The Pentagon's 5 Fantasic Flying Machines

Posted today on AOL news.
www.aolnews.com...

(Oct. 1) -- So you think you can fly? The Pentagon's research and development arm announced this week that it had selected a company to design an airborne Humvee. AAI Corp., which has a concept for a combined gyrocoptor-jeep, is getting about $3 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to work on this wild-sounding idea, and Lockheed Martin is expected to be awarded a similar amount soon for a competing flying Humvee design.

Seems a little out there to me, the whole idea of an airborne humvee would make it relatively useless on the ground. You would have to construct it of lightwieght (ie non-bullet resistant) materials, as well as the delicate mechanics of the rotors and such. Hate to see my money wasted on a fail idea like this.

On top of that, once implemented the training required just to drive the bugger would cost a ton as well. And then what if the driver gets shot? Have to train every grunt in the field? Just a mess of problems if it were to go to the battlefield...

How on earth could this thing be superior to a chopper?

reply to post by blamethegreys


The flying humvee seems like it would be really awkward on the ground. I don't see why they would want to develop that.
The submersible aircraft that the article also talks about sounds very practical and useful, though.
It also reminds me of vehicles from "Battle of the Planets" that I watched when young...

What the? This kind of thing has been tried before, it's a classic example of a giveaway to defense contractors.
Remember the flying cars of the 50's?
Here's a great description :
As a car, they make pretty good airplanes.
As an airplane, they make pretty good cars.

Haha, that's a pretty crazy image. Reminds me of sci-fi comics.

As for the practicality... I think a simple and resolute 'no' will do the trick.

You've got specialists for a reason. You want superior ground transportation for your troops and superior close air support via helicopters.

Unless they have some sort of miracle material that's both light and bullet proof or ridiculously powerful engines that will consume fuel like crazy... I don't see this happening. What sort of role would it fill that we desperately need?

Sounds like waste of taxpayer money to me (again).

I am glad I'm not alone in my thinking on this: Sometimes on ATS it's nice to know you're not crazy

My thoughts were immediately why not develop a small tactical chopper if you are looking for insertion/extraction capability like this?

Here ya go DARPA...mybe something more like along these lines?
masterchiefspage.tripod.com...
www.ifelix.co.uk...
www.geekologie.com...
ployer.com...

Pentagon has some really wierd science projects, and this is probably a couple out of thousands...

This design is so ridiculous to me that it makes me wonder if this is a sham and what they are really designing is a vehicle that would use antigravity tech rather than wings and rotors because antigravity will be dislosed soon.

I feel like something is building with all this alien talk from the government and supposed planets guaranteed to have life.

Are we sure this is a Pentagon thing and not Iranian?

I'm still not over the flying boats.

Most retarded arms race in history.

So, why do we need flying boats and Humvees? I mean, it's bad enough to have vehicles on the land, sea, air, soon IN THE TAP WATER, do they need to fly, too?

Since the linked article is too lazy to actually post all the pictures, allow me

"Flying" humvee


Clearly this is not a real photo but some sort of cinematic conception. This has to be the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. Let's take the heaviest vehicle possible and make it fly. I think turning a delorean into a time machine was a better idea.

Oh, a submarine that supposedly flies, and yet the picture shows it under water. I guess it at least looks like a submarine.



the "flying wing" no picture available, it doesn't matter, it was canceled anyways. Fantastic!

the "blackswift"



This either looks like it's above the engineers heads or it's a picture plastered onto a glass window. Either way, it's safe to say this thing whatever it is doesn't actually exist. Fantastic!

Finally, the "Marines in Space" (is that the name of the vehicle?)



Well good old popular mechanics is showing this one off. I'm glad it takes a crane to get this thing into the air. Does it actually fly or just nose dive to the ground?

In conclusion, that is the 5 most fantastically horrible ideas I've ever heard of, and they really called them "Fantastic" I guess the pentagon is trying to warm up to the public after losing trillions of dollars. And the best part, three of the five "fantastic" vehicles have been canceled. Wow!

reply to post by OldDragger

Remember the flying cars of the 50's?

NO......but, I recall one from the 70s......

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6c2787399505.jpg[/atsimg]

"The Flying Pinto"!!!

Guess it could be considered a "buzz bomb", in a way....(the Pinto was thought to explode, if rear-ended....so, to be effectual as a "flying bomb". I guess it'd have to fly backwards....well, let's see if we can work that out....).

BTW...I just noticed (because of my dyslexic typing skills) that "Pinto" can be re-spelled to "Pinot"...(as in, the wine)....

OK, off to open a bottle....hope my Pinot doesn't explode.....