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Star Wars Prequels Entertainment

Star Wars Landspeeders Are Here 112

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the childhood-dreams-fufilled dept.
smitty777 writes "All you Jedis can stop building fake landspeeders in your driveway now — the real deal is finally here. Wired is reporting on an Israeli company that has been testing one for use as an ambulance called the AirMule. Watch out, Womp Rats."
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Star Wars Landspeeders Are Here More

Star Wars Landspeeders Are Here

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  • Landspeeder FAIL (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 06, 2011 @11:00AM (#36672190)

    This is lame, it looks and functions nothing like a land speeder and I'm struggling to figure out why not just use a helicopter?

    • Because this probably costs 10 times as much and when the bureaucrats recommend purchasing this over something else they get a healthy kickback as well.

    • I second that. Just use a damn helicopter (unless they're suggesting that this would be able to fit into places where helicopter rotors would not... in which case - use a hovercraft).

      • Re:Landspeeder FAIL (Score:5, Funny)

        by h4rr4r ( 612664 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2011 @11:22AM (#36672396)

        Can't, it's full of eels.

      • Hovercraft are incapable of leaving ground effect, and skirted hovercraft cannot pass even moderate slopes.

      • I second that. Just use a damn helicopter (unless they're suggesting that this would be able to fit into places where helicopter rotors would not... in which case - use a hovercraft).

        A hovercraft requires ground closer to horizontal than this does. OTOH There was a rotor below craft that suffered from falling like a rock if the engine quit, and this might as well.

        • The HUGE difference in application between something like this, and a chopper is BLADES. There are areas of tight quarters that having several hundred pounds of whirling death being too close by isn't a safe option. Now, I'm not saying these are safer than a chopper, but I AM saying that getting this in close to people or delicate property IS a shitload safer than dealing with a large bladed chopper.

          Just my .02 worth...

          • The HUGE difference in application between something like this, and a chopper is BLADES. There are areas of tight quarters that having several hundred pounds of whirling death being too close by isn't a safe option. Now, I'm not saying these are safer than a chopper, but I AM saying that getting this in close to people or delicate property IS a shitload safer than dealing with a large bladed chopper.

            Just my .02 worth...

            http://www.hiller.org/flying-platform.shtml [hiller.org] The Hiller flying platform was canceled when its engine-off behavior was noticed.

          • So what you're saying is that they will either need a helicopter with a ducted rotor(s) or something with a downward-pointing jet engine like the LLVR [bukisa.com]? Why don't they just do that?
    • It even sounds like a Helicopter from the video, I don't want a Landspeeder, I would rather have a T-16 (Skyhopper) so I can bulls eye womprats...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hitmark ( 640295 )

      No rotors to bump into things with? Thus allowing it to slip between buildings and such?

  • I can see why these aren't in demand any more. I'd also prefer the XP-38 to this noisy thing. And where are your droids supposed to sit?

  • Pfft. Hand in your Star Wars nerd card. (Score:5, Informative)

    by geminidomino ( 614729 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2011 @11:00AM (#36672196) Journal

    Landspeeders are unarmed and womprats are just over 2 meters across. It's like hitting a deer.

    You want to menace womprats, you need a T-16 Skyhopper...

  • I bet it's just a hovercraft. I remember DIY personal hovercraft with 2-stroke engines.
    • It might be a hovercraft someday, but right now it's mostly photoshop. Look at the shadows. Then notice that every shot with someone sitting in it, it's sitting flat on the ground.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tom17 ( 659054 )

        He's talking about the subject of the wired article, not the funny quip about DIY landspeeders. Re-parse the summary :)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

      hell even the ones in starwars were hovercrafts with the skirts removed in post

  • boo for making it past Slashdot "editorial" "filter".

    • I was thinking the same thing. All those photos need are those 3 Chinese officials there admiring it.

    • boo for making it past Slashdot "editorial" "filter".

