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Why are you always wrong ? Do your Research ! Stingray hydro sub has been around since 2015 - Turkey military has one and 2 are parked clearly on Google earth at 2 American ports. It looks exactly like a gigantic stingray and you can't miss it. It's sits between 2 battleships and is 3 times as wide.. If you actually fact checked your own team you'd know and not look stupid
We need a Megaprojects video that goes over the entirety of Simon's career, here, on youtube. I mean, he runs Megaprojects, Sideprojects, Xplord, Into The Shadows, Warographics, and definately a few others. I'd say that is, truly, a Mega Project.
Fairly certain Simon no longer works with Xplrd. Also, you forgot the holy trinity of Simon's channels; Brain blaze, Decoding the Unknown, and The Casual Criminalist
@@larryblake842 I left out geographic's, biographics, and top 10s cos he no longer does those. I think the rest is Astrographics, today I found out, Places and I feel like I'm missing one more.
@@burtdurger847he has a good tone, right speech cadence and is fairly animated about every subject he does. I'm not surprised he has a lot of channels/jobs. Plus a lot of similar UA-camrs will have some sort of related video of Simon's in the scroll bar. I found decoding the unknown while watching The Why Files, AJ is pretty good too.
At 3:08, Peter Ong, with naval news, called the govt and asked about the plane they are gonna use against China… no wonder they said “no idea what your talking about sir”
Good point. It would be the ideal vessel to swiftly reinforce an atoll or a small island. Think of a small fleet of these bringing in e.g. a patriot system within a day or two, add some two or three semi stationary as a forward command-control centre with the necessary base infrastructure. Maybe even a drone operation centre or electronic warfare. All you need is a protected harbour, something like a lagoon, and a patch of dry land. No runway or large quais with deep water access. It would also work with larger lakes (hence the true flight capability) and estuaries/rivers.
Yeah, but probably not for use in the Taiwan Strait area because ground effect vehicles struggle so much in the types of weather conditions that are so often found there
That rapid airfield seizure mission is almost solely the job of the 82nd Airborne Division and the 20th Airborne Engineer Brigade @Ft.Bragg/Liberty. The specific mission is called GRF (Global Reaction/Respone Force.) These Army units constantly rotate to ensure there is always soldiers ready to deploy within 18hrs to sieze, secure, and repair airfields. I had the pleasure of being on this GRF mission multiple times while I was stationed at Bragg from 08-11. I was an Airborne Combat Engineer, by the way.
I had an association with a company that sells a soil binding product to the military for this application. They mix the polymer fluid with soil and then roll it out for temporary repairs to runways, and set up permanent helicopter landing pads. The idea is they get a tank of this stuff with the first wave, and it hardens into a load bearing, dust free, water resistant surface within a hour.
Thank you guys for your service. I can't believe so many Americans are considering re-electing Trump who wants to become a dictator. After you fine ladies and gentlemen risked your lives in service to others around the world and you come home to this dysfunction. Two old men one who means well, but is too old, and one that's too old with delusions of grandeur and wants to destroy our constitution. I'm not sure what happened while you were away. I was here and I didn't notice anything other then the rich stealing more then normal in the first trump election. Nothing unusual other then the rich stealing more and more every year even before that, but that one event may have triggered sleepy Joe into fighting this one through to the end. What do you think? Why else is he still in there?
82nd Signal here. Late 90s. I heard Bragg Blvd. and Yadkin Rd. went to shit since I was in. Too bad. I used to go clubbing a lot off base back in the day.
@rtqii So, I have heard of this stuff, but we never used it. We used an expanding plastic/polymer honeycomb reinforcement, like "Geocell". We would use two layers of this honeycomb during the process of repairing any crater or hole in the runway surface, no matter if the surface hardball or dirt. I was there from 08-11. It may just not have been in service yet or at least not widely used. It sounds like it would be extremely useful.
I am a big seaplane fan - BUT there are things to be said: Any ground effect vehicle is good - as long as there are no big waves and there is no bad weather... even when a future "liberty lifter" can climb in "aircraft mode" up to an altitude of 10 000 feet - that means not that it can climb out of bad weather like any "normal" cargo plane. Second: The idea of "starting and Landing at every shoreline worldwide" sounds great (the german seaplane constructor Claude Dornier used to speak of the "worldwide aerodrome" available for seaplanes) - but in reality things are quite different: Look at the places in north america where a lot of seaplanes are used - you must bring the cargo to the seaplane, you need docking and repair installations, the air- and seatraffic must be coordinated - short: You need dedicated seaplane-airports, or seaplane-harbors, or seaplane-stations or however you will call them - perhaps the "liberty lifter" will be an amphibian so that it can start and land on a normal runway at an normal (military) airport, but at least for training there must be some "wet" landing and starting facilities... and those stations must be build, manned, maintained etc. - and all this new-to-build infrastructure must be paid, and added into the calculation for the rentability of the "liberty lifter".... - and there are many people that think that there are better ways to use idyllic shorelines than building there military bases for noisy seaplanes.... Third: Flying so low over the water - there will be a lot of problems with bird-strikes... and an collision with an 30 lbs albatros at 100 knots can do a lot of damage, even to such an big aircraft like the planned "liberty lifter"... I dont believe that this project, that seems to be an only US Marine Corps idea, will be realised. 🤔🤔🤔
6 meter waves is weather with 40+ knot winds, and that stops all aircraft, small watercraft, and larger watercraft can only barely make way. GEVs are not as a type particularly vulnerable to weather.
They used them just fine in WWII with none of the nonsense bureaucracy you speak of, when WWIII is knocking on your door all that crap falls out the back window very rapidly.
@@confuciuslola edit - damn, shoulda watched the whole video first, they mention the ekranoplan later 😂, moments after I posted. Disregard the stuff he already goes over in the video 😂. the Caspian Sea Monster” - another term (Russian?) for them is Ekranoplans and I feel that one of the million channels that Simon narrates 😂 did a video on it. If it wasn’t one of his, there’s at least one good video about it, I believe it’s rotting on a beach along the Caspian coastline somewhere to this day. I don’t believe the Russian one had the ability to get truly airborne (ie more than about 20 feet above water surface), and if I recall the video correctly even an inland sea like the Caspian had weather that would sometimes prevent its use. This would certainly be a very useful capability but I too fear that it’s not very realistic. A fully laden GEV would probably require quite a long time to get to an altitude where it’s safe from sea-level weather, and pretty sure 10k feet isn’t high enough either, commercial jets typically fly between 28k and as much as 40k-ish feet and are still occasionally susceptible to severe turbulence. With the military looking to SpaceX to be able to deliver payloads anywhere on earth within a few hours via Starship / Super Heavy, this seems unlikely to ever happen.
If anyone is curious, ground effect is caused when within a wingspan or so of the surface. Air flows up and over and around the wings then swirls under them approximately the height of the wingspan when flying, especially in slow and heavy flight. This air flowing over the wings creates that cushion of air between the wings and ground allowing very low drag flight and the ability to fly at less than the stall speed. You learn this your first week of flight training, as in a smaller plane it really effects takeoff and landing. It's cool to see projects taking advantage of this
Hovercraft do it by mechanically compressing the air with intake fans. GEVs do it by forward motion and under current air compressed by sloping an unusual wing with higher angle than normal wing. The problem with GEV is when the altitude of GEV is higher than length of the wing, the ground effect is lost. That’s what kept Ekrano plane from becoming popular… it’s an engineer’s wet dream and a soldier’s nightmare (of riding in it).
I feel like I've heard of ground affect planes my entire life, and all the benefits that comes with taking advantage of it. And yet only the Soviets made a prototype that wasn't nearly as useful as it should have been. Honestly I've been pining for the US to use sea planes. They just seem so useful to me seeing with how much we transport. I was always told they have the capabilities to be as big as you want since run ways aren't an issue. Not that you can just fly anywhere at anytime. Weather of course is a huge issue. Hope to see this project take off.
@@viewer3412Thanks for posting that about hover craft. I was going to post it in an other thread, but honestly wasn't positive if I remember it correct. I still don't know how it is the same effect technically. I get they both use cushions of air, but one keeps it in with thrusters down. Feel like that is the same as saying a jet turbine is the same as a helicopter blades. Both produce thrust by moving air.
