This is an earlier experiment. Read the amendments below before treating its findings as current.
The question
A layer at 20 m made the fleet lose 3–9 times more craft. Where and why?
What was tested
Collision records, hard height limits, a lifted stack, and the low layer alone or under one other layer at 40 to 120 m; also the instant-response craft.
What was found then
Each layer's height band was soft: craft are pulled back into it, not stopped. Hard limits made losses 17–45 times worse. Most extra deaths were low-layer craft at ground level. Lifting the stack cut losses on both layouts (in 5 of 6 versions on the second). Even lifted, the low layer sank about 26 m. Alone it held height; under another layer it sank, 16 m with a 40 m gap and 4.5 m with a 120 m gap. A 'safe spacing' claim was drafted and withdrawn (one spacing rule tested). The instant-response craft held at every gap.
What we learned later
Giving the wing the instant-response craft's smaller spacing rule removed about two thirds of the sinking, not all.
research/design/prio_sag_pin2_record.md
This line of work on the sinking low layer closed with the cause still open.
research/design/prio_sag_line_close.md
What changed
nothing
Numbers and source references
- 12
- hard-wall runsresearch/design/prio_floor_band_record.md
- 17–45×
- extra losses in the two-layer sky with hard wallsresearch/design/prio_floor_band_record.md
- 1.5–7×
- loss reduction from lifting the stack 25 m, first seedresearch/design/prio_floor_shift_record.md
- 5 of 6
- versions with fewer losses on the second seedresearch/design/prio_floor_shift2_record.md
- 26 m / 27–31 m
- lifted low layer's drop in 10 s / later flying height (box 40–50 m)research/design/prio_floor_shift2_record.md
- 16 / 8.5 / 4.5 m
- sag under one other layer at 40 / 80 / 120 m gapsresearch/design/prio_band_sag2_record.md
- −2.3 / −0.7 / 0.0 m
- point craft's offset at the same gapsresearch/design/prio_sag_standard_record.md
- 5 / 0 / 8 vs 46 / 18 / 32
- craft lost, point vs wing, at 40 / 80 / 120 mresearch/design/prio_sag_standard_record.md