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Quoted: We can't. Boeing St Louis uses the best practical corrosion control possible and airplanes corroded anyway, especially naval airplanes. On top of that, a new fatigue spectrum enters the arena, one with many cycles at high strains - if the machine is to fly. I'm surprised DARPA is still fooling with that mess. It will be usable at exiting ports, so that's no advantage, it's not compatible anyway. About 15% of the shores world wide have beaches that can be entered (assaulted) from the water. View Quote Why not just make it a big jet-powered catamaran? |
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Quoted: Why not just make it a big jet-powered catamaran? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: We can't. Boeing St Louis uses the best practical corrosion control possible and airplanes corroded anyway, especially naval airplanes. On top of that, a new fatigue spectrum enters the arena, one with many cycles at high strains - if the machine is to fly. I'm surprised DARPA is still fooling with that mess. It will be usable at exiting ports, so that's no advantage, it's not compatible anyway. About 15% of the shores world wide have beaches that can be entered (assaulted) from the water. Why not just make it a big jet-powered catamaran? Hovercraft |
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Quoted: Not quite that simple. There are plenty of better ideas and concepts out there that don't exist yet. The objective here is to carry heavy weight at faster speeds than conventional sealift. It's competing with ships, not planes. View Quote So it can transport two Amphibious Combat Vehicles (70 tons). How many "huge cargo sea planes" would it take to make a difference? |
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Quoted: So it can transport two Amphibious Combat Vehicles (70 tons). How many "huge cargo sea planes" would it take to make a difference? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Not quite that simple. There are plenty of better ideas and concepts out there that don't exist yet. The objective here is to carry heavy weight at faster speeds than conventional sealift. It's competing with ships, not planes. So it can transport two Amphibious Combat Vehicles (70 tons). How many "huge cargo sea planes" would it take to make a difference? Also, can it unload them while it's in the water? |
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Quoted: If planes can do the same job, it's competing with planes. What can it do that a "conventional" plane can't? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If there was any advantage, they would be everywhere already. Flying at high altitude is much more efficient. Not quite that simple. There are plenty of better ideas and concepts out there that don't exist yet. The objective here is to carry heavy weight at faster speeds than conventional sealift. It's competing with ships, not planes. If planes can do the same job, it's competing with planes. What can it do that a "conventional" plane can't? Fly autonomously. |
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Quoted: So build a sea plane that's intended to fly. The ground effect crap is silly. The only advantage is slightly less drag. Big deal. Modern jet engines have so much power, it's not even much of an advantage. View Quote Water vs air drag is a considerably less. Doesn't matter how silly you think it is. There is no C-17 program to add orders. There is no Navy sealift program that meets the range, time, and capacity requirements. Hence this research project. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If there was any advantage, they would be everywhere already. Flying at high altitude is much more efficient. Not quite that simple. There are plenty of better ideas and concepts out there that don't exist yet. The objective here is to carry heavy weight at faster speeds than conventional sealift. It's competing with ships, not planes. If planes can do the same job, it's competing with planes. What can it do that a "conventional" plane can't? Fly autonomously. Huh? |
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Quoted: Water vs air drag is a considerably less. Doesn't matter how silly you think it is. There is no C-17 program to add orders. There is no Navy sealift program that meets the range, time, and capacity requirements. Hence this research project. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: So build a sea plane that's intended to fly. The ground effect crap is silly. The only advantage is slightly less drag. Big deal. Modern jet engines have so much power, it's not even much of an advantage. Water vs air drag is a considerably less. Doesn't matter how silly you think it is. There is no C-17 program to add orders. There is no Navy sealift program that meets the range, time, and capacity requirements. Hence this research project. So you think they can research and build this faster than a conventional airplane? Why would that be? Again, this isn't a boat. It's an airplane, regardless of how low it flies. |
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Quoted: So you think they can research and build this faster than a conventional airplane? Why would that be? Again, this isn't a boat. It's an airplane, regardless of how low it flies. View Quote Call it a boat, airplane, potato, or whatever you want. It's a tactical and strategic sealift platform. It can't be built faster than a conventional aircraft because the concept hasn't even been researched but if a 787 variant met the mission requirements this project would never exist. US tactical and strategic airlift assets are limited and will be in high demand in future conflicts. Any platform research or acquisition that helps get tanks, beans, and bullets to the fight is likely worthwhile. There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly. |
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I'm excited to see what DARPA comes up with. Sea state 5 is no joke and I'm having a hard time seeing how they can make a plane that can safely take off and land in that and still be airworthiness. It might be easier to figure out how to make a nuclear submarine that can fly.
