What's an Evangelion weight?

[Sidewinder]

I'm writing a fanfic in which the USAF mounts wings and jet engines on an Eva to make it fly, and I was wondering if the title mecha from 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' was too heavy to let it do so. Using the "40 meters tall" description from the commentary in Sadamoto Yoshiyuki's manga, I converted my height (1.7 meters) and total weight when I'm loaded up for battle (my guess is 200 pounds with rifle, ammo, canteens, and armor), and got 4706 pounds as the Eva's weight. Does someone have a more accurate figure, e.g., from one of Gainax's publications or commentary on the DVDs?

[Trogdor]

Eva's size tends to fluctuate pretty wildly in the anime, IIRC, so it's hard to calculate an accurate weight for them. I vaguely remember hearing that Gainax put the Eva's height at somewhere between 40 and 200 hundred meters or something crazy like that when they were asked to name a size for Super Robot Wars.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the Eva units are really fucking heavy. IIRC, when Shamshel throws Unit One onto that hill, not only does Unit One create an indentation upon impact, but it also sinks slowly into the ground for a couple of seconds afterwards.

[Sidewinder]

Ghetto edit: the title should've been "What's an Evangelion's weight?"

Anyways, for comparison, the B-1 bomber is 41.67-meters-long (comparable to the figure given in the manga) and has an empty weight of 87,090 kilograms (192,000 pounds). The figure I calculated by finding out how much I'd weigh if I was enlarged until I was 40-meters-tall suggests you CAN make an Eva fly if you mount wings and jet engines on it (I know the mass production Evas can fly, but in my fanfic, the jet engines let the USAF Eva fly at supersonic speeds).

If anyone has a better idea on how to find an Eva's weight, I'm all ears.

[Block]

Calculate the weight of a human sized lump of metal, and go from there. Unless Evas are made of skin.

[Sidewinder]

Calculate the weight of a human sized lump of metal, and go from there. Unless Evas are made of skin.

Evangelions are not machines like Gundams, they are cyborg clones of the First Angel (see here). That's why I started with my real weight plus Army equipment instead of trying to figure out how much I'd weigh if I was made of metal.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Does someone have a more accurate figure, e.g., from one of Gainax's publications or commentary on the DVDs?

Nope. Gainax never really went to that degree of detail.

So I'd either go with Block's suggestion, or just scale up the average weight of a person in a suit of armour or something. It probably won't be precise, but it might give you a figure that at least sounds good enough.

Remember those gigantic transport planes from the series? That should also give an idea of what it takes to get an Eva airborne.

[Vehrec]

Assuming a 40 meter Eva, I calculate a realistic weight of over 2,605,000 pounds. This does not take into account the numerous metal plates and implants that are driven into it's body-it's based off the same numbers you used but I used the Cube instead of scaling linearly. (Height is linear, weight is the cube due to being a function of volume.)

[Ford Prefect]

As I recall, Evangelions are taller than forty metres, as given in one of Gainax's artbooks which compares Unit-02 to the Over the Rainbow and other elements of the Pacific Fleet. SPanky has that book, as I recall.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

As I recall, Evangelions are taller than forty metres, as given in one of Gainax's artbooks which compares Unit-02 to the Over the Rainbow and other elements of the Pacific Fleet. SPanky has that book, as I recall.

Yeah according to that picture, an Eva is about 200 feet tall.

[Sidewinder]

Assuming a 40 meter Eva, I calculate a realistic weight of over 2,605,000 pounds. This does not take into account the numerous metal plates and implants that are driven into it's body-it's based off the same numbers you used but I used the Cube instead of scaling linearly. (Height is linear, weight is the cube due to being a function of volume.)

Thanks for the info-- I've revised the fanfic to account for this figure. By the way, can you tell me what formula you used? I might need it someday for another story.

[Vehrec]

It should be kept in mind that we are using this as a lower limit-An Eva would be by necessity quite a bit denser than a human because of its massive structural requirements, and we used the bare minimum height figure.

Formula used: ((Height of Eva/Height of human)^3)*mass of human=mass of Eva. This formula assumes that both objects being compared are the same basic plan, with the same basic composition and density. Significant variations of either factor can throw it off.

200 foot Eva is 7,407,407 lbs btw. The HAB disapproves of such things, although The Great Leader has made provisions for such Mecha Slaves to be held in penal labor camps attached to giant extension cords.

[The Yosemite Bear]

somehow my brain is thinking of lillith going "does this make my butt look big?" and Gendo pushing back his glasses while trying to think up an answer.

[Ryushikaze]

The quick and dirty answer really is "it depends on the episode". Gainax never really cared about the 'science' of Eva, since that was never the point, or their strong suit.
However, Scaling yourself up in a suit of armor, knife, and a rifle (a rough equivalent of their basic loadout in human scale, unless I forgot something, which is entirely possibe), using the cube to figure out the weight it where you want to go.

As for strapping jets onto them, the evas aren't exactly the most aerodynamic things out there (they're human shaped, and we're bad birds), though you could solve some of that by having them fly "on belly" and compensating with a hang glider style wing arrangement.

Mecha being both mecha and "planes" has been one of my bugbears for quite a long time. After giving rather a bit of thought to the subject, the short and simple answer was "planes look like they do for practical reasons. A "realistic" flying robot would look similar, especially if it was built for speed. You won't be getting Valkyries by any stretch, but you'll look more like a plane than an angel at the least.

Of course, the real answer for giant robots is "don't", but that's not nearly as fun.