How Realistic would a Pelican be in Today's World?
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- Опубліковано 30 лип 2024
- It gets shot down once a mission; Halo wouldn't be the same without the legendary D-77 Pelican. Flying in both space and in atmosphere, the Pelican is a staple of UNSC power. In my first ever video, I give a quick overview of how practical could the Pelican be with the technology and understanding we have today.
Halo © Microsoft Corporation
Halo 3 OST © Marty O'Donell Michael Salvatori
Credit to TheAMCMuseum, the USAF, and the Marines for the various aircraft footage.
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Hey Guys, I made a follow up video discussing a lot of the Space to Atmosphere flight capabilities you've brought up: ua-cam.com/video/FFUMrlXb5DY/v-deo.html . Check it out!
Yeah same length as a c-130. What were you smoking when you made this video?
@@coolorphans ironic, considering you can look up both numbers and see the publicized length of the Pelican is 13 feet longer than a regular C-130. So to answer your question, whatever I was smoking apparently wasn't as strong as what you're on.
@@TheBigCabezon ummm, it's actually only a 0.5m difference from what I've seen.... ( 1.5 feet, for you dumb merican's 😋)
@@jaxonmn33 You're looking at an outdated source most likely. The Encyclopedia that released this past spring lists it at 33.8m whereas the C-130 is roughly 30m give or take a few cm.
I think the Pelican's biggest strength lies in the fact that it can drop off a combat ready vehicle basically anywhere UNSC infantry can go. Sure, a C130 can carry tanks and AFVs and whatnot, but it can't dump one directly in a warzone like a smaller helicopter might be able to drop infantry off.
that and its capable of orbital re-entry
@@Bananabob39 also it a spacecraft able go in and out from atmosphere
Also saying if it loses one engine it provides a problem it's kind of not true we see drones today that can lose multiple motors and still safely land arguably as long as any of the thrusters on the bottom of the pelican aren't damaged it can land safely no matter how many it loses also I agree it's biggest strength is definitely what it can carry to the battlefield and back absolutely if we could build it absolutely the army would especially with a thrust capability of that sucker lol
Yup. It also can be converted into other things like a bomber or missile boat RAPID DRAGON style.
We can make a Pelican like aircraft today I think. It just wouldn't have any range, speed, or payload haha. Our engines aren't nearly powerful or efficient enough to make it useful. Things like directing and controlling thrust are entirely possible though.
The Pelican should be setting shit on fire and making huge dust storms when it it takes off and lands with a combat load.
Wonder if jet like VTOL suffer from vortex ring state?
Should have longer wings though for more things. Put some PD turrets or something.
@@dianapennepacker6854 yeah it's also important to understand too on how the thrust works if it's an ion thrust or some other type of propulsion but man would it be such a powerful vehicle to take off fly to space and return All while carrying a tank
The way I've always seen it is similar to the chinook, both in role, heavy lift and troop transport, and in size, both being around 30 metres in length, though the pelican is much wider. The pelican can't carry as many troops as the chinook though considering the entire rear section is dedicated to carrying scorpions or warthogs.
I've ridden in Chinooks and never quite noticed they were that big. I agree, particularly because the Chinook is an absolute workhorse in terms of airlift capability.
@@TheBigCabezon The 30 metres for the chinook might include the rotor blades too. The chinook's bay is definitely not 30 metres, though it does look longer than the pelican.
I believe a fair amount of the Pelis Flaws, when compared to Modern Planes and a such, can be majorly overlooked for the Simple Fact Pelis can operate in space. Then again, I dont know if we have planes that can do that now
My sister is a Chinook crew chief and I'm also active duty and have ridden in Chinooks. She's 30m from the tip of the nose to the end of the fuselage, 50m from rotor to rotor. Also, first time I rode in a CH47 I was right by the ramp and had the Halo theme playing lmao
In the aspect of the space for troops, the fact it can even bring tanks to the front lines adds to the good points I guess, that could be fixed with bigger hangar for the troops, maybe even refit it like the troops Warthog, more armored and with higher troop capacity, well maybe that could make the Pelican look more like a Condor, but the fact is so mass produced that design would pretty much be seen really rarely, making an all-round vehicle is more likely gonna be used rather than specialized designs(imo I've got absolutely no knowledge about belic equipment or vehicle designs or usages)
You should also consider that the Pelican can launch from the ground to rendezvous with ships in space and vice versa. With that in mind, the engines seem crazy powerful and efficient and wings wouldn't be necessary.
Precisely, this is based in the 26th century if i remember correctly. I believe the pelican is not only space worthy but it is likely almost as heavily armored as a scorpion tank and yes a 40mm would be perfect for what it does as a hot drop/vehicle drop support craft. It like the a-10 thunderbolt II could carry air to air munitions but thats not really in its mission scope. With a few advancements in tech. We could see something very like it soon. if our current (u.s.) military had something like it, it would phase out a lot of helicopters end even the a-10 in many cases.
@@northernKaizerthe a-10 could be phased out by a prop plane. Unfair comparison
@@relikt582 like how it could be phased out by the F-35? the prop substitutes, that have been in use since 2008, look to have been demanded to stop A-10s being used in "safe" environments rather than a complete replacement, something which probably can already be handled by a prop drone but probably isn't due to a political view on them, also the switch is a turbofan to a turboprop the A-10s engines are already a hybrid of a prop and jet engine
I always thought the wings were more for mounting rocket pods and other munitions rather than for flight since the pelican is essentially a rocket powered quadcopter
@@AnD1262 Turboprop, turbojet, and turbofan are all types of jet engines. You can't have a hybrid of one of them and a jet engines as they are all jet engines.
The Pelican strikes me as basically a jet-powered version of the V-22 Osprey.
would say more a jet version of the proposed quad tilt rotor variant of the V-22. but very mush it is just a jet Osprey.
SSTO Osprey, those engines are insane.
As I remember it, the Marines loved the Osprey. Unfortunately, the Osprey was prone to bad rotor conditions during extreme maneuvers, which caused crashes.
