Next C-130 will be a Vertical Lift Cargo plane

SteveO said:
In my expert opinion the Pterodynamics Transwing would scale up and fit C-130 fuselages without any issues ;)

Transwing — PteroDynamics

www.pterodynamics.com www.pterodynamics.com
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Transwing is basically a tilt-wing with modified geometry, with the main advantage being compactness and perhaps some flight control advantages.

For a very heavy VTOL lifter, this still means high disc loading and large amounts of high velocity air everywhere. This also means the engines have to have enough power and so on, even before moving to the hinge problem. (which could be solvable) Ultimately it wouldn't escape the old VTOL cost curves.
 
Right now, I think the large Quad Rotor is the way to go, but with a hybrid system; electrical driven rotors at the tips and the main drive in the fuselage. Now, about those electrical motors that can handle those loads...

I would add that some sort of shaft or electric driven fan lift system would be doable, technically, as long as they are landing on a hard surface somewhere; parking lots, highways, some building tops; but how do you deal with the parking lot lights, power lines by road sides, etc.? Once again, you're drastically limited by where you can actually land.
 
Being boring I still think that the size of the VSTOL footprint is going to be the limiting factor.
The CH47 Chinook needs a pretty large field/clearing to land in. Anything larger than a Chinook.and you need a hard surface able to resist downwash/erosion even if it has a thin layer of grass, sand or snow or whatever.
Slinging heavy loads under a multi prop/jet platform may get round this problem. Being able to sling carry say an M8 or M551 equivalent and deliver it ready to roll into a forward location alongside infantry para dropped or helilifted would be useful.
 
Again, comes down to what you want to do with the bird. Regardless of the size of the footprint of the V/STOL, it's still going to be far smaller than that of any C/STOL vehicle. As far as sling loads, how big a load can you sling under a C-130, or a Harrier? My point being that a C-130 replacement does not have to be able to do everything a helicopter does. It just needs to be able to do the C-130 mission and land vertically. Leave the rest to actual rotorcraft or FVL CS4.

Of course I'm still suspicious that this is a smokescreen to kill FVL CS5
 
HSVTOL.jpg
Bell’s HSVTOL design concepts include the following features:
  • Low downwash hover capability
  • Jet-like cruise speeds over 400 kts
  • True runway independence and hover endurance
  • Scalability to the range of missions from unmanned personnel recovery to tactical mobility
  • Aircraft gross weights range from 4,000 lbs. to over 100,000 lbs.
verticalmag.com

Bell unveils new HSVTOL design concepts for military application

Bell has unveiled design concepts for new aircraft systems for military applications which would use its High-Speed Vertical Take-Off and Landing technology.
verticalmag.com verticalmag.com
 
I'm still skittish on rotor-stop solutions, but it definitely looks interesting.
 
Bell has been working the stop-fold concept on and off since the 1970's. I know that they have run wind tunnel test, but I'm pretty sure they have not actually flown one. Suspect they would have pointed that out with the news. I think that Bell will see an opportunity to advance their hybrid electric work on the governments dime. I am of the opinion that full electric is still to immature for the DoD to consider that level of risk.
 
Armor is just have very bad weight to value especially today. Air transported heavy ground vehicles need to be heavy for another reason, like giant radars, very large missiles or powerful DEW systems. For vehicles that is heavy due to requirements of the power system, articulated "land trains" like BvS10 (but transported in parts and hooked up after landing) could do the job without requiring super heavy aircraft.

Sundog said:
but how do you deal with the parking lot lights, power lines by road sides, etc.? Once again, you're drastically limited by where you can actually land.
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I don't know, can't you just blow it up? ;)

uk 75 said:
Anything larger than a Chinook.and you need a hard surface able to resist downwash/erosion even if it has a thin layer of grass, sand or snow or whatever.
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Drop a landing surface from one of the sorties?

It seems like what is really needed is rapid field engineering. Have anyone researched this topic?
 