      Yep, just try and draw a line from the tip of the nose shadow thru the tip of the nose, and the tip of the tail shadow through the tip of the tail -- They don't intersect at the sun... that last pic: they go off at very bad angles like:
      \------/ instead of \------\ or /------/ or even |------\ or /------|

      You may get \------/ on overcast days with lots of ambient light, but not those hard shadows -- Clearly a fake.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )
        Eyes are a ridiculously easy thing to fool... the apparent shadow inconsistency could easily be explained as an optical illusion caused by inadvertent forced perspective due to the angle of the camera. The same shot could have been retaken 4 or 5 more times from other angles to remove that uncertainty. That this was not done strongly suggests the distinct possibility exists that they were shopped, but it is not irrefutable proof.

      • Wouldn't the lines in a proper picture be parallel? The sun casts shadows indistinguishable from parallel for any earth-bound distance.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aug24 ( 38229 )

        I think: The sun is behind the camera, and the apparent angles you see are caused by the shadow being forward (from the camera perspective) of the object. In the parts with vertical edges (the thruster) the shadows look aligned, but in the parts with curved edges underneath (front and back), the resultant offset produces an optical illusion.

        Take another look.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )
      Could you be more specific? What visual anomalies do you see in the photos, exactly, that identify them as faked?

  • idiot (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The plural of 'Jedi' is 'Jedi'.

  • Wow, it's amazing how an article title of "Video: Israeli Landspeeder (Sorta) Takes Flight" becomes "Star Wars Landspeeders Are Here" when the thing look and functions nothing like a Star Wars Landspeeder. Nor would you be shooting womprats in one you fucking poseur since it has no weapons.

  • Enough with the "Fake" Flying Cars Already (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CohibaVancouver ( 864662 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2011 @11:25AM (#36672414)
    I think everyone is getting tired of these 'flying car' stories, be they on /., Wired, PopSci or wherever.

    Just so the editors understand what we're talking about here:

    A Flying Car uses some kind of anti-gravity device. It can float. Don't show me a hovercraft, helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft. For greater clarity, see:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qcMjG1KL2Q [youtube.com]

    ...and while we're at it, a 'Jetpack' should be good for at least several hour's flight. A 30-second hop is not a 'jet pack.' For greater clarity, see:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMQwT9z0Jyc [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Nimey ( 114278 )

      My hovercraft is full of eels.

    • I'm sorry these flying cars and jetpacks don't live up to your standard. Can we see your flying car and jet pack prototypes? I'd be very interested.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lennier ( 44736 )

        Can we see your flying car and jet pack prototypes? I'd be very interested.

        PREDICTION: He will forget the look of pity on your face when he's living on a solar dome in a platform in space.
        EXTRAPOLATION: It will be be the future soon, and he won't always be this way.
        SUPPLEMENTAL: The things that make him weak and strange will be engineered away. Meatbag.

        ADDITIONAL SUPPORTING DATA: I am sorry for calling you a meatbag, meatb - Master.

  • Unlike an airplane that can glide and a helicopter that can auto-rotate when the engine dies on these things so does everyone on board.
  • it looks like one of the armed combine aircraft from HL 2

  • 1950 called and it wants it's "amazing flying car of the future" back.
     
    Seriously, just like jetpacks with more than a few minutes endurace, hovercars with any real range and performance just aren't in the cards. It's all about the physics, and the physics say that the materials, powerplants, and fuels needed are all unobtanium.
     
    Yet somehow, people insist on disbelieving the equations and keep trying anyhow.

    • Haven't you seen the Martin jetpack?

      Admittedly, it's more like a helicopter that you stand in, but you get a half hour of flight time. Probably long enough to get to work!

    • > Yet somehow, people insist on disbelieving
      > the equations and keep trying anyhow.

      And thank god they do. Progress doesn't come from textbooks, it comes from trying.

      • Yet somehow, people insist on disbelieving the equations and keep trying anyhow.

        And thank god they do. Progress doesn't come from textbooks, it comes from trying.

        I suppose you think that perpetual motion will become practical some day soon too?

        Or to put it less politely, you're an ignorant fool parroting bullshit. I said nothing about textbooks, and only an idiot would confuse equations with textbooks - because those equations lie at the foundations of all engineering.