Well, not bad conditions for the rotors specifically, but in the way the air flows around the rotors. I saw a documentary on it, years ago
The engine nacelles on the Pelican remind me of how the Harrier engines worked with the thrust nozzles changing direction from forward flight to vertical.
@@dannyb9223 Every Marine I talked to straight up hated the Osprey
I always figured that the pelican relied more on its engines then wings to fly because its supposed to work in space where the wings wouldn't work. The fact that wings don't work on low atmosphere planets is also a problem if you rely on them for lift.
The wings imo, are just enough to help with maneuvering vs lift, and to hold hardpoints providing the mission profile demands it.
on top of that you need to consider that the Pelican was made for operations not only in space but also in environments that are not earth-like. While the games usually don't take that into consideration for gameplay sake it is fair to imagine the Pelican being used in places where the gravity is either stronger or weaker than earth, or even planets with a very different atmospherical condition than earth's climate
All the discussion about the pelican's flight characteristics can be summarised by, "it's a Single-Stage-To-Orbit spacecraft, it has enough thrust to do whatever."
The thing that’s funny about the Pelican is when we would play back in the day, I was always wondering the practicality (the multi engines, low firepower/payload, coupled with the small wings seemed ludicrous), but dismissed it, since it looked cool.
tbf I think some of the stranger design choices make slightly more sense when you consider the aircraft is capable of both space and atmospheric flight as well as unassisted transition between the two. the wings aren't really there as a lift generation surface but simply for in atmosphere control at high speed as the engines are so immensely powerful they aren't needed. Similarly all the thrusters are on movable surfaces because that's how you change direction in zero-g. smaller payload could be down to the extra space taken up in the airframe for radiation and heat shielding you need for space flights and atmospheric re-entry.
Its lower firepower is the only one that stocks out, but then again its not a strike asset. its a troop mover and load aircraft. sure it can hang around and support its troops as they dismount etc but that's not its job. If you want and airstrike you should be calling longswords or broadswords, loiter close air is a job for platforms like the hornet. In that sense the pelican is almost behaving like a flying IFV, under armed and armoured compared to dedicated attack platforms but it has enough clout and staying power to give its infantry a leg up over any infantry that doesn't have an escort with mobile firepower
The pelican tries to do everything, which seems cool on paper, but ends up not really working in real life.
If you're interested look into the differences between the Mi-24 Hind and the Huey. When Helicopters first started getting popular in the 60s and 70s, people realized you could;
1- put guns on them
2- put people on them
Some people said it would be better to have separate aircraft that did each thing individually so they could excel in their roles, while others said it would make more sense to just have 1 aircraft that does both and consolidate all the work to one frame.
The Russians attempted the two-for-one approach with the Hind, a transport helicopter that also works as a gunship. This didn't work as well as they would've liked because it couldn't carry a lot of dudes because of the weapons, and it couldn't carry more weapons because of the dudes in the back. On top of all of this the aircraft was really big and a massive target.
The Americans did the opposite by making the Huey a transport, and the Cobra and attack helicopter. Both aircraft could dedicate all of their space to their specific role, and because of that they're both very small and extremely maneuverable air frames that are still the primary platforms for the USMC.
@@Blexg eh Im not exactly sure that's a fair comparison. Because When you look at the length of logistical chains the UNSC is operating under, Limited hangar space on UNSC warships etc I think they do need an all singing all dancing multi-role platform. When you can only bring so many aircraft into theatre each one you bring has to be able to give you more tactical flexibility. The pelican doesn't do the job of heavy lift, troop movement, gunship and surface to space drop ship because that makes the best air frame. It does all that because space is big, logistics is hard and hangars are limited. It might net be the best aircraft for each job but it is the best aircraft for the UNSC's requirements.
@Rhys Ford Exactly it, the pelican was never meant to be a master of all trades but to be efficient enough to fill in the multiple roles needed for space and the multitudes of planets with their own differing environments and atmospheres.
That's why Hornets and Falcons exist. Hornets operate more as the close airsupport unit with the slight ability to transport at most two additional troops, and the Falcon to work as a transport vehicle with the side addition of firepower for protection. Although the Falcon can fill in a heavier fire support role with its main heavy machine gun and can get really nasty if it's equipped with Grenade Launchers as the door guns.
Two other vehicles to note are the Hawk and Vulture. The Hawk is the armor killer while the vulture is a anti-ground and anti-air asset.
A nice breakdown but you forgot one very very important thing.... It's also space capable. That is one of its primary roles, orbital transitions. This explains is smaller internal cargo and enhanced multi-directional capacity. RCS and vacuum/radiation hardening.
That said: under suspension of disbelief coolness always wins.
Load masters do exist in halo lore, at the beginning of the book "return to reach" there is a presence of a load master in an aircraft extremely similar to a pelican.
Edit: also the body of the pelican itself generates lift, especially underneath.
Shadows of reach and it was an owl spec ops drop ship. I'm currently listening to it when I go to work
@sergeantzack1106 they do bud, read the book
@@sergeantzack1106it’s in a book not a game genius
@@sergeantzack1106 no they don’t. Games are affected by gameplay balancing, books aren’t.
Not only that, but the book talks about a ship not in game so there’s no overlap here for games to trump anyway.
@@sergeantzack1106 at what point is the D102 insertion craft in a halo game
Great video, one thing i would like to point out is that the pelican only had 40mm guns pre 2525, and even then it had 2 of them. Anything post 2525 would have a 70mm autocannon. They also almost always had anvil-II guided missile launchers mounted on the hardpoints you mentioned, with some instances even adding more hardpoints to the top of the wings for additional firepower. This variant of the pelican was known as the G77S, which added 4 extra m41 cannons to the sides of the pelican.
Main sources are Halo: The Flood and Halo Wars 2
I actually want to know the feasibility of a 70mm cannon on such an aircraft. That's a big round, I doubt it'd be able to carry much ammo for it.
