Avatar: SA-2 Samson | Aircraft Breakdown

[Music] the sa2 samson was a heavy lift ducted rotsav vtol aircraft used by the resources development administration on pandora where it was used as a general transport and utility vehicle to ferry supplies and personnel to distant field sites originally designed to carry supplies in harsh weather on earth the samson had proved to operate well in all weathers and in extreme temperatures with minimal maintenance for over a century though largely retired from service its time-tested record and hardy 21st century design which allowed in-situ manufacturing meant it was perfect for use on pandora since it was a utility aircraft the samson was unarmored except for composite plates in the pilot seats however the airframe was extremely robust and could withstand extensive damage from small arms fire without any structural failure a handy feature to have in the dangerous skies of pandora only a great leonopteryx could reliably bring down a samson despite the craft using very little metal in its construction the corrosive effects of hydrogen sulfide in pandora's atmosphere meant that maintenance cycles needed to be very short the canopy like that of the scorpion gunship was made of a ballistic laminate of optically clear aluminium oxide and polycarbonate and could resist navi arrows unless they were fired from the back of a banshee in an attack dive mounted to the outside of the craft was a vine strike kit a special modification for pandora based on wire strike kits for rotorcraft on earth consisting of guides mounted to the leading edges of the airframe and rotoducts that guided vines into a cutting notch as pandora's powerful electromagnetic fields would have completely overpowered the original electrical systems and flight instruments of the aircraft new hardened ones were installed along with a total refit to a fly-by-light system that ran along multiple redundant looms through the airframe samsons did not carry active emf shielding so pilots had to switch to visual flight rules within the flux vortex as many of their instruments became completely useless only the analog altimeter and airspeed indicators in the center of the instrument panel could be relied upon since navigation and communication systems were especially impacted only the most experienced pilots were permitted to fly sorties in the dangerous floating mountains these pilots typically flew from the right seat using controls very similar to that of helicopters with a cyclic collective and pedals and had excellent downward visibility the left seat replicated the controls for a co-pilot to take over if necessary to allow the pilot to fly unimpeded by a breathing mask the four-seater cabin was completely sealed with an on-board air generator to maintain overpressure of 0.3 psi that prevented ingress of the toxic pandora atmosphere this generator could produce enough for multiple purge and re-pressurize cycles of the entire cabin which allowed the crew to move through the pressure door connecting the cabin to the aft bay or to leave and enter the aircraft multiple times if needed in the event of a small hole breach such as a hole in the canopy there was an accumulator tank to provide emergency overpressure while the crew patched the hole or to provide time to safely return to hell's gate if there was a leak large enough to overwhelm the accumulator tank there were emergency masks plumbed through each of the cabin seats as the aft bay was unpressurized and typically flew without the side doors any of the 12 passengers riding in the back had to wear exo packs which could tap into the samson's on-board air supply using manifold connections all seats also had four point restraints and the two gunnery stations had safety lanyards the most complicated component of the samsung was its powerful ducted fan rotor system powered by two ceramic gas turbines that were rated to 2250 shaft horsepower this system needed some tuning for flight in pandora's denser air with changes to the fuel mixture intake ducts and a pitch offset on the rotors the 7.32 meter diameter triple blade rotors were double stacked in their ducts with each counter rotating rotor system being completely torque neutral the ducts themselves were mounted at a positive dihedral of 8 degrees and could rotate on their mounting pylons the flight computer maintained constant rotor rpm with throttles only available to the pilot for combat or emergency flight they could be set to 120 power but as this sent the blade tips near supersonic it dramatically shortens the life of the rotors due to vibration the collective and cyclic pitch of the rotors was controlled by servos in the ring on the outboard tip of the blades this combined with angling the ducts fore and aft as well as the control surfaces on the tail is what created the six degrees of freedom for the samson if the rotor system was damaged enough to cause failure at the rotor hub or even blade ejection centrifugal forces would send debris into the airframe this would then be followed by asymmetric lift from the other rotor duct leading to total loss of the vehicle to avoid this ballistic ceramics and carbon nanotube composites were included in the duct rings that protected the rotors making them very robust combined with the vine strike kit they prevented the rotor blade tips from contacting obstacles when the aircraft was operating in complex environments while the denser atmosphere limited the maximum speed of the aircraft only 105 knots compared to 145 knots on earth this was more than made up for a lifting capacity the samson was originally rated for a six thousand kilogram lift but with pandora's lower gravity and denser atmosphere this rose to nine thousand kilograms this meant the craft could easily carry remote lab modules that weighed more than it did unlike the much more heavily armed scorpion gunship the samson only supported a minimal defensive armament consisting of two door mounts for machine guns and a pair of missile pods these pods housed four air-to-air or air-to-surface missiles and were controlled by a standard targeting computer tied into an iff lockout system where all air vehicles tracked each other in real time using iff beacons the two door mounts could accept either the mbs-9m hydra the triple-barreled 50-caliber machine gun or the avr-30 lmg the same weapon frequently used by armed avatars if armed with hydras the crew chief could track ammunition usage in real time if there were no gunners on board the guns could be locked forward using pins and fired by the pilot also on board was the standard emergency paraphernalia for sorties on pandora portable exo packs location beacons a trauma kit rations com systems and hand weapons one particularly notable craft was samson 16 piloted by captain trudy jaikon due to her extensive experience in the area chaikon typically flew scientific sorties in and around the hallelujah mountains she was present for the attack on the omatakaya home tree though decided against firing on the navi instead choosing to leave this rebellious streak continued when she commandeered samson 16 to help jake sully norman spellman and dr grace augustine escape from hell's gate and used the aircraft to relocate a science module containing a number of avatar link units trudy and samson 16 now emblazoned with blue and white war paint and using the callsign rogue one also took part in the defense of the tree of souls strafing colonel quaritch's dragon gunship as it was pursuing jake sully however the gunship turned its fury on rogue one and brought it down for good with a well-placed missile although the aircraft was built for use on earth its rugged simplicity made it perfect for use on pandora while it had a proven terrestrial track record the lower gravity and dense atmosphere of polyphemus's fifth moon made the samson an exceptional heavy lift aircraft [Music] you

Channel: Spacedock

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Keywords: Spacedock, space dock, spacedock, avatar, cameron, avatar 2, samson, sa-2, sa-2 samson, helicopter, rotorcraft, scorpion, dragon, rda, na'vi, blue aliens, vehicle, aircraft, breakdown, lore, summary, review, history, analysis, battle, specifications

Id: psBNwQ2r0wU

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021