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So this is their idea to save the marines during Wake Island part two?
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Subs need food.
PACOM war is going to be on a huge ocean. Island bases need supplies and troops but SAMs have reach and we don’t have many SEAD fighters with the legs to fight them. We are woefully ill prepared for fighting in the Pacific. To put it bluntly. Hawaii is going to wish they were a 2A state. |
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Quoted: Neva been done befo https://images.flyingmag.com/flyingma/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/19160100/2001250065-scaled-e1666209698162.jpg View Quote Came to post this. And they used wood the last time. |
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Quoted: We can't. Boeing St Louis uses the best practical corrosion control possible and airplanes corrode anyway, especially naval airplanes. On top of that, a new fatigue spectrum enters the arena, one with many cycles at high strains - if the machine is to fly. I'm surprised DARPA is still fooling with that mess. It will be usable at existing ports, so that's no advantage, it's not compatible anyway. About 15% of the shores world wide have beaches that can be entered (assaulted) from the water. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Service life will be terrible due to corrosion. I don't know if it's possible to engineer your way out of it. We can't. Boeing St Louis uses the best practical corrosion control possible and airplanes corrode anyway, especially naval airplanes. On top of that, a new fatigue spectrum enters the arena, one with many cycles at high strains - if the machine is to fly. I'm surprised DARPA is still fooling with that mess. It will be usable at existing ports, so that's no advantage, it's not compatible anyway. About 15% of the shores world wide have beaches that can be entered (assaulted) from the water. Ayup... I was once told that the best airframes ever made came out of the early 80s before environmental regulations ended some of the metal treating practices. No idea if this is accurate or not. |
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Quoted: Call it a boat, airplane, potato, or whatever you want. It's a tactical and strategic sealift platform. It can't be built faster than a conventional aircraft because the concept hasn't even been researched but if a 787 variant met the mission requirements this project would never exist. US tactical and strategic airlift assets are limited and will be in high demand in future conflicts. Any platform research or acquisition that helps get tanks, beans, and bullets to the fight is likely worthwhile. There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: So you think they can research and build this faster than a conventional airplane? Why would that be? Again, this isn't a boat. It's an airplane, regardless of how low it flies. Call it a boat, airplane, potato, or whatever you want. It's a tactical and strategic sealift platform. It can't be built faster than a conventional aircraft because the concept hasn't even been researched but if a 787 variant met the mission requirements this project would never exist. US tactical and strategic airlift assets are limited and will be in high demand in future conflicts. Any platform research or acquisition that helps get tanks, beans, and bullets to the fight is likely worthwhile. There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly. We have known how to build giant flying boats since the 1930's. This clown show adds a cargo door that exposes the floor for loading and unloading - I have a great idea, let's flood the cargo bay so the load can be floated in and out. That will work out fine after the interior and the door frames are bashed. WIGs are neat to consider and doodle, and small ones such as Lippisch built in Iowa are fun to fly, but a large floating flying machine for hauling important freight has all of the problems of conventional airplanes plus a dozen or more added due to the environment. What's the plan for mitigating bird ingestion, or ingestion offlocks of birds, on nearly every flight? |
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DARPA Enginneer: (hits bong) "Hey let's just dig up a bunch of ideas from the 1940s and 50s and see if they're old enough that we can get some funding to study them again and not have to do any real work!"