Lights and power poles are only problems if: a. they are present, b. The pathfinders forget to knock them down. Personally I prefer golf courses. A Par 5 is a MOG 3 at least. So a full golf course is about 75 one time use landing pads. That's at least a full battalion. If your aircraft is carrying smaller Wiesel like vehicles that's more like a Brigade. Of course you won't have 75 of these things available in one theater. Lets go with 20. The good news there is that the USAF Inc. would still have nine playable holes, once it is safe.
 
At the risk of repeating myself (which of course I am), any landing surface problems caused by lights, power poles, etc. pale in comparison to what has to be cleared to use a 3,000 ft. strip that probably isn't there anyway.
 
Over all this is the shadow of Operation Market Garden-Arnhem.
Deep insertion by air of a combat force into a contested zone is troublesome in so many ways.
Most airlift takes place in benign situations with even large numbers of civil airliners carrying troops in comfort while their kit is either prepositioned or comes in bulk by sea.
Heavy armour working with mechanised infantry has to arrive in theatre this way.
Soviet Airborne divisions landed their impressive BMD family on exercise by airdrop but in Afghanistan as in Prague they simply took over an airport.
Back in the 60s the Brits seemed to think that Argosys and Andovers could fly in Land Rovers with 105mm pack howitzers to a remote airfield. It was planned to use HS681s to bring the Scorpion CVRT into action the same way. Never happened for real.
The only instance I can think of was deploying M551 Sheridans to Panama.
 
The Russians and Cubans used it as it was intended in Ethiopia many years ago. ASU 57 and BTR 40 I believe. Flown through mountains in Mi-6 to attack a mountain pass from the rear while that force was busy contending with the main assault force moving through the valley. The defenders were completely routed.

In doing something like this the force should not be inserted to seize and hold. A motorized/mechanized force inserted driving around shooting up truck parks, ammo/fuel dumps, and convoys will seriously impact an enemies command and control and sew significant confusion. While the comment regarding Market Garden is certainly valid, I would prefer to see this sort of force doing what allied airborne did in Normandy.
 
In those days Grails and Stingers or worse did not abound. The availability of such weapons makes it easier to ruin a landing or drop.
 
uk 75 said:
Soviet Airborne divisions landed their impressive BMD family on exercise by airdrop but in Afghanistan as in Prague they simply took over an airport.
Back in the 60s the Brits seemed to think that Argosys and Andovers could fly in Land Rovers with 105mm pack howitzers to a remote airfield. It was planned to use HS681s to bring the Scorpion CVRT into action the same way. Never happened for real.
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Operation Trent, Afghanistan, November 2001, A and G Sqns 22 SAS landed by Hercules onto a desert strip marked by a pathfinder team from G Sqn's Air Troop, who HALO'd in the night before. They then drove to Koh-i-Malik mountain in 38 Landrovers, took out a Taliban/Al Qaeda facility and extracted out from another desert strip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trent
 
Lets be honest, the replacement for a C130 is most likely another C130 with new engines and some cockpit bling.

What seems likely is that SF will get a 'big V22' or a big Chinook to help them travel long distances and do stuff when they get there.
 
A combo of V22 with Stallion/Chinook scale fuselage (a more modern Mil 12) does seem the way to go.
A deflected jet transporter like the Dornier Do31 or the Breguet 941 stol prop may be another route
 
uk 75 said:
Slinging heavy loads under a multi prop/jet platform may get round this problem. Being able to sling carry say an M8 or M551 equivalent and deliver it ready to roll into a forward location alongside infantry para dropped or helilifted would be useful.
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Has there been helicopter that can pull a sling load from the ground into the fuselage without landing?
 
shin_getter said:
uk 75 said:
Slinging heavy loads under a multi prop/jet platform may get round this problem. Being able to sling carry say an M8 or M551 equivalent and deliver it ready to roll into a forward location alongside infantry para dropped or helilifted would be useful.
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Has there been helicopter that can pull a sling load from the ground into the fuselage without landing?
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I'm not sure of the logic on that, if it fits in the fuselage then load it in on the ground.