This is an exxciting development. I'm in the "autumn of my years" but as a retired airline pilot I do hope someday to see this float and fly. I suppose it will be assigned to the Navy although the Air Force is usually tasked with the heavy airliift machinery.
This seems like a good tool for the South China Sea. Not only because the logistics, but this could hide near the sea surface, pop up and drop a bunch of Rapid Dragon pallets and then drop back down.
It's a common myth that they're limited to glassy calm conditions. You might have missed the part about the design requirements specifying flight up to 3km height. That's some serious waves if they're over 10,0000 feet high.
Ground effect is optimal in proportion to wing length, big wing still gets you above almost anything shy of seas that would give most ships a problem (maybe even worse ones) out of ground efffect makes it a thirsty slow C-17 or C130. OK just not as fuel efficient or maybe reducing the load.
If it ever gets off the ground (...er, water), I can see applications for it to be used as a fire fighting unit, or a quick response floating hospital/surgical outfit.
2:15 *in the back of my head to marching cadence* "C-130 rollin down the strip!" (echo) "C-130 rollin down the strip!" "Airborne Dady on a one way trip" (echo) "Airborne daddy on a one way trip!" "uhGet up, Hook Up, Shuffle to the door!" (echo) "Get up! Hook Up! Shuffle to the door!" "uhJump right out and a count to four!" (echo) "Jump right out and a count ta four!" "And if my bag don't open wide!" (echo) "and if my bag dont open wide!" "I gotta ree zerve by my side" (echo) "I gotta Ree Zerve by my side" "And if that one should fail me too!" (echo) "And if that one should fail me too!" "This countryside, im plowin through!" (echo) "this countryside, im plowin through!" "And if i should die on this ole drop zone!" (echo) "And if i should die on this ole drop zone! "Box me up and ship me home!" (echo) "Box me up and ship me home!" "Tell my parents i did my best!" (echo) "Tell my parents i did my best!" "To bury me in a front lean rest!" (echo) to bury me in front lean rest!" "Sound off!" (troop) "One, two" "Sound off!" (troop) Three, Four!" "Sound off! (troop) "Give, Me!" "Sound off!" (troop) "Lots, More!" and then you start over...... the only thing i remember from ROTC beside PT, and Detail as punishment. and i think about it every sing time i see a military transport plane, but especially when a c-130 pops up. In any variant! lol
I've been out of the Marines for 2 decades, and they were looking into WIGE aircraft for deploying battalion size elements back when I was still in, the idea was that 1 or 2 planes could deploy an entire MEU battalion anywhere in the world within 24 hours.
Simon, I enjoyed this video (and your other videos too) and how you described the GA design as the “fun” design. lol. I am the aeronautical engineer who performed the conceptual design of the vehicle. I would love to tell you about the “mustache things” and other unique features of how they improve the performance of the vehicle. Bill Fredericks
Before the seaplane version of the MC-130J, Lockheed-Georgia Company looked at several amphibious configurations of the C-130 Hercules, between 1964 and 1973. In 1968, a US Navy study contract resulted in a one-sixth scale, radio controlled model that was used as a development tool. Called Hercules-On-Water, or HOW, the design kept much of the original C-130 configuration, but this version used a retractable hydro-ski beneath the boat hull-shaped fuselage for takeoff and landing. The design’s Allison T56 engines were inverted and placed on top of the wing to take the intakes and propellers out of the water spray, similar to the configuration used on the P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft. No production contracts were received and the Hercules-On-Water project was shelved.
The Boeing Pelican ULTRA (Ultra Large Transport Aircraft) was a proposed ground effect fixed-wing aircraft under study by Boeing Phantom Works in the early 2000s. ... Capacity: 3,000 passengers AND 2,800,000 lb (1400 US tons) ... Cruise speed: 280 mph (in ground effect mode) less than 100 feet (30 m) from sea level Cruise speed: @ Altitude (20,000 to 25,000 ft) 460 mph ... Range At 750-short-ton payload (1,500,000 lb; 680,000 kg; 680 t): 10,000 nmi (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) in ground effect 6,500 nmi (7,500 mi; 12,000 km) at 20,000 feet
Given the increase in efficient, I wonder how good it would be in a commercial rather than military context. Slower than regular cargo planes but WAY faster than ships and possibly striking a really nice balance of speed and cost per cargo ton mile. You'd have to work out onload/offload infrstructure but if that can be managed relatively easily with regular port facilities, churning out thousands of these for commercial use would do wonders for the per unit costs for both commercial an military version.
But that speed increase really isn't anywhere near enough to account for the massive drop in quantity. I like the idea, but, while it can cover long distances way faster, it can only carry a small percentage of what those massive ships carry, meaning it would have to be fast enough to make many trips over that long distance in the same amount of time that the ship takes. Cargo ships typically carry anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 containers. This plane concept is only meant to hold 6. Even for the lowest end cargo ships, that would mean the plane would have to make over 800 trips back and forth to get the same amount of cargo. Planes typically cover in a couple hours the distance that a ship would go in an entire day, but that means that, if a ship would've taken a day to deliver 5,000 containers, the plane would take well over 4 months to make enough trips to deliver the same cargo over the same distance. That is a massive drop in efficiency.
Genuinely I’ve believed in this concept for years. Ground effect craft get more efficient the bigger they are, so a freight plane crossing the ocean would be a perfect application, and since it can fly out of ground effect it can avoid other sea traffic.
I've been dreaming of the return of the giant sea planes, since I was a kid in the 1980's, seeing the Boeing 312 Clipper play a great part in Raiders of the Lost Ark!
I smell a massive intra branch fight coming here. There’s no way the navy department is going to let Air Force have this plane as this definitely belongs with the Navy/Marines over the Air Force. Wondering who will win this fight.
It'll more than likely go to the Marines, they already operate their own C-130s, an amphibious tactical airlifter would be right in their wheelhouse. I don't see the Air Force wanting any part of this. I also don't see the project getting very far, the Navy and Marines already do the "anywhere in the world, anytime" thing with existing equipment, very effectively, without the risk of getting a fancy seaplane blown up on a beach because its effectively defenseless on its own. The LCACs are too good-enough to make this make sense, especially with how much they'll cost in the end.
By existing agreements, there would be no fighting at all. By defining it as Strategic Airlift it fits solely into Air Force territory. Only relatively short range cargo airlift belongs to anyone else, meaning mostly helicopters and Ospreys as well as the existing C-2 Greyhound for delivering cargo aboard carriers. Other branches use C-130s in a tactical or support role but not in a strategic airlift role.
@kell7195 China has them for a very specific use case, the US has a dozen Aircraft Carriers and a dozen more amphibious assault ships, and even more various amphibious landing ships, all protected by the strongest navy on earth by a large margin. we don't need a seaplane because we can just roll an 800 foot warship carrying a battalion of Marines right up to the beach to do the same thing
They've tried this in the past, several times, as has russia. Works where the water is pretty flat but once you get 30 foot waves it's toast. Not to mention is not at all manoeuvrable because it can only roll a few degrees before a wingtip hits the water.
This is an update, or at least influenced by, those old Soviet ground effect ekranoplane concept of the 1970s-80s? Simon does mention some of their initial drawbacks however if the Soviets had continued with the program these would surely have been overcome as they were discontinued chiefly due to cost and changes in Soviet military doctrine during the Cold War.
Biggest issue with any sea born ground effect vehicle is size... size of waves...(notice all "videos" show mostly overly calm water.) Or size of craft needed to overcome the distance ratio needed to avoid large waves and maintain a decent stable ground effect.
People have been trying ground effect for 80 years. No one uses them at scale because it doesn't work. For example, you are cruising along just above the ocean and briefly look away to grab some water, smoked by large wave doing 200 miles per hour. Also choppy seas, prepare to have your teeth rattled out of your head. So you made it across the ocean but you need to land. Well weather has stirred up unexpectedly and you crash while trying to land. You might say, well it can be a traditional aircraft also. Well not with a max load which of course is it's advantage and will likely be used as such. Add in spray and corrosive nature of seawater... it's a really dumb idea and it's sad to see money being wasted on it.
It's also inherently torpedo and sea mine proof. Considering the US military's focus is on China, and the fact that much of the combat in a war with China would take place on the sea, having vehicles that can use the sea while avoiding hazards fielded by the enemy on the sea is a significant advantage. SAMs will also be disadvantaged, prompting the use of antiship missiles. However, there are much fewer antiship missiles in most arsenals since there are generally fewer ships needed to be defended against. Most also tend to move slower, focusing on endurance over speed, because boats aren't nimble targets like planes. Even modern antiship missiles, like the Russian Sizzler missile, are designed to be slow until the very last second before deploying a hypersonic burn. I don't know how effective something like this would be on a ground effect vehicle, but odds are it won't be the ideal weapon considering it's a completely different beast of a target. I imagine if this is a successful and effective vehicle, the Navy may even want heavily armed varriants for shore bombardments, or assaulting fleets. Honestly, why this concept has been ignored for so long is beyond me, considering the benefits potentially has to offer. Who knows, we may very well be seeing the first Sea BUFF.
As a submarine tracker/hunter…..this could be awsome as a humanitarian assistance vessel I’m thinking this would be unsurpassed would be incredible in the pacific island regions
@@Mr.Guild1971 not really let a marine landing force happen first then once a beachhead is established use these to bring anything you need quickly faster than other ships can. The 6 containers worth of spare parts and other essential supplies would be very useful.
So it's a slow, overloaded seaplane flown in ground effect with equipment to measure it's height above water/land? I'm not a pilot (oh wait, I forgot, I am), but any plane can be flown in ground effect. The reasons they are not include: bird density, water spray, dust, electric towers, buildings, other aircraft, .... (in a war zone, add lead, iron bits, DU, etc.) Then there's that thing about your wingtip hitting the ground when you turn. If you get high enough to avoid that, you're no longer in ground effect.
Well no, it’s supposed to go faster than current ground effect options, and it seems like it’s primarily built for ground effect over sea as it can elevate, so much of the debris options aren’t a problem, and it’s intended to fly straight for the most part over water, not to mention the efficiency requirements, it wouldn’t be all that overloaded per it’s design anyways, what are you talking about dude?
@@Yomotomen The reasons they are not include: bird density, water spray, dust, electric towers, buildings, other aircraft, .... (in a war zone, add lead, iron bits, DU, etc.) Then there's that thing about your wingtip hitting the ground when you turn. If you get high enough to avoid that, you're no longer in ground effect. You're not a pilot are you?
@@tsbrownie dude, ok, it’s built to operate near shore, thus away from the absolute vast majority of buildings, birdstrikes are a problem at anything close to the surface, but generally on the open sea, there won’t be as many that close to the surface, the choppy waters would be a problem and i’m sure they would have a solution for that too, it has enough propellers that if a couple go down it can still get the job done anyways, birdstrike or not, also, many of the particle based problems are mostly that for closed intake engines, this has open propellers, it’s a logistics vehicle that wouldn’t see the front lines of war, thus no lead, it’s built for amphibious vehicles too, so it may not even see a shore, thus little to no dust, it would deal with other aircraft the same way we have other logistics based aircraft deal with them, not a big deal, it wouldn’t have to be near electric towers, just avoid them with radar bro, pilot or not, these problems are regularly dealt with the likes of sessnas, i’m sure you’re a real pilot, but that’s clearly not enough to help you think about the fact that they already thought of these problems when the concepts were made, those folks make more in a week than you or i would in a year, they know what thet’re doing man.
@Yomotomen I'm also an engineer, and you're glossing over significant engineering problems. There's a reason we get paid well and why the russian's failed and why these are not being used for commercial goods rather than 747s. Icing is bad in clouds, in spray mist it would crash in seconds rather than a couple minutes. A few geese brought down Sully's plane. Salt spray in a jet engine will eat out the insides within hours. It also eats aluminum. A high speed wing even touching the water would be fatal. Etc. This thing has 1 purpose, to get money from the military and make profits.
@@Yomotomen You certainly have a lot of feelings. You need to do a lot of studying. And no, they don't make a lot more than me, maybe you, not me. You just make up stuff to fit what you want to believe. Engineers work with facts, not feelings.
If the concept of operations involves extended floating at the periphery of combat zones, it should probably have an organic self defense capability. One or two CIWS or SeaRAM would do. A formation of these flying low or a flotilla deploying troops would be very survivable in a lightly contested environment with that, and very vulnerable without it.
Convair made the Tradewinds R3Y that could and did fly and was in service. They even were able to use it as a airborne tanker refueling jet aircraft. It could haul almost as much as what this idea would cary. The Navy's problem at the time was that they wanted a means of carrying a nuke and we had airfields "EVERYWHERE" so why do we need to land on the sea. Times have changed and China has built islands and many of the thousands of runways are either not in friendly hands or not close enough to where what it carries needs to be. Martin built a swept wing seaplane that was designed as a nuclear bomber, but the airforce won that argument so it didn't get put into service. Currently the Navy is looking at Japan's seaplane for SAR and "other" uses. But it doesn't have a large carrying capacity.
With environmental awareness very strong the long term future of many airports is suspect. Lots of R&D on seaplanes with 2,000 seater trans-ocean proposed, this military led project can only accelerate civilian adoption. Liverpool's airport was located where it is on the riverbank of the Mersey estuary because seaplanes were common in the 1930s when the airport was built. It was ready for a seaplane terminal. In WW2 concrete runways were built en-mass pushing seaplanes out of the picture. Seaplanes are not expensive concrete runway dependent. Many rivers and estuaries can have a raft of runways as long as you like all on cheap water. So, taking into account trends, environmental concerns and technology advances, seaplane airports with high-speed trains serving them, it all makes sense.
We’ve nearly got the same capability of an amphibious c130 now with an airplane that has already flown with floats. The Basler BT-67. DC-3s were already designed for floats and all that would need to be done is renewed fabrication.
I doubt Navies as we know it will survivve very long if this liberty lifter is half of what they want. When you can gun up what is essentially a large plane and basically be anywhere on the planet in a matter of hours, with vehicles going 100s of miles an hour, and capable of operating on sea and land, the need for large expensive boats moving at a snails pace relatively other than as large gun platforms, basically goes away. But using big ships as a Naval force would basically become obsolete. You would need a couple aircraft carriers, a couple of large mobile seafaring gun and artillery platforms, and a few dozen/ few hundred of these liberty lifters. The Aircraft carriers bring the better-in-the-air craft, the weapons platforms keeps an eye out for subs, provides offshore artillery, and provides anti aircraft and large missle capability. The Liberty lifters, outfited for proper fighting use by tthe military, would literally be paradigm shifters!
This is like a miniture aircraft carrier but deployable anywhere in the world within 24 hours interesting concept. why not make it even bigger ? economies of scale could mean an increase in operational duration and ferry range.
I'd really like to see how those little winglets at the tips will fare when running up to a beach to unload the plane. Do they dig into the bottom or fold away? And I'm even more curious about the efficiency inland, where there's more chance on sand and rock than water.🤔
I would make it big enough that a few of them could carry a lot of ammo, food and fuel. Small ones won't have much of an impact, unless they build hundreds of them. Good luck getting that kind of funding. The beauty is that they are submarine and enemy surface ship proof, since they would be hard to detect and destroy, if they were fast enough. Operation in salt water will require careful choice of materials.
This would change the options of where can you land Marines from several hundred miles from the fleet that brought them to the theater of operations to where ever at any point. Anyone with satellites suddenly goes from having a good idea of where to reinforce to having to reinforce everywhere. This has enormous strategic implications.
Seaplanes striking forces such as the Navy looked into since the late '40s and '50s have always had that ability. I'm willing to bet that we and the USSR stopped investigating them nearly simultaneously because they were too dangerous and de-stabilizing. The first ever naval air strikes were from a Japanese seaplane tender, against German sites in Tsingtao in 1914. They continued operating with British forces until that German facility surrendered.
i wonder how well this would scale up even further. Could they make a plane that flies indefinitely, scaling it up, covered in solar panels and using electric propellers? I know there's an ultralight solar plane that can fly almost indefinitely, but Ground effect could add enough lift/efficiency to carry cargo/batteries or fly at higher speed.
