What makes santas sleigh fly

If the best aerodynamic design is the tear drop shape, the most fuel efficient car would have no room for back seat passengers — or a trunk for that matter. Car companies have to determine a way to make their cars aerodynamic while considering all these constraints. But you can put that in the computer and do all the tests virtually.

His reindeer may be less cranky in the long-run. Catching a drone with a large aircraft can help the military reuse these flying robots—and perhaps even someday deploy swarms of them.

Aircraft like the OBSS, which will have no pilot onboard, are intended to act as teammates for fighter jets like the F The goal is to keep in the air for a year. The thrust required to maneuver a sleigh loaded with gifts would be a factor of higher, or 20,,, tons.

Santa works hard, but physics works harder. Or maybe we're just not factoring in enough Christmas magic. California State University Long Beach. Back to top. This link take you away from the Fun Kids website. Make sure that your Mum, Dad or a Guardian looks at it first. And remember to be careful on the internet! Click here to find out more! The sleigh's dashboard is likely be dominated by Santa's own GPS navigator so the elves could map out Santa's millions of stops well before Christmas Eve, just to make sure Santa doesn't miss anyone.

The sleigh definitely has a built-in "Naughty-or-Nice" sensor that keeps Santa updated on children's activities, right down to the last minute. This is important, as even the most minor of naughty deeds committed within the final few hours of Dec. A speedometer on the sleigh's dashboard allows Santa to monitor his flying speeds, and a state-of-the-art radio keeps him in constant touch with Mrs. Claus and the team in the North Pole. They send him minute-to-minute updates on local weather reports and toy inventory.

When it comes to Santa's toy bag, you're probably wondering how he fits all of those presents into one bag. Think of a transdimensional present compartment in the form of a traditional gift sack. As in Santa's toy bag as we know it really acts as a portal between the sleigh and the North Pole. However, we'd also like to think that Santa may have harnessed the power of nanotechnology and found a way to miniaturize millions of presents into one large bag.

But this information remains unconfirmed. We suspect that Santa's sleigh incorporates a stardust antimatter propulsion unit for power, and that's still a very real possibility. Here's how it would work. Antimatter is the opposite of regular matter — the mirror image of normal particles that make up everything we can see or touch.

The big draw to antimatter is the amount of energy it helps create. When antimatter and matter come into contact, they annihilate each other — breaking apart into tons of smaller particles — and percent of their masses convert into energy. Although antimatter propulsion rockets are mainly used in science-fiction shows to allow spaceships to travel at warp speed, the possibility of designing one is very real — NASA is currently developing one that would get us to Mars within a matter of weeks [source: NASA ].

Now, we have reason to believe Santa's clever elves would have figured out a way to combine this kind of stardust antimatter propulsion unit with an electric motor, for a high-tech, one-of-a-kind hybrid powertrain. Why, you might ask? It simply makes sense. If Santa knows who's naughty and nice, Santa certainly also knows that electric vehicles are the way of the future.

He's just doing his part to try to prevent global warming from melting the North Pole. We've already talked a little about how Santa stays in touch with his North Pole command center during his trip.

His infotainment system with navigation and satellite radio is pretty basic, if not essential. But there are a few more features that help Santa make the most of his trip. We bet, for example, that the elves have borrowed a trick from mainstream automakers and installed Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone integration — we won't speculate whether Santa's a Google guy or an Apple aficionado, but his sleigh is probably equipped for either scenario.

Santa can use voice recognition to text Mrs. Claus, catch up on his favorite podcasts, or listen to what we're guessing is an epic Christmas playlist. Anyone who lives in a northern climate will tell you that a massive overcoat, woolly hat, and abundance of facial hair aren't enough to keep you warm on the coldest days Throw in an open-air sleigh and some elevation into the mix and you're looking at a pretty uncomfortable ride.

Rest assured, the elves have Santa's back. There's almost no way that Santa hasn't taken advantage of one of the greatest innovations of our time — heated seats and steering wheel.