We need a new transport

[Azeron]

Lets face it, all I hear about is how we need lighter equipment so we can get it placesd faster. Forget it, lets just build a new VTOL heavy long range transport so we can send the good stuff and bheat the living crap out of foreigners.

Why are we beholden to this rather artificail limitation on transportation of military equipment. Put some nuclear thrusters on that sucker and watch it fly.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Dont forget to put a deflector dish on it, so it can send out phased tachyon pulses to detect RPG's hidden in donkey carts.

[Admiral Valdemar]

1. Money, not even the US has the money to get a company to build such a monster.

2. Feasibility, so far the only non-military VTOL fixed wing craft is an Australian bizjet, still in the works.

3. Nuclear thrusters? Sorry, but fission drives have been used before but are too bulky and dirty. Fusion engines will take ages to create and won't be small anytime soon.

4. Fuel, lots and lots of fuel is used to take even a Harrier off the ground, that's why they tend to use skijumps to help them take-off. Trying to make some cargo carrier lift off would be murder.

[Azeron]

thats funny, Nasa seems to think they are feasible.

Hell we can get a space shuttle into orbit, why not a heavy transport just to fly a couple thousand miles or so.

Lets face it, we are the country that spends more on bubble gum than the indians do on thier entire federal government. We got the best people on the planet, the most money, and a successful privately owned aerospace industry. This is not beyond our grasp. once we get it done, we will have another kickass lead in aerospace.

I think it should also have a high pollute mode to contaminate enemy soil with its thrusters too.

All we have to do is take away money from wasteful programs like farm susidies, and we will have more than enough money to feild a new ultra uber fleet of transports.

[Wicked Pilot]

thats funny, Nasa seems to think they are feasible.

Hell we can get a space shuttle into orbit, why not a heavy transport just to fly a couple thousand miles or so.

Lets face it, we are the country that spends more on bubble gum than the indians do on thier entire federal government. We got the best people on the planet, the most money, and a successful privately owned aerospace industry. This is not beyond our grasp. once we get it done, we will have another kickass lead in aerospace.

I think it should also have a high pollute mode to contaminate enemy soil with its thrusters too.

All we have to do is take away money from wasteful programs like farm susidies, and we will have more than enough money to feild a new ultra uber fleet of transports.

Well, since you seem to be the expert on the subject of heavy VTOL transports, why don't you go and design one. Just go out, get an engineering degree, hook up with Boeing or Lockheed, and get to work.

[Mr. B]

Every shuttle or rocket launch takes millions of dollars. Your amazing contraption would bust NASA puny budget.

[Deimos Anomaly]

If you want uber-heavy lift capability with high fuel efficiency, there is a method sitting right in front of us, which has been well proven and tested, and could lift thousands of tons and carry it thousands of miles, using less fuel than it takes for an average jet airliner to cross the Atlantic.

Helium.

One cubic meter of helium lifts 1kg.

A cubical volume of helium 10 meters by 10 meters by 10 meters (one thousand m3) could lift a ton (about the weight of a car).

A cubical volume of helium that was 100 meters long, wide, and tall (one million m3) could lift 1,000 tons.

Of course, a cube isn't the best shape for such a vehicle - traditionally, airships have been cigar shaped, because this gives the best aerodynamic properties. I was only using cubes for ease of calculation. The calcs would be more complicated than that for a cigar shaped vessel.

Lets say that an airship was a mile long, by about 900 foot in diameter. For ease of calculation, I'll metrify that and give it as 1,600 m X 300 m X 300 m

1,600 X 300 = 480,000

480,000 X 300 = 144,000,000

144,000,000 / 1,000 = 144,000

144 thousand gross tons of lift.

However, since a cigar shaped airship will not fill the full volume of a cube whose sides are equal to the airships largest dimensions, it will be a bit less than this. Say 120,000 tons gross lift from the airship's helium.

Then there's the weight of the body of the airship itself. Lets say it weighs 35,000-40,000 tons. This then leaves a maximum payload lift of 80,000-85,000 tons. About enough to lift an unloaded Nimitz-class clear out of the water.

And because the lift is provided passively - by the same means that a conventional ship floats above the seabed without requiring active power - the only power expenditure required is to move the airship forward through the air horizontally.

[Wicked Pilot]

Helium.

You're joking right?

[Deimos Anomaly]

Helium.

You're joking right?

No.

[Raxmei]

Finally, a use for the strategic helium reserve!