Somebody has basically been there, done that. Sunders-Roe Princess, anyone? 😊 With 70 years of engineering development between now and her days, it should be no issue to scale up her design to the necessities. Correction: The ground effect is related to the _chord_ of the wing, NOT the wingspan. When the wing is less that its chord from the ground, it floats. Cessnas with their high wings experience only very marginal ground effects while all low wing planes floaaat on flare for touch down with the same wingspan. Chord/height, not wingspan!
Thank you FactBoy for giving me something to do when conversation with ChatGPT starts to lag. I know you’re busy feeding and watering your basement people, but Im’a take the opportunity as first comment to request that nature/animal channel you’re dragging your feet on. If you record it, they will watch.
Straight for realz. Ive been patient. Lol. Ive asked several times across several channels. I lays down the ultimatum. Lolol not for serious though. However. Ive have tried to ask what the proper channels are to submit scripts or apply to write for Simon. No one has answered. Is there an email to sumbit scripts to for possible acceptance? Do i need to register for a job website and wait for Simon to post an opening? Is there a PO box i need to send a hardcopy to? Is there a writers website i need to have a portfolio on? I am determined to find out. So to that end, instead of asking and then waiting a few months, hoping for a reply, and possibly passing yet another year or two with zero responses, i think im just gonna ask every video on every channel i follow, till someone grants me the knowledge i seek! Untill the next video.
Watch AirBus have a go at this concept! Do you think they could use a craft like this to compliment their Atlas A400M? Abso-bloody-lutely! The UK would LOVE to be a part of this project, or one very like it, to extend their UK military industrial capacity and reach out where UK special forces and the Royal Navy and Airforce currently need US assistance! the Australians would LOVE a piece of this action too, when you consider the number of island chains right off their coasts and all the way to China! As a "left field" idea, also consider the idea of sea-steading, where communities would need suppling on a regular basis from other coastal areas. As sea levels rise, this might just become the ONLY WAY to resupply communities LOST to climate change! That would mean this technology will become a de-facto CIVIL AIRLINE solution for many! I wouldn't be surprised if hybrid power could be used to motivate such planes once airborne, using hydrogen ICE engines for take-off and altitude, whilst they can be throttled back to "generator mode" once using ground effect and electric props taking the strain once on the deck and cruising! Solar panels integrated into the upper surfaces would aid hydrogen creation from water picked up in the final moments before take-off! Imagine A380 or Jumbo sized craft, employed on trans-Atlantic, and trans-Pacific routes? ....using half the fuel! Really, the potential of "Ground Effect" is mind blowing|!
Wing in ground effect works best when huge. Ground effect isn't dictated by wingspan, its the front-back dimension of the wing that counts, the chord. A good airplane makes a bad ground effect. America had great logistics in WW2, but did you see how fast they moved lifesaving food, water and personnel into New Orleans after hurricane katrina? There's nothing left of the logistics we once had.
Is it just me or was the format and presentation of this mega project somehow better then the others? There was something better about it, but idk what.
You know, it's really nice to see a military project from the DO. D that's actually useful and practical and isn't trying to trace some imaginary future war scenario. Don't. Get me wrong, I love those but this one seems like it could actually be done without a nightmare.
Bringing heavy equipment in without an airstrip, let´s say somewhere in the South China Sea, seems to be a good idea. There´s a lot of water and a lot of small islands where some rockets could be useful.
Being the first to test methods of getting out at speed would be interesting 😅 some poor seal or delta blokes going to be volentold to do it and turned into a chunky menstrual splat in the sea
Lockheed seriously needs to build some amphibious C-130J's. An actual boat plane from the hull up. They had designs decades ago, but never did it. They would be perfect for firefighting too.
There is a DC3 on floats. It's wicked dangerous to land. The C130 was also deemed to dangerous. Super high center of gravity. And super high loadings on the float attachment points. Didn't scale up from a cesna 172 very well. The integrated hull of this on paper will eliminate all this issue. Just 97 million other issues to address. Great idea if it gets built. Hell of a lot better than the LCAC.
Or else they act as skis, helping keep the wingtips out of the water. Many videos of ram-wing GEVs show they dipping a wingtip in during turn as if to help with yaw.
Teeny tiny little problem - how often do you get flat, calm seas on an ocean? Get any kind of serious wave height and that thing is going to crash. And there is probably a good reason the soviets gave up on their jet powered version of the same concept.
deliver troops quickly to the hot zone without risking bigger/harder to replace assets. These will be cheaper and faster to replace than a naval landing ship. if a major war breaks out, planes will get shot down and boats will get sunk. Some of our most advanced tech will be nigh irreplaceable during a major war. naval vessels are the hardest to replace. it takes years to build them. why risk them when you can risk a bird that's far cheaper, easier to replace, maneuvers faster, and can drop troops and run all while being a much smaller and harder to track target.
Claim your SPECIAL OFFER for MagellanTV here: sponsr.is/magellantv_megaprojects and start your free trial TODAY so you can watch Megastructure about the greatest structures and machines ever created.
Why are you always wrong ? Do your Research ! Stingray hydro sub has been around since 2015 - Turkey military has one and 2 are parked clearly on Google earth at 2 American ports. It looks exactly like a gigantic stingray and you can't miss it. It's sits between 2 battleships and is 3 times as wide.. If you actually fact checked your own team you'd know and not look stupid
@@QIKUGAMES-QIKUwhat are you talking about because I can’t find anything on it. Maybe that’s why his team didn’t mention it.
We need a Megaprojects video that goes over the entirety of Simon's career, here, on youtube. I mean, he runs Megaprojects, Sideprojects, Xplord, Into The Shadows, Warographics, and definately a few others. I'd say that is, truly, a Mega Project.
He's the biggest woke leftist shill on YT.
Fairly certain Simon no longer works with Xplrd. Also, you forgot the holy trinity of Simon's channels; Brain blaze, Decoding the Unknown, and The Casual Criminalist
@@burtdurger847still missing a couple. One deals in random facts he has learned, today I found out, ⬅️ that's is the channel name
@@larryblake842 I left out geographic's, biographics, and top 10s cos he no longer does those. I think the rest is Astrographics, today I found out, Places and I feel like I'm missing one more.
@@burtdurger847he has a good tone, right speech cadence and is fairly animated about every subject he does. I'm not surprised he has a lot of channels/jobs. Plus a lot of similar UA-camrs will have some sort of related video of Simon's in the scroll bar. I found decoding the unknown while watching The Why Files, AJ is pretty good too.
If they don't call it the "Spruce Goose Deuce" I'm going to be MAD 😤😡
😂we need to start a petition for this lol
Boaty McPlaneface.
Spruce Deuce
@@l3176l Take this like.
Omg,
Yes
Lol
If I know marines or sailors, it'll be nicknamed the "Goose Deuce" in no time flat.
Clearly DARPA is thinking Pacific theater here. Good idea to plan ahead for the logistics that would be required.
At 3:08, Peter Ong, with naval news, called the govt and asked about the plane they are gonna use against China… no wonder they said “no idea what your talking about sir”
Good point.
It would be the ideal vessel to swiftly reinforce an atoll or a small island. Think of a small fleet of these bringing in e.g. a patriot system within a day or two, add some two or three semi stationary as a forward command-control centre with the necessary base infrastructure. Maybe even a drone operation centre or electronic warfare.
All you need is a protected harbour, something like a lagoon, and a patch of dry land. No runway or large quais with deep water access.
It would also work with larger lakes (hence the true flight capability) and estuaries/rivers.
China is the spectre in mind
Yeah, but probably not for use in the Taiwan Strait area because ground effect vehicles struggle so much in the types of weather conditions that are so often found there
That rapid airfield seizure mission is almost solely the job of the 82nd Airborne Division and the 20th Airborne Engineer Brigade @Ft.Bragg/Liberty. The specific mission is called GRF (Global Reaction/Respone Force.) These Army units constantly rotate to ensure there is always soldiers ready to deploy within 18hrs to sieze, secure, and repair airfields. I had the pleasure of being on this GRF mission multiple times while I was stationed at Bragg from 08-11. I was an Airborne Combat Engineer, by the way.