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Quoted: Ayup... I was once told that the best airframes ever made came out of the early 80s before environmental regulations ended some of the metal treating practices. No idea if this is accurate or not. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Service life will be terrible due to corrosion. I don't know if it's possible to engineer your way out of it. We can't. Boeing St Louis uses the best practical corrosion control possible and airplanes corrode anyway, especially naval airplanes. On top of that, a new fatigue spectrum enters the arena, one with many cycles at high strains - if the machine is to fly. I'm surprised DARPA is still fooling with that mess. It will be usable at existing ports, so that's no advantage, it's not compatible anyway. About 15% of the shores world wide have beaches that can be entered (assaulted) from the water. Ayup... I was once told that the best airframes ever made came out of the early 80s before environmental regulations ended some of the metal treating practices. No idea if this is accurate or not. Maybe a bit, with the elimination of chromates and chromium based anodize. The primers and top coats are better. No matter the processes, a scratch into bare aluminum is enough to start the corrosion. Reinstalling bolts without hitting them with primer is another. I might still have a bracket with severe exfoliation corrosion that was in the cockpit of an F-15 in Japan for less than a year. The airplane was outdoors with the canopy open nearly every hour of that period. That bracket was anodized and primed with two coats minimum. |
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Quoted: Call it a boat, airplane, potato, or whatever you want. It's a tactical and strategic sealift platform. It can't be built faster than a conventional aircraft because the concept hasn't even been researched but if a 787 variant met the mission requirements this project would never exist. US tactical and strategic airlift assets are limited and will be in high demand in future conflicts. Any platform research or acquisition that helps get tanks, beans, and bullets to the fight is likely worthwhile. There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: So you think they can research and build this faster than a conventional airplane? Why would that be? Again, this isn't a boat. It's an airplane, regardless of how low it flies. Call it a boat, airplane, potato, or whatever you want. It's a tactical and strategic sealift platform. It can't be built faster than a conventional aircraft because the concept hasn't even been researched but if a 787 variant met the mission requirements this project would never exist. US tactical and strategic airlift assets are limited and will be in high demand in future conflicts. Any platform research or acquisition that helps get tanks, beans, and bullets to the fight is likely worthwhile. There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly. You are completely missing my point. If you want a flying boat, just build a flying boat. We know how to do that. This is called the Liberty Lifter Seaplane Wing-in-Ground Effect full-scale demonstrator program. That is the part that is silly. Any airplane can fly at 100' over water. Give it a radar altimeter coupled to the autopilot, and it can do it all by itself. It isn't a special trick that requires a new revolutionary design. Yes, you can design a plane that can do it with slightly less drag, but when you have enough horsepower to take off out of high seas, who cares? By optimizing the design for that one function, you're diminishing other capabilities, such as the ability to fly higher than 10,000 feet. As a heavy lifter, how much time would it spend as an easy target, hopping around the world at 10,000 feet, vs. actually storming beaches? If you want a special purpose marine heavy lifter, look at the Osprey design. It can launch off the boat and land on the beach. What more could you want? More cargo? Make it bigger. Water landing? Put floats on it. "There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly." - This statement is hilarious, but it broke my sarcasm detector. |
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Quoted: Deliver things to islands without airfields. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: If planes can do the same job, it's competing with planes. What can it do that a "conventional" plane can't? Deliver things to islands without airfields. There are much better ways to do that, should the need ever arise, but it's probably safe to say that most islands that are worth being on have airstrips on them by now. In any case, I wasn't arguing against building sea planes. |
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Quoted: I don't understand how a fully loaded plane like that can have enough power to take off from the surface even in calm seas, never mind sea state 4. . View Quote Martin did it back in the 50's and 60's. Google P6M. |
