I enjoy the Lockheed concept better, looks more stealthy.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
From 1991 forward all the various military of the world have moved towards stealth. For an analogy about it being useless. Painting vehicles the appropriate camouflage for the area of operations doesn't really do much against detection by electronic means. yet, it's still done. So even though "Stealth" is being perceived as "obsolete" by some it is the way pretty much all new designs are headed.

There is a difference in reducing the RCS and building a stealth VLO airframe. There are only two (known) VLO aircraft in active service and both are extremely expensive to build and operate. Many nations are developing the technology, which only makes sense; far fewer will field these types because of the prohibitive costs.

If just one Stealth C-130 survives it's mission due to it's stealth design then it was money well spent.

The name of the game in air transport is tonnage per $. I don't want to know how many C-130's or A400M's (or even C-17's) you could buy for one of those beasts (not to mention development costs). A short look at the JSF program should tell you why this is NOT the way to go.
It's a very neat looking design (though not very stealthy with those very high-bypass ratio turbofans sitting there, which defeats the purpose of a LO design because those are going to be by far the highest contributor to its RCS.
There might be a SOF application, but is that enough to warrant development and production? Good luck squeezing that money out of congress.

Oh dear,

_Del_ I could not agree more, in fact I think you have been overly diplomatic in your appraisal.

This shows why the USAF/DoD/US Govt have gone troppo (native) and are now seemingly divorced from reality. The guy(s) who thought up this lunacy should be fired on the spot with the file marked "never to be re-employed". What kind of irresponsible idiot dreams up such a plan when A) The past and present history of stealth programs has seen nothing but trouble, massive cost blow outs, and greatly extended development times, not to mention underperformance compared to original requirements and unrealistic operating cost claims. B) A fiscal situation that is bordering on calamity as well as a money sucking pair of increasingly protracted and pointless conflicts. Dont even get me started on the fact that LM could potentially be involved.

In fact I cant even see the point of this idea on several levels. Exactly what are they going to do with it, provide stealth delivered rations to forward operating bases? As you pointed out, "it's about the cost per tonne stupid!" They would be far better off with a follow on batch of 100-150 of Boeing's STOL version of the C-17. And/or some of the emerging designs for large payload airship concepts at a fraction of the cost.

Is the idea somehow you could have mass airdrops using these to establish a beachhead? Yeah of course that would work, there is no way the enemy wouldn't notice a heap of stealthy transports turning up disgorging troops and equipment in their backyard.

If it's for SOF then you DONT need a lot of large airframes. They will spend 99% of there lives not needing there stealth attributes. It would be far better to have a rolling development small scale cheap rapid prototype effort, with say no more than a dozen or two airframes built with as many cheap off the shelf systems as possible. Turn it into a major program and it WILL become a cash monster.

And as we all know, stealth is all about staying ahead of the development curve. How will they ensure that it is multi radar band effective, now and into the future? Exactly what will they do development wise to minimize it's detection via EO or thermal detection or even acoustic for that matter? Many EO systems are now approaching radar in there range, discrimination, and accuracy. And they are more difficult to spoof with false returns.

In short this is a dumb pointless exercise whose idea should buried never to see the light of day again. It's not cool it's dangerously irresponsible. Because if it were to get any legs via congress or senior brass, then you can be sure the US itself will not survive with leadership like that.

LEE.

You want stealth than go for a clocking device. They are a reality and almost nothing is heard about this technology.

Concept looks cool. Doesn't seem practical in my opinion. Stealth air drops? Stealth spec op drops(we already have the HAHO and HALO jumps)?

And airflow at high AOA...

they may look like the Lockheed Martin's MACK Concept

They can try a C-130 replacement just like they attempted a B-52 replacement. Both are getting close to 65+ years for the design of the airframes. At a airshow recently a guy couldn`t have put it any better,
"It will take a Hercules to replace a Hercules"

Ive been watching these things for years and ive got a good mind to convert one to a flying RV