@@inter.funda.stifle Yeah, I know that was a problem in Halo: The Flood. Before the Pillar of Autumn crashed on Installation 04, a few pelican pilots managed to escape in their ships. It was noted that they almost immediately ran out of 70mm ammo and used their anvil-IIs and were unable to restock due to the covenant controlling the POA's crash site. And for a size comparison, the M4 Sherman tank had a standard 75mm gun. Considering that the pelicans 70mm gun used armor piercing depleted uranium rounds, just one shot from a pelicans automatic cannon would do more damage that the main gun of a Sherman tank.
how to find this info?
@@samuraigaming3042 It is stated in the halo wikis, but the original sources are Halo: The Flood and Halo Wars 2
Its also a single stage to orbit aircraft (or space craft?) Meaning those engines would have to be ridiculously powerful.
More importantly they would have have to be rocket engines since there is air for jet engines to work
Pelican use fusion thruster to gain momentum
Have we seen it go from surface to orbit though?
@@c4sualcycl0ps48 in the opening of Spartan Ops, we see a pelican cruising in lower orbit. After the mission "Cotana" in Halo 3, we see the pelican, just after escaping the ahigh Charity in the surface, now in space. In thr last cutsence in Spartan ops, we see fireteam Oasis and the other team escaping Requiem in pelican going straight surface to space.
Also, we see multiple time they were using their thrust in space.
@@loljewlol so those first two examples it sounds like there was a cut in the action. I’m talking about a cutscene like Reach’s where it’s a continuous scene from surface to space. I haven’t seen that last example so maybe that is proof of it’s stand-alone SSTO capabilities. Otherwise it just seems more realistic for a normal Pelican to need some booster attachment for the ride “uphill”
Edit: just watched that last example. It’s close, but I wouldn’t say the pelicans hit orbital velocity, they essentially just went straight up and got the rest of their escape velocity from the infinity.
The problem with heat seekers targeting covenant vehicles is that they all fire super hot balls of plasma. Other forms of tracking may work; although I'm not sure of the radar signature of plasma, optical should work.
Does the Pelican even have a radar?
@@thomasp506 it would probably have its own version otherwise they'd be blind in most cases
90's tech has Javelin missiles targeting chip locking onto a targeted heat source, no fooling that unless you can match the source
Now that I think about it, Covenant plasma rounds are basically just stronger flares/chaffs
They can potentially be tuned out. Modern heat seeking missiles are much better about discriminating flares from aircraft - assessing the speed, size and motion of the object is one such way. Plus, they can be tuned for specific IR emissions - unless Covenant vehicles run as hot as their plasma blasts, the seeker would be able to tell the difference.
My main concern would be the emissions from large plasma blasts being enough to either fry or at least blind the seeker for long enough to cause a miss, but I can think of a few possible workarounds.
I think one of the key reasons why the Pelicans are often depicted as flying without escort fighters, is that by the time the games take place, most of the UNSC's fighters had been destroyed.
If we think about it, the UNSC lost their best fleets during the first years of the war, by the time of the Halo Trilogy, is the equivalent of our world trying to fend off an alien invasion with T-55s and Mig-21s, they're not good by any standard today, but there's a lot of them in reserve.
I think one of the biggest things I can think of is that the Covenant Navy just doesn't take the UNSC that serious of a threat so a lot of times they have Banshee's out in scout missions for anti Pelican hunting but they never truly can blanket an area.
Came by looking for this comment. The UNSC armory is incredibly bare compared to the start of the war. There's a reason that the when see them drop in a tank for a mission Johnson and Cortana make it a big deal. There's hardly any armored vehicles left. At the start the UNSC was much like any other military with full armored divisions and combined arms units. At this point they've lost so much hardware and the factories to produce the hardware they're stuck making do with what they have. The Pelican was good enough that it came to fill multiple roles other than troop transport because they didn't have anything else left to do the job that wasn't already wearing a half dozen hats of its own. This is why you have it filling what could be called adjacent roles to its intended purpose mostly in the form of close air support and insertion and extraction missions into very hot LZ's that would normally have an escort clear out hostiles or simply have a heavier asset do the mission instead.
@@starbishop4916 I don't think that's entirely it. Earth has always been well defended even during the Covenant War. The whole punch line about the tank is that Cortana simply didn't request for it with Johnson giving the approval. I am assuming maybe Spartan requirements are priority in this universe though the entire point of that tank was because of an enemy Scarab in the area. Earth even at this time was never bare bones because Home Fleet was never allowed to be deployed outside Sol just encase this very thing happened. It's just that the Covenant navy is superior in terms of size and firepower.
@@Seriona1 spartan operations always take priority. We see carter threaten to charge halsey with interfering with spartan operations in reach.
@@robertharris6092 Well to a certain degree it is. I get that if command orders Spartans to an objective, getting in the way of that will be a problem as if Spartans are involved, the shit is serious. What I don't know is if a Spartan says "I need a tank" is that a priority one request without questions?
I always thought the Pelican maneuvered more like an American Osprey, but the Pelican has more carrying capacity of course. I think Halo Reach better illustrated the roles of the UNSC Aircraft. They had more helicopter style attack craft for In Atmosphere battles; and sword space fighters to handle dog fighting IN SPACE and intercept boarding parties. Pelicans were more troop/asset transport that doubled for space and in Atmosphere scenarios, as well as boarding for ship to ship. The UNSC didn't need bombers per say, thus light ordnance on the Pelicans. UNSC ships were flying tanks built around a giant MAC Gun, bristling with even more guns, Pillar of autumn in particular was built modular/honeycomb style allowing it to function despite massive damage, unlike the glass cannon covenant ships that relied solely on shields.
The 747 size GA-TL1 LONGSWORD bombers say hi :-)
@@Matt-yg8ub I was pulling from memory 😅
@@Dantes8787 Fair enough :-)
Covenant ships were actually able to still function despite massive damage too. In The Fall of Reach, even with a MAC round opening a massive hole straight through a Covenant ship, it still kept coming. If you don't destroy the engines or the central control room, you haven't stopped the ship.
