Sep 062011
I always thought this was a neat idea. It comes back from time to time, but never seems to get anywhere.
[youtube lmDUreOT5lE]
6 Responses to “Fairchild XC-120 Packplane”
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I always thought this was a neat idea. It comes back from time to time, but never seems to get anywhere.
[youtube lmDUreOT5lE]
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Regular shipping containers goes through some series abuses by dock/airport workers and are design for that, not something you can easily incorporate into a lightweight structure.
Thunderbird 2 is GO!
That looks like a job for Scaled Composites!
What would have been fun is to drop a motorized tracked landing vehicle with troops aboard, like a Amtrak, around a half mile offshore via the LAPS technique, with them then doing a surprise landing.
The basic concept did get used in a operational helicopter form during Vietnam with the Skycrane and its pre-equipped underbelly hospital pod.
Hmmm, a “thought” here….
“Bundling” together a series of standard cargo containers and simply adding a forward and aft fairing…
A sky-going “container” ship?
Actually I’ve seen a patent or two with pretty much that exact concept except IIRC they really go on to add a whole “framework” around the containers to attach the engines and aerosurfaces too…
Randy
> “Bundling” together a series of standard cargo containers and simply adding a forward and aft fairing…
The closest I’ve seen to that are:
1) The Lockheed “Flatbed,” which was a conventional sort of aircraft but with the fuselage chopped down to a low, flat strongback
2) A Russian design (Myasishchev “Romb”) which had a forward fuselage, an aft tail, and suspended the cargo modules between the two, and had, IIRC, diamond-planform wings to hold fore and aft together