A correspondent is building a Size +1 flying giant skeleton, and has questions about its aerodynamics. (And people say we gamers are geeks! Ha!)

My reply, just for the esotericness of it all:

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Basic body structure is just humanoid... What's missing? Surface area for tv or ftv, right? It's a humanoid shape, but the aerodynamics would have to be different.

Good question. Let's think this through...

Ignore density for a second, and use a human-sized (13-lb) skeleton. So it's a humanoid shape, with so much stuff removed, and so many "holes" and open spaces, that it only weighs 7.2 lbs (13 lbs skeleton / 1.8 density).

With all that open space, there's a lot less to catch the wind. Surface area has to be less than human.

But not as low as the surface area for a little, 7-lb human (about 2 feet tall?). Compared with a compact 7-lb human, the skeleton is spreading its mass over much more area -- all those long bones, that wide pelvis, big skull, etc. Lots more to catch the wind.

So... If it has less surface area than a Size 0 human, and more surface area than a Size -3 human, it has surface area in between. Area Scale x1/2? x1/3? x1/5? I have NO IDEA. : (

You'll have to take a wild guess and pick one. I might go with x1/3 (for no other reason than I'd pick a certain lottery number).

So: MAR (=WAR in normal gravity) = mass / (Area Scale x 150). Bringing density back into things, that's 13 / (1/3 x 150) = 0.26.

For your giant skeleton, Area Scale is 1/3 x 2 = 2/3. MAR = 39 / (2/3 x 150) = 0.39.

Square root of that is 0.62. So in a sky dive, its tv would be 62% of a human's -- a somewhat slow fall.

Makes sense to me. It has a lot of surface area relative to its very low mass; it's very unaerodynamic.