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Quoted: You are completely missing my point. If you want a flying boat, just build a flying boat. We know how to do that. This is called the Liberty Lifter Seaplane Wing-in-Ground Effect full-scale demonstrator program. That is the part that is silly. Any airplane can fly at 100' over water. Give it a radar altimeter coupled to the autopilot, and it can do it all by itself. It isn't a special trick that requires a new revolutionary design. Yes, you can design a plane that can do it with slightly less drag, but when you have enough horsepower to take off out of high seas, who cares? By optimizing the design for that one function, you're diminishing other capabilities, such as the ability to fly higher than 10,000 feet. As a heavy lifter, how much time would it spend as an easy target, hopping around the world at 10,000 feet, vs. actually storming beaches? If you want a special purpose marine heavy lifter, look at the Osprey design. It can launch off the boat and land on the beach. What more could you want? More cargo? Make it bigger. Water landing? Put floats on it. "There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly." - This statement is hilarious, but it broke my sarcasm detector. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: So you think they can research and build this faster than a conventional airplane? Why would that be? Again, this isn't a boat. It's an airplane, regardless of how low it flies. Call it a boat, airplane, potato, or whatever you want. It's a tactical and strategic sealift platform. It can't be built faster than a conventional aircraft because the concept hasn't even been researched but if a 787 variant met the mission requirements this project would never exist. US tactical and strategic airlift assets are limited and will be in high demand in future conflicts. Any platform research or acquisition that helps get tanks, beans, and bullets to the fight is likely worthwhile. There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly. You are completely missing my point. If you want a flying boat, just build a flying boat. We know how to do that. This is called the Liberty Lifter Seaplane Wing-in-Ground Effect full-scale demonstrator program. That is the part that is silly. Any airplane can fly at 100' over water. Give it a radar altimeter coupled to the autopilot, and it can do it all by itself. It isn't a special trick that requires a new revolutionary design. Yes, you can design a plane that can do it with slightly less drag, but when you have enough horsepower to take off out of high seas, who cares? By optimizing the design for that one function, you're diminishing other capabilities, such as the ability to fly higher than 10,000 feet. As a heavy lifter, how much time would it spend as an easy target, hopping around the world at 10,000 feet, vs. actually storming beaches? If you want a special purpose marine heavy lifter, look at the Osprey design. It can launch off the boat and land on the beach. What more could you want? More cargo? Make it bigger. Water landing? Put floats on it. "There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly." - This statement is hilarious, but it broke my sarcasm detector. The Osprey is not a heavy lifter. It's primary design characteristic is VTOL and fast cruise relative to a helicopter. Scaling it up would not meet any of the performance requirements sought in this program. The common thread between the Osprey and this concept appears that neither of them require an airfield. The 10k' ceiling is probably only to achieve the 6,500nm ferry range and only possible when the vehicle is light and empty. Performance beyond a 10k' ceiling would drive the implementation of life support and reliability systems that are unnecessary added complexity and weight for these missions. |
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Quoted: The Osprey is not a heavy lifter. It's primary design characteristic is VTOL and fast cruise relative to a helicopter. Scaling it up would not meet any of the performance requirements sought in this program. The common thread between the Osprey and this concept appears that neither of them require an airfield. The 10k' ceiling is probably only to achieve the 6,500nm ferry range and only possible when the vehicle is light and empty. Performance beyond a 10k' ceiling would drive the implementation of life support and reliability systems that are unnecessary added complexity and weight for these missions. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: So you think they can research and build this faster than a conventional airplane? Why would that be? Again, this isn't a boat. It's an airplane, regardless of how low it flies. Call it a boat, airplane, potato, or whatever you want. It's a tactical and strategic sealift platform. It can't be built faster than a conventional aircraft because the concept hasn't even been researched but if a 787 variant met the mission requirements this project would never exist. US tactical and strategic airlift assets are limited and will be in high demand in future conflicts. Any platform research or acquisition that helps get tanks, beans, and bullets to the fight is likely worthwhile. There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly. You are completely missing my point. If you want a flying boat, just build a flying boat. We know how to do that. This is called the Liberty Lifter Seaplane Wing-in-Ground Effect full-scale demonstrator program. That is the part that is silly. Any airplane can fly at 100' over water. Give it a radar