Old Airlift Vehicle Concept Made New

starexplorer writes "LiveScience is reporting on an early conceptual design of The Walrus the DOD's new planned 'very large airlift vehicle'." Could the concept of a 'war-balloon' really be gaining favor again?

Protection Methods???

[Nerd Systems]

I read this story and it is very impressive how much tonnage that this device can carry... only one question comes to mind... how are they going to protect it?

Based on the size of this warship, not to mention the slowness of it, am sure that it can't just easily outrun a fighter jet sent to destroy it, or be able to perform evasive manuevers...

I can imagine that it will be escorted by a fighter division, not to mention have some high-tech anti-missle weapons and the like, yet I can see an air to air missle easily bypassing those protections and bringing down a TON of hardware with it... major catastrophe...

Anyone have any ideas what sort of protection methods will be used to protect this massive warship, as well as if this will be used for strictly hardware transport, or troop transportation as well?

We shall find out shortly it seems...

Re:At Last!!!

[winkydink]

C5s & C141s are not exactly small & speedy.

Commercial Uses Galore

[WindBourne]

Nice thing about this, is it would be perfect for doing firefighting or even work in 9/11-katrina areas (think of it as a floating hospital, or simply ability to drop in national guard, etc). Hopefully, it gets used.

Re:Protection Methods???

[greulich]

The Goodyear blimps come home with bullet holes all of the time. An airship is a lot more difficult to bring down than you would think.

As long as you don't coat it in rocket fuel of course... ;)

Heavy lift aircraft don't usually do combat drops

[Shivetya]

except from altitude and even then they are rarely if ever deployed in heavily contested areas. Most of the time they require large airstrips which in itself implies control over land and air of the region.

What it does offer is many possiblities for not just military operations. If these things pan out in efficiency you can bet UPS and FED Ex would want them. Let alone the possibilities of flying cruise ships!

FWIW, anything is a target for a terrorist, though preference is giving to things that don't shoot back.

Big Brother

[uncoveror]

Instead of for transport, big baloons and dirigibles will be used for surveillance! Imagine a huge blimp using clouds as camouflage! [uncoveror.com] It is watching us all more closely than any satellite, and we don't know they are there. They will be like floating death stars!

Stupid but not that stupid

[A nonymous Coward]

Only a few comments so far, most of them about how easy it would be to shoot it down.

But it won't be that easy. First of all, compartmentation. No doubt the bag will be at least dozens, if not hundreds, of individual compartments. Weight prevents anything equivalent to a ship with thousands of watertight compartments, but there will certainly be enough that bullets won't be much of a danger. The lifting gas won't be under pressure, so it won't start rips that widen the holes. And certainly the gas bag material will have anti-rip threading.

It won't use hydrogen either, no one is that stupid. Helium is the lifting gas of choice.

Shoulder fired missles are not a threat. This thing will fly above them. Their range is only a couple of miles. Full sized missles and full size AAA are a different matter, but again, compartmentation will help, and gas bags probably don't provide much of a radar signature to trigger fuzes, nor does the gas bag itself offer enough resistance to trigger most fuzes; they will probably fly right through and leave behind a few holes, trivial to patch.

Which brings up damage control. I am sure the crew will be able to climb around inside and apply temporary patches.

I think these heavy lift combat balloons are a silly idea. But they aren't nearly as silly as so many quick posts make out.

Re:Commercial Uses Galore

[WindBourne]

When we have forest fires, we need to get tons of water in on top of the trees. Being able to load up from a lake and literally bring in 100 tons and slowly drop it in on top of them, would help a great deal with all the fires that we have in west. Right now, the approach is to use an old bomber and try and bring it in as fast as possible and get back to the fire asap. With this approach, we can simply lower a number of hoses and spray. Or we can just dump (you prefer being in closer though, and that will not happen with a large craft. Keeping 10 of these around the west, would allow us to quickly stop a fire and move the vehicle to the next fire. At the very least, it will allow for controlling the fire.

You said it yourself......

[reality-bytes]

Warship.

Even the most modern, lumbering Aircraft Carrier is a big target for waiting submarines / strike aircraft so you protect it.

You protect these things according to their strategic value. ie: The Aircraft carrier is strategically valuable so you give it a Frigate / Destroyer screen along with air-cover.

In the case of the huge HTA cargo carrier, you likewise protect it with fighters, refuellers etc and because it can carry huge ammounts, perhaps give it it's own air to air missile system.

Given it's size / lifting capability, perhaps these warships could also carry a Phallanx / Goalkeeper type system.

Re:Helicopters

[CrankyFool]

I'm sure you'd like a fleet of these, but helicopters are intensely expensive in terms of maintenace-per-flying-hour and these guys can only carry about 18 tons each (36K pounds). If the Walrus can do 500 tons, that's the equivalent of 27 helicopters and for many cases that do not involve threat of enemy activity (e.g. ferrying troops from VA to Germany) ... it's probably good enough, and much more economical.

Re:Rrriiight.... Cargolifter, anyone ?

[LnxAddct]

The difference between those who fail and those who succeed is those who succeed usually fail more but eventually succeed from learning from their history. If you give up when something doesn't work, then why try at all? There is a quote from someone saying something to the affect of "If you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're not thinking revolutionary enough".
Regards,
Steve

Re:Protection Methods???

[SmittyTheBold]

Reference?

I'm surprised those blimps are fired upon...but then again, we Americans are a little stupid.

Popular Mechanics will have a blimp issue soon

[wtoconnor]

Ever since I was little kid Popular Mechanics has been predicting the retunr of the blimp. Hope springs eternal.