I had an association with a company that sells a soil binding product to the military for this application. They mix the polymer fluid with soil and then roll it out for temporary repairs to runways, and set up permanent helicopter landing pads. The idea is they get a tank of this stuff with the first wave, and it hardens into a load bearing, dust free, water resistant surface within a hour.
Tin kicking. I was at Basra airport in 07 repairing the runway after frequent incoming. 300 large rockets hit the airbase in six weeks alone.
Thank you guys for your service. I can't believe so many Americans are considering re-electing Trump who wants to become a dictator. After you fine ladies and gentlemen risked your lives in service to others around the world and you come home to this dysfunction. Two old men one who means well, but is too old, and one that's too old with delusions of grandeur and wants to destroy our constitution. I'm not sure what happened while you were away. I was here and I didn't notice anything other then the rich stealing more then normal in the first trump election. Nothing unusual other then the rich stealing more and more every year even before that, but that one event may have triggered sleepy Joe into fighting this one through to the end. What do you think? Why else is he still in there?
82nd Signal here. Late 90s. I heard Bragg Blvd. and Yadkin Rd. went to shit since I was in. Too bad. I used to go clubbing a lot off base back in the day.
@rtqii So, I have heard of this stuff, but we never used it. We used an expanding plastic/polymer honeycomb reinforcement, like "Geocell". We would use two layers of this honeycomb during the process of repairing any crater or hole in the runway surface, no matter if the surface hardball or dirt. I was there from 08-11. It may just not have been in service yet or at least not widely used. It sounds like it would be extremely useful.
Calling the C-130 "Time-Tested" is quite a understatement......
It's a great example of "Do it right the first time."
It's been around for EVER.
70 years is not forever by my estimation, but I am 80.
@@tedmoss In terms of technological advancement it's insane. Your age has nothing to do with it.
@@tedmoss The B-52 and C-130 may both be 100-year airframes.
@@jetsons101 Congress is being asked right now to fund the upgrade and conversion of 30 B-52H models to fly nuclear weapons.
@@clblanchard08 miss the guy point it has not been around forever by pointing out his age vs the age of plane.
Anyone else getting a Tailspin vibe from these planes?
I am now 😂😂😂
Please, don’t give Disney any ideas😫
Tales of the golden monkey
Yes!
Spin it to win it
I am a big seaplane fan - BUT there are things to be said: Any ground effect vehicle is good - as long as there are no big waves and there is no bad weather... even when a future "liberty lifter" can climb in "aircraft mode" up to an altitude of 10 000 feet - that means not that it can climb out of bad weather like any "normal" cargo plane. Second: The idea of "starting and Landing at every shoreline worldwide" sounds great (the german seaplane constructor Claude Dornier used to speak of the "worldwide aerodrome" available for seaplanes) - but in reality things are quite different: Look at the places in north america where a lot of seaplanes are used - you must bring the cargo to the seaplane, you need docking and repair installations, the air- and seatraffic must be coordinated - short: You need dedicated seaplane-airports, or seaplane-harbors, or seaplane-stations or however you will call them - perhaps the "liberty lifter" will be an amphibian so that it can start and land on a normal runway at an normal (military) airport, but at least for training there must be some "wet" landing and starting facilities... and those stations must be build, manned, maintained etc. - and all this new-to-build infrastructure must be paid, and added into the calculation for the rentability of the "liberty lifter".... - and there are many people that think that there are better ways to use idyllic shorelines than building there military bases for noisy seaplanes.... Third: Flying so low over the water - there will be a lot of problems with bird-strikes... and an collision with an 30 lbs albatros at 100 knots can do a lot of damage, even to such an big aircraft like the planned "liberty lifter"... I dont believe that this project, that seems to be an only US Marine Corps idea, will be realised. 🤔🤔🤔
well said it seems like it has too much in common with the sovjet groundeffect seaplane.
6 meter waves is weather with 40+ knot winds, and that stops all aircraft, small watercraft, and larger watercraft can only barely make way.
GEVs are not as a type particularly vulnerable to weather.
They used them just fine in WWII with none of the nonsense bureaucracy you speak of, when WWIII is knocking on your door all that crap falls out the back window very rapidly.
@@confuciuslola edit - damn, shoulda watched the whole video first, they mention the ekranoplan later 😂, moments after I posted. Disregard the stuff he already goes over in the video 😂. the Caspian Sea Monster” - another term (Russian?) for them is Ekranoplans and I feel that one of the million channels that Simon narrates 😂 did a video on it. If it wasn’t one of his, there’s at least one good video about it, I believe it’s rotting on a beach along the Caspian coastline somewhere to this day. I don’t believe the Russian one had the ability to get truly airborne (ie more than about 20 feet above water surface), and if I recall the video correctly even an inland sea like the Caspian had weather that would sometimes prevent its use.
This would certainly be a very useful capability but I too fear that it’s not very realistic. A fully laden GEV would probably require quite a long time to get to an altitude where it’s safe from sea-level weather, and pretty sure 10k feet isn’t high enough either, commercial jets typically fly between 28k and as much as 40k-ish feet and are still occasionally susceptible to severe turbulence.
With the military looking to SpaceX to be able to deliver payloads anywhere on earth within a few hours via Starship / Super Heavy, this seems unlikely to ever happen.
If anyone is curious, ground effect is caused when within a wingspan or so of the surface. Air flows up and over and around the wings then swirls under them approximately the height of the wingspan when flying, especially in slow and heavy flight. This air flowing over the wings creates that cushion of air between the wings and ground allowing very low drag flight and the ability to fly at less than the stall speed. You learn this your first week of flight training, as in a smaller plane it really effects takeoff and landing. It's cool to see projects taking advantage of this
Hovercraft do it by mechanically compressing the air with intake fans. GEVs do it by forward motion and under current air compressed by sloping an unusual wing with higher angle than normal wing. The problem with GEV is when the altitude of GEV is higher than length of the wing, the ground effect is lost. That’s what kept Ekrano plane from becoming popular… it’s an engineer’s wet dream and a soldier’s nightmare (of riding in it).
I feel like I've heard of ground affect planes my entire life, and all the benefits that comes with taking advantage of it.
And yet only the Soviets made a prototype that wasn't nearly as useful as it should have been.
Honestly I've been pining for the US to use sea planes. They just seem so useful to me seeing with how much we transport. I was always told they have the capabilities to be as big as you want since run ways aren't an issue.
Not that you can just fly anywhere at anytime. Weather of course is a huge issue.
Hope to see this project take off.
@@viewer3412Thanks for posting that about hover craft. I was going to post it in an other thread, but honestly wasn't positive if I remember it correct.
I still don't know how it is the same effect technically. I get they both use cushions of air, but one keeps it in with thrusters down.
Feel like that is the same as saying a jet turbine is the same as a helicopter blades. Both produce thrust by moving air.
Amerikan Ekranoplan ?
Legit !
This is an exxciting development. I'm in the "autumn of my years" but as a retired airline pilot I do hope someday to see this float and fly. I suppose it will be assigned to the Navy although the Air Force is usually tasked with the heavy airliift machinery.
This seems like a good tool for the South China Sea. Not only because the logistics, but this could hide near the sea surface, pop up and drop a bunch of Rapid Dragon pallets and then drop back down.
WONDERFUL!! As long as there's no bad weather or waves, you'll be fine!!!!!!
It's a common myth that they're limited to glassy calm conditions. You might have missed the part about the design requirements specifying flight up to 3km height. That's some serious waves if they're over 10,0000 feet high.
Watch the whole video?
@JFrazer4303 tell us you've never been out to ses with out telling us.
Ground effect is optimal in proportion to wing length, big wing still gets you above almost anything shy of seas that would give most ships a problem (maybe even worse ones) out of ground efffect makes it a thirsty slow C-17 or C130. OK just not as fuel efficient or maybe reducing the load.
@@Stephen-carr So you're saying that waves of 10,000 feet are seen?
If it ever gets off the ground (...er, water), I can see applications for it to be used as a fire fighting unit, or a quick response floating hospital/surgical outfit.
2:15 *in the back of my head to marching cadence*
"C-130 rollin down the strip!"
(echo) "C-130 rollin down the strip!"
"Airborne Dady on a one way trip"
(echo) "Airborne daddy on a one way trip!"
"uhGet up, Hook Up, Shuffle to the door!"
