead of carrying the entire craft, they were carrying a large sub-assembly. The Flying Machine would probably have to have been broken down into segments for the flight to Earth.

Perhaps the cylinder that carried it did not land near an area suitable for flight operations, or they felt that once the Primrose Hill pit was established, they wanted to move all their operations there, and the Flying Machine was not yet completely assembled.

[lanceradvanced]

Topaz said:

One of the toughest things would be adapting engine technology. On Mars they'd have to deal with very little oxygen in the atmosphere, so it's unlikely they'develop engines based on chemical combustion using an external oxygen source..

I don't think they'd really have to do -to- much to adapt their existing engines. They allready have a very good source of heat, that could be used in a simple ramjet type engine to provide thrust, with or without combustion, all you have to do is heat the air enough to get it to expand dramatically, and the HeatRay does that in spades.

The other posibility is of course mechanical flight, following the pattern of insects, birds or bats, Ornithopter type designs would be a distinct posibility, and the engineering and mechanics and wing cycles would easilly qualify as "The Secret of Flying" that was discovered after the war (experimental gliders being reasonably well known at the time of the war, it was power to weight ratios on the engines that was among the early hangups)

[lanceradvanced]

McTodd said:

At one point, the Martians appear to have carried the flying machine from one location (west London) to another (their base at Primrose Hill).

They carried -something- big, but he's never explicit about it being the flying machine, and the Martians aparently toted quite a bit of their equipment around from base to base.

After a long time I ventured back to the peephole, to find that the new-comers had been reinforced by the occupants of no fewer than three of the fighting-machines. These last had brought with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly manner about the cylinder. - Days of Imprisonment

I stared about me, scarcely believing my eyes. All the machinery had gone. Save for the big mound of greyish-blue powder in one corner, certain bars of aluminium in another, the black birds, and the skeletons of the killed, the place was merely an empty circular pit in the sand. - The Stillness

[TOMAHAWK]

Another point ..How did it take off /land ....

Launch like a Harrier???, well as we don't know what powerplant was used ....it suspect it would be difficult to control it's takeoff/hover/landing with a sophisticated powerplant (if thats what they used) after all the Harrier needs controlled thrust...would the Matians have known about thrust vectoring ...they don't appear to be THAT refined in their designs for their machines

or was it someting like The ME163 Komet ...rocket powered and then glided to its targets/landing

Begs the question ..if the martians produced smallish powerplants , why didn't they produce vehicles heatray armed tanks for example and why send unpowered "shells" to Earth when they knew about engines/powerplants ...couldn't they have built powered rockets from Mars to Earth

[Topaz]

lanceradvanced said:

I don't think they'd really have to do -to- much to adapt their existing engines. They allready have a very good source of heat, that could be used in a simple ramjet type engine to provide thrust, with or without combustion, all you have to do is heat the air enough to get it to expand dramatically, and the HeatRay does that in spades.

That's essentially how the 'nuclear powered airplane' technology worked. You use reactor thermal energy to replace the combustor section of a turbojet. The USAF was interested in this sort of thing in the '60's. They took it to the point that GE actually ran a nuclear-powered turbojet engine in a test stand and the experimental NB-36 aircraft flew with an operating reactor on board, although it did not power the aircraft.

The GE design pulled the air out of the engine section aft of the compressor, then routed it through the reactor for heating, then dumped it back into the engine forward of the turbine. You lose efficiency that way by ducting all that high-mass-flow air around, but it's relatively simple. The Pratt & Whitney version left the heat exchangers in the engine, and routed the heat from the reactor to them using liquid metal, as was commonly experimented with on nuclear submarines/ships of the era. That design was more efficient and powerful, but heavier and more complex.

I'm not so sure the Heat-Ray would do it, unless you take the Narrator's speculative 'engineering' of the 'immense heat in a chamber...' as fact. If they were real, the Heat-Ray would be far more efficient as an infrared laser in the multi-megawatt class, and would be very inefficient for the purpose of providing heat for a turbojet.

One of the advantages of using a turbojet in this case is that it can operate at zero forward speed, and so be used with thrust vectoring for a VTOL design, however much that cuts into the payload of the aircraft.

One of the disadvantages is that, due to weight, the shielding on the reactor only protects the cockpit area, and anyone on the ground while the reactor is operating gets that healthy, 'glow in the dark' tan.

I'm skeptical of rocket-powered theories for the Flying Machine. The Martians in the book have obviously put a good deal of thought into the design of their equipment, and so I'd imagine that they'd design a Flying Machine with some substantial endurance and range. Rocket-powered aircraft are only militarily useful as point-defence interceptors such as the Me-163 mentioned earlier and the Martians didn't seem to care for much but continuing offense - not to mention that the aircraft of 190x would already be utterly vunlerable to the Heat-Ray.

Obviously, Wells knew nothing of any of this, and 'his' aircraft in the book is deliberately vague for that reason.

[Topaz]

TOMAHAWK said:

Begs the question ..if the martians produced smallish powerplants , why didn't they produce vehicles heatray armed tanks for example and why send unpowered "shells" to Earth when they knew about engines/powerplants ...couldn't they have built powered rockets from Mars to Earth

I, at least, always assume that the Cylinder did have some sort of propulsion for in-flight course corrections. Using the gun as a launcher doesn't preclude this, and it would almost be a necessity given that launch method.

