On 11Feb2018 1656, Caleuche wrote:
> I wonder how those numbers were arrived at, I'm using thrust that
> would accelerate the ship at 1g in the absence of air friction, and I
> am computing air friction with realistic subsonic, transsonic and
> supersonic drag coefficients, setting heat aside, I'm not sure how it
> would be arrived at that the limiting velocity is around mach 1,
> there is plenty of power available to exceed that on standard
> atmosphere worlds - it climbs through the transsonic zone without
> batting an eye. Did the rules arrive from a computation of heat flux
> or something to that effect?

Probably by noting that aircraft with thrust/weight ratios of around 1.0
(thus capable of about 1G acceleration) don't go faster than about mach
3 (and most do much less), and setting the speeds in the design
sequences accordingly.

This does mean that they didn't allow for the engines setting the
maximum speeds in many cases, or TL9+ materials allowing higher speeds
before frictional heating becomes too much, or scaling and not needing
wings working in favour of spaceships with contragravity.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief