The Scale Of Halo

[tlither]

The scaling to me seems pretty good except for the pelican. 100 feet? Awful lot of wasted space there. It seats what? A squad? Maybe 16? Pop a warthog on the back, add in the cabin, fuel area, etc., and you would only need at most 50 feet. Do a comparison between MC and the pelican. It can't be that big.

 

[UNSC Leatherneck]

The scaling to me seems pretty good except for the pelican. 100 feet? Awful lot of wasted space there. It seats what? A squad? Maybe 16? Pop a warthog on the back, add in the cabin, fuel area, etc., and you would only need at most 50 feet. Do a comparison between MC and the pelican. It can't be that big.

Remember that the pelican is VTOL. It has to support its own weight in the hover with engine thrust, which is not nearly as efficient as helicopter rotors. That is going to mean a whole lot of fuel if you want to get any meaningful range out of the thing. It also can boost to orbit, which requires even more fuel. That and 100 feet isn't all that big. A Gulfstream V business jet is 96 feet long, carries a crew of 3 and 14-19 passengers and can fly for 5,800 nm. And you rarely see a Gulfstream that is filled to capacity. They usually depart with half a dozen passengers and lots of bags. And it doesn't hover or fly to space. Seems about right to me.

 

[Reno]

Agreed.
Keep in mind that there is an attachment unit that doubles the pelican's troop bay capacity. You just see the 'normal' one because it's either fly more troops, or lift equipment, vehicles, etc. Which in the context of the game, you're more worried about speed and getting heavy stuff into the fray asap, not nessicarily just more group troops.

 

[Spartan137]

I've been thinking about this alot as well. In the last mission of Halo CE, your driving the Warthog across the spine of the Autumn. But if you look at the Autumn in a cinematic, the entire vessel looks, say, 300 Meters long in perspective with the bridge.

And you have to remember, the Pelican's blood tray and cockpit only account for about 40% the entire vessel.

 

[UNSC Leatherneck]

I've been thinking about this alot as well. In the last mission of Halo CE, your driving the Warthog across the spine of the Autumn. But if you look at the Autumn in a cinematic, the entire vessel looks, say, 300 Meters long in perspective with the bridge.

And you have to remember, the Pelican's blood tray and cockpit only account for about 40% the entire vessel.

The guy who is building the Pillar of Autumn discussed this in an article. The PoA is in scale with the bridge, so it is 1170 meters long. The last mission's drive is much longer that the ship. It was probably the result of an oversight in production. Also of note, the interiors of PoA, as seen in the mission, do not fit with the ship. Again, probably arose during production. Anyway, it's more dramatic that way.

 

[ChaoBreeder]

I think it would have been way too easy if in the warthog scene if it was that short. It also could have been to the turns.

 

[tlither]

OK. I admit I'm probably wrong. Maybe it was the military/tech background getting in the way or all the sci-fi but I would expect something taking place as far in the future as Halo to have improved technology to a certain degree. If the Pelican is VTOL or not, shouldn't matter as a fuel delivery system IMO would have been improved and they wouldn't be using unleaded. Not trying to argue but that's the only thing in the scaling that I think may be wrong. Of course opinions are like poop shoots, everybody has one. I'll shut up now and go away.

 

[Reno]

No, it's a valid issue, but you have to put it in perspective of the size and lifting capacity in relation to the engines.
The engines on the pelican are honestly incredibly small for providing so much lift, and are rediculously fuel effecient if they can also boost into orbit(take a look at the fuel 'effeciency' of the Space Shuttle to see what I mean)

Just by what you see in the game, it's a lot less impressive untill you really grasp the scope of what it can do considering it's size. It can life up to 70 tons, which would be approx. equivalent to 70 or so normal cars nowadays.

While it could go with less fuel to reduce the size, you have to imagine what kind of missions this thing would go on. Mid-air refuelings aren't very valid when you're trying to orbital-insert a bunch of marines without anyone noticing, etc.

Also, there isn't quite as effective a fuel system 'by-gallon' as jet fuel and whatnot. Sure they could theoretically use fusion engines to power the things, but those are big enough to power a battleship, would be well out of mass-production cost-range, and remember, the smaller you make something, the more expensive it is. The micro-fusion core powering the MJOLNIR was insultingly expensive per-unit, if I recall. So sticking with a somewhat unwieldy, but easy-to buy, replentish, and aquire in large ammounts, fuel would fit a lot better for more mass-produced units like the pelicans.


In regards to the 'Pillar of Autumn Connundrum', if I remember right, it wasn't so much 'it doesn't fit, but we don't have time to' it was more 'sure we can make it fit, but this is a *lot* more fun', and as that's the point of a game, I'm willing to let it slide just this once

 

[UNSC Leatherneck]

No, it's a valid issue, but you have to put it in perspective of the size and lifting capacity in relation to the engines.
The engines on the pelican are honestly incredibly small for providing so much lift, and are rediculously fuel effecient if they can also boost into orbit(take a look at the fuel 'effeciency' of the Space Shuttle to see what I mean)

Just by what you see in the game, it's a lot less impressive untill you really grasp the scope of what it can do considering it's size. It can life up to 70 tons, which would be approx. equivalent to 70 or so normal cars nowadays.

