A 1976 report to NASA details a few Boeing concepts for span-loaded cargo aircraft. Spanloaders use fat wings… wings fat enough that the cargo goes in them rather than the fuselage. The purpose of this is that it distributes the weight of the cargo along the wing, lowering stresses on the wing (while conventional aircraft have massively heavy fuselages attached at basically a single point to lightweight wings, meaning a massive point loading and moment arm). Obviously, the idea has never caught on. This sort of thing really only works for LARGE cargo lifters, and there’s a limited market for those. Additionally, they require very wide runways, something not needed by conventional cargolifters.
The initial Boeing model 759-163A, with 600,000 pounds payload (payload bays sized for both standard freight containers and to hold M-60 tanks). Note the offset cockpit.
In-flight view of the refined model 759-165A.
General arrangement drawing of Model 759-165A. It would cruise at Mach 0.68, 28,000 feet, for a range of 3000 nautical miles. Payload would be 697,800 pounds.
A wide range of sizes were possible.
4 Responses to “Boeing Spanloader”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
it looks like this huge Russian airplane from the 30’s I dont know if I post a link it would be blocked but here it goes;
http://englishrussia.com/?p=2231
Point 1: The blog’s automated spamblocker goes after posts including two or more links, so you’re ok there…
Point 2: The CG aircraft shown on that site is based on actual aircraft designs, but was extrapolated in a sci-fi direction of Anime Bigness. Having triple-cannon turrets off of battleships mounted above and below, and going after Nazi flying saucers, are subtle hints….
Still, it’s nicely done.
Oh, how wonderfully awesome would that have been!
In my fantasies, I wish there was a niche that these giants could take in the shipping world…
As a note, the CEO of Burnelli aircraft one “Slick” Godlin is quite proud to have been part of the “effect” that killed this particular idea and a later concept of the “Husky”. I’ve an article on the Burnellie lifting fuselage were it’s admitted that all he and the company ‘produce’ anymore is accusations of patent theft towards anyone who might make anything they consider a “Burnelli” design.
Randy