        • Logical fallacy count:
          1 ad hominem
          2 straw man
          1 non sequitur

          I agree with your main point, that Physics trumps crackpot ideas.

          But most breakthroughs in our understanding of Physics came from people who were initially dismissed as crackpots - in your words disbelievers, idiots, and fools.

          • Had I mentioned physics, you'd have a point. But since I didn't you're once again an idiot spouting bullshit. (Most notably in your hilariously stereotyped, and wrong, final sentence.)

  • Can I leave this lousy moisture vaporator farm to join the rebellion? More seriously, I'd be way more impressed if they built a Star Destroyer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lennier ( 44736 )

      More seriously, I'd be way more impressed if they built a Star Destroyer.

      Pfft, I'd prefer a Star Spacecraft Carrier.

  • Can it complete the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs?

    (And to the trivia nazis, yes I know that was Han Solo's claim about the Millennium Falcon.)

    • Is the kessel run some kind of race where the time is set (24 hours), and the winning metric is distance traveled? Or was that just a mistake in the script?
      • It depends on your cognitive dissonance level.
      • Or maybe the Kessel Run was a traveling salesman problem?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by neminem ( 561346 )
        Fun fact: while it was originally just a mistake, it has since been retconned with an explanation I actually sort of like; namely, that the kessel run takes you through a place called "The Maw", a place full of black holes. A straight line path through it is thus impossible, but the less out of your way you have to travel, the faster you can get through it. But the less out of your way you go, also, the more dangerous it is. Thus, the winning metric *is* distance traveled. Yay retcons!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lennier ( 44736 )

      Of course. Not only that, it gets 25 banthas to the dianoga, and only costs 100 dewbacks.

  • Looks more like the Hunter-Killers from Terminator than it does a land speeder.

  • What's that? Watch out? It's still no T-16.

  • If flying cars were invented first, the improvement would be called the automobile. It would have four wheels that touch the ground. No more flying cars would be falling from the sky. Countless lives would be saved. It would save you thousands of dollars in fuel costs because it doesn't need to hover.

    The future is now. Enjoy it.

  • That's no landspeeder!

  • Why is it that Israel is kicking our ass with so many Army (Read As: Ground forces) technology?

    I mean, back when we went into Afghanistan and then Iraq the Israelis had a armored vehicle that could shoot rocket propelled grenades and inbound projectiles and we didn't. Oh wait, Raytheon paid off the government to sacrifice our soldiers for their vehicle that still has YET to be produced.

    Before that the Israelis were working on a mobile laser weapon that can shoot artillery shells out of the sky.

    They created

    • Wouldn't the logical conclusion be to kick the arms manufacturers out (setting up government-owned entities to develop and produce equipment)? Of course that runs counter to principles like "the market will solve everything", "politicians love pork" and "the arms manufacturers have deep pockets" so it's both unpopular and unrealistic.
  • "What a piece of junk!"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lennier ( 44736 )

      "What a piece of junk!"

      She might not look like much, kid, but she's got it where it counts.

      Oh, and my spacecraft over here is pretty nice also.


  • This is a decent piece of engineering that got butchered by spencer's editorial.
    As one commenter in the original blog mentioned:

    Well's spencer's knowledge on the subject is: Aeronautics is an engineering degree and I have a liberals arts degree in English so I can can blog about anything.

    Even more surprising is that not a single slashdotter bothered to check what's really shown, instead relying on BS from Wired
    http://www.urbanaero.com/Frame-whatsnew.htm/ [urbanaero.com]
    This is an unmanned rapid combat zone casualty extraction vehicle - way cheaper than a helicopter (and thumbs down to all the commentators who couldn't count to 10 without a helping hand) and capable of reachi

  • Ah yes that is the same sound I recall when Luke rode across Tatooine, a extremely loud helicopter sound!
  • It's the young hooligans in T-16s that worry me.

  • So he put a funny looking chassis on a car, basically. Why do we care? Is Slashdot gonna cover every boring cosplay forum post as well now?

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