I agree that the falcon and Sabre really well balanced out the UNSC armament, and the presence of what appear to be air superiority drone fighters in Halo 3: ODST further seems to round things out. In my mind the pelican was a space to ground transport being forced into other roles because it was was available (and maybe because everyone in a position to requisition aircraft wanted to be able to get them off world in the event of, say a covenant invasion.)
Halo 3 Pelican is definitely the coolest version. Cockpit looked interesting and different. Still looked like it was more rugged or industrial.
After that they made it look too futuristic.
Actually, I found Halo 4's Pelican to look more like the Russian MIL Mi-24 because of the bubble canopy, and more rounded fuselage. Pelicans in the original games looked like they took after US AH-64s.
But the Reach version is like, exactly the same, just more detailed
You could say that about the whole franchise, I feel like Halo 3 was the best version of Halo visually, it just went downhill from there. Reach is okay, everything after that just looks too sci-fi instead of grounded.
@@HereticsRightthe halo 3 pelican and banshee look so beautiful compared to its counterparts (although I like the halo 5 banshee as well)
Well they ripped cockpit layout from the UD-4L directly from aliens once again. I prefer the reach design of the pelican since it also incorporated that cockpit layout.
I think it's worth mentioning that a group of engineers built a scale model of Bungie's version of the pelican to see if it would be aerodynamic, which it turned out to be. They then repeated the test with 343's version and it failed miserably.
Where can i read/watch this?
Yet another thing 343 fails at. Bungie was superior in every way.
@@andrewowens4421Wait until he finds out about what bungie has been doing these days
@@cadityo1 nobody that worked at bungy in 2001 is working there now.
@@andrewowens4421 until they came up with destiny and scammed every single loyal fan
Impractical for today for sure. But i do feel like in 500 years, we'd have small engines in size that are capable of significantly more thrust than anything available today
I mean we just have to look at something like the MJOLNIR spartan armour power supply. A fusion battery that can be carried around in one hand.
The pyhsic tho
@@snuckel4 big engine go vroom, vroom go push.
@@DeathByLego 🤣
The pelican (and just about every UNSC vehicle) is made of titanium. So its like half as heavy as if it was made of steel.
You should take note that the pelican is also a space flight vehicle, having rudders or tails are only useful in air flight but offers no advantage in zero atmosphere environments other than extra weight, the 4 rotating engines give it full maneuverability and the use of propellants rather than rotors mean they can function in both atmospheric and space flight
It sure doesn’t look really aerodynamic, but put enough engines on something and it will fly.
Just like the F-4
Just like Chief
@@Ketoku_fr
Chief is literally more of a brick than the Pelican.
It's not really mentioned much, but iirc, the Pelican also uses anti-gravity propulsion tech, similar to UNSC frigates, which would likely explain why it has such small vertical thrusters. The Anti-grav probably does the lion's share of the pelican's lifting potential, while the thrusters are primarily intended for maneuvering and stability.
Wait where does it say that?
These seemingly small engines also might be more powerful than they look.
The UNSC has mass generating tech (IE: Artificial gravity) for use primarily in military ships and stations. Many civilian or minor stations still use centrifugal force to operate gravity. Which is why in many books (Or at least the Nylund books) there's mention of someone appearing to have recently been in micro gravity recently due to their walking gait. Which in lore microgravity doesn't refer to *just* the sort of 'zero g' that is experienced in earth low orbit such as the ISS.
When it comes to the Charon class frigate (Forget about the paris class' you see in atmo in Halo: Reach. Such close fire support wouldn't even be remotely needed with the power of a MAC gun on a Charon or Paris for the target being hit. Even the shield would need to be down on the tower. And don't get me started on the Pillar of Autumn at the end.) they are the only military warship with atmospheric capabilities because much of it's power is dedicated to the *very little* and primitive anti grav or even just EM secondary propulsion along with a more unique lower hull design that gives it the ability to maneuver in and not be forced out of the sky by weight. There's the question of "Is the ship even rated for atmosphere!?" by a marine in Halo 3 on the arc. What little either magnetic repulsion and anti grav tech humanity has is part of what drains the Charon class as a combat ship along with the dedicated cargo space to be what could be called a planetary assault ship. The power needs are comparatively massive to keep the thing in the air and/or bring it back up into the air beyond hull mounted thrusters alone.
The Pelican doesn't have the room for a fusion reactor large enough to also accommodate a the sort of a drive needed to carry itself or it's max cargo load. As it is primary propulsion for UNSC aircraft is magnetic redirection of energy bleed off from the fusion drives. Sans light craft such as the short sword atmospheric superiority fighter, Falcon squad and scout transport and the Hornet assault platform.
@@airplanenut89 they are nuclear powered.
@@Meravokas they can make a fussion drive small enough to power the mjolner armor. They could easily fit them in a pelican.
The way I think about the Pelican is that it's main job is to drop troops and combat ready vehicles off while pointing its back away from the fight in order to tank incoming fire and also return fire with anti-infantry weapons.
When I was in the Marine Corps I always called Ospreys “Pelican Dropships” mainly because they like to randomly drop out of the sky
Keep in mind: the Pelican has be used in air AND vacuum. So the engine and wing design might be related to those considerations.
All the analysis is great but you're missing one important thing, the Pelican was made for space and aerial insertion and transport so it makes sense it doesn't have a tail and relies on a sofisticated propulsion systemwide minimum weaponry which make it more than practical, we already have the broadswords, Sabre, Shortsword and Longsword to fulfill the role of attack vehicles
Interesting how you note how the Pelican could do with heat-seeking missile racks, since that's exactly what the SPV3 mod for Halo CE does.
Except it can (and does) mount Anvill-2 missiles. The problem is we never see them in the first three games because they already used up thier stockpiles of those missiles before we see them.
@@hanzzel6086 Halo 2 and Halo 3 you see Pelicans with missiles systems. The problem is that they are used in fix set pieces. SPV3 had them being used in actual helpful situations but the reason why Pelicans are nude in CE was for lore reasons, Captain Keyes ordered them to be unarmed. Edit: I forgot you do see a Pelican with missiles get used in actual situation, it's on Sacred Icon in Halo 2 if I remember the name correctly and it's when you're the Arbiter and a Pelican carrying a Scorpion flies over, it's possible the Pelican missiles can target you if you're fast but I usually see the Pelican pound the Sentiels or Flood if ever used at all.