altimeter coupled to the autopilot, and it can do it all by itself. It isn't a special trick that requires a new revolutionary design. Yes, you can design a plane that can do it with slightly less drag, but when you have enough horsepower to take off out of high seas, who cares? By optimizing the design for that one function, you're diminishing other capabilities, such as the ability to fly higher than 10,000 feet. As a heavy lifter, how much time would it spend as an easy target, hopping around the world at 10,000 feet, vs. actually storming beaches? If you want a special purpose marine heavy lifter, look at the Osprey design. It can launch off the boat and land on the beach. What more could you want? More cargo? Make it bigger. Water landing? Put floats on it. "There's no way to foresee what this project might yield but DARPA spends very little and learns quickly." - This statement is hilarious, but it broke my sarcasm detector. The Osprey is not a heavy lifter. It's primary design characteristic is VTOL and fast cruise relative to a helicopter. Scaling it up would not meet any of the performance requirements sought in this program. The common thread between the Osprey and this concept appears that neither of them require an airfield. The 10k' ceiling is probably only to achieve the 6,500nm ferry range and only possible when the vehicle is light and empty. Performance beyond a 10k' ceiling would drive the implementation of life support and reliability systems that are unnecessary added complexity and weight for these missions. You didn't address my only real point. Designing a sea plane specifically based on the idea of flying in ground effect is silly. There is very little advantage, and many disadvantages in doing so. |
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Quoted: You didn't address my only real point. Designing a sea plane specifically based on the idea of flying in ground effect is silly. There is very little advantage, and many disadvantages in doing so. View Quote I wonder what use there would be for a low altitude aircraft with really long range and really good loiter time over water and a high cargo capacity. The fact that we can design wings that give both high flight and ground effect with little or no penalty is very interesting. There's a lot of interesting wing designs that are coming to fruition in the near future, some of which will change airliners and cargo planes. |
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Quoted: I knew this would be a wing-in-ground effect design before opening the thread. They've been talking about these things for decades, but for some reason the design never made it off the ground. Okay, I'll see myself out... View Quote Waiting on the UFO technology to be developed first. |
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Quoted: I wonder what use there would be for a low altitude aircraft with really long range and really good loiter time over water and a high cargo capacity. The fact that we can design wings that give both high flight and ground effect with little or no penalty is very interesting. There's a lot of interesting wing designs that are coming to fruition in the near future, some of which will change airliners and cargo planes. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: You didn't address my only real point. Designing a sea plane specifically based on the idea of flying in ground effect is silly. There is very little advantage, and many disadvantages in doing so. I wonder what use there would be for a low altitude aircraft with really long range and really good loiter time over water and a high cargo capacity. The fact that we can design wings that give both high flight and ground effect with little or no penalty is very interesting. There's a lot of interesting wing designs that are coming to fruition in the near future, some of which will change airliners and cargo planes. What reason would there ever be to loiter at 100 feet over water with a load of tanks and troops? |
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Quoted: DARPA is a Research Agency, i.e. there are no current plans to actually build anything, just see if a design can even be done. Yes, it's a lot of money for just a design, but figuring out if a thing can be built before you decide to build it is far better, and much cheaper, than trying to build something and find out that lack of proper materials, physics etc prevents your new thing from even being built. View Quote 5 DARPA Inventions that Changed the World The Computer Mouse (1964) It goes without saying that the computers of the 1960's looked a whole lot different than those today. ... GPS (1983) Today we all hold geopositioning technology in the palm of our hands with our smartphones. ... “Siri” (2002) ... Drones (1988) ... The Internet (1969) |
