Following the COVID-19 pandemic and reduced funding, the decision was taken to scrap the platform. In August 2023, Rob Sparrock, the program officer overseeing ONR’s research vessel program noted that it “… would cost about $8 million to make FLIP useable for another five or 10 years, but that funding could be better used elsewhere.”
Clearly an agent of the secret cabal of Good-Time-Ruiners.
Ngl I’ve always hated spaceships with those swivel designs.
To me they would be incredibly difficult to pilot since you have to maintain awareness of its position at all times which is already hard enough in a 3d dogfight.
And all that extra difficulty for what? I don’t see any real advantages to the design.
This concludes my rant about something that doesn’t actually exist. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I always assumed the foils were more for sensors than anything else, increase the size of the aperture to get better resolution, etc.
As for the rotating cockpit, I always assumed it was fixed more or less except you could spin it for different kinds of flying (like nap of the earth flying, orient so the fighter/bomber is above you, etc.)
But I also assumed that the b wing was ridiculously fast but turned for shit, in order to get into a capital ships defenses, drop payload and back out with minimal exposure.
Alas, I was a child and they had to make them stupid.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP_FLIP
Those picts are great I m sad it was decomissioned ;-;
I mean 60y of service ain’t too shabby for an ocean vessel that submersrs like 80% of itself.
It is sad that the ONR and Scripps didn’t have the 8-10mill to keep it functional.
Just sad that the picts were exterminated/assimilated by the 12th century throughout the british isles.
Sucks they scrapped instead of making a museum out of it
Holy shit. There’s a video on the wiki of it flipping, that’s really insane
Flipping really isn’t the issue. We’ve had that technology at least since 1912. The trick is flipping twice.
Agreed, I’ve never seen a video on Wikipedia either!
So freaking cool, I hadn’t ever heard of it thank you.
Clearly an agent of the secret cabal of Good-Time-Ruiners.
https://swse.fandom.com/wiki/B-Wing_Starfighter
Ngl I’ve always hated spaceships with those swivel designs.
To me they would be incredibly difficult to pilot since you have to maintain awareness of its position at all times which is already hard enough in a 3d dogfight.
And all that extra difficulty for what? I don’t see any real advantages to the design.
This concludes my rant about something that doesn’t actually exist. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Me too. It’s adding extra complexity and points of failure.
Looks cool though.
Solution: just don’t swivel during dogfights. Only switch to barbecue mode when not facing enemies.
I always assumed the foils were more for sensors than anything else, increase the size of the aperture to get better resolution, etc.
As for the rotating cockpit, I always assumed it was fixed more or less except you could spin it for different kinds of flying (like nap of the earth flying, orient so the fighter/bomber is above you, etc.)
But I also assumed that the b wing was ridiculously fast but turned for shit, in order to get into a capital ships defenses, drop payload and back out with minimal exposure.
Alas, I was a child and they had to make them stupid.