How do heat seaking missiles work when your opponents waapon fires a bunch of balls of super heated plasma?
@@robertharris6092 The profile? You do realize that traditional flares are useless against modern missiles because they can distinguish between engine exhaust (or other "low" heat emission sources, indeed, some can even distinguish between different models of aircraft) and a super hot ball of burning metal. Of course modern flares are made to more closely mimic these emission sources and thus are still (somewhat) effective. But I highly doubt the Covenant made thier plasma weaponry mimic thier engine exhaust.
@@robertharris6092 They can potentially be tuned out. Modern heat seeking missiles are much better about discriminating flares from aircraft - assessing the speed, size and motion of the object is one such way. Plus, they can be tuned for specific IR emissions - unless Covenant vehicles run as hot as their plasma blasts, the seeker would be able to tell the difference.
My main concern would be the emissions from large plasma blasts being enough to either fry or at least blind the seeker for long enough to cause a miss, but I can think of a few possible workarounds.
If you look, each exhaust on the pelican is associated with multiple engines. It has significant engine redundancy on every thruster, so it would require multiple engine failures to affect your stability.
Judging by in game models, it's more like a CH47 or a V22, which really fits it's in game depiction.
One thing missed in its difference vs the C130 - Space/Atmospheric flight. Thats probably the biggest consideration since its an air/spacecraft that will be used within all of UEG/UNSC Space where they need that universality.
2:00 I always imagined that we had one pilot and one gunner/loadmaster. I feel the pelican is lightly armed enough and has enough advanced HUD technology that the gunner could pull double duty, like we see with the radio operator role in tanks. Or wings of pelicans could have a load master overseeing all their deployments via use of a dumb ai and hologram maps at an FOB or mother ship. The pelican is one of my fave Sci fi vehicles and the only drop ship I may like more would be the dropships seen in titanfall cuz wow they look so good
Im pretty sure the helmets have visors with HUD's. They would be for double duty.
In halo wars 2 captain cutter has a “pelican gunships” ability that summons 4 pelicans from the spirit of fire that circle an area then shoots misiles…. A decent amount of wolverines or covenant reavers can kill all of the pelicans…. The pelican transport that several UNSC leaders have can store almost all of the ground troops and transport to another location… these pelicans can’t be shot down but it’s mostly due to in game limitations and balancing
Those "Pelican Gunships" are the G77S, kit-bashed together after the Human-Covenant War by Isabel as a means of maximising firepower at the (probable) sacrifice of troop/cargo transport, so while they do exist, the idea of min-maxing a pelican for DPS capability wasn't until after all the fighting was done.
Also, I doubt the normal model (D77) would be able to carry 60 units of virtually anything since the game counts how much units each vehicle/infantry "item" costs and not what they're actually transporting - I like to imagine the pilot just uses a shrink ray to get 10 Kodiaks to point B and then re-size them later when deploying
Also gotta remember that it can also "fly" perfectly in space/different planets with different or even extreme atmospheric climates.
Planes are good but surprisingly let's say if a planet had a low and thin atmosphere they'd be useless and would immediately fall to the floor
The pelican is a brick but its a brick that can fly anywhere
Good video but I wish you focused a bit more on the pelicans space capabilities.
Appreciate the feedback, I'll probably make another pelican video down the road. This was my first vid ever and it was pretty scatter brain.
I think the slow speed maneuverability, high payload capacity, and ability to enter orbit are compromising thrust redundancy but it's necessary for the type of war they are fighting. Either way it's probably also got decent armor to make up for it even if we do see quite a few get shot down cinematically in cut scenes.
Just watched your ten videos so far, please do keep making more.
I plan on it!
wtf I just realised this acc has only ~600 subs after reading your comment. dude Lets make him famous
ua-cam.com/video/4uGfOppQD_g/v-deo.html
Orbit capability aside, the one thing the pelican does that can't be replaced with current vehicles is forward deployment of MBT's. Current doctrine is to just adopt a new light tank to meet the need for airdropped direct fire support, but there's no reason it can't work for full size tanks.
The Pelican can act as a fighter just because of his speed, or just be absolutely imposible to intercept, dude, it can carry anti tank missiles and has the armor of a tank almost, and can carry tropsand vehicles from one side of the planet to the other in less than an hour.
@@alexisbaz8746 its relative. A broadsword is gonna make any aircraft we have today look like a soapbox car. Which it would need to to get anywhere in a timely manner in the space around a planet.
@@robertharris6092 That's the thing, UNSC air power is really op, the Longsword is going to be immune to canon fire and you would need an anti tank missile to bring the thing down, maybe multiple hits, the big one is as big as an airliner an can fly more than 10 time faster than a modern jet and has a turreted 120mm rapid firing Coilgun!, the bullets travel so fast that they are imbued in plasma by friction, that thing could split an aircraft carrier in half with a burst.
@@alexisbaz8746 top speed on a pelican is 516 mph...
@@robertharris6092 wtf are you talking about...?, the Pelican casually reaches escape velocity, is Hypersonic, in Space it can pull houndreds of km/s, in atmosphere is slower but still inmensly faster than any fighter jet, it can withstand reentry over and over again like nothing so it's fuselage is able to withstand inmense air drag, it doesn't need to go 8km/s every time, 4000km/h catching it is imposible, and even if you say hypersonic missile it can go far faster than anything we have today, the only way of taking a Pelican down would be when is taking of on when is deploying a vehicle or carrying a Tank.
Thank God for multiple variations of UNC vehicles some outfitted with laser cannons some outfitted with missile pods some outfitted with rockets or forward nose cannons for troop support
Remind me of a saying I heard way back about jet aircraft: Some of the newer designed jet aren't as aerodynamic compare to before but can still pull off similar maneuverer is because of the engine. Use a strong enough engine and even a brick will fly.
