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From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: The trouble with Apple
Keywords: The best way to make a great (?) idea fly
Message-ID: <129618@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 26 Dec 89 20:15:07 GMT
References: <2692@aecom.yu.edu> <1989Dec26.021519.16887@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
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In article <1989Dec26.021519.16887@Neon.Stanford.EDU>, kaufman@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) writes:
> In article <2692@aecom.yu.edu> werner@aecom.yu.edu (Craig Werner) writes:
> -Major gripe:
> -	3. That helicar has no stabilizer.  There's no way it could fly.
> -And there's certainly no way it could execute that graceful turn into the
> -sunset.  In other words, it's a terrible idea.  A great visual
> -presentation, but all style and no substance.  But I suppose that
> -marketing types (nor Macintosh users ?) are not supposed to know anything
> -about aerodynamics. It ends with the sloga "the best way to make a great idea
> -fly."  The idea may fly, but that helicar never will.
> 
> I suppose you are not aware of the Hughes NOTAR (NO TAil Rotor) concept, which
> is being applied to the Hughes 500 series helicopter, among others.

NOTAR might be hard to implement with no tail boom, at least it would be operating
with a smaller lever arm.

Go for an even earlier method of dealing with rotor torque: drive the blades by
venting bleed air through the rotors at their tips.  Almost have to use a turbine
engine to make it work well, though.

Some Mac users (even some marketing types) do know a bit about aerodynamics...
or even aviation history.

------------

"...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise
anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear
and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..."

		Plato, _Phaedrus_ 275d