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Quoted: 5 DARPA Inventions that Changed the World The Computer Mouse (1964) It goes without saying that the computers of the 1960's looked a whole lot different than those today. ... GPS (1983) Today we all hold geopositioning technology in the palm of our hands with our smartphones. ... “Siri” (2002) ... Drones (1988) ... The Internet (1969) View Quote https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) has been credited in published books by Thierry Bardini,[14] Paul Ceruzzi,[15] Howard Rheingold,[16] and several others as the inventor of the computer mouse. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System The U.S. Department of Defense developed the system, which originally used 24 satellites, for use by the United States military, and became fully operational in 1995. Civilian use was allowed from the 1980s. Roger L. Easton of the Naval Research Laboratory, Ivan A. Getting of The Aerospace Corporation, and Bradford Parkinson of the Applied Physics Laboratory are credited with inventing it. |
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Quoted: Okay. What are they? And what are you basing this assumption off of? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: You didn't address my only real point. Designing a sea plane specifically based on the idea of flying in ground effect is silly. There is very little advantage, and many disadvantages in doing so. Okay. What are they? And what are you basing this assumption off of? You can't optimize for one particular flight envelope without sacrificing from another. It's why we have planes with variable wing geometry. It's why their design goal is only10,000 feet. There is greater advantage in flying high than there is in optimizing for ground effect, which gains very little advantage in drag reduction. Drag is a force directly apposed to thrust. A plane that can take off from heavy seas has a huge abundance of thrust for flight. As I said, any plane can fly in ground effect. It makes no sense to give up other capabilities in order to achieve a slight advantage at 100 feet. |
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Quoted: You can't optimize for one particular flight envelope without sacrificing from another. It's why we have planes with variable wing geometry. It's why their design goal is only10,000 feet. There is greater advantage in flying high than there is in optimizing for ground effect, which gains very little advantage in drag reduction. Drag is a force directly apposed to thrust. A plane that can take off from heavy seas has a huge abundance of thrust for flight. As I said, any plane can fly in ground effect. It makes no sense to give up other capabilities in order to achieve a slight advantage at 100 feet. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: You didn't address my only real point. Designing a sea plane specifically based on the idea of flying in ground effect is silly. There is very little advantage, and many disadvantages in doing so. Okay. What are they? And what are you basing this assumption off of? You can't optimize for one particular flight envelope without sacrificing from another. It's why we have planes with variable wing geometry. It's why their design goal is only10,000 feet. There is greater advantage in flying high than there is in optimizing for ground effect, which gains very little advantage in drag reduction. Drag is a force directly apposed to thrust. A plane that can take off from heavy seas has a huge abundance of thrust for flight. As I said, any plane can fly in ground effect. It makes no sense to give up other capabilities in order to achieve a slight advantage at 100 feet. 10k' ceiling is not a primary design goal. Rather an envelope/restriction that allows the engineers to omit systems such as oxygen and pressurization for weight savings, increased payload, cost and complexity reduction. The goals are carry tremendous weight, travel fast, and drop in quickly to offload. Anywhere there's water. It needs very little support infrastructure relative to conventional aircraft. A group of amphibious assault vehicles in the back door will be one hell of a Christmas surprise for the enemies. Imagine if they eventually combine that with existing LO capabilities. After the offload when the vehicle is light and after they've cleared the mission area, then they will be able to climb up for optimum efficiency OGE. It's a totally different purpose and mission than a conventional tac/strat airlift. They need time to get down and slow down. C-17s can descend fast but still not as fast as setting it down from 100'. Then they need several thousand feet of runway to land, turn around, dump the cargo, and take back off. Then the offload is located at the airfield which may not be ideal for the mission. And the airlift needs all that same infrastructure at every destination. In addition to being capability limited, they are also resource constrained. There are only so many of those aircraft and they aren't making any more. Boeing can barely deliver a working KC-46 which is predominantly based on designs that were already in production. LM was developing a dirigible airship type thing that kind of fell off the map. Alternative sealift and airlift is a smart move. |