(echo) "Get up! Hook Up! Shuffle to the door!"
"uhJump right out and a count to four!"
(echo) "Jump right out and a count ta four!"
"And if my bag don't open wide!"
(echo) "and if my bag dont open wide!"
"I gotta ree zerve by my side"
(echo) "I gotta Ree Zerve by my side"
"And if that one should fail me too!"
(echo) "And if that one should fail me too!"
"This countryside, im plowin through!"
(echo) "this countryside, im plowin through!"
"And if i should die on this ole drop zone!"
(echo) "And if i should die on this ole drop zone!
"Box me up and ship me home!"
(echo) "Box me up and ship me home!"
"Tell my parents i did my best!"
(echo) "Tell my parents i did my best!"
"To bury me in a front lean rest!"
(echo) to bury me in front lean rest!"
"Sound off!"
(troop) "One, two"
"Sound off!"
(troop) Three, Four!"
"Sound off!
(troop) "Give, Me!"
"Sound off!"
(troop) "Lots, More!"
and then you start over...... the only thing i remember from ROTC beside PT, and Detail as punishment. and i think about it every sing time i see a military transport plane, but especially when a c-130 pops up. In any variant! lol
It's the Spruce Goose .... again?
Bro, we're way past ol' H Hughes
Also came to mind. 😂
@@Curious-Mr.-Lee are we? sure looks a hell of a lot like one and its even prop driven lol
Could be.
Haha
Thanks so much for creating and sharing this informative video. Great job. Keep it up.
Neat information!! Oh and thanks for Magellan TV too!!
Caspian sea monster US version
Name it Casper Ocean Monsters to spite the Russians.
I've been out of the Marines for 2 decades, and they were looking into WIGE aircraft for deploying battalion size elements back when I was still in, the idea was that 1 or 2 planes could deploy an entire MEU battalion anywhere in the world within 24 hours.
This was such a cool video.
Seaplanes are just beautiful.
Simon, I enjoyed this video (and your other videos too) and how you described the GA design as the “fun” design. lol. I am the aeronautical engineer who performed the conceptual design of the vehicle. I would love to tell you about the “mustache things” and other unique features of how they improve the performance of the vehicle. Bill Fredericks
How I wish that design had been chosen. It was lovely.
So, basically the Lun-class ekranoplan, the Russian ground effect sea plane from the 80's.
I thought I saw a video about it many years ago - what happened to it?
It’s an abandoned wreck on the shores of the black sea.
Yes, except good.
Would a bunch of sea planes travel in a V formation to minimize drag? That would look nice
Very well done, once again!!!
Before the seaplane version of the MC-130J, Lockheed-Georgia Company looked at several amphibious configurations of the C-130 Hercules, between 1964 and 1973. In 1968, a US Navy study contract resulted in a one-sixth scale, radio controlled model that was used as a development tool. Called Hercules-On-Water, or HOW, the design kept much of the original C-130 configuration, but this version used a retractable hydro-ski beneath the boat hull-shaped fuselage for takeoff and landing. The design’s Allison T56 engines were inverted and placed on top of the wing to take the intakes and propellers out of the water spray, similar to the configuration used on the P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft. No production contracts were received and the Hercules-On-Water project was shelved.
This sounds amazing
Rapid Dragon this new logistics cargo plane.
The Boeing Pelican ULTRA (Ultra Large Transport Aircraft) was a proposed ground effect fixed-wing aircraft under study by Boeing Phantom Works in the early 2000s.
...
Capacity: 3,000 passengers AND 2,800,000 lb (1400 US tons)
...
Cruise speed: 280 mph (in ground effect mode) less than 100 feet (30 m) from sea level
Cruise speed: @ Altitude (20,000 to 25,000 ft) 460 mph
...
Range
At 750-short-ton payload (1,500,000 lb; 680,000 kg; 680 t):
10,000 nmi (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) in ground effect
6,500 nmi (7,500 mi; 12,000 km) at 20,000 feet
it was too costly & ambitious, so was shelved...
Big, expensive and vulnerable. Brilliant plan.
The plane the plane!
That would be a heck of an addition for deliveries to carrier fleets out at sea . Just a civy thought .
Very cool! Thank you 🤘😝👍
Given the increase in efficient, I wonder how good it would be in a commercial rather than military context. Slower than regular cargo planes but WAY faster than ships and possibly striking a really nice balance of speed and cost per cargo ton mile. You'd have to work out onload/offload infrstructure but if that can be managed relatively easily with regular port facilities, churning out thousands of these for commercial use would do wonders for the per unit costs for both commercial an military version.
But that speed increase really isn't anywhere near enough to account for the massive drop in quantity. I like the idea, but, while it can cover long distances way faster, it can only carry a small percentage of what those massive ships carry, meaning it would have to be fast enough to make many trips over that long distance in the same amount of time that the ship takes.
Cargo ships typically carry anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 containers. This plane concept is only meant to hold 6. Even for the lowest end cargo ships, that would mean the plane would have to make over 800 trips back and forth to get the same amount of cargo. Planes typically cover in a couple hours the distance that a ship would go in an entire day, but that means that, if a ship would've taken a day to deliver 5,000 containers, the plane would take well over 4 months to make enough trips to deliver the same cargo over the same distance.
That is a massive drop in efficiency.
Genuinely I’ve believed in this concept for years. Ground effect craft get more efficient the bigger they are, so a freight plane crossing the ocean would be a perfect application, and since it can fly out of ground effect it can avoid other sea traffic.
Surfing plane?
Radical dude 🤙🤙
I've been dreaming of the return of the giant sea planes, since I was a kid in the 1980's, seeing the Boeing 312 Clipper play a great part in Raiders of the Lost Ark!
With that configuration, you could airdrop palletized supplies, too.
I smell a massive intra branch fight coming here. There’s no way the navy department is going to let Air Force have this plane as this definitely belongs with the Navy/Marines over the Air Force. Wondering who will win this fight.
It'll more than likely go to the Marines, they already operate their own C-130s, an amphibious tactical airlifter would be right in their wheelhouse. I don't see the Air Force wanting any part of this. I also don't see the project getting very far, the Navy and Marines already do the "anywhere in the world, anytime" thing with existing equipment, very effectively, without the risk of getting a fancy seaplane blown up on a beach because its effectively defenseless on its own. The LCACs are too good-enough to make this make sense, especially with how much they'll cost in the end.
AirBus?
By existing agreements, there would be no fighting at all. By defining it as Strategic Airlift it fits solely into Air Force territory. Only relatively short range cargo airlift belongs to anyone else, meaning mostly helicopters and Ospreys as well as the existing C-2 Greyhound for delivering cargo aboard carriers. Other branches use C-130s in a tactical or support role but not in a strategic airlift role.
@@tiny_tex Well China has large seaplanes, the US doesnt 🤷🏼♂
@kell7195 China has them for a very specific use case, the US has a dozen Aircraft Carriers and a dozen more amphibious assault ships, and even more various amphibious landing ships, all protected by the strongest navy on earth by a large margin. we don't need a seaplane because we can just roll an 800 foot warship carrying a battalion of Marines right up to the beach to do the same thing
I believe ground effects are a function of wing cord (distance front to back) rather than wing span. A low aspect ratio wing is favored.
They've tried this in the past, several times, as has russia. Works where the water is pretty flat but once you get 30 foot waves it's toast. Not to mention is not at all manoeuvrable because it can only roll a few degrees before a wingtip hits the water.
This is an update, or at least influenced by, those old Soviet ground effect ekranoplane concept of the 1970s-80s? Simon does mention some of their initial drawbacks however if the Soviets had continued with the program these would surely have been overcome as they were discontinued chiefly due to cost and changes in Soviet military doctrine during the Cold War.
The grandfather of startolunch
Biggest issue with any sea born ground effect vehicle is size... size of waves...(notice all "videos" show mostly overly calm water.) Or size of craft needed to overcome the distance ratio needed to avoid large waves and maintain a decent stable ground effect.
the render livery being US Airforce made me chuckle.
I could swear I read an article about this in a magazine 20 or 30 years ago.
I'm really surprised that they have never used this idea before. It has huge advantages. It'd be hard to pick out on radar as well.