While it could go with less fuel to reduce the size, you have to imagine what kind of missions this thing would go on. Mid-air refuelings aren't very valid when you're trying to orbital-insert a bunch of marines without anyone noticing, etc.

Also, there isn't quite as effective a fuel system 'by-gallon' as jet fuel and whatnot. Sure they could theoretically use fusion engines to power the things, but those are big enough to power a battleship, would be well out of mass-production cost-range, and remember, the smaller you make something, the more expensive it is. The micro-fusion core powering the MJOLNIR was insultingly expensive per-unit, if I recall. So sticking with a somewhat unwieldy, but easy-to buy, replentish, and aquire in large ammounts, fuel would fit a lot better for more mass-produced units like the pelicans.
In regards to the 'Pillar of Autumn Connundrum', if I remember right, it wasn't so much 'it doesn't fit, but we don't have time to' it was more 'sure we can make it fit, but this is a *lot* more fun', and as that's the point of a game, I'm willing to let it slide just this once

I'm thinking that the Pelican is probably fueled by liquid hydrogen, probably compressed into storage tanks in the upper fuselage. I think this makes the most sense given that the Warthog is hydrogen fueled. Common fuels make good logistical sense and are common in modern armies (the US military runs EVERYTHING on JP-8, which is basically jet fuel) . The Pelican's 70 ton hoist capacity is incredible. And this is a VTOL with space capabilities! The largest production helicopter in the world is the Russian Mil Mi-26 Halo (Imagine that ) Imagine, if you will, a C-130 with a rotor. That is the Mi-26. The length with the rotors turning is 131 ft. This helicopter, the largest in the world in production, has a payload capacity of only 22 tons. And this helo can only fly for 1000 miles at 183 mph. Here's the Mi-26 Wikipedia entry.

 

[Reno]

Probably the closest real-world cousin the Pelican has is the V-22 Osprey(See wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-22_Osprey )
It can toggle-out between straight helicopter vtol and shift to forward-thrust flight making it more effecient, much like the Pelican would swap out where the core of the engine thrust would be directed once it's in the air.

The Mi-26 is an impressive peice of work too. The thing is huge, haha.

 

[CPU64]

Sweet, I just ordered 117,000 cases of printer paper. Who wants to help me pep the Ark?

 

[UNSC Leatherneck]

Sweet, I just ordered 117,000 cases of printer paper. Who wants to help me pep the Ark?

I think you're gonna need more paper!

 

[Spartan137]

I'm thinking that the Pelican is probably fueled by liquid hydrogen, probably compressed into storage tanks in the upper fuselage. I think this makes the most sense given that the Warthog is hydrogen fueled. Common fuels make good logistical sense and are common in modern armies (the US military runs EVERYTHING on JP-8, which is basically jet fuel) . The Pelican's 70 ton hoist capacity is incredible. And this is a VTOL with space capabilities! The largest production helicopter in the world is the Russian Mil Mi-26 Halo (Imagine that ) Imagine, if you will, a C-130 with a rotor. That is the Mi-26. The length with the rotors turning is 131 ft. This helicopter, the largest in the world in production, has a payload capacity of only 22 tons. And this helo can only fly for 1000 miles at 183 mph. Here's the Mi-26 Wikipedia entry.

No, see hydrogen's burn rate to propel that size object vs the amount of storage space required are redicuolus. The shuttle's hydrogen and oxygen tanks are bigger than it is, and they only have the capacity to get it off the ground and into orbit. There is no way they can compress the fuel tanks that much.

More than likely, they are using the aformentioned fusion reactors to heat incoming air and redirect it out of the thrusters, or could be using some type of xenon propulsion system. I know that a few of our probs are nuke powered.

But then again, none of the tech in the Halo universe seem to match the timeline. I bet we'll have MJOLNIR mk 2 equivelent suits within 50 years.

 

[Reno]

Well, that's a classic connundrum of looking at future technology. I mean, we're in the year 2008 and don't have hovercars, AI helper-bots, and aren't living on a distant moon like they thought we would be a short while ago. It's a 'best guess' scenario, where you pick a somewhat reasonable technological level and run with it, and are likely to be proven wrong later; but does it really hurt the impact of the universe and the games?

That said, it may take us a hundred more years to get fusion down let alone into a reactor the size of your hand like the mjolnir uses, etc. So who knows? Only way to know is to be there, the rest is us just guessing

 

[UNSC Leatherneck]

No, see hydrogen's burn rate to propel that size object vs the amount of storage space required are redicuolus. The shuttle's hydrogen and oxygen tanks are bigger than it is, and they only have the capacity to get it off the ground and into orbit. There is no way they can compress the fuel tanks that much.

More than likely, they are using the aformentioned fusion reactors to heat incoming air and redirect it out of the thrusters, or could be using some type of xenon propulsion system. I know that a few of our probs are nuke powered.

