Avatar: SA-2 Samson | Aircraft Breakdown 

Thankyou! A lot of the information available is very detailed, I'm glad I managed to get it across accurately! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

Completely agree but 7.3m diameter rotors seem rather large considering what is shown on screen feels more like 3.7m possibly a typo?

@@effervescence5664 That's what Pandorapedia says, 7.32m diameter. - hoojiwana from Spacedock

@@effervescence5664 Yeah, that has to be a typo. Those rotors are absolutely not 24 feet across. 3.7m (12 feet) fits what we’re seeing much better.

Asking a pilot: Wouldn't it be much more effective, if you want to bring that thing down, to shoot the arrow at the rotors instead of a dive-only needs to hit pilot from close attack? Or for that matter, drop a big stone into the rotors. Wouldn't the blades explode in those cases?

It's v. Cool looking to boot

I do love this about the Samson, helps to ground the film amongst its more fantastical elements. - hoojiwana from Spacedock

I liked it in the movie, but this video just elevated it to favorite. Or at least among my favorites.

It’s basically the Avatar version of a black hawk

I fully expect ducted rotor Helios to be a thing within the next 30 years, especially since you can much more easy shield the rotor system for radar stealth since the spinning rotors would no longer be visible in the frontal profile. This design is almost perfect for it.

the closet we can get today is the V 22 Ospray but it still has problems and not as reliable compared to BlackHawks

@@zarifamsyar6274 the V-22 and the UH-60 are two different platforms intended for different purposes. The V-22 replaced the aging CH-46, the UH-60 replaced the UH-1 on army service.

@@zarifamsyar6274 the v280 which is replacing the blackhawk would be closer

Avatar: technology bad Also Avatar: Here's a 5-page document on how the Valkyrie shuttle works

They wanted to pull the whole “dances with wolves” in space thing but then decided to have it so billions of people would die if the RDA didn’t get the resources. It’s very hard to root for characters who are willing to let billions die to save a few trees

Gloria homini!

​@@nunyabizniss7643 You're right! Ever since I've known _Avatar,_ even as a few-year old child, I've always rooted for the humans to win. And it's generally SO weird. If cameron wanted to make the humans evil, he didn't need to create a tragic Earth's backstory and explain ALL the human motives, but he did! Why? The thing is that, at least from everything I have ever seen, the RDA *are* the good guys. Sure, they destroy some big trees and make some magic monkeys angry, but they are just a corporation. They do what every rational human does. They do their *job.* They aren't evil at all. They don't kill everyone instantly, even though they definitely could. It's quite the opposite, they try to negotiate with the indigenous. And as you said, the "good guys" consciously try to kill their own fucking race in order to make a random tribal civilisation victorious for no apparent reason...? Oh, wait, Jake wanted to get to assault a monkey girl's ass. Fair enough ;)

@@dzidkapl jake: Im abandoning my fellow human kind Cuz imma clap some blue alien cheeks!

*Fortunate Son intensifies*

Nah it mostly resembles a US blackhawk than a huey.

@@WalrusWinking its like a Huey and a Blackhawk mixed together.

@@WalrusWinking actually, it looks more like Westland Lynx.

@@samanli-tw3id I literally doesn't.

Like the UH-1 was and still is

1:54 has a good angled view of the vine cutters kit on the front of each duct frame

Even the creature are well design it like they evolve there in a more natural way I like they have 6 limbs and breath through 4 hole in they're neck much like on earth when most creature that aren't bug or in the ocean have 4 limbs and hole canter of a face and because every creature on land is an evolve version of a fish body plan that started going bon land and become to almost every creature on land except the human alien the nave who seem to have 4 limbs which is odd but it because they wanted a more human like being

@@USSAnimeNCC- very true. Then again, it did seem like at least some of the flying creatures had 4 limbs, the arms of the wings and the legs. Much as how on our world not everything has the same number of limbs, like crabs and octopi having 8, many insects and starfish haveing 6, and some dozens, or molluscs often having none, so its could be that the navie are like the starfish to the rest of the worlds octopi. And other starfish. But yeah, the creature design does seem incredibly natural. Could even try to make sense of the connections possible through the hair and the trees, although thats a bit wishy washy by saying that the magnetic flux is intense enough to make them to all operate on the same frequency, so different devices can communicate by sending messages over the same frequency, rather than then them.all being on different frequencys, so they can't send send messages.

