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OT: have you ever noticed that most scifi movies depict futuristic cars that can hover or fly but which still use traditional windscreen wipers. You'd have thou
by powfeu 7y ago
OT: have you ever noticed that most scifi movies depict futuristic cars that can hover or fly but which still use traditional windscreen wipers. You'd have thought they'd add a force field that repels rain or a special coating but no, traditional wipers. Even Bladerunner 2048 did this.
- mrob 7y agoTraditional wipers show up even in shallow-focus closeups of people in the car, and they're immediately recognizable without explanation. It's like the ridiculously big UI elements in movie computer interfaces: for the benefit of the viewers, not the characters.
- benj111 7y agoI'm going to guess its because they're giving us what we expect, and can make sense of. Most spaceships have big hot engines of the type you'd probably unlikely to see on an actual spaceship, but we've been conditioned to expect big engines, so that's what we get. Also there isn't really time in a film to explain away not needing wipers, so rather than risk having audiences thinking theres bad special effects because the rain that's falling isnt also falling on the windscreen, they just put wipers on and be done with it. It could also be that that futuristic car you saw flying in, and can still see partially in shot is just a bog standard car that they've dressed to look like a flying car.
- WalterBright 7y agoI always think it's a bit incongruous to see them on the cockpit windows of airliners. Sort of like having a vacuum tube power supply for your computer. (Two other solutions exist. One is spinning the window, you'll see it on ships. The other is making the window hot.)
- crooked-v 7y ago> One is spinning the window, you'll see it on ships. An example, as used for machine tooling but the exact same mechanism used on ships: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPVBnBK09OM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPVBnBK09OM
- zizee 7y ago> Two other solutions exist. One is spinning the window, you'll see it on ships. The other is making the window hot. There are two more solutions I can think of: hydrophobic coatings, and blasted air. I believe these both perform quiet well in less intense rain. Unfortunately both of these suffer from performance degredation from dirt/bug/bird poo etc, so not a perfect replacement to a traditional wiper.
- PorterDuff 7y ago> (Two other solutions exist... Or using a monitor for the 'windshield' and cooking up some way to keep the camera lens clean.
- jacquesm 7y ago> and cooking up some way to keep the camera lens clean Put it behind a piece of glass?
- PorterDuff 7y agoAnd then itty bitty windshield wipers on the glass.
- serf 7y agoWipers work well, with minimal complexity. Many airliners already use heated window panes for de-icing. Heated windows don't work all that great in a downpour, and wiping is a simple and faster acting alternative. Blasted air is used minimally for windscreens, but it's a common plane de-icing method for the rest of the vehicle. The complexity and weight of using spinning windows on planes makes that idea a non-starter. hydrophobic coatings are also in use, but are generally avoided for the duty of primary windscreens due to most hydrophobic coatings lacking durability to physical stress and contact.
- WalterBright 7y agoOh, I know the airplane engineers are not fools :-) The wipers are costly in terms of excrescence drag, and if there was a better way they'd do it.
- walrus01 7y agoThere are a number of small jets that do not have any wipers. As I recall the cirrus visionjet single engine very light jet has no wipers.