But then again, none of the tech in the Halo universe seem to match the timeline. I bet we'll have MJOLNIR mk 2 equivelent suits within 50 years.

I agree that hydrogen isn't the ideal fuel in the application, but allow me to make a case for it. The issue is not the burn rate, but rather the energy density. Liquid hydrogen's energy density per volume is a third of jet fuel's. Slush hydrogen, a mixture of liquid and solid hydrogen, has a density 18% higher, leading to an even better energy density per volume. This means you have to carry more fuel. The design of the Pelican suggests air breathing hydrogen engines, which would explain the hard to see flame, as hydrogen burns nearly invisibly. Hydrogen powers the Warthog. This is established as canon. It would make sense to utilize common fuel types across platforms to simplify the supply chain. The ships already carry an abundance of hydrogen to fuel the fusion reactors, so adding extra storage for the vehicles would be easy. As for the boost to orbit and on-orbit operations, I suspect that an augmentation system is used to boost the thrust and function as an oxidizer in the oxygen poor environment of the high atmosphere and outer space. Xenon, while being used in several deep space probes, is a poor choice of propellant for operations inside a gravity well. The main reason for this is that an ion-drive using xenon is not capable of producing large amounts of thrust. The ion-drive is more suited for use in applications where time is not a factor, or for fine adjustments on orbit. I believe that a dropship would need thrusters that are able to perform gross adjustments of the craft's orbit in order to rendezvous with other ships. The caveat here is, of course, that future technology may allow for ion thrusters and compact fusion reactors. That said, fusion reactors would be run on hydrogen as well.

edit: Your mention of the accelerating timeline is valid, <insert reference to the "Law of Accelerating Returns" and Ray Kurzweil>

 

[SGT Razor]

It's weird how often the number seven comes up in my day to day life... a while back my Halo reference pic/video folder was 3.43gb, I'm always waking up at 3:43am, my member number here is 5261 5+2=7 6+1=7 ... it's like The Number 23 but with seven

OMGZORZ! My member number is 2104 2+1+0+4=7! I just realized that... Now let's try my telephone number. *starts adding* Nope, but I'll be on the lookout for the number 7.

On a side note, did you know that the average speed of sound is 343 meters per second?

 

[UNSC Leatherneck]

OMGZORZ! My member number is 2104 2+1+0+4=7! I just realized that... Now let's try my telephone number. *starts adding* Nope, but I'll be on the lookout for the number 7.

On a side note, did you know that the average speed of sound is 343 meters per second?

The references to the number 7 in the Halo universe are well known and have been written about/discussed to death elsewhere. While some references to 7 have appeared in this thread, this is about the scale of Halo and the objects, vehicles, and structures involved. If you wish to discuss the (often questionable) implications of numerology in Halo, take it elsewhere. Let's stay on topic. Btw, the concept of "average speed of sound" is a misnomer, as it fails to account for a wide range of materials and conditions. That number is for a standard atmosphere, an arbitrary construct used to provide a baseline for other calculations. This is seen all the time in my industry, aviation, in the calculation of aircraft performance figures and such, so I am quite familiar with this. Carry on.

 

[Reno]

I'll bow out in the fuel type debate, as I'll admit my expertise is not fielded in aviation.
That said, you do make an interesting point of the engine design. namely that it definately has some air intake ports(the top of the pelican) But also functions in space, suggesting that it would switch between burn modes, much akin to how it would switch from down-thrust when taking off to forward thrust to maximize effeciency.

One thing I noticed at random, in my digging up of the V-22 Osprey, one of the crashes that happened stated that one of the engines stalled, causing the aircraft to roll and crash due to the imbalance of thrust one-side to the other. In watching the pelicans crash, namely in Halo 3, this is accurately replicated when the pelicans are hit in the engine(like when the pelicans are descending upon the Ark).
So while a minor, pretty straightfoward detail, it's interesting to note another similarity between the two.

 

[Spartan137]

This is seen all the time in my industry, aviation, in the calculation of aircraft performance figures and such, so I am quite familiar with this. Carry on.

I'll bow out in the fuel type debate, as I'll admit my expertise is not fielded in aviation.

I know only a little of aviatation and aerospace physics, as I have spent more time learning about basic nuclear physics.

But we are just stuck in the infinite quandry of 'It hasn't been invented yet'.

 

[Reno]

Back to the scale topic, I dug up some ship models from the Halo games, as well as a model of Halo itself, and arranged them, properly scaled(as far as I know, let me know if I messed it up somewhere) to see how things compare from the pelican all the way up to Halo.

Firstly, we have the Pelican, Pillar of Autumn, and the Truth and Reconciliation.


Then, from those 3, we add in a Covenant Assault Carrier


Then we add Halo into the mix...


And the full pan, to make Halo totally visible.


And from there, you can imagine the scale in regards to the Ark, which is at least 10 times as wide as a Halo.
Suffice to say, that's pretty well bloody insane.

(Sorry about the blah-ness of the models, I really only wanted to use them for showing the scale, and figured getting them prettied would be fairly redundant)