Like as not, such a 'propulsion module' would be discarded before entering the atmosphere, much as the cruise stage for the MER rovers was discarded, leaving only the reentry vehicle to continue the descent. Why launch the weight of a heat shield for something you aren't going to use anymore?

As for tanks, while they would've been very effective against period defenses, Wells pretty much rules them out when he decrees that the Martians "either do not know of, ... or abstain from, the use of the wheel."

Something powered the Fighting Machines, Handling Machines, and Flying Machine. While the former two likely used the same power source due to their mechanical similarity, I would suspect that the Flying Machine uses something rather different, in the same way that an airliner uses a turbofan and a bulldozer uses a Diesel engine.

[lanceradvanced]

TOMAHAWK said:

Begs the question ..if the martians produced smallish powerplants , why didn't they produce vehicles heatray armed tanks for examplewhy send unpowered "shells" to Earth when they knew about engines/powerplants ...couldn't they have built powered rockets from Mars to Earth

They did, they're refered to as "Fighting Machines" which served the Martians as general purpose AFV's..

As for powered rockets, what diffrence would it make?the cylinders got the Martians from Earth to Mars and down safely to the ground, and into dug in landing sites... what would a "powered rocket" have gained them?

[lanceradvanced]

Topaz said:

I'm not so sure the Heat-Ray would do it, unless you take the Narrator's speculative 'engineering' of the 'immense heat in a chamber...' as fact. If they were real, the Heat-Ray would be far more efficient as an infrared laser in the multi-megawatt class, and would be very inefficient for the purpose of providing heat for a turbojet.

One of the advantages of using a turbojet in this case is that it can operate at zero forward speed, and so be used with thrust vectoring for a VTOL design, however much that cuts into the payload of the aircraft.

Dang, I forgot the other major technology for combustionless thrust - electric engines. Ionize air, as it comes in, and use electric feilds to thust it out again, you can -kinda- it in action in the so called "lifters" (despite claims to other principles at work)

[Topaz]

lanceradvanced said:

Dang, I forgot the other major technology for combustionless thrust - electric engines. Ionize air, as it comes in, and use electric feilds to thust it out again, you can -kinda- it in action in the so called "lifters" (despite claims to other principles at work)

Yeah, I've seen that. Interesting stuff! Still, the power requirements for a full-sized aircraft would be staggering, I would think.

As an aside, I'm rather surprised that that online group could even get that flimsy little frame to lift off using that principle, with the crude 'thrusters' they're using. Have you heard any independant confirmation of the success of their design?

Back on topic, are we agreed that the Martians would most likely use some 'combustionless' propulsion system for their aircraft? I can't imagine carting tons and tons of fuel from Mars, and they couldn't be assured of getting compatible fuel here.

[Lensman]

lanceradvanced said:

(experimental gliders being reasonably well known at the time of the war, it was power to weight ratios on the engines that was among the early hangups)

Reality check: The aerodynamic equations being used for wing designs at the time were completely, totally wrong. The Wright Bros. had to test different wing shapes by trial-and-error in a wind tunnel to figure out the best wing shape.

[Lensman]

"I believe they've built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly."

Interesting that others in this thread think they Martians brought the flying machine with them, in sections. I've always assumed that, as it was an experimental machine, it was built here on Earth. After all, the Martians were mining ore and refining aluminum... er, "aluminium" since it was in Britain.

[Lensman]

TOMAHAWK said:

or was it someting like The ME163 Komet ...rocket powered and then glided to its targets/landing

Begs the question ..if the martians produced smallish powerplants , why didn't they produce vehicles heatray armed tanks for example and why send unpowered "shells" to Earth when they knew about engines/powerplants ...couldn't they have built powered rockets from Mars to Earth

Re Komet: Ah, the famous German WWII rocket-powered fighter plane. I also thought of that upon reading the description of how the Martians' flying machine "rushed slantingly upward and very swiftly... above the clouds". So far as I know, there aren't any modern aircraft that climb that quickly. And yet this was a large craft; what the heck were they using for propulsion? Some interesting speculations in this thread.

Re why didn't they build tanks: Exactly what do you mean by "tanks"? Literally armored fighting vehicles crawling on endless belts? Not possible; it's clearly stated the Martians didn't use the wheel. And besides that, for heaven's sake why would they want anything that low to the ground? The Tripods' height gave them great advantage of observation, and the legs gave them great mobility in rough terrain, and speed much more rapid than a crawling vehicle. The only disadvantage such a height gives is making them a higher profile target, and very clearly that was not a major concern for them. The Tripods are not merely a fighting vehicle; they are a terror weapon in a way which, psychologically, a tank can never be.

Re why didn't they build powered rockets? I guess the primary reason is because War of the Worlds was not written by "minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts," but rather by one man who wrote based on what was known at the time. Jules Verne wrote From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, describing the technology which apparently is what Wells used to get his Martians to earth. According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the first article to seriously propose using rockets to explore space wasn't published until 1903, altho ironically it was written in 1898 -- the same year WotW was published. Goddard didn't begin his experiments until 1911. The article does mention one novel, A Trip to Venus, published in 1897,which used a liquid-fueled rocket, but that was only a year before the publication of WotW.

[Lensman]

Topaz said:

Obviously, Wells knew nothing of any of this, and 'his' aircraft in the book is deliberately vague for that reason.

Exactly.