FUSION REACTORS, BATTERIES AND JET ENGINES IN 2050S AIRCRAFT.
"There's nothing down at ground 'cept gangs and bums" 1% Rapper Minky StinkPants, 2058
A modified FDNY 'Fire Marshal' Hopper, 2057.
Previously we discussed my initial design approach to the 2050 flying Hoppers—a kit of part assembled piece by piece to build an ugly, rugged machine capable of taking a lot of damage and keep on going. Now we're going to look at the car's engines.
All aerial vehicles in the Cortex Universe are powered by “Dyson engines.” Dyson engines are ion engines, which means they use electric currents to ionize atoms. These atoms then move between electrodes creating thrust. Wait, what? Trust me—it's simpler than it sounds. Check out these two short videos for a cool overview:
If you liked those you'll love this fantatsic article about the world's first air-breathing electric thruster: ESA: Space Engineering Technology
As for the name 'Dyson Engine,' well I’d really like to say it was to do with the physicist Freeman Dyson but in fact it was because the ion engine video reminded me of a Dyson Fan turned through 90 degrees Yup, I never said I was smart!
Either a nozzle from a future ion engine, or means of blowing cool air over you in the summer. You decide! (This is a photo of the fan that I mirrored and stuck back together. C'mon, that's a future car engine, right?)
Freeman Dyson looks exactly how I want my physicists to look...
Finally, plugged into the side of the Hopper’s central spine are weapons or surveillance nacelles. On a standard Hopper these would hold tear gas or rubber suppression rounds, on riot-control cars they could have missiles or ultrasonic sound systems, anything to break up crowds. Like the rear engines, these pods are on center pivots and rotate.
In this diagram, the surveillance / weapons nacelles are orange, the Dyson Engines are blue, and the compact fusion reactor (plus connectors) is red.
In the illustration at the top of this email (and shown again below) the car is flying though a “pollution pocket,” a term used for localized pollution showers that occur through New York in the 2050s. The air is full of stinking oily clouds, soot, and black rain, so anything that flies gets filthy, fast. Hence this image isn’t in a bright sunny day: I wanted the car to be squalid, as it is having to fly through a brown-black storm.
The person inside, a smart-suited high-level NYPD officer, doesn’t even notice as he’s paying attention to his phone. The car is flying itself. (I can't wait for autonomous cars. As a resident of New York City, driving anywhere is an exercise in blind rage and total boredom.)
So that’s how the cars of Cortex came together: a gradual process of reading and collecting different pieces of tech that I needed, then creating the base frame to attach them to.