Personally speaking the down time for a Pelican would be insane even if you say future tech need less maintenance. You don't stick 4 big engines and a bunch of thruster on to a plane and expect it to not be a maintenance nightmare. Also the thing would definitely more likely to be susceptible to small arms fire even more than today helicopter
Just imagine being on the maintenance crew for these
Given that the pelican is designed and shown to withstand orbital insertions, small arms fire would probably barely scratch the glass.
i can assure you putting a big engine on something doesnt make it maneuverable. in fact it makes it less
The redesign of the pelican in 4 and 5 isn't the pelican. It was made into a new vehicle, the condor
The condor is bigger, halo 4 and 5 is post war pelican that has the face of a condor, but is still a pelican
Which is funny. Since when testing a acale model it was found the pelican was aerodynamic and could potentially fly and the condor couldnt.
I think the pelican is kind of the ultimate logistics transport, its design has it capable of operating in vacuum as well as in halo reach, and 3, can be seen doing close air support, on top of that being able to be a heavy transport and carry MBTs into battle and needing no dedicated airfield and being able to hot drop units, while the nacelles vectoring thrust allows it tight handling, which lets it operate with little clearance, be it forests or in the city. And on the subject of having only the side seats, this is just head cannon, but I would personally like to think that the center row does exist on pelicans, just not on the ones sent to front lines as the center row would hinder the deployment of troops and leave the pelican as a sitting duck for a longer period of time.
It's basically the sherman of the UNSC. It could handle a lot of roles with some minor modification.
I always assumed pelican maintains lift using thrusters and that wings are mostly for mounting weapons akin to attack choppers. You also forgot to mention the pelican's extra and trans-atmospheric capabilities.
The pelican reminds me most of the Osprey used by the US military. Very c130 esque and has vertical takeoff and landing
Ok so. Let's start here. The four points of thrust both vertically and horizontally. Take a look at everything that has been accomplished in quad copters. It essentially means the center of gravity is very negotiable via differential thrust. Now we factor in the wings. It doesn't have any on the rear. Only the front. Meaning that for yaw you can (probably) either rely on thrusters or let drag catch the front wings so the tail flings around. As foehammer said. It doesn't really turn on a dime... or?... On top of differential thrust and primary nose drag it has thrust vectoring. Using four nacelles like that is a PAIN to program out to balance and maneuver. But it works for most controls. All that so far is plausible.
Here's where it starts to crumble. The weight and size of outputs vertically for hovering. Remember this thing is supposed to be armoured. And carry vehicles too. Whatever the engines are, are most likely HOT. We're talking most materials melt hot.
The pelican is significantly more armed and armored than the games suggest. The standard configuration has a chin mounted 70mm autocannon firing depleted uranium or HEAP ammunition, the twin 40mm chainguns were pre-covanent war. A D-77 also has 16 air-to-surface missiles, 4 hardpoints for weapon mounting, and an optional rear-facing turret. The bvr (beyond visual range) weaponry are not shown in game as long ranged combat is not as visually interesting. For similar reasons long range guided munitions are not shown in game.
The troop bay also is said to hold 30 troops, however that is not shown in game for performance and gameplay reasons.
A single pelican can clear a hot LZ with a barrage of missiles and bombs and then drop an active armored vehicle along with a whole platoon of troops and afterwards provide air support with more missiles and autocannon fire.
The pelican allows for move compact movement and doesn't need a long run way since it can go up just by the thrusters on underside.
It seems to by more of an everthing type aircraft, and there are attck type pelican that have the rockets and even a cannon or laser.
I always thought the pelicans closest real life counterpart wouldve been the v22 osprey. But after your observation i can see it being the perfect combination and mixture between the AC-130 and v22
Its a mix of an osprey and a chinook.
@@robertharris6092 its definitely a mixture of many different aircrafts.
As an aircraft mechanic student, from what I know it is completely possible but the stresses on the material in the combustion section, mainly turbine heat, cause failure before wing stresses or stalling would take the pelican out. Since the pelican is a space worthy vehicle I would assume that it's engines are ion engines to eliminate the need for ram air in space to power a jet engine, and that being said ion engines are in their infancy right now and we have no clue what their full limitations are as of yet :p
Love this... Very Informational.
Keep up the good study and videos!! :)
Brilliant. I wasnt even subscribed and saw this on Recommended. The world needs these haha
The pelican, shouldn't be seen like a modern aircraft, don't forget that it is a space faring vessel, it serves as a bridge between spaceships and the ground, consider that landing a spaceship on the ground isn't tactically always the best option as enemy forces would have positional advantage. So in my opinion the pelican is well designed for the role it plays, there are smaller and faster support aircraft that serve as interceptors and ground attack aircrafts.
Tbh i think the pelican would be very comparable in current era, if not better then current era aircrafts. Here are a few major reasons.
1st- the pelican is designed to be able to fly in both space and in orbit hence the armour on it is extremely good. I think it wont be able to take anti air missiles or direct tank rounds, but major flak rounds and many types of munitions would definitely not do much to the armour.
2nd would be its flight ceiling, Due to its design as a space-orbital flight capable craft it can most likely fly above radar dome ranges and from there dive bomb straight into enemy territory. Not just that but its also very useful to transverse terrains like mountains or places where helicopters have a hard time entering. Not only that but as a vtol, runways are not needed nor are larger aircraft carriers hence allowing for a wider range of multipurpose usage.
3rd reason is the types, yes most of the times we see the standard pelican carrying a small cannon but in halo 4 we see a variant with a spartan laser, tank cannon and multiple guns to use. In another game we see a variant with only a spotlight and the G77s used by the pillar of autumn. Hence it can be seen that there are many types of variants, just that we are too used to seeing the halo 3 variant. Though it wont be able to secure a air victory like a F35 or any 5th or 6th generation aircraft, it will most definitely be able to dominate as a multirole/ multi terrain type gunship/ dropship capable of dropping troops into hotzones hard and fast all while providing extreme firesupport and point defence capability to any unit it is tied to.
