Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-26397825-20170714130723/@comment-25936766-20170724164303

Phantomlink959 wrote: It's about distribution of weight. You can have the wings be relatively light for a gliding device but that's still going to be heavy enough for an axe if you fold them up. Distribution of weight only changes where it's heavier, not how heavy it is.

If you have a board that weights 3Kg, it won't magically stop weighting 3Kg if most of it is on one end. It will only fall first in that end.

Sure, the bigger the surface area, the less weight will be concentrated which means it will apply less pressure. But if it's heavy, it will still be heavy even if said weight is distributed in the widest way possible.

And that's the problem here. Axes are generally momentum-dependant, and chop wood as well as they do because all their weight is applied in the form of concentrated pressure. But axes need to be heavy to be effective to begin with.

Remember the formula: Pressure = Force, usually Weight, divided by Surface Area.

Ex1: >8 / 2 = 4. Ex2:>4 / 2 = 2. Ex3:>2 / 2 = 1.

If the weight is small, even if it's concentrated in a small area, the pressure applied will also be small. What axes need is good weight concentrated in the blade.

But that causes another problem: The idea of doubling as a flying device. Flying, not gliding. Even if you use Dust as fuel to push and maintain the device in the air, the heavier it is, the less maneuverability it will have, and the more fuel you'll need to spend to compensate.

With something like Reese's Hoverboard, it's fine, since the board only turns into guns, and as such it can be effective in both modes without being heavy. But with a weight-dependant weapon like Axes? It's not as simple.

It needs to be light enough to fly, and heavy enough to chop effectively. It can be solved easily if you are Weiss, with mountains of Dust to spare, but if you're not, then you end up with a problem that can't be just solved with "distribution of weight to reduce pressure".

Even as a gliding device it wouldn't work. For starters, "wings of steel" (assuming the wings are the blade) aren't really going to help you glide your way down a mountain. And if you use Dust to make it "light enough", why not just use something less metallic whose fabric has Dust weaved into it or something?