Darpa Airship Vs. Boeing Pelican

What craft would you like to see take shape?

Darpa's Airship which could hold 1,000 tons!
Darpa Blimp
or another Airship info site

Vs.

Boeing's "Pelican" Airplane which just friken' huge!
The Enormous Pelican Plane

I would rather see the Pelican if I had to choose only one. But I think they both might have important roles.

Also the Cargo blimp idea really belongs to the Germans they already have one under constuction and the loads (160 tons) it can carry are quite impressive. They have already building one of the largest hangers in the world to house it, a structure that could completely enclose the Louisiana Superdome,

www.howstuffworks.com...

according to the webpage, the pelican flies at just 20ft above the sea... weird!

-koji K.

It flies that low to take advantage of a areodynamic phenomenom where the planes velocity helps support it in flight making it the plane feel like its sitting on a cushion of air.

Yeah the Germans are good. That hangar is finished (old link). The CL 160 will take its first flight around 2004 or 05. But This Darpa's Blimp will make that one look wimpy.

Better Pelican Link

100 ft waves
This may make Boeing re-think there Pelican Plans.

Originally posted by koji_K
according to the webpage, the pelican flies at just 20ft above the sea... weird!

-koji K.

Actually it is based on a Russian design, which used ground effects, but was jet powered. These aricraft are known as ekranoplanes.I have seen video of it in action, and it was capable of carrying 1000 tons and looked much better than the boeing version.

A Russian ekranoplane:
members.lycos.co.uk..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>

[edit on 8-8-2004 by TACHYON]

Yeah but didn't the russian have some bad accidents with these planes that caused them to scrap the program? I would prefer the Boeing plane over a blimp. The Pelican looks like Noah's Arc on steroids combined with modern tech. Why do the wings come down wont they hit waves that might cause turbulence or cause it to crash? The jet engines are not necessary why would you want this plane going at mach one or 2 over the ocean so low its suicide. The 100 foot waves only happen near shore or in a storm out at sea, but with our modern tech and military weather satellites we can stay away form heading into a storm.



[edit on 8-8-2004 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Yeah but didn't the russian have some bad accidents with these planes that caused them to scrap the program? I would prefer the Boeing plane over a blimp. The Pelican looks like Noah's Arc on steroids combined with modern tech. Why do the wings come down wont they hit waves that might cause turbulence or cause it to crash? The jet engines are not necessary why would you want this plane going at mach one or 2 over the ocean so low its suicide. The 100 foot waves only happen near shore or in a storm out at sea, but with our modern tech and military weather satellites we can stay away form heading into a storm.



[edit on 8-8-2004 by WestPoint23]

the waves happen when the wind is going in the opposite direction than the waves,so yes they can stay away from them,they happen mainly in the sea near norwegia,north antlantic and south africa

I guess you cant be flying it in the North Sea, with all those stormy waters hehe.

Originally posted by TACHYON
I guess you cant be flying it in the North Sea, with all those stormy waters hehe.

Acually it can still fly at normal airliner hieght, but it gets its best engine performance at 20 ft.

I think, I would go with the Pelican, but a blimp you don't much relience on other countries.
Ex: No need for a big airport. While yes it's still slower then the Pelican, but its much faster then our current ships that we use.
Now that I think about it I would go with the Airship

A blimp would probably be better for domestic purposes such as construciton.

An oversized Airship would be nearly perfect for low clearance Urban areas for quick drops.

However, with areas with SkyScrapers, troop drop and supply drop is nearly impossible with any aerial vehicle of this magnitude.

The Pelican and the Airship both have different applications and both have their strengths, that is why selecting one will be extrememly difficult.

We can just hope the right decision is made.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Yeah but didn't the russian have some bad accidents with these planes that caused them to scrap the program?
[edit on 8-8-2004 by WestPoint23]

- No, I don't think so.

In fact everything I've ever heard about their program was positive, in the event of an accident those kind of 'aircraft' are much safer than ploughing into the ground at 600mph from 35 000ft.

The story I heard was that they just ran out of funding.

BTW, isn't the Pelican just an old paper plane? Surely it isn't current?

[edit on 8-8-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
An oversized Airship would be nearly perfect for low clearance Urban areas for quick drops.

However, with areas with SkyScrapers, troop drop and supply drop is nearly impossible with any aerial vehicle of this magnitude.

The Pelican and the Airship both have different applications and both have their strengths, that is why selecting one will be extrememly difficult.

We can just hope the right decision is made.

Shattered OUT...

\


Yeah thats true Iraq is just full of huge skyscrappers. (sarcasm off)

Here's how i see it.....You can carry more slowly or carry less quicker.

I don't see how having one gigantic vehicle is better than a few smaller ones. If anything, having one concentrated target is worse than having a few distributed ones, which are harder to hit. Smaller vehicles would be easier to handle and land. The costs of a smaller fleet can in fact be less, due to more tried and true designs.

I highly doubt Pelican will be constructed. Just imagine multimilion aircraft flying so low - how many of them would be lost? C-17 costs over 100 mil.$, so I don;t think somenone would build 500 mil. $ Pelicans and let them fly 30 feet above see level.
Airship cost less and is mucheasier to maintain and operate.

I would choose the Blimp due to it's higher fuel efficiency.

Well I suppose that they could be pretty handy... but still all too easy to shoot down, and if the plane gets destroyed... You loose a lot of cargo, not just little if 1 plane goes down...