Honestly, the pelican is something that militaries of the future made with different reasons. In our current state to develop a single unit would be a logistical nightmare due to the fact that it has to go into space and be able to enter orbit, let alone withstand a multitude of munitions. But yes, i can see that maybe in the next 500 years aircrafts like the pelican may be developed as it suites the role it performs extremely well.
Super cool video! I think halo is a universe that lends its self really well to this type of analysis
The Pelican is also space-worthy, which is something modern planes aren't capable of.
Next.
How would today's equivalent military aircraft fair in Halo's 26th century?
Uh..., against hornets, Wasp and all of that, fine, against anything used in space useless, Longswords have Tank like armor and casually reach escape velocity, there is no missile able to track them, no fighter, you would need an anti-tank/AA missile to even dent a Longsword.
@@alexisbaz8746 bro you forgot sparrow hawks. Those things would eat entire tank battalions for breakfast lol
@@lolololfoo3775 yeah, and the Vulture is a fucking flying tank able to eat anti tank ordinance and keep going, two of those can fuck a city. UNSC AA is far more sofisticated, hypersonic missiles must be everywhere and electromagnetic canons for AA, modern aircraft are WWI planes compared to UNSC fighters, when your best fighter get's anihilated and cannot even hope to intercept your enemy dropship you know you are screwed.
My brother is actually a load master on a C-130!
To be fair , if they wanted too , they can make like a seacan of additional seating , as a drop off option under the stomach ( where a wart hog is attached )
It's like the love child of a Hercules and a Chinook. The Pelican is one of my favorite fictional aircraft ever made.
Great analysis and explanation.
I would like to point out there are scenes where a pelican went from space to surface and scenes where it “fought”/ ferried people during space battles.
This is a very cool video. Thanks!
Glad you liked it!
Great video I always wondered how in the heck that thing could fly but I’d certainly agree with the point that is under armed
I like how the stubby wings act like a warthog when it loses its wings so damn stable it’s still able to fly
What you need to remember is that the pelican comes from 500 years in the future from now. You mentioned that to build the Pelican today we would need massive engines, but the pelican is from 500 years from now so technically has advanced beyond our imagine. You also didn't really go into detail of how the pelican can operate both in atmosphere and in space. For today, it is far too impractical and advanced, but 500 years from now, it is commonplace, highly versatile and can be upgraded with different weapons from a nose-mounted Spartan laser to whatever crazy weapon the Condor Gunship has. Though it does really suffer in atmospheric flight should one or more engines be damaged. But I guess that's the one tradeoff for an aircraft that can carry troops, supplies, vehicles, can drop them directly into battle and can act as an evac helicopter from a battlefield, can be used in space and can be upgraded with various weapons.
its a jet engine, those aren't going to change due to physics
@@Blox117 I know, I'm studying aerospace engineering at uni. Right now we use Turbofan engines for our aircraft. Yes turbojet engines exist but they are the highly inefficient predecessor to the turbofan.
But the pelican is 500 years from now. Just think of the advancements in engine technology and the fact that they are probably using some kind of super fuel with efficiency beyond what we have today.
Plus the pelican can operate in space so it also has rockets as jet engines don't work in space. The pelican can move and come to a complete stop in space with very little effort when compared to how today's spacecraft manoeuvre. It's almost like a space helicopter in the way it moves in space rather than a shuttle in today's time.
@@noahgibson4695 yep, so completely unrealistic. no way a rocket can fly around that long
@@Blox117 in today's time. It's a sci-fi vehicle that makes little to no sense today but again, 500 years in the future! We don't know what kind of engine technology is being used, we don't know what kind of fuel is being used. The Pelican could have a 99.99% efficient engine with some kind of super/hyper fuel made from chemicals we haven't even discovered today.
Try using your imagination. Technology is always advancing everyday of our lives. It would be stupid to think that a sci-fi aircraft 500 years in the future uses today's technology. We don't know what it uses because 1. it doesn't exist, it is made up and 2. it is in the future, but we can hypothesize due to the fact of how far in the future it is. Again, 500 years.
If we can go from wooden and fabric gliders in the early 1900 to supersonic aircraft and space craft in the 1960s onwards, a span of 60 years! Then just imagine what is possible 500 years from now.
@@noahgibson4695 physics is a fundamental limit to what can happen. it could be a million years, still wont be a million times better than now
The pelican can Carey a troop extension for up to 30 troops an still have a vehicle slung in the back. Witch being able to drop 20 to 30 (30 to 40 if they stood up an pack them in too) plus a combat ready vehicle is impressive.
Also the pelican can be used a quick mobile repair station for a scorpion. The fact the pelican can pick up an drop a scorpion so easily allows the pelican to pick up a damaged scorpion that has a destroyed track pod or multiple an swap pods put quickly. As each pod is independent an could in theory be swapped out quickly. In combat giving a scorpion a higher combat life.
I have to question if the Pelican is really as big as the sources say.
tbh i see the pelican not having engines but actually having thruster's because they fly in both atmosphere and space so they can cut down on wingspan to save space in a ship like the infinity.
I will always love the pelican, it's so beautiful and majestic
2:25 - I've been playing halo basically my entire life and it took until NOW to realize this is the pelican you see on the beach after you get your warthog ... goddamn
Heat seeking munitions are , against the covenant who use a lot of plasma, probably pretty bad since their primary weapons most likely function like flares.
I remember in halo 2 every pelican had those under the nose machine guns and the special ones had rockets on its wings, that's why halo 3 miranda's pelican was always weird for me, it was suicide mission to the ark, was wondering where were their tactical nukes, all those heavy arms they should've gone all out on this one
so, halo pelicans needed longer/bigger wings, make sense. it'be a great contrast between covenant crafts that rely on anti grav and ours that can glide but both get hit with emp and they both do different things.
I think Pelicans can be configured as gunships for air escort to other Pelicans, but we seldom see them used that way. The reason most Halo vehicles don't use long range capabilities is for both visual and gameplay purposes. Just like Star Wars, the way people fight in Halo is closer to WW2 and the Vietnam War because its more visually interesting.
