Aero in Pop Fiction

Almost when I found my passion in Aerospace, I also started reading fiction novels. Though both came late, but have been a continuous part of my life ever since. Fiction provides me with the alternate realities to hide in but you can’t hide from your passion. I remember the first instance of reading Hardy Boys: In Plane Sight - a story involving the detective brothers solving a mystery at an airshow. One of the characters had this awesome skill, to judge the airplane flying overhead by just the sound of its engines - the then younger I wanted that skill so badly, not knowing that in India the low altitude flying aircrafts such as Cassena 182 are so less.

Screenshot of Fantastic Beasts Mobile Game

Over the years, I have read so many fictional novels, my favourite being the fantasy series and how can we talk about this without talking about the Wizarding World. Harry Potter is the closest series to my heart and it’s full of things which fly. From Brooms to Thestrals everything fascinates a book and aerospace nerd like me. I have always wondered why Firebolt was faster than Nimbus Series, did wizards hire Aerodynamics experts to shape the Brooms? That would be one of the coolest dream jobs. Then the JK Rowling’s world is full of flying Fantastic Beasts, Thestrals, Hippogriff, Thunderbird, Dragons. The Hippogriffs always puzzled me, how could they fly with such Blunt bodies, similar questions can be asked for Dragons.

An Illustration by Jordi Gonzalez

And how can we talk about the dragons, without the A Song of Ice and Fire (for those who are wondering it is the series on which GOT is based). Dragons are such vicious characters, with scaly bodies, fire breathing mouths, sharp claws and none of these features helping in flying. The scaly bodies must be increasing the skin friction drag, and if the fire was exhausted backwards it may contribute to thrust but both just increase the total drag.

I don’t know CFD or would have done analysis for these Beasts and Brooms if someone wants to help, I may be able to model them :P. Contact me we’ll get along.

Originally Published in Airspace 2017-18 (Aerospace Department, IIT Bombay)

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