Helicopters use underslung lifting, because the load wont fit inside, mostly.....

Also hoisting a load in(upwards) would to me imply no floor in your helo, so back to skycrane. As apposed to having a winch at the front of the load area, to pull a load in from the rear.

Maybe skycrane and pods would do what I think you want?
 
Given heavy payload:
1. Small aircraft: high disc loading, stuff on the ground gets blown away, doesn't work
2. Big aircraft: large clearing needed on the ground that is not available, doesn't work
3. Sling load (external): drag kills range/speed, doesn't work
4. Load/unload by rope, into fuselage: aircraft can be huge with low disc loading yet work on all kinds of terrain and still have low drag, done! (why even land)

This kind of operating concept regularly work for people, just look at all the helicopter SAR:
images


I mean you don't land and you don't leave the guy dangling outside the entire flight. Now do it with bigger cargos.

For more fancy stuff do refuel off hover~
 
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LowObservable said:
If you're talking about moving heavy things (vehicles of 10-15000 pounds and up) I suspect that Yasotay is headed in the right direction. STOL and fat tires (or even air cushions), allowing a near-random choice of places to land. (Why not resurrect the Pantobase, which supposedly was good for soft ground and water? Ever tried cratering a lake, river or lagoon?) Some interesting STOL options might emerge with turbo-electric drive systems, such as effective wing-blowing free from engine-out issues.

The basic problem with very large VTOLs is that all the lift energy's gotta come from somewhere (big engines and clunky transmissions) and it has to go somewhere (cf the tornado of [stuff] that accompanies V-22 landings on non-solid surfaces).

Another basic issue is that you're just not going to airlift 35-ton AFVs in massive numbers. You need BMD equivalents.

However, if you want to break down the airlift problem (and not use your giant STOL machines to deliver small cargoes) then you also want a lot of smallish, autonomous VTOL things carrying a ton or so. These may look like helicopters or they may look like e-VTOLs. The magic bit comes in managing them so that you have a sort of battlespace equivalent of Amazon, remembering that Amazon's key technology is the information system, and you can disperse the "iron mountain" of logistics.
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A modern replacement for the CVR(T) family would be suited to these requirements. And I mean a true replacement, not a 40 ton, 3m tall IFV that gives its passengers brain damage by the simply expedient of being in it (Ajax).
 
A high speed high capacity transport aircraft that can take off and land vertically. I have just the thing, MrTracy

thunderbirds.fandom.com

Thunderbird 2

You might also be looking for the 2086, 2004 or 2015 versions. Thunderbird 2 is International Rescue's heavy-equipment transporter, used primarily for missions dealing specifically within the Earth's atmosphere. It is the transport vehicle for several smaller rescue vehicles held in pods...
thunderbirds.fandom.com thunderbirds.fandom.com
 
Fluff said:
A slight tangent on Mr Musk, is that he has proposed 'rockets' to add to his already ludicrous speed EV's, to further improve their acceleration.

But if he can control 'small' rockets in numbers, then a part of your VT , when needed could be some smaller RATO units, but distributed around the airframe, perhaps.

Combined with some electric propulsion, hybrid batteries and engines generating a lot of electrical power, maybe this is becoming closer....
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This was one of the ideas that was used for the Iranian hostage crisis I believe they retro-rated a c-130 with rockets together lift off time down to so many feet and landing distance down I think there was trying to land it in the Tehran football stadium
 
shin_getter said:
Given heavy payload:
1. Small aircraft: high disc loading, stuff on the ground gets blown away, doesn't work
2. Big aircraft: large clearing needed on the ground that is not available, doesn't work
3. Sling load (external): drag kills range/speed, doesn't work
4. Load/unload by rope, into fuselage: aircraft can be huge with low disc loading yet work on all kinds of terrain and still have low drag, done! (why even land)

This kind of operating concept regularly work for people, just look at all the helicopter SAR:
images


I mean you don't land and you don't leave the guy dangling outside the entire flight. Now do it with bigger cargos.