I never liked Avatar. Sure the world building, CGI, and general models Re wonderful. It is that story that I hate. It is so low tier and no effort. Still, personal opinion and I know having an opinion these days is taboo and not allowed.

@@Qardo i agree with you on not really likeing avatar. Like i said, story is basic and just generally low tier. Here I'm just pointing out how avatar has such incredible worldbuilding and modelling. Bit like in a comment from a couple of day ago, where i complimented raid for paying out so much money per sponsorship that it funds more of an economy than old school runescape, even if it is a shitty game that many people hate.

@@Qardo "I know having an opinion these days is taboo and not allowed" - What is this whiny nonsense? Avatar having a lame, derivative story is not even controversial... It's gorgeous, but shallow

I imagine after getting a few caught in tarzan vines, they decided to adapt the vehicle.

Forget not having noticed the vine cutters - this video was honestly the first time I realized they had TWO small rotor-powered craft on Pandora. My eyes had always blurred the Samson & Scorpion together; guess I wasn't paying close enough attention to them! Now that I've noticed it, I really love the design on the Scorpion and would love to learn more about it.

I used to work around medical choppers. The wire cutters are very noticeable, the idea is that no matter how the craft hits the wire or vine it will be at an angle where the wire or vine will get forced into one of the guides and cut. The USAF started using them in Vietnam on jolly green rescue choppers after several were damaged by vegetation trying to rescue downed pilots

@@matthewcaughey8898 This is fascinating. It's the sort of thing that is blazingly obvious once pointed out, but I never would've thought of the need prior.

Yeah I noticed it some time ago and honestly I got a bit mad because I thought that they are just a random design choice and I couldn't unsee it. At least I know what they are for now. It definitely lowers my anger XD

Agreed a thousand percent

I think the story was pretty good, it's basically a version of America's story except the tribal people won the war, just gives a new light to what the colonies did when they landed in America

I often joke that worldbuilding is my fetish. I'll put up with otherwise terrible books and movies if the world building is good enough.

@@KMCA779 And Avatar is a terrible story. And TBH the world building isn't all that special except there is a lot of it done by some serious experts.

@The Foxhole It’s basically “Dances With Wolves” in space.

Inertia helped

@@Utubesuperstar More so, the arrow striking from an angle without deflection.

Just how he said it made it seem like he was skeptical about it, but differently a good explanation but I'm not sure if I totally agree

The key detail here wasn't "from the back of a banshee" but "in an attack dive". The sentence did sound a little silly until he finished it, but the concept of additional velocity from being in a fast dive actually makes quite a lot of sense.

@@bevanfindlay yes the science is all there and it definitely makes sense after watching this video, I just feel like without further explanation like this video most people wouldn't get it... I guess my overall point is that they tend to bend reality for such movies so they can achieve their goal

She sacrificed herself to save Jake

it was great because she died. like every traitor deserves

Top marks for Trudy seizing the initiative and surprising the gunship by attacking from its blindspot, but what I can't understand is why not strafe it with rockets, targeting its rotors as opposed to just strafing it ineffectively with the Samson's mounted MGs and then getting herself shot down trying to fight face to face with an aircraft that is clearly more heavily armed.

My guess: The IFF lockout system was preventing her from using the missles and they didn't have the tools to disable it

Maybe in a future cut

I never even knew this scene existed

@@GandalfReagge Oh yeah, there's a bunch of good deleted scenes. It's honestly a real shame, I'd love to see the full cut of that movie.

Seems like the Scorpion gunships look a bit like the Cobra Gunship than the Apache

@@alexsandrsenaviev4529 Yeah, I guess I should say Huey and Cobra, not Blackhawk and Apache. These guys definitely got that gruff and tough Vietnam War kind of vibe to them, so that'd make more sense.