Soviets abandoned it because the planes couldn't overcome choppy seas.
The idea has been tried many times before, just never successfully on a large scale
People have been trying ground effect for 80 years.
No one uses them at scale because it doesn't work.
For example, you are cruising along just above the ocean and briefly look away to grab some water, smoked by large wave doing 200 miles per hour. Also choppy seas, prepare to have your teeth rattled out of your head.
So you made it across the ocean but you need to land. Well weather has stirred up unexpectedly and you crash while trying to land.
You might say, well it can be a traditional aircraft also. Well not with a max load which of course is it's advantage and will likely be used as such.
Add in spray and corrosive nature of seawater... it's a really dumb idea and it's sad to see money being wasted on it.
It's also inherently torpedo and sea mine proof. Considering the US military's focus is on China, and the fact that much of the combat in a war with China would take place on the sea, having vehicles that can use the sea while avoiding hazards fielded by the enemy on the sea is a significant advantage. SAMs will also be disadvantaged, prompting the use of antiship missiles. However, there are much fewer antiship missiles in most arsenals since there are generally fewer ships needed to be defended against. Most also tend to move slower, focusing on endurance over speed, because boats aren't nimble targets like planes. Even modern antiship missiles, like the Russian Sizzler missile, are designed to be slow until the very last second before deploying a hypersonic burn. I don't know how effective something like this would be on a ground effect vehicle, but odds are it won't be the ideal weapon considering it's a completely different beast of a target. I imagine if this is a successful and effective vehicle, the Navy may even want heavily armed varriants for shore bombardments, or assaulting fleets. Honestly, why this concept has been ignored for so long is beyond me, considering the benefits potentially has to offer. Who knows, we may very well be seeing the first Sea BUFF.
As a submarine tracker/hunter…..this could be awsome as a humanitarian assistance vessel I’m thinking this would be unsurpassed would be incredible in the pacific island regions
Wow, Simon's home studio outside of a Brain Blaze stream!
And the Goose was Wood ! I'm curious how it would stand up to any large caliber fire while unloading and/or turning around near a beach head
lol it wouldn’t be by itself, it would be protected like any of the other vulnerable transport systems by the rest of the navy
If your sending your big strategic transports anywhere near combat zones your doing it wrong.
@@Ushio01 Thats what I'm saying , that unloading right up to the beach in the proto just looked foolish
@@Mr.Guild1971 not really let a marine landing force happen first then once a beachhead is established use these to bring anything you need quickly faster than other ships can.
The 6 containers worth of spare parts and other essential supplies would be very useful.
So it's a slow, overloaded seaplane flown in ground effect with equipment to measure it's height above water/land? I'm not a pilot (oh wait, I forgot, I am), but any plane can be flown in ground effect. The reasons they are not include: bird density, water spray, dust, electric towers, buildings, other aircraft, .... (in a war zone, add lead, iron bits, DU, etc.) Then there's that thing about your wingtip hitting the ground when you turn. If you get high enough to avoid that, you're no longer in ground effect.
Well no, it’s supposed to go faster than current ground effect options, and it seems like it’s primarily built for ground effect over sea as it can elevate, so much of the debris options aren’t a problem, and it’s intended to fly straight for the most part over water, not to mention the efficiency requirements, it wouldn’t be all that overloaded per it’s design anyways, what are you talking about dude?
@@Yomotomen The reasons they are not include: bird density, water spray, dust, electric towers, buildings, other aircraft, .... (in a war zone, add lead, iron bits, DU, etc.) Then there's that thing about your wingtip hitting the ground when you turn. If you get high enough to avoid that, you're no longer in ground effect. You're not a pilot are you?
@@tsbrownie dude, ok, it’s built to operate near shore, thus away from the absolute vast majority of buildings, birdstrikes are a problem at anything close to the surface, but generally on the open sea, there won’t be as many that close to the surface, the choppy waters would be a problem and i’m sure they would have a solution for that too, it has enough propellers that if a couple go down it can still get the job done anyways, birdstrike or not, also, many of the particle based problems are mostly that for closed intake engines, this has open propellers, it’s a logistics vehicle that wouldn’t see the front lines of war, thus no lead, it’s built for amphibious vehicles too, so it may not even see a shore, thus little to no dust, it would deal with other aircraft the same way we have other logistics based aircraft deal with them, not a big deal, it wouldn’t have to be near electric towers, just avoid them with radar bro, pilot or not, these problems are regularly dealt with the likes of sessnas, i’m sure you’re a real pilot, but that’s clearly not enough to help you think about the fact that they already thought of these problems when the concepts were made, those folks make more in a week than you or i would in a year, they know what thet’re doing man.
@Yomotomen I'm also an engineer, and you're glossing over significant engineering problems. There's a reason we get paid well and why the russian's failed and why these are not being used for commercial goods rather than 747s. Icing is bad in clouds, in spray mist it would crash in seconds rather than a couple minutes. A few geese brought down Sully's plane. Salt spray in a jet engine will eat out the insides within hours. It also eats aluminum. A high speed wing even touching the water would be fatal. Etc. This thing has 1 purpose, to get money from the military and make profits.
@@Yomotomen You certainly have a lot of feelings. You need to do a lot of studying. And no, they don't make a lot more than me, maybe you, not me. You just make up stuff to fit what you want to believe. Engineers work with facts, not feelings.
these would be perfect for taking supplies to subs.
If the concept of operations involves extended floating at the periphery of combat zones, it should probably have an organic self defense capability. One or two CIWS or SeaRAM would do.
A formation of these flying low or a flotilla deploying troops would be very survivable in a lightly contested environment with that, and very vulnerable without it.
yall need to do a video on the saab gripen
Convair made the Tradewinds R3Y that could and did fly and was in service. They even were able to use it as a airborne tanker refueling jet aircraft. It could haul almost as much as what this idea would cary. The Navy's problem at the time was that they wanted a means of carrying a nuke and we had airfields "EVERYWHERE" so why do we need to land on the sea. Times have changed and China has built islands and many of the thousands of runways are either not in friendly hands or not close enough to where what it carries needs to be. Martin built a swept wing seaplane that was designed as a nuclear bomber, but the airforce won that argument so it didn't get put into service. Currently the Navy is looking at Japan's seaplane for SAR and "other" uses. But it doesn't have a large carrying capacity.
With environmental awareness very strong the long term future of many airports is suspect. Lots of R&D on seaplanes with 2,000 seater trans-ocean proposed, this military led project can only accelerate civilian adoption. Liverpool's airport was located where it is on the riverbank of the Mersey estuary because seaplanes were common in the 1930s when the airport was built. It was ready for a seaplane terminal. In WW2 concrete runways were built en-mass pushing seaplanes out of the picture.
Seaplanes are not expensive concrete runway dependent. Many rivers and estuaries can have a raft of runways as long as you like all on cheap water.
So, taking into account trends, environmental concerns and technology advances, seaplane airports with high-speed trains serving them, it all makes sense.
A wing that high will be mostly out of ground-effect, no? Doesn't look like any ekranoplan I've ever seen.
it's not ekranoplan, watch the clip again!
@@Steven-k8t you clearly don't understand my comment.
Howard Hughes was laughed at for such an idea!
His was more realistic as it was to fly not float across the ocean as a hover plane.
We’ve nearly got the same capability of an amphibious c130 now with an airplane that has already flown with floats. The Basler BT-67. DC-3s were already designed for floats and all that would need to be done is renewed fabrication.
I doubt Navies as we know it will survivve very long if this liberty lifter is half of what they want. When you can gun up what is essentially a large plane and basically be anywhere on the planet in a matter of hours, with vehicles going 100s of miles an hour, and capable of operating on sea and land, the need for large expensive boats moving at a snails pace relatively other than as large gun platforms, basically goes away. But using big ships as a Naval force would basically become obsolete. You would need a couple aircraft carriers, a couple of large mobile seafaring gun and artillery platforms, and a few dozen/ few hundred of these liberty lifters. The Aircraft carriers bring the better-in-the-air craft, the weapons platforms keeps an eye out for subs, provides offshore artillery, and provides anti aircraft and large missle capability. The Liberty lifters, outfited for proper fighting use by tthe military, would literally be paradigm shifters!
