VTOLs and helicopters in Chaos Earth books?

[glitterboy2098]

there is a common assumption here on the forums that flying vehicles in chaos earth are grounded, because of all the ash from the volcano's. and while certainly this is a very reasonable assumption while the ash is falling, the fact is that the Chaos Earth core book has a number of flying units that clearly were meant to be used. hovercycles, hoverplatforms, flying probes, and of course the Silver Eagle. further, on Pg 18 you have General Sawyer outlines the plan for getting the remaining functional part of the Atlanta NEMA forcesto the main groups of NEMA survivors are.

"We go where we can do the most good. We take the Chromium Guardsmen and other power armor on the 'choppers, join the nidwest forces, and establish a fighting core."

so 3-4 days after the cataclysm hit, the sky's were clear enough to fly large troop/cargo helicopters the 700ish miles between Atlanta, GA and Chicago, IL this despite the fact that on Pg 14 earlier, "everything from the rockies to the midwest is likewise being buried by a storm of ash" mentioned in the section on Christmas Eve, literally a day before the General decides to evacuate to the midwest. so clearly, while the ash falls would ground aircraft at times, there are times where the ash isn't falling or is light enough that flying units can operate relatively safely, even during the first weeks of the cataclysm when the falls would be heaviest.

with that in mind, do you think we will ever stats for these 'choppers' NEMA had/has? and see helicopters or VTOL aircraft offered to GM's for use in their games?
what would your expectations be for them?



edit: btw, some thing people forget about the ash fall/cloud issues.. volcanic eruptions are not continuous. especially the severe ones. they erupt for a few days, then go quite for a few months, then erupt again, etc. usually the first is the worst because it is pushing out all of the 'plug' material)
also, the ash clouds spread out quite a bit as they cover distance. heavy ashfalls usually only occur closer to the volcanoes, since the larger and heavier particles fall out first. (so it is liekly that the midwest, which has few nearby volcanoes, have thinner clouds of finer particles.)
combined this means that ashfalls would be irregular (and after a few months the ash clouds would start to clear up anyway)

and if the vehicle isn't using turbines for power or propulsion the danger would be less. the issue is mainly the molten ash gumming up the turbines. an external rotor or a cold ducted fan powered by nuclear or Solid Oxide Fuel cells, wouldn't have that issue, and a "flying through sand" comparison would fit for the big maintenance concerns

[glitterboy2098]

The easiest approach would of course be to just adapt over the GB transport Free Quebec uses in WB22, with perhaps a few weapons and stats changes to reflect prerifts NEMA rather than post-rifts use.

But I can't help think that NEMA, being ones for dramatic visuals and expensive and mildly impractical units, would instead go in for a truely massive primary transport, in the vein of say the C-21 Dragon "assualt ship" from John Cameron's Avatar. The kind of thing that the CS, centuries later, would look at records of and say "we can do that too!" And go on to design the Deaths Head Transport.

[RockJock]

I always thought of IHA equipment as sort of the National Guard level of equipment during Chaos Earth. This would be things like Iron Eagle Helicopters, and maybe a transport version of the Air Castle Bomber? The New Navy has another traditional helicopter, Quebec has the GB hover transport, and Triax/Germany has a few flying transport type vehicles that which I would assume that NEMA had equivalents of.

[Kelorin]

The easiest approach would of course be to just adapt over the GB transport Free Quebec uses in WB22, with perhaps a few weapons and stats changes to reflect prerifts NEMA rather than post-rifts use.

But I can't help think that NEMA, being ones for dramatic visuals and expensive and mildly impractical units, would instead go in for a truely massive primary transport, in the vein of say the C-21 Dragon "assualt ship" from John Cameron's Avatar. The kind of thing that the CS, centuries later, would look at records of and say "we can do that too!" And go on to design the Deaths Head Transport.

After the release of CE, I always mentally retconned the FQ GB transport jet as a pre-rifts NEMA design (possibly, specific to the Canadian branch of NEMA considering where it ends up in 300 years). I also use this as an excuse for the Ticonderoga to have at least 2 - 4 of those jets aboard to transport their own Chromium Guardsmen, ahem Glitterboys.

[SereneTsunami]

Some where in the Blackmarket Sourcebook is a pre-rifts civilian hover lifter. It can carry alot and would be relatively common.

[keir451]

I heard stories of how tank pilots and others duct taped green scrubby pads over their air intake vents to help keep the sand out of the engines. I figure a similar principal could be employed by NEMA.

[glitterboy2098]

most tanks engines don't require nearly as much air intake as a jet engine or jet turbine requires to keep an aircraft airborne. they'd suck in any improvised filters you put on them easily, and trying to fit properly secured systems would cut your available power massively. enough to make flight unlikely.

and while filters might suffice for air intakes on ground vehicles (wheeled/tracked at least), they also accumulate dust and other particulates pretty fast.. in Desert storm the filters they used might have minimized the damage to the engines, but they then had to stop a couple times a day to clear off or replace the filters. every couple of hours during windy conditions where there was a lot of sand and dust being kicked up.

thus why i'm focusing on electric, SOFC, or nuclear.. these only require air flow for cooling purposes, and can be equipped with such filters. the main moving parts are basically sealed electric based systems. in times when there is no ash fall (between volcanic eruptions basically) you could use combustion based engine aircraft (or the nuclear-thermal equivalents of the same, like most hovervehicles and flying PA) at low altitude (high altitude runs into issues of suspended ash particles), but electric drive rotor/propellor craft (whether using batteries, fuelcells, or nukplants to provide power) should be able to operate even during light ashfalls.

[Aku-Arkaine]

There are real world, purpose built filters for this problem. The US has spent billions on fighting this in the Middle-East when it comes to sand. The Air Force calls the problem Helicopter Brownout. Ash is a similar problem, but would be easier to deal with since it isn't a silicate. These are kits designed for easy fitting to helicopters especially. I can't see NEMA not having something similar for aircraft in the future. It may be a logistically limited item, but they should be able to crash manufacture to make up the difference for such an important item. The industrial complex of North America is still functional at this point.

[glitterboy2098]

should certainly be an option for periods of no to light ashfall. (i suspect that the heavy ashfall would clog the filters too darn fast)