UFO Travel Calculator

How to use the UFO Travel Calculator

What this calculator does

This calculator is a conceptual aircraft-design exercise. It combines a selected craft shape, an engine catalog, engine count, passenger load, and route distance to estimate a drag-limited Maximum velocity, a thrust-to-weight-based G-force, and a constant-speed Travel time. It is useful for comparing how mass, thrust, reference area, and an assumed drag coefficient interact during preliminary design. It does not prove that a reported unidentified object uses a particular technology, and it is not a flight-certification, structural, propulsion, medical, or mission-planning tool.

When to use it

Use it to explore a classroom example of the drag equation, compare two fictional aircraft concepts on the same route, test how adding engines changes thrust-to-weight ratio, or estimate a simple point-to-point time for a science-fiction scenario. For the underlying aerodynamics, NASA's drag equation explanation shows why velocity enters the drag force as a squared term.

How to calculate

1. The calculator opens with a complete demonstration: a Tic Tac craft, two GE F414-class turbofan engines, two passengers, and a London-to-New York route. The first result and a validated Excel workbook are immediately available.
2. Choose Design mode. Keep Single design for one craft or select Compare two designs to reveal UFO 2 inputs and a side-by-side result row.
3. For each craft, select UFO type, Propulsion, Number of engines, and Number of passengers. Results update live; there is no separate Calculate button.
4. Choose Distance source. With Origin and destination, select two different locations. With Custom distance, enter a positive value and choose Distance unit. Dot decimals and correctly grouped comma thousands are accepted; ambiguous decimal commas are rejected.
5. Read the result cards and the Design performance detail table. Select Download Excel to export the current validated inputs and unrounded model values. Reset clears the demonstration data rather than restoring it; Excel download is then disabled until a complete valid state is entered again.

Input guide

Design mode is required and accepts Single design or Compare two designs; comparison adds a second craft but does not change the shared route. UFO type and UFO 2 type are required catalog selections. Each type supplies a base mass in kilograms, span in meters, reference area in square meters, and an illustrative drag coefficient. For example, Tic Tac uses 21,320 kg, 13.6 m, and 46.5 m². A lower drag coefficient or smaller area raises the speed estimate; treating these assumptions as measured certification data is a common mistake.

Propulsion and UFO 2 propulsion are required and provide engine mass and rated thrust. Number of engines and UFO 2 engines are required integer selections from 1 to 8. More engines increase total thrust but also installed mass. Number of passengers and UFO 2 passengers are required nonnegative selections; the model adds 75 kg per passenger. Passenger mass lowers thrust-to-weight ratio, while the simplified drag-balance speed is driven primarily by thrust, area, drag coefficient, and air density.

Distance source is required. In route mode, Origin and Destination must differ. City pairs use great-circle distance; planetary values are average reference distances, so actual astronomical separation can differ greatly. In custom mode, Custom distance is required, must exceed zero, and may be entered as values such as 5,570 or 5570.5. Distance unit accepts kilometers, miles, or nautical miles and converts the current custom value when changed. Scientific notation, mixed units, negative numbers, and decimal-comma input such as 1,5 are rejected rather than silently reinterpreted.

Output guide

Maximum velocity is an estimated equilibrium speed in km/h where modeled drag equals available thrust. It is not a guaranteed operating speed. G-force and Thrust-to-weight report the same dimensionless force ratio in different presentation styles; zero would mean no thrust, while values above 1 indicate thrust exceeding the craft's modeled weight. The FAA's aviation guidance on acceleration and G-force explains why actual occupant loading depends on maneuver direction and duration, so this result should not be read as a medical tolerance prediction.

Travel time divides route distance by Maximum velocity and formats the result into minutes, hours, days, or years. Total mass adds craft, installed engines, and passenger allowance. Total thrust is engine thrust multiplied by engine count. Wing loading is weight divided by reference area in N/m². Jet comparison appears for city-to-city routes and compares constant-speed time with a 900 km/h passenger-jet benchmark. Comparison winner appears only in Compare mode and identifies the design with the shorter modeled travel time. The detail table repeats Design, Max velocity, G-force, Total mass, Total thrust, and Travel time from the same canonical model.

Worked example

The opening Tic Tac example uses 21,320 kg base mass, two 1,110 kg engines, and two 75 kg passengers, giving a Total mass of 23,690 kg. Two engines at 97.9 kN each give 195.8 kN total thrust. The thrust-to-weight ratio is 195,800 ÷ (23,690 × 9.80665) = 0.84. Using 1.225 kg/m³ air density, 46.5 m² reference area, and the Tic Tac drag assumption, the drag-balance equation gives approximately 1,473 km/h. The London-to-New York great-circle distance is about 5,570 km, so the constant-speed travel time is roughly 3 hours 47 minutes. The values shown on first open, in the table, and in the startup workbook are generated from this same calculation.