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3 May 2024 11:57
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Question |
| Asked by: |
Sandy Kidd |
| Subject: |
PENDULUM TESTING. |
| Question: |
Shed Dwellers.
I have noticed of late, the now more frequent reference to ballistic pendulum testing, as being the “be all, and end all”, of inertial drive testing.
One contributor even suggests that if the device cannot show positive results on this test, dump it.
So if the device cannot operate horizontally, it cannot work at all.?
I can assure the gentleman in question that he would be very wrong in his assumptions.
Even though gravity is downwards and space is upwards, a contributor suggests that horizontal testing as an easier and more logical option to take.
It is all very well to believe and simply state that running an experimental machine on its side, is the easier path to take.
This is not true, and anyone who has attempted to produce thrust from a gyroscopic system, where the axis of system rotation is in the horizontal plane, will testify, is a much harder proposition than it would at first seem.
Gravity causes all sorts of problems with side mounted gyroscopes.
This may be all right for the machines that are trying to create thrust via eccentrics, and offset masses, and there are thousands of them.
They will never get off the ground anyway, so in that context the test is ideal.
This all started way back in the 50s, when a test, a ballistic pendulum test, was set up by G Harry Stine and R.O.Davis and later became universally known as the “Stine/ Davis Ballistic Pendulum Test
This test was set up specifically to test the claims of the “original” space drive, a horizontally moving device by one Norman Dean, and better known as the “Dean Machine” or the “Dean Drive”
According to Harry, the Dean device was based very loosely on a vibratory bowl feeder mechanism, (the type escapes me) for which Dean claimed a 45 degree out of phase relationship between action and reaction.
So initially, the pendulum test, was ideal for testing this kind of device.
It was this famous series of tests, which gave birth to the universal popularity of pendulum testing.
The pendulum test, was originally used to measure the impact of bullets from guns, or determine the power and length of burn in small rockets, etc.
G Harry Stine was a model rocket enthusiast
It would now appear that due to the ability of this test to be carried out without the need for instrumentation, this test is regarded as the preferred method, irrespective of the operating parameters of the device.
An excellent test, but one that should not be used to the exclusion of all others.
Due to the temperamental nature of gyroscopes, none of the machines I have built to date were built to pass, or would have passed this horizontal test.
Hopefully my current device, will reverse this trend.
Sandy Kidd
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| Date: |
11 November 2004
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Answers (Ordered by Date)
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| Answer: |
arthur dent - 06/04/2005 16:46:49
| | | The Dean Drive was not based upon a vibratory feeder; it was based upon a ribbon feeder. Indeed, the patent makes no claims to be about a propulsion device. The machine either feeds a ribbon, or climbs a ribbon. Only 'away from the patent' did Dean replace the ribbon by a rod, and then claim that his machine would climb it; even though the rod was only short, and not fixed to anything exterior to the machine. As an engineer, Dean made a pretty good mortgage arranger.
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| Answer: |
Sandy Kidd - 11/04/2005 06:55:16
| | | Arthur Dent
Read the report by B Harry Stine relating to his actual examination of said machine.
I’ll take B Harry Stine’s word for it, before yours any day.
By the way Arthur, check up on Norman Dean’s background before you make your half cocked statements.
You seem to be determined to turn character assassination into an art form.
Sandy Kidd
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| Answer: |
arthur dent - 13/04/2005 18:24:38
| | | Stine is to be respected as a rocket pioneer, and he was certainly more rational than his contempory (Parsons): the co-founder of JPL who was a keen devil-worshipper and managed to blow himself up. But this is the same Stine who also developed his own non-gyroscopic reaction-less propulsion device. It was based, in effect, upon a different myth (one once held by Galileo [sic] - for a very short time): that an hour-glass should weigh less when the sand is falling. In his last years, Stine also marketed a device that was supposed to be powered by the human mind. It looked more like the well-known 'cylinder driven by convection currents' scam to me. I think that I still prefer my view of physics. I suspect that I also know far more about Dean than you do; having had telephone discussions with his son (the 'dentist'). He also claimed to have invented a gyroscope-based navigation system, which was 'stolen' from him. There is no evidence anywhere for this. Dean died in London in 1972 (not in the USA in 1969, as most internet sources say), and guess who once visited his office in Edgeware Road. Ah-hem.
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