To be fair…reading through this thread @Brett327 earned the right to hand us this “I told you so.”
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The newest Herk?
- Thread starter skybert
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skybert
Skybert
If I wanted to shoot down a weather balloon from China, I’d use a four engine seaplane, like any normal person.
Isn't there a couple of those sitting somewhere on a Black Sea beach?
To be fair, INDOPACOM presents a significant logistics challenge for US forces and anything that is mobile and can haul a significant amount of cargo/pax at range will probably be explored. There are only so many cargo aircraft, tankers, and MSC assets to go around - and all them are not risk worthy. Especially since the USAF and Navy are basically at risk in some form or another all the way to the 2IC.
DARPA is a good idea fairy machine with a lot of extremely talent people - but we all know how acquisitions works and whatever gets developed will require extensive development and wargaming before it hits the production line. amphibious tractors, tiltrotors and VSTOL aircraft were once considered in the same light… but here we are for better or worse.
DARPA is a good idea fairy machine with a lot of extremely talent people - but we all know how acquisitions works and whatever gets developed will require extensive development and wargaming before it hits the production line. amphibious tractors, tiltrotors and VSTOL aircraft were once considered in the same light… but here we are for better or worse.
Howard Hughes wants his plans back!
I work with folks that are in the thick of this project. Their focus has been on getting both the cost and weight down, and they did some seedlings on structure fabrication that proved they could make a sturdy as heck aluminum wing for reasonable cost. That’s why none of the shapes in the plane are super crazy with exotic compound curves. All developable surfaces you can make starting from from flat plate.
It’s meant to live in the water too. As much boat as plane.
Any lighter-than-air concepts? LTA and in-ground-effect could be capable platforms for some things.
Would be interesting to have them do some noodling on using graphene as an additive to improve strength and reduce weight.
Random8145
Registered User
Pretty sure the Army uses amphibious armored vehicles, because when you encounter things like rivers and very large streams, being able to just drive across is very handy. Not all of their vehicles are amphibious though.
GroundPounder
Well-Known Member
Well, if we had a seaplane, it could have landed near where the wreckage landed in the ocean. Which would be nice.
Clearly, we have ships attending to that right now.
GroundPounder
Well-Known Member
I think you missed my attempt at humor. I know the Navy has ships in the Atlantic to take care of such things. In fact, I know pretty much exactly where one of them was this afternoon.
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But we could have seaplanes attending to it in the future ?