I've always been a fan of the hybrid blimp/flying wing/hovercraft
concept, which I thought as only being developed by a few of the
barmier wildcat
aviation entrepreneurs. However, thanks to browsing on
Peter's directory of stupid photos, I come across this photo
of soemthing which (a) doesn't look
faked, and (b) has Lockheed Martin plastered all over the side. So I do
some digging, and rapidly I find this
article - apparently LM did a test flight way back in May!
Sheesh! How come I didn't spot this? Darn it.
(For those who aren't familiar with the concept, the thing get almost
all of its lift from the airbags like a blimp, but the last little bit
which gets it off the ground comes from the wing shape of the whole
thing, giving it enough lift to be able to take off from short,
unprepared runways. The undercarriage is made of of hovercraft-like
airpads, which enable it to land on rough ground and can also be
swapped from 'blow' to 'suck' to prevent it from zooming up into the
air when you take all the heavy cargo out. Genius or what? LM don't
want to talk about it, but apparently aviation geeks are guessing the
prototype has a cargo capacity of about 3-5 tons).
4 comments:
Thunderbird 2, with a new paint job?
img src=http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2006/07/polecat.jpg
Skunk Works' Polecat printable robotic plane
Posted Jul 23rd 2006 9:15AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Robots, Transportation
It's not often we're sitting on a sophisticated 3D printer and four tons of material, but Lockheed Martin apparently wanted to see if they could "print" out a new plane from their Skunk Works facility in California. The result is the Polecat, a 91-foot wide, four-ton unmanned flying wing with the major claim to fame being that most of its internal structures were rapid prototyped on said 3D printers. Our broke selves still have to stick with printing out our airplanes in paper (though our folding techniques have significantly advanced since the Cold War), but it's strange to think of a future where aircraft (and landcraft, and seacraft) aren't built by people and machines, but instead are squirted out of tanks
nuts.
I tried
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/23/skunk-works-polecat-printable-robotic-plane/
Gizmag ran a similar article.
http://www.gizmag.com/go/6430/
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