Do they want to replace both with the same design or just two designs based on that principle?

@@builder396 two designs based on the same power plant and rotar system. Like how the uh-1 huey and ah-1 cobra were for the marines.

It's scifi Huey. Nothing more.

@@h1tsc4n40 the best one

@@johncmousley meh. Its clearly designed to be shot down.

Halo Reach: UH-144 Falcon Call Of Duty Advance Warfare: XH9 WarBird

@@MSaleh-vy8rr XH9 maybe, but not the Falcon

u mean the v-shuttle?

G E T S O M E

God was this movie that long ago?! Doesn't feel like it's been 12 years!

and to think we were supposed to have 2 sequels already, with parts 2 and 3 releasing within a year of eachother

Mitigated by being a twin engine design with each engine running through a one way clutch, so if one engine quits the other can run up to emergency power and buy the crew time to land.

Well technically the moon is gonna be lower gravity and it also states that the atmosphere is thicker allowing for more lift with less prop

Yeah. Maybe the Samsons on earth have bigger rotors.

The whole film is like that tbh. Awesome worldbuilding and art design let down by godawful writing and trash characters

It really is that, isn't it? Jake Sully is Tatanka

Also it seems to demonize humans a bit too much, portraying humanity as a whole as this greedy and immoral entity. The movie I saw was mostly about anti-corporatism and a lesson about colonialism, they could’ve just left it as the RDA and even some corrupt government rather than humanity as a whole

because people are stupid. they jump to hate bandwagon. the whole criticism that Avatar gets are just so dumb.

*Papa Dragon Intensifies*

I want to see it too but that would cost someone a lot of money. 😅

It's literally the most beautiful, realistic, well constructed thing in the film. With a few changes it could be built irl in a century or two. No handwaving. It's a shame the rest of the film isn't like that. The biggest crime is that it's in the movie for like 3 minutes.

@@petrpodskalsky1785 that's how I feel about most of the vehicles in avatar. The shuttles are fairly well designed, and while huge, not a major issue if you can launch a massive ship across the stars. The AMP suits are just utility mechs, basically the powerloader from aliens but configured for hostile environments with a autocannon welded to them, the only really jarring one is the dragon fly with how big and ungainly it is

@@battleoid2411 Yes, but the Dragon was also built as an Armed Transport for AMP Suits. so the size kinda makes sense. That, and the UN told RDA they weren't allowed to use WMDs or they'd lose their monopoly on Extraterrestrial products (Pandora isn't their only project), so the Dragon's the closest thing they could use.

Her name is Venture Star

Im hoping for papa dragon first

I would say that Avatar also borrows from The Last Samurai. If Avatar made the Navi the Lakota. Jake Sully's actions of leading the Navi into an epic battle against his former comrades and commanding officer to save their way of life is closer to the actions of Tom Cruise's character in Last Samurai. While the Lakota saved John Dunbar by attacking the US soldiers who had captured him, he didn't lead the attack and he only killed one soldier more out of revenge than as an act of combat. Tom Cruise's character, Captain Algren, leads his adopted Samurai clan into battle with Japanese government troops and their American advisors Algren was once one of. Algren like Sully comes into direct conflict with his former commanding officer. He has to use guile and his deep knowledge of his former comrades' tactics, to compensate for their advantages in weaponry and military discipline. Like Sully did with the Navi, Algren uses deception and knowledge of the local terrain to give his side a tactical advantage.

Creatures were cooler tbh

Humanity might come first, but Gründer Industries leads the pack. (lol) Tbh, the near-future aesthetic of all the RDA stuff is a hell of a lot more attractive to me than the Na'avi or the Pandoran fauna, although its flora and geography are certainly interesting.

The RDA were 100% undeniably the good guys in the movie

Eh, their equipment was very ineffective and outdated. They would've done a better job had they brought old surplus BMP-2s instead of those terrible, terrible mechsuits. At least the BMPs wouldve had some staying power.