[Sea Skimmer]

The great thing is, most air defenses would not be able to harm it. The target acquisition radars would be unable to get a lock because its simply too big.

Course, simply barrage firing heavy SAM's or using an EO weapon might do it.

But no ones going to fly a mile long airship into the range of hostile fire.

[Wicked Pilot]

Well since we're not joking about the insane blimp idea, let's just think about how the enemy would react to seeing a huge silver hotdog invading its airspace. How would they defeat a big, slow-moving target? Do they need to scramble fighters? No. Do they need to fire SAMs? No. Perhaps, just perhaps they could fire WWII era AAA. What's the blimb gonna do? Yank and bank? Turn and burn? Hell, the enemy only needs one gun. Fire only a few rounds and the giant flying penis is coming down fast.

[Azeron]

ww2 triple A, go ahead and try...buhahaha

[Wicked Pilot]

ww2 triple A, go ahead and try...buhahaha

Are you actually defending this half-baked blimp idea?

[Azeron]

Modern blimps can go sub orbital. Think ww2 triple A guns can go that high?

[Wicked Pilot]

Modern blimps can go sub orbital. Think ww2 triple A guns can go that high?

There's not enough atmosphere pressure at that level to support a blimb. If it's rigid, it won't make it nearly that high. If its not rigid, it will explode.

[Azeron]

yah sure whatever mr blimpie.

here is a link to one that goes up 26 miles
http://www.wff.nasa.gov/~code820/about/about.htm
guess you shouldn't apply for the balloon design team seeing as they produce things which are impossible.

[Wicked Pilot]

Your comparing a weather baloon to a military tactical transport blimb needing to life a 60 ton tank. If you can't see the sheer stupidity of what you're talking about, I'm afraid it's too late.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

How fast could that blimp move anyway? Sure, you don't need fuel, you can travel sub-orbital, but what's the point of bringing all your tanks and guns to the battlefield when the bad guys have already done their shooting and looting?

Also, remember the blimp still has to land, which puts it in range of the ZSU-23 AAA guns... Sayonara try tomorra nice to know ya...

Not to mention the effects of the wind on something that large...

The ones we have now are good enough, though they need a lot of takeoff space. The Soviets seem to have the airmobile army thing down pretty well though...

[Deimos Anomaly]

Well since we're not joking about the insane blimp idea, let's just think about how the enemy would react to seeing a huge silver hotdog invading its airspace. How would they defeat a big, slow-moving target? Do they need to scramble fighters? No. Do they need to fire SAMs? No. Perhaps, just perhaps they could fire WWII era AAA. What's the blimb gonna do? Yank and bank? Turn and burn? Hell, the enemy only needs one gun. Fire only a few rounds and the giant flying penis is coming down fast.

You know nothing.

Your strategy would work against a blimp, such as the goodyear blimp or some other pissy toy like that. When you say "blimp" you're automatically specifying an airship which consists of an elongated balloon with an underslung gondola, whose shape is maintained by gas under pressure, and which would be forced to ditch immedately if punctured by gunfire.

That is not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about a rigid or dirigible airship - the shape is maintained by a rigid skeleton, not by gas pressure. There is an outer skin which forms the outside of the hull, and there are internal gas cells, sealed from eachother, and not in contact with the outer skin (there is an airspace between). The living quarters, habitable parts of the ship, are not in the form of an underslung gondola, but are inside the hull, anchored solidly to the skeleton of the ship.

Apart from the advantage vs gunfire that is given by the presence of multiple independant gas cells (similar to the advantage given by deviding a convenional ship's hull into watertight compartments), there is also the fact that, since the gas is not used to maintain the airship's shape by pressure, the gas cells can be filled with helium at a pressure barely any greater, if greater at all, than the outside air pressure. The result of this is that even if a gas cell is punctured, the gas does not rush out as it would from a pressurised balloon, but can take many hours to slowly leak by a process of diffusion.

The German Zeppelins of WWI were constructed in this way, and the British found that they were almost impossible to kill with gunfire - the best way to bring down a Zeppelin, they found, was to overfly it with a plane and drop incendiaries on it to set it on fire (given the volatile hydrogen gas and rocket-fuel "dope" preservative used at that time, the airship woudl then be quickly destroyed a la Hindenburg.)

These Zeppelins typically had only three gas cells, an easily permeable outer skin, and were flying bombs due to the lifting gas they used and the composition of the preservative used on the cloth that formed their outer skin. However, a modern airship would have many more divisions among its gas cells (especially given the size I was proposing), would be filled with inert helium, and would have a fire retardant covering.