This is like a miniture aircraft carrier but deployable anywhere in the world within 24 hours
interesting concept.
why not make it even bigger ? economies of scale could mean an increase in operational duration and ferry range.
My guess would be if it gets too big there would be issues with wing stability.
I'd really like to see how those little winglets at the tips will fare when running up to a beach to unload the plane. Do they dig into the bottom or fold away?
And I'm even more curious about the efficiency inland, where there's more chance on sand and rock than water.🤔
This will be very useful immediately after a successful landing. These planes could deliver troops, AFVs, supplies very fast.
I would make it big enough that a few of them could carry a lot of ammo, food and fuel. Small ones won't have much of an impact, unless they build hundreds of them. Good luck getting that kind of funding. The beauty is that they are submarine and enemy surface ship proof, since they would be hard to detect and destroy, if they were fast enough. Operation in salt water will require careful choice of materials.
The Spruce Goose flies again!
An excellent exposition. The Liberty Lifter fills a gap that needs filling.
Let's get Howard on this!
This would change the options of where can you land Marines from several hundred miles from the fleet that brought them to the theater of operations to where ever at any point.
Anyone with satellites suddenly goes from having a good idea of where to reinforce to having to reinforce everywhere. This has enormous strategic implications.
Seaplanes striking forces such as the Navy looked into since the late '40s and '50s have always had that ability.
I'm willing to bet that we and the USSR stopped investigating them nearly simultaneously because they were too dangerous and de-stabilizing.
The first ever naval air strikes were from a Japanese seaplane tender, against German sites in Tsingtao in 1914. They continued operating with British forces until that German facility surrendered.
Interesting
i wonder how well this would scale up even further. Could they make a plane that flies indefinitely, scaling it up, covered in solar panels and using electric propellers? I know there's an ultralight solar plane that can fly almost indefinitely, but Ground effect could add enough lift/efficiency to carry cargo/batteries or fly at higher speed.
Spending a lot of time looking at the triangular pattern of dots on Simon's arm
Thinking that bringing back the Star Raker SSTO wouldn't be such a bad idea?!
I've never understood America's reticence to develop and use Soviet ground effect technology: Faster more economical
Somebody has basically been there, done that. Sunders-Roe Princess, anyone? 😊 With 70 years of engineering development between now and her days, it should be no issue to scale up her design to the necessities.
Correction: The ground effect is related to the _chord_ of the wing, NOT the wingspan. When the wing is less that its chord from the ground, it floats. Cessnas with their high wings experience only very marginal ground effects while all low wing planes floaaat on flare for touch down with the same wingspan. Chord/height, not wingspan!
What amphibious insurgences? Normandy, okay. But apart from that? I think DARPA dreamed this up just so you could make a video about it, Simon 🙂
Thank you FactBoy for giving me something to do when conversation with ChatGPT starts to lag. I know you’re busy feeding and watering your basement people, but Im’a take the opportunity as first comment to request that nature/animal channel you’re dragging your feet on. If you record it, they will watch.
15:32 *a myriad of benefits
Bring back flying boats!
It could also be great as a supply aircraft for fleets
Straight for realz. Ive been patient. Lol. Ive asked several times across several channels. I lays down the ultimatum. Lolol not for serious though.
However. Ive have tried to ask what the proper channels are to submit scripts or apply to write for Simon. No one has answered.
Is there an email to sumbit scripts to for possible acceptance? Do i need to register for a job website and wait for Simon to post an opening? Is there a PO box i need to send a hardcopy to? Is there a writers website i need to have a portfolio on?
I am determined to find out. So to that end, instead of asking and then waiting a few months, hoping for a reply, and possibly passing yet another year or two with zero responses, i think im just gonna ask every video on every channel i follow, till someone grants me the knowledge i seek! Untill the next video.
How would it be maintained, would it be able to land at a traditional runway in addition to the sea?
Watch AirBus have a go at this concept! Do you think they could use a craft like this to compliment their Atlas A400M? Abso-bloody-lutely! The UK would LOVE to be a part of this project, or one very like it, to extend their UK military industrial capacity and reach out where UK special forces and the Royal Navy and Airforce currently need US assistance! the Australians would LOVE a piece of this action too, when you consider the number of island chains right off their coasts and all the way to China!
As a "left field" idea, also consider the idea of sea-steading, where communities would need suppling on a regular basis from other coastal areas. As sea levels rise, this might just become the ONLY WAY to resupply communities LOST to climate change! That would mean this technology will become a de-facto CIVIL AIRLINE solution for many!
I wouldn't be surprised if hybrid power could be used to motivate such planes once airborne, using hydrogen ICE engines for take-off and altitude, whilst they can be throttled back to "generator mode" once using ground effect and electric props taking the strain once on the deck and cruising! Solar panels integrated into the upper surfaces would aid hydrogen creation from water picked up in the final moments before take-off!
Imagine A380 or Jumbo sized craft, employed on trans-Atlantic, and trans-Pacific routes? ....using half the fuel! Really, the potential of "Ground Effect" is mind blowing|!
Australia indeed would find this aircraft interesting.
Disaster relief etc from upcoming Earth changes could also be a very valuable roll.
Wing in ground effect works best when huge. Ground effect isn't dictated by wingspan, its the front-back dimension of the wing that counts, the chord. A good airplane makes a bad ground effect.
America had great logistics in WW2, but did you see how fast they moved lifesaving food, water and personnel into New Orleans after hurricane katrina? There's nothing left of the logistics we once had.
The US is determined to retain its dominance in 1st generation strategic aircraft!
Is it just me or was the format and presentation of this mega project somehow better then the others? There was something better about it, but idk what.
You know, it's really nice to see a military project from the DO. D that's actually useful and practical and isn't trying to trace some imaginary future war scenario. Don't.
Get me wrong, I love those but this one seems like it could actually be done without a nightmare.
Bringing heavy equipment in without an airstrip, let´s say somewhere in the South China Sea, seems to be a good idea. There´s a lot of water and a lot of small islands where some rockets could be useful.
Looks like the Spruce Goose
Being the first to test methods of getting out at speed would be interesting 😅 some poor seal or delta blokes going to be volentold to do it and turned into a chunky menstrual splat in the sea
Lockheed seriously needs to build some amphibious C-130J's. An actual boat plane from the hull up.
They had designs decades ago, but never did it. They would be perfect for firefighting too.
That would be such a scary aircraft
There is a DC3 on floats. It's wicked dangerous to land. The C130 was also deemed to dangerous. Super high center of gravity. And super high loadings on the float attachment points. Didn't scale up from a cesna 172 very well. The integrated hull of this on paper will eliminate all this issue. Just 97 million other issues to address. Great idea if it gets built. Hell of a lot better than the LCAC.
Those hanging fins below the floats will cause it to ground loop!
Or else they act as skis, helping keep the wingtips out of the water. Many videos of ram-wing GEVs show they dipping a wingtip in during turn as if to help with yaw.
The floats will do that under control. Watch PBYs and Sunderland's doing it.@@JFrazer4303
I love it
Teeny tiny little problem - how often do you get flat, calm seas on an ocean? Get any kind of serious wave height and that thing is going to crash.
And there is probably a good reason the soviets gave up on their jet powered version of the same concept.
Acting in a vanguard role would leave it rather vulnerable to drones which are only going to get more deadly.
I would take a good, hard look at how the various Soviet WIGships, some of them very large, went before proceeding with this project.
They only failed because suits and uniforms lost interest even before Alexiyev died. Not because they didn't work.
I'd love to see a gunship version of this.... sooooo many guns could be mounted on that! Lol
Uuuuntil there are waves. In a few years time, the US DOD will be operating a LOT of starships for logistics.
Would the efficiency of such a craft make it a good option for cheap cross ocean passenger transport?
deliver troops quickly to the hot zone without risking bigger/harder to replace assets. These will be cheaper and faster to replace than a naval landing ship. if a major war breaks out, planes will get shot down and boats will get sunk. Some of our most advanced tech will be nigh irreplaceable during a major war. naval vessels are the hardest to replace. it takes years to build them. why risk them when you can risk a bird that's far cheaper, easier to replace, maneuvers faster, and can drop troops and run all while being a much smaller and harder to track target.