Stealth C-130

reply to post by allenidaho


You need to put the engine nacelles on top of the wing and slide them back past the leading edge. Their current location will give a massive return from the area between the nacelles and the cockpit and from the engine blades. Other than that it is a beautiful design.

reply to post by JIMC5499


Yeah - the engine nacelles in all of these leave teh fan blades exposed - not stalthy at all!

Adn having the engines in the middle of the wing is a structural nightmare - the main wing spars have to go over or under (or both) them, making the design difficult, heavier than it needs to be, hard to maintain & damage intolerant.

So.....pretty.....but not all that practical.

I enjoy the Lockheed concept better, looks more stealthy.

Originally posted by Laxpla
Here is a pic of Lockheed's concept.

Can you imagine Fat Albert being replaced by this sucker?

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.

Dont hold back there Lee!!

I agree though that it seems a pointless waste of money, Stealth Transport Plane indeed.

I mean its OK saying its for special ops but you still need a runway to land on, pretty dangerous landing in the dark in an unknown terrain in a Billion Dollar aircraft. Its still going to be noisy too.

So then the only people who would benefit are possibly Paratroopers and when was the last time they were used in the traditional role.

I am unsure as to what conflicts these would be useful however, they do look nice.

Check out this post from 2008 www.abovetopsecret.com...

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

reply to post by flycatch


A reality huh?? Well tell us all about what is known about it then....

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)?

reply to post by Theprimevoyager


So, a completely new airframe would still be called a C-130? Ummm, why?

reply to post by allenidaho


This is what I had in mind.



I hope that you don't mind that I edited your design allenidaho.

The leading edge of the wing should block the turbine blades from ground based radar.

And airflow at high AOA...

reply to post by _Del_


Not as much as you might think. Laminar flow would provide adequate air flow for the engines. You would gain from both the upper wing surface and the fuselage.

At high AOA the flow is no longer laminar. It begins to seperate.

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

reply to post by JIMC5499


You start messing around with stealth and you would reduce the amount of wieght you can carry. Your design although cool looking wouldn`t be practical for a cargo aircraft. Without those big wings you wont get much lift and a lifting body fuselage needs speed to work.

The mission for a stealthy tactical insertion for Spec Ops forces might need a new aircraft altogether which is why the need for a stealth C-130 might be in the works. For those missions a smaller jet would be more practical and logical, something like a coroporate jet (Leer Jet) outfitted for military use.

reply to post by StratosFear


I was thinking along these lines as well. The C-130 is the workhorse because of its simplicity. It can land almost anywhere, it can use rocket assist to take off from almost anywhere. It can easily be set up as an AC-130 gunship, or a bomber, or a cargo ship. It can fly effectively on a single engine. It can take a lot of flack and buffeting and cross wind and still takeoff, fly, and land without incident.

I don't think replacing a plane like the C-130 with some kind of fancy jet is a good idea at all.

Look at the A-10. How many times have they retired that thing and then immediately brought it back because nothing else can do what it does.

Instead of redesigning the C-130 with a bunch of new technology and failure points and unproven design, why not just slowly refurb them with newer materials and slight modifications and improve on the already outstanding performance of a good plane?

I can't get enough of these videos! This thing is a monster! I used to sit by my pool near Navarre Beach and watch the gunships fire at one of the Hurlburt ranges at dusk. Pretty amazing thing to watch.