An important and overlooked point is that the pelican is also a an endo and exoatmospheric vehicle. It’s necessary to have larger engines to facilitate directional thrusters and increased power to exit and enter the atmosphere while also operating in vacuum / zero G
For what it was inteded and designed for? The Pelican was perfect. Multirole, a gunship and troop carrier, can carry vehicles at the same time, all while having the ability to go to space. Anyone would want to have that in their armed forces. However, i think it would also be too expensive to operate in massive numbers like the UNSC does. In Halo, earth and humanity is under the UNSC banner, rather than just one nation to operate it. Also it's centuries into the future. they could've developed better engines, with the many worlds humanity has colonized, they could've created a different kind of material for its components or inner structure making the thing lighter than it looks
I have always thought of the pelican as more of a space faring craft for transport of troops and supplies from the ground and space. In atmosphere is functions more as an Osprey than an Ac-130, due to how it is primarily used for transport.
He said C-130 not AC-130. But yes its more likeva osprey.
Just one thing I would like to point out, the pelican can go to space where normal control surfaces don't work
Thing is though, its only an aircraft -sometimes-. They are space capable in which wings would be useless weight. Not to mention we just about always see them take hits from very powerful alien weaponry, regular ballistic munitions might be less effective on whatever its made of.
Pelicans also have fast and light capabilities
a big factor that's left out is that it's an Air/space vehicle, so meaning it needs to be able to work in atmosphere and not
So the directional engines make sense to your kid brain playing the game because "oh it's a spaceship so of course it isn't the best suited for flying in atmosphere" at least to me as a kid lol
it's also why the introduction of the Falcon was really neat because it is specifically designed for in atmosphere flight
makes more tactical sense, the pelican is just more flexible, especially for naval forces and since in the halo trilogy you're always along side the navy
Hell jumpers are also super impractical for our needs as a single planetary based society, once a need arises we might see something vaguely like the pelican in the far future
The pelicans are all two pilots, they are usually set up side to side or stacked with one up front and one behind. And my assumption, the Pelican functions like a VTOL
Red vs Blue has forever changed my vision of the Pelican. That thing is fucking amazing in the hands of an elite pilot like her.
I can agree with a lot of stuff here, but to me I think that it is practical in some cases. One point you majorly overlooked is its carry capacity, it takes straight to the fight or right behind it a bay of troops and either warthogs/scorpions. Also, this thing can operate in space and can withstand orbital re-entry as seen in Halo 3.
I had always assumed that the pelican primarily used its vectored thrust modules for low-speed atmospheric flight and only transitioned to using its stub-wings and lifting body at higher speeds. The halo universe already has compact fusion power sources, which would be able to supply effectively unlimited thermal power for the jets which would then operate in a Braton cycle using air as the working fluid. For trans / Exo-atmospheric flight these engines would switch mode to a thermal rocket engine using hydrogen as the propellant. I also think that the need for inherent aerodynamic stability and engine-out capability doesn't make sense in the sci-fi future. I do wonder what kind of exhaust velocity the jets would produce in order to create enough lift and what that would do to an unfortunate marine who was underneath one.
Conceptually I think the Pelican is more like the CH-53 in use by today's USMC. Its mission is mainly transporting troops and equipment from ship to shore, which is why it is so large and relatively lightly armed. More tactical missions would be flown by aircraft like the hornet or falcon and air (or space) superiority missions would be flown by fighters like the longsword.
The real insanity of the pelican is its endurance while having it's thrust. Since it's using rockets, it must have some kind of super-efficient fuel.
Its nuclear powered. Not rockets.
It seems weird that it would even have wings. It seems like it would very rarely fly at speeds where they would generate any substantial amount of lift and it's such a brick that flying so fast would create enough drag to cancel out any potential efficiency you'd gain from winged flight. Lop the wings off and stick to thrust-based lift, it's clearly capable of it. All the wings are doing is complicating low-velocity maneuvers, particularly in windy conditions and making it take up a load more hangar space.
Maybe the wings let you run silent during atmospheric entry and get a fair amount of distance 'quietly', but come on, it's not like this thing is operating anywhere without total air superiority. Even with the engines off this thing won't be hard to spot. Thrust signature is most relevant in space and wings aren't going to help out there.
I am a C-130 Loadmaster and the C-130 it's actually a pretty small aircraft to be honest. The 163ft wingspan is what makes it deceptively look larger, but if you're just looking at the fuselage or the common 41 foot cargo compartment prior to the 1996 models, it's a very small airplane. So saying the Pelican is the size of one is actually a compliment if you think that's too large.
Those animated ships look like a good transport of large size cargo
> "the first issue is a lack of vertical stabilizers"
>"this means it would most likely be more prone to stalls"
> *looks above the pelican*
> *sees vertical fins*
> *it has vertical stabilizers*
I can attest to how paratroopers are treated. Treated us like a pack of sardines in those planes smh
DARPA has begun the SPRINT program. The concept for this aircraft is eerily similar to the Pelican and intended for a similar purpose. The US Department of Defense seems to think a Pelican analogue is possible and in fact they want one to replace the V-22 Osprey.
"For a brick it flew pretty good"
- Sergeant Major Avery Junior Johnson
The thing with the Pelican though is the lifting body really is primarily useful for supersonic flight. Sub sonic flight you want the flying wing like the B2 spirit and B21 raider. As subsonic the flying wing performs better but as you get faster it starts performing less optimally and you want to switch over to a lifting body. So the Pelican would kind of suffer as it's not flying fast enough normally to take advantage of the lifting body.
Well I sorta agree with your vid but we all must remember the pelican was made for space flight and was designed to leave and enter atmosphere and various gravity strengths. there enemy typically uses energy weapons so the combat is completely different from real world combat and must be viewed as such
the fact we could have had something similar with the Venture Star as an STO shuttle craft today but if it weren't for Dick Chenney cancelling it, I want something of a VTOL STO like what you see in