@@h1tsc4n40 Fairo, bring a few tanks or IFVs watch the carnage.

chech out India's Rudra helicopter, it looks similar to that from the front.

its not a safe design compared to traditionally helicopters, rotors have little disk area even with the double counter rotating blades and the diameter are tiny so there is not as much effective lift from the lower disk loading requiring higher rpm, and due to that small dimeter and high rpm requirements they have less available moment of inertia. its a inefficient design because it tries to be a vtol aircraft but it is stuck in a hovering configuration with no wings not taking advantage of moving the rotors for forward flight where the wings can effective maintain lift and the rotors focus on propulsion such as in the typical configuration for such a aircraft. the only advantage for this design has is that it can direct its rotors for changing directions quicker, such as slowing down faster in a rapid drive or flare.

You kidding? They went all out on worldbuilding, lore and technicalities. They practically shoved it down our throats when they were ramping up the hype for it. I'll be honest, I always wanted a prequel featuring the Colonel. Just seeing what made him into him. Of all the staff I think he would be the most interesting... plus an interesting counterpoint to the first movie.

@@KMCA779 it seems I barely remember the movie then. It's been a few years. Jesus, it's been 12 years, what the fuck. I was 18yo, I don't remember if I was interested that much in technicalities in science fiction/space fantasy stuff back then, I might've been stuck replaying freespace and battlezone back then

Yeah their ability to fail to outmaneuver anything and provide slow moving, vulnerable targets is commendable.

Careful, that's still a spoiler for people who haven't listened yet

Predators On Pandora? Funny you say that.

More like a futurised Black Hawk

@@samanli-tw3id nah I think the proportion is more like huey

@@kelvin8369 the size and shape of the helicopter reminds me the Blackhawk although Samson has some features similar to Huey, such as skids (Blackhawk has wheels), and door guns (Blackhawk has dedicated windows to mount guns).

@@samanli-tw3id The Samson fills the real-world military role of a medium, multi-role utility helicopter such as the UH-1 "Huey" and Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk, or a heavily-armed transport-gunship hybrid like the Mil Mi-24 "Hind". There are several parallels to UH-1 "Huey", the most famous Vietnam-era helicopter, in the SA-2 Samson. Notably, there are skids rather than wheels of the UH-60, M60 machine guns guns are mounted in the doors rather than a dedicated window, reminiscent of those carried as door guns on those helicopters, and the silhouettes with the folded bipod at the muzzle of the gun are similar. Another visual cue is the ability to mount two MBS-9M Hydras in a fixed, forward-firing position on stub arms near the cargo doors to act as a gunship, something the UH-1 could do as well. The rotor sounds are similar to a four-bladed helicopter like the Blackhawk, as opposed to the distinctive sound of a two-bladed helicopter like the UH-1.

@@samanli-tw3id from fandom, I guess we can agree to disagree then

Absolute travesty, Sully literally betrayed humanity's survival just so he can get the girl.

@@tlshortyshorty5810 bro was that lonely 💀

Have you managed to watch A2 yet?

The Samson would make a great rescue chopper

It’s certainly simpler than adding a tail rotor.

Kamovs have been getting away with it for decades. Coax rotors are generally safer than tailrotors.

@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Safer yes, but mechanically more complex.

Osprey's rotors are much bigger, and due to using them Just like plane rotors it would be completely nonsense

5:05 you can clearly see the UH-60M Layout of the dual side-by-side MFD's and the lower center console

Only thing I can figure is that it's a pretty large aircraft, with four counter-rotating rotor hubs instead of one large rotor hub. Having those outboard of the main aicraft (without it being able to tilt forwards like a V-22) probably produces more drag than a centrally mounted rotor system

contra rotation helicopter suffer from retreating blade stall, there blades will collide with the opposing set, far more dangerous than the typical single rotor designs because there is little warning of it happening. no slight rolling that can be corrected, it requires constant attention to airspeed.

Yes, it is worse than modern helis. They would've been better off with CH-53s and NH-90s. The twin rotor design set up that way makes this thing extremely power inefficient and due to that its quite slow and very sluggish. Add the extremely poor armament and you have a recipe for disaster.

Actually the missile pods were empty because she used them on a few gunships going after her. In a deleted scene, she was going to destroy the Dragon via kamikaze