Hence, a modern dirigible airship would be a lot harder to bring down than a Zeppelin (which were hard to bring down in their own right).

Then there's the size issue - the Zeppelins typically were 200-250 meters long (600-800 feet). An airship that was a mile long, with a diameter greater than the length of one of those old zeppelins, woudl be able to absorb much, much more punishment simply on account of their larger size, their larger cross section. It's a well known fact that it's harder to sink a big ship than to sink a small ship - and the same applies to airships.

Then there's the multitude of defences that such an airship woudl have- certainly equivelant to or greater than the defences aboard any conventional large ship such as a CVN. In fact, given its size, it's likely that it would have some sort of air group of its own which it could launch to escort it, then retreive etc.

Then there's the fact that I didn't envisage it entering an active combat zone - it could move to the edge of the combat zone and then have stuff taken in the rest of the way by transport helicopter. Or if the area it was going to did not have combat actively going on (say delivering to somewhere near the frontlines, to a camp, base etc) then it could just land or deliver its load from hover, as normal.

[Stuart Mackey]

Lets face it, all I hear about is how we need lighter equipment so we can get it placesd faster. Forget it, lets just build a new VTOL heavy long range transport so we can send the good stuff and bheat the living crap out of foreigners.

Why are we beholden to this rather artificail limitation on transportation of military equipment. Put some nuclear thrusters on that sucker and watch it fly.

Instead of dreaming up airborne Sarnt Yorks you could always build transport ships.

[RadiO]

Lets face it, all I hear about is how we need lighter equipment so we can get it placesd faster. Forget it, lets just build a new VTOL heavy long range transport so we can send the good stuff and bheat the living crap out of foreigners.

Yeah, let's "just" do that. Let's "just" build an aircraft that's historically been one of the most difficult technological and dynamic challenges in aviation. And then, let's "just" build one capable of shipping a heavy, bulky piece of gear like an MBT thousands of miles.
Even Red Alert 2 didn't have a military unit this way-out and generally improbable.

Why are we beholden to this rather artificail limitation on transportation of military equipment. Put some nuclear thrusters on that sucker and watch it fly.

That'll be cool. Everything goes well while the Nuke-Powered Sooper-Dooper Osprey/LCAC combo runs tests over Nevada - but what happens when it goes into service, and starts giving voters bone cancer as it tootles purposefully overhead?

[Admiral Valdemar]

You're forgetting, Azeron is from America, the same country that everyone idolises and created all the best things in the universe such as gravity, the light bulb, the computer, cars, the moon, God, idiots, maths, electric sheep, Bic pens, preholed condoms, chairs...

Have I not got this point across?

Azeron is part of the greatest nation, sorry, THE greatest nation in the universe!

With his leadership skills, even Bush might be impressed and give him the job of Prez so that his plans of world domination can be put in place.

These impossible VTOL cargo planes are only the tip of the iceberg. Azeron also has vast knowledge on submarines since America has the most and best subs in the universe. He also knows they have the F-22 and the F/A-18 Super Hornet, I mean if the old one can shoot down alien craft then the new one must be mind numbingly powerful.

I hate to think what would happen if some unlucky schmuck thought his army could defeat Azeron's American uber troopers with power armour and nuclear machine guns and killer, psychic Smokey Bears with flamethrower breath (can defeat Godzilla easily, unless US version from that film that was oh so much better than the original Japanese ones. USA, USA, USA, USA!)

With the military minds at his disposal, Azeron's future America will put to shame any other civilisation, even the Culture would beg to be a part of it. No way could a Culture warship with it's solar system fucking weaponry take on a canal barge made by Azeron Naval Industries (a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin but with no original members since they thought Azeron was crazy, but he ain't! Fools!).

I can't wait until America under Azeron's control can see the light that the whole world is simply "foreign" and must be Americanised to meet the super human, Homo superialis levels of decency that Azeron takes for granted.

GOD BLESS HIS GENES AND HIS MIND THAT HAS SHOWNETH ME THE LIGHT! I AM NOT WORTHY! HEIL AZERON, RIGHTFUL LEADER OF REALITY!!!

P.S.

Deimos is right; airships in semi-rigid config like the Zeppelin NZ-10 are being looked at as new transports. They can soak up gunfire extremely well too.

