[Fantasy] Unmanned Air Lifter

yasotay

yasotay

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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... OK six years ago right here, I had opportunity to work with some {real} Hollywood types who were helping the Army with future ideas and development of training simulations. Well they were looking for interesting ideas for future Army things and I gave them a copy of one of the future concepts for Army Aviation Lifter that I had been toying with. Well they were excited and took copies, telling me that they had a fellow who did this sort of thing that they worked with. I did not think much about it until about a year later I get a package in the mail with some of the art work you see below. Needless to say I was taken aback when I read the artist name. Some fellow named Ron Cobb. Well for those not into American Cinema, Mr. Cobb who is most noted for designing all of the gear in the 'ALIENS' series of films and has done work on many others such as 'BLADE RUNNER' . So without further verbosity and profundications, Mr. Ron Cobbs Unmanned VTOL lifter "Typhoon".

It does not look tremendously like my work but retains some neat points like electric duct fans and pods for varied missions. I have much greater resolution jpeg as well.
 

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Yes. A stupid, stupid move by the Army. The Army should tear that up and start snapping up the A-10's that the Air Force wants to get rid of. And buy some AC-130's, and modify a few with those microwave telepathy thingies for battlefield use.
 
Actually the ammended Key West agreement of the 1980's allows the Army to have any aircraft it can get past the USAF... and the Army has always had fixed wing aircraft. Guardrail (RC-12), C-23 Sherpa, etc. Now the Army is set to receive 54 C-27J aircraft in the next five years. I guess the Sky Warrior UAS is starch wing as well.

I think I have posted elsewhere here that at one point the A-10 was one signature away from becoming an Army piece of equipment. The USAF did not want to give up the personel slots for the pilots and maintainers so it got botched. There were some pi... mad Army Aviators (to include yours truly) who were looking forward to a transition.

... and I did say "Future Concept". ;D
 
Orionblamblam said:
Small problem: it's a fixed-wing vehicle. Thus forbidden to the US Army.

:mad:
Click to expand...

Errr, my understanding of the Key West agreement was that armed fixed-wing aircraft were forbidden, not fixed-wing aircraft per se, which is why the US Army operated transport and observation aircraft for many years after the agreement was signed. I agree its a pretty stupid agreement but typical of the sort which is required to stop internecine inter-service fighting. However, I don't think the US Army should be operating A-10s or AC-130s. Attack helicopters have by and large replaced them anyway for CAS.
 
you guys are right of course. However this whole ... "air mindedness" debate is going on in several large militaries .. including the indian military .. there might be a move by the Indian army to buy Su-25s in the future
 
Hmmm... I think that it was Syd Mead that did most of the design work for Blade Runner and Aliens. Ron Cobb designed the robots for the Terminator films.
 
Cobra Kebab said:
Hmmm... I think that it was Syd Mead that did most of the design work for Blade Runner and Aliens. Ron Cobb designed the robots for the Terminator films.
Click to expand...

Without looking this up, my recollection is that it was Mead who was involved in 'Blade Runner', Cobb in the first 'Alien', and both worked on 'Aliens'.

Congratulations, by the way, of seeing one of your ideas realised by someone as high-powered as Cobb. In concept design terms it would only be bettered by by your design being done by Mead himself.
 
Merv_P said:
Cobra Kebab said:
Hmmm... I think that it was Syd Mead that did most of the design work for Blade Runner and Aliens. Ron Cobb designed the robots for the Terminator films.
Click to expand...

Without looking this up, my recollection is that it was Mead who was involved in 'Blade Runner', Cobb in the first 'Alien', and both worked on 'Aliens'.

Congratulations, by the way, of seeing one of your ideas realised by someone as high-powered as Cobb. In concept design terms it would only be bettered by by your design being done by Mead himself.
Click to expand...


Indeed I was tremendously impressed. Original...copies, that were sent to me have been suitably framed to impress all at the office.

As well as Alien and Terminator series Mr. Cobb also did work on Sixth Day, Back to the Future series, designed the Nazi plane in Indiana Jones and also did swords for the Conan series. (OK so I'm a bit of a Kinofreak).
 
He did more than the swords and he also appeared in it. Not forgetting designing the spaceship for Darkstar and The Last Starfighter.

Regards,
Barry
 
Indeed he was in the movie. Memory serves he was one of Thulsa Doom's henchmen.

...er, now back to our regularly scheduled aviation banter. :-[
 

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