On 09Jun2021 1049, Mark Urbin wrote:
> The hovercraft analog strikes me as a good fit.  I recently have
> reread some of David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series.
>
> Very large fusion powered hovercraft. The tanks are over 100 tons. 
> Multiple vectored and variable speed fans.  Took an experienced driver
> to handle them in combat.
>
> A TLC air/raft is probably much easier to handle than a TL8/9 model. 
> More sophisticated computer assisted controls.
>
> I'm wondering which the truly insane grav pilot (i.e. a fairly typical
> PC) would prefer.  The earlier models would allow the pilot to do
> things the programmers of the more modern ones would consider "unsafe"
> and try to block the pilot from doing.  Software governors that
> probably wouldn't exist (or are capable of being disabled) on IISS or
> Imperial Military models.
>
> Then there are the GravBike racers...
Who use their body weight to lean the bike over so its grav plates are
pushing off-angle, relying on their eyes and 'feel' to get the angle
right... at 500 km/h.

IMTU contragravity counters an objects weight, but aside from minor
'drifting' from leaning the craft one way or the other you can't move
horizontally using it. To do that you need another source of thrust.
That's thrusters on a spaceship, or possibly some kind of rocket at
TL9-, and s on a grav tank, g-carrier, and sometimes on an air/raft, but
more commonly air/rafts use ducted fans (IMTU thrusters give off a hot
exhaust that's not something you want on a basic civilian vehicle).

--

Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>