[Admiral Piett]

[quote="Azeron"]thats funny, Nasa seems to think they are feasible.
Hell we can get a space shuttle into orbit, why not a heavy transport just to fly a couple thousand miles or so.

Probably you have not noticed the small detail that the shuttle is linked to a big brown(or white) cigar which contains the fuel,A LOT OF FUEL,and a pretty expensive one for that matter.And there are two others big cigars on the side are boosters.So bringing something in orbit is not so easy as you think.And I do not know if the shuttle could lift the weight of a single Abrams,but I tend to exclude it.

Lets face it, we are the country that spends more on bubble gum than the indians do on thier entire federal government. We got the best people on the planet, the most money, and a successful privately owned aerospace industry. This is not beyond our grasp. once we get it done, we will have another kickass lead in aerospace.

Yes,why do not you try to build s super star destroyer?

I think it should also have a high pollute mode to contaminate enemy soil with its thrusters too.

It will have an high pollute "mode".Unfortunately your soil will be the first to experiment it.

Let us clear the matter.
The NASA in the sixties or the seventies(I do not remeber exactly the years) studied a thing called NERVA.It was a nuclear propulsion system for space ship.Basically it consisted of a fission nuclear reactor with an a nozzle at one end and injectors on the other.Hydrogen was injected,heated itself cooling down the reactor and escaped from the nozzle.However this system is not adapt for an atmospheric craft.

The air force in the early fifties studied instead the possibility of a nuclear driven strategic bomber.In the crazy years of the early nuclear era many thought that a nuclear driven bomber would have been easier to build than an ICBM.The idea was to use the energy of a nuclear reactor to suck the air of the atmosphere and use it for the propulsion,in a manner similar to that of a normal reaction engine,but without using chemical fuels.
The studies were interrupted when ICBMs entered in line.It seems that it could have been done but there are a couple of problems.
1)To protect the people onboard from nuclear radiations.An antiradiation shield weighs a lot.Which means you have either a modest payload or you need pilots who are not interested to retirement plans...
2)Planes crash.And when a plane propelled by a high density fuel nuclear reactor crashes the situation is... well I hope you can imagine it by yourselves.

[Wicked Pilot]

You know nothing.

Yeah, I'm only a fixed wing pilot. What do you do for a living?

Your strategy would work against a blimp, such as the goodyear blimp or some other pissy toy like that. When you say "blimp" you're automatically specifying an airship which consists of an elongated balloon with an underslung gondola, whose shape is maintained by gas under pressure, and which would be forced to ditch immedately if punctured by gunfire.

I was refering to a blimb only because an airship would not make the sub-orbital altitudes that were being thrown around.

Apart from the advantage vs gunfire that is given by the presence of multiple independant gas cells

You only need to knock out one or two, and the airship either goes down, or needs to jettison a tank to stay afloat.

The result of this is that even if a gas cell is punctured, the gas does not rush out as it would from a pressurised balloon, but can take many hours to slowly leak by a process of diffusion.

Next time you fart in a crowded room, just see how slow diffusion is. Besides, the diffusion need not be fast because the airship itself is too freaking slow.

The German Zeppelins of WWI were constructed in this way, and the British found that they were almost impossible to kill with gunfire

You mean WWI era gunfire. AAA has seen eight decades of improvement since then.

Then there's the size issue - the Zeppelins typically were 200-250 meters long (600-800 feet). An airship that was a mile long, with a diameter greater than the length of one of those old zeppelins, woudl be able to absorb much, much more punishment simply on account of their larger size, their larger cross section. It's a well known fact that it's harder to sink a big ship than to sink a small ship - and the same applies to airships.

Have you ever heard the term "bullet magnet?"

Then there's the multitude of defences that such an airship woudl have- certainly equivelant to or greater than the defences aboard any conventional large ship such as a CVN. In fact, given its size, it's likely that it would have some sort of air group of its own which it could launch to escort it, then retreive etc.

That won't stop AAA hidden in the jungle. That won't stop artillery strikes when it lands. You really think it would be hard for artillery to hid the huge mile long target your proposing?

Then there's the fact that I didn't envisage it entering an active combat zone - it could move to the edge of the combat zone and then have stuff taken in the rest of the way by transport helicopter. Or if the area it was going to did not have combat actively going on (say delivering to somewhere near the frontlines, to a camp, base etc) then it could just land or deliver its load from hover, as normal.

By the time it gets to the edge of the combat zone, the war would be over.