Puddlejumper Speed SPOILERS for Defiant One

[IMForeman]

So, I was doing some rough calculations on trying to figure out the speed of the Puddlejumpers. I used some of the offhanded information from Defiant One, made some guesses I thought reasonable, and came up with some very rough numbers.

The planet that the Wraith ship was crashed on was "other side of the solar system" from Atlantis, and it took about 15 hours to get there in the Jumper. We know this planet was in the habitable band, as it was livable, so it's distance may simply be because the planet was in opposition to Atlantis at the moment, and thus beyond the sun, or "other side of the solar system." Let's assume it's analagous to Venus is in our Solar system. Venus can get as much as 1.75 AU's away when in opposition to Earth, so we can use that as a baseline. For the purposes of this thought, I put this unnamed planet a rounded out 2 AU's away from Atlantis.

Now, 2 AU's is roughly 300,000,000 km, and it took 15 hours to get there. That means the Jumper was moving 20,000,000 kph. For the sake of this thought experiment, I converted down to it's kps, which is about 5500 (rounding here). The Speed of Light is about 300,000 kps (a little less, it's actually about 299792.458 kps), which would make the speed the Puddlejumper was travelling at about 1.8% of c. If we assume that Doctor Weir was rounding out the 15 hour statement, then we might be able to guess that the Jumper has a top speed around 2% of light speed.

Of course, I am making a great many assumptions here, and rounding out a good deal too, so I could be completely off. However, it would fit with the 844 years that Sheppard told McKay it would take a Jumper to get to him on the fogworld in "Home." That would place Fogwold at around 16.88 light years from Atlantis... quite a reasonable distance for a star to be away from Atlantis.

Man... I want me a PuddleJumper.

-IMF

[Ohper]

Too much rounding for me to put any money on it. We'll probably get some more clues throughout the rest of the season

[aAnubiSs]

I can never imagine the Ancients engines only being able to accelerate their ships to 2PSL. Heck the BC-303 with its primitive tech is capable of going ~50PSL. Granted the 303 is much bigger, but the PJ has millions of year better tech, and dual engine system(gravitational and Ion or plasma)

They should also easily be able to put a hyperdrive and a shield generator in the PJ if we're talking pure science(leaving out all the "ooh how will they get out of this situation"-scenarios). Our little 302 can fly in hyperspace while the much bigger PJ can't... "OK"

Hopefully the shields, hyperdrive and speed limits are all child-safe so that a primitive race wouldn't find one and frell up something.

[IMForeman]

I think that the Puddle Jumpers use an Inertial engine, completly controlling the craft's inertial state to create movement... an Ion engine would be much too slow. Deep Space One has a Ion engine on it, and it's a good, efficient engine, but it's not the fastest thing in the world. I think the Puddle Jumpers lack of a hyperdrive is simply because it was meant to go through the Gate for long range missions, and .02c is very much fast enough for local operations.

And the 302's can only briefly enter hyperspace for a small jump.

-IMF

[Ohper]

I'm sure the Ancients could put a hyperdrive on a matchbox car if they wanted to. There's just not really a reason when you've designed the ship to go through the Gate.

[aAnubiSs]

Well you see an Ion drive CAN be quite good if one is even good technology. By using inertial dampeners one can lowers the vessels mass and therefore provide quite a bit of thrust.

The Asgard clearly also use either a plasma or ion-drive, probably also combined with a gravitational drive. The Goa'uld seem to rely solely on a gravitational drive, except on the Al'kesh. If this is due to the Al'kesh being a newer or older model is unclear.

The PJ clearly has two drive systems. The gravitational one which we all see is running when the weapon pods are inside, and the Ion(or plasma) drives when the weapon pods are out. This same system was used by the WhiteStar in B5. It gives a vessel a clear superiority in acceleration and movement.

Yes the PJ can get through the gate, but as seen it isn't always that easy to get home through the gate. The Wraith clearly knew how to defend the gate, which would indicate that they've done this before, therefore a hyperdrive should be on the PJ's. Having a hyperdrive would also make hit and run-attacks much easiler and more effective. If it didn't have a hyperdrive before the encounter with the Wraith they certanly should've added one after their first encounter.

[IMForeman]

I don't claim to be an expert on propulsion but, I think Ion Engines wouldn't show the kind of performance that the PuddleJumpers show, even with an Inertial Dampener. Ion Engines provide a very high specific impulse, making them very efficient, but a very low delta v. They can acheive high speeds, but it's a very gentle acceleration curve, making it take a longer time to reach those high speeds.

Gravitational engines wouldn't be particularly effective either, as they would tend to only really function well where there was mass around them. Get a good chunk away into deep space, and they would slow down, or become completely ineffective.

An Intertial Engine, something that allows you to control the intertial state of the craft and it's occupants completely would have enormous potential, limited only by the power you could put into it (and the limitations of c).

-IMF

[aAnubiSs]

A gravitational drive is a drive that uses the strings to propel itself, therefore you dont have any inertia. A gravitational drive isn't based on gravity, the name can be confusing You call it Intertial drive, we (me and most of the people that talk about this) call it a gravitational/gravimetric/gravitic drive

And yes, the Ion drives we're working on right now IRL are not that good, but given enough time they're just gonna improve.

The PJ are using two drive systems at the same time and therefore can change direction faster then other vessels it's size.

[Janus]

S
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Okay, I did the match about what would happen if you up the Hyper-drive of a F-302 in Jumper.
Now, a F-302 moves at 10c.
Which we know from 'Redemption'.
The ship made a 1 second Hyper-space jump and the Gate exploded three million miles away from Earth.

So, 300,000,000 minus 3,000,000 = 297,000,000 : 20,000,000 =
14,85 Hours.

Bottom-line, If I got the match right putting a F-302 hyper-drive in a Jumper is useless.
It would save the team (15-14,85) 0.15 which is nine minutes.

Another idea for the trashcan.

[aAnubiSs]

the speed of light isn't 3e8 miles/second. it's 3e8 meters/second.

[Janus]

the speed of light isn't 3e8 miles/second. it's 3e8 meters/second.

Oeps, well...then it might work.

[aAnubiSs]

And you don't see the benefit in having 10c instead of .02c?

(1000PSL/2PSL)=500 times faster

[Janus]

And you don't see the benefit in having 10c instead of .02c?

(1000PSL/2PSL)=500 times faster

Okay, let's do the math again.

The Gate exploded 3,000,000 KM away, C is 300 KM-Per second.

That means a F-302 moves at: 10000c

[aAnubiSs]

light moves at 300,000 km/s or 300,000,000 m/s

3,000,000mps =~ 5,000,000 km/s

5,000,000 km/s = 5,000,000,000 m/s
5,000,000,000 m/s = 5e9
c = 3e8

(5e9/3e8) =~ (16+2/3)c

This means that if the 302's hyperdrive was active for 1s and travelled roughly 5 million kilometers then it would've travelled at 16.667 times the speed of light.

[Janus]

light moves at 300,000 km/s or 300,000,000 m/s