For more fancy stuff do refuel off hover~
Click to expand...
Lifting a rescuee in a sling is not the preferred option, unless you can't land there at all.

It's slow and leaves the helicopter hovering for many minutes.


scott1075 said:
This was one of the ideas that was used for the Iranian hostage crisis I believe they retro-rated a c-130 with rockets together lift off time down to so many feet and landing distance down I think there was trying to land it in the Tehran football stadium
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Yes, that was the plan. But it requires very precise measurement to the ground for the retro rockets or the plane breaks in half. There's YT video of the second test flight of the overall system where that exact thing happened.
 
scott1075 said:
This was one of the ideas that was used for the Iranian hostage crisis I believe they retro-rated a c-130 with rockets together lift off time down to so many feet and landing distance down I think there was trying to land it in the Tehran football stadium
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CREDIBLE SPORT - that was the name. A C-130 with banks of rocket thrusters pushing backwards to shorten the landing - so that it could land in Tehran stadium.
 
This how Credible Sport would look like today. (yes it's a Starship sized rocket landing on sand)

1705845639283.png
 
Question: what if we gave something C-130 sized a set of Osprey engines. 4 Osprey engines and proprotors. And either did the tiltwing like a giant CL84 or gave all 4 engines the tilting props like the V-280? You could even use the cross-connect shaft for blade synch, so that parts of the proprotors could overlap without risks of the blades hitting each other.

Yes, it probably would be easier to do as a tandem wing thing. I'm just wondering about having engines and props big enough to have the entire wing blown on a single wing.


TomcatViP said:
This how Credible Sport would look like today. (yes it's a Starship sized rocket landing on sand)

View attachment 717876
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How does it stand up for vertical launch?

(since we obviously don't care what happens to the liftoff point.)
 
Reportedly (Wiki) the larger Fairey Rotodyne Z design could be developed to accommodate up to 75 passengers and, when equipped with Rolls-Royce Tyne engines, would have a projected cruising speed of 200 knots (370 km/h). It would be able to carry nearly 8 tons (7 tonnes) of freight.
My understanding is the nasty organ-pipe resonances in the rotors was solved just too late for the project's political guillotine...

I'm sure they could do much better now: Rotodyne_3.0, any-one ?? ;) ;) ;)
 
There was a company (the name escapes me at the moment, something Brothers??) trying to interest air forces in a Rotodyne-esque aircraft or fitting rotors to a C-130 about a decade or so ago. Never went anywhere though.
 

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news.yahoo.com

US military eyes SpaceX Starship for 'sensitive and potentially dangerous missions': report

The U.S. Department of Defense has reached out to SpaceX to inquire about using Starship on its own, flying the massive rocket as a government-operated military vehicle.
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com

About US DoD taking ownership of some Starship vehicles for perilous Defense missions:
Aviation Week cites comments made on Tuesday (Jan. 30) by Gary Henry, a Senior Advisor for National Security Space Solutions at SpaceX, during the 2024 Space Mobility Conference held in Orlando, Florida.

"We have had conversations … and it really came down to specific missions, where it's a very specific and sometimes elevated risk or maybe a dangerous use case for the DOD where they’re asking themselves: 'Do we need to own it as a particular asset … SpaceX, can you accommodate that?'" Henry said at the conference.

"We've been exploring all kinds of options to kind of deal with those questions," Henry added.
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Orionblamblam said:
Ummm... "mag-grips" in the gloves. Cool. On the surface of what appears to be a stealthy aircraft, thus ceramics/plastics/carbon fiber skin. *Maaaaaybe* aluminum skin. But *iron* skin? Ummmm...

UMMMMM....
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Might be a colloquial term for some other form of grip? Unlikely given that it's listed in the load-out screen ahead of the mission...

Whatever you say, I'll maintain the COD:AW is an underrated entry in the series.
 

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