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Quoted: 10k' ceiling is not a primary design goal. Rather an envelope/restriction that allows the engineers to omit systems such as oxygen and pressurization for weight savings, increased payload, cost and complexity reduction. The goals are carry tremendous weight, travel fast, and drop in quickly to offload. Anywhere there's water. It needs very little support infrastructure relative to conventional aircraft. A group of amphibious assault vehicles in the back door will be one hell of a Christmas surprise for the enemies. Imagine if they eventually combine that with existing LO capabilities. After the offload when the vehicle is light and after they've cleared the mission area, then they will be able to climb up for optimum efficiency OGE. It's a totally different purpose and mission than a conventional tac/strat airlift. They need time to get down and slow down. C-17s can descend fast but still not as fast as setting it down from 100'. Then they need several thousand feet of runway to land, turn around, dump the cargo, and take back off. Then the offload is located at the airfield which may not be ideal for the mission. And the airlift needs all that same infrastructure at every destination. In addition to being capability limited, they are also resource constrained. There are only so many of those aircraft and they aren't making any more. Boeing can barely deliver a working KC-46 which is predominantly based on designs that were already in production. LM was developing a dirigible airship type thing that kind of fell off the map. Alternative sealift and airlift is a smart move. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: You didn't address my only real point. Designing a sea plane specifically based on the idea of flying in ground effect is silly. There is very little advantage, and many disadvantages in doing so. Okay. What are they? And what are you basing this assumption off of? You can't optimize for one particular flight envelope without sacrificing from another. It's why we have planes with variable wing geometry. It's why their design goal is only10,000 feet. There is greater advantage in flying high than there is in optimizing for ground effect, which gains very little advantage in drag reduction. Drag is a force directly apposed to thrust. A plane that can take off from heavy seas has a huge abundance of thrust for flight. As I said, any plane can fly in ground effect. It makes no sense to give up other capabilities in order to achieve a slight advantage at 100 feet. 10k' ceiling is not a primary design goal. Rather an envelope/restriction that allows the engineers to omit systems such as oxygen and pressurization for weight savings, increased payload, cost and complexity reduction. The goals are carry tremendous weight, travel fast, and drop in quickly to offload. Anywhere there's water. It needs very little support infrastructure relative to conventional aircraft. A group of amphibious assault vehicles in the back door will be one hell of a Christmas surprise for the enemies. Imagine if they eventually combine that with existing LO capabilities. After the offload when the vehicle is light and after they've cleared the mission area, then they will be able to climb up for optimum efficiency OGE. It's a totally different purpose and mission than a conventional tac/strat airlift. They need time to get down and slow down. C-17s can descend fast but still not as fast as setting it down from 100'. Then they need several thousand feet of runway to land, turn around, dump the cargo, and take back off. Then the offload is located at the airfield which may not be ideal for the mission. And the airlift needs all that same infrastructure at every destination. In addition to being capability limited, they are also resource constrained. There are only so many of those aircraft and they aren't making any more. Boeing can barely deliver a working KC-46 which is predominantly based on designs that were already in production. LM was developing a dirigible airship type thing that kind of fell off the map. Alternative sealift and airlift is a smart move. Nothing you have said justifies optimizing for flight in ground effect. A C-17, (for example), can fly just fine at 100 feet above water. Building a new plane for the navy is a worthy cause. |
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Quoted: With compact fusion power you can do anything. View Quote Just repeal the Law of Gravity. Ta-Daaaaaaa “Anything seems possible when you have no idea what you’re talking about” I believe that’s the new slogan for politicians, war planners, and the defense contractors willing to take that sweet development cash. |
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Quoted: Or you could just send in the 82nd and heavy drop the needed stuff. View Quote Quoted: If there was any advantage, they would be everywhere already. Flying at high altitude is much more efficient. View Quote Not with the CCP sinking a ton of R&D into ultra-long range SAMs designed to shoot down big planes beyond the first island chain. This thing is designed to replace slow ships, not C-17s that are already doing heavy lift at altitude. |
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Quoted: Nothing you have said justifies optimizing for flight in ground effect. A C-17, (for example), can fly just fine at 100 feet above water. Building a new plane for the navy is a worthy cause. View Quote A C-17 can land in the water, but only one time. And it can't take back off. Different mission for this project. Hence the new design and development. |
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The Simpsons - The Spruce Moose (Episode: $Pringfield) |
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