Because I've never seen this discussed before... and I hope I didn't miss anything?

You realize rcs you're speaking centuars being half-way to the sound barrier, right?

400mph seems way too fast for my liking. 200, maybe 300 would probably be better.

Fairies can outpace a running human, large or small. However, they're not likely to be able to keep up with a Centaur. They'd probably have a flight speed slightly above a running / slithering Predator.

As with Rav, I could maybe see a Harpy surpassing the sound barrier when in a dive. Maybe. Not standard flight. Even then one comes up with the issue of a sonic boom, which so far we have yet to see follow a Harpy's passing (to my knowledge).

The size argument also doesn't work completely. For instance, compare a small house spider to a tarantula. The Tarantula is going to easily be well over ten times its size, yet it cannot easily run ten times as fast as the thing. They are the same type of animal, though (arachnid of the spider variety).

I'm fine with Predators being fast, but coming close to the sound barrier is a bit much.

A predator is not necessary incredibly fast but with it size it can cover easily a long distance in a few time.

For example: if we suppose a giantess run at the same speed as human, the giantess will outrun the human not because she runs faster but due to the fact she has to do less steps to cover the same distance as the human does.

I have to agree with Gregole here. I mean, you're talking about massive creatures, who's size doesnt hamper them with physical limitations.

Personally, I think a lot of the confusion on this thread is from people honestly not realizing how HUGE predators are. The largest animal, that we know of, to ever live on Earth is the Blue Whale. It is about 100ft long on average, and weighs about 100 tons. Now...lets look at Crisis, she's 70ft tall, and somewhere between 220 and 240ft long, and she'd weigh somewhere around 400 tons or more. These creatures are simply massive and their size alone grants them incredible speed by comparison. They are sometimes 2 or 3 times larger than the largest anime to EVER live on our planet. I mean, Fiona is only a couple feet short of being able to stretch out from goal line to goal line on an Football field (American football).

For example...the average stride of a 6ft tall human is what? somewhere around 1.5 and 2 ft? lets simplify this and say 2ft, or roughly 1/3 of its height. Now, lets scale this up to a 70ft tall giantess/elf/fairy/whatever. You're talking about a creature that would be able to cover 20+ft in a single stride. That is just them walking normally too. The strides would only get larger and more frequent in a full on run.

Will concede spider argument.

GREGOLE wrote:

Thusly, most species of harpies and fairies could indeed probably breach the speed of sound. The reason you don't hear anything about them generating sonic booms is because nobody thought to consider the fact that they would.

Or, an argument one can make to explain them never going that fast in stories, is that while they can reach such speeds, they're still human-like in reaction times.

Imagine a Fairy attempting to weave through the forest when it crosses roughly 60m (at least) in the time it takes them to react to something. They'd splat against a tree and 'explode' rather spectacularly. Similarly, it would be very detrimental to hunting prey because by the time they've realized they saw something they would have already notified it of their presence with a Sonic Boom and are going to spend more time turning around / bringing themselves to a stop.

I don't think a Harpy or Fairy could fly at such speeds, but then that's just because I don't like giving a whole species the capability to one-shot anything with a full-tilt punch. Seriously, going 333m/s and assuming the fist n' arm has 'only' the mass of a school bus leaves a punch over 550 megajoules in power. For comparison, a bus hitting you at 50mph is equal to about 2.5 Megajoules (So that one punch is akin to being hit by 220 buses moving at 50mph). Another comparison would be that this is comparable to roughly 200lbs of TNT going off in one's face (but less omni-directional).

I think they might be able to get close with magical aid, but flying supersonic or above naturally seems like a silly - as well as a pointless - ability in a Vore-centered universe.

Quote:

But then again, the community has a way of underestimating prettymuch everything that comes with great size.

I've seen quite the opposite. Such as Predators wading through 7.62mm NATO fire with the bullets bouncing off regular flesh, explosives from infantry anti-tank weapons only leaving minor burns (the flesh not even being breached), etc. simply because the skin must then be hundreds of times more durable than a human's.

Quote:

But if someone sat down and did the math, a harpy's airspeed would probably be close to or even greater than the speed of sound.

I - again - personally doubt it. At least outside diving extreme distances. If the can, I must again point out that it'd be horribly impractical and likely only be of use when a Harpy needs to "Get the hell away" from something.

EDIT: Their stride may be increased, but speed of the step itself? Right now, assuming that they make a step as fast as a human (roughly two-to-three each second), they're going to be going either 27mph or 40mph at a 20ft stride. Of course, this seems a bit silly. Especially only 20ft a stride. But then, a human only covering 1.5ft each stride seems silly also. Using math, it turns out the average male stride is about 31in. With the average male being something like 5'10" (or 70 inches), that's just shy of 1/2 the height... but that also makes about one stride a second at walking speed. Giving the Predators two to be generous, and at 1/2 their height (of 80ft we'll say for this debate) for 40ft each, we're speaking 80ft covered a second. This brings them up to... 54mph for walking speed.

Actually, I'll get to work on this now. If I do it with my own math (or have it shown to me step-by-step), I'll believe the numbers given.

_________________

Commander Fleyitch wrote:

Ogryns. If we time it just right, the Eldar will all be going "What the..." just when what's left of the Company breaks cover over here and piles into them. No spreading out, no fancy stuff, just smash through. Let's see how those degenerate sophisticates handle a healthy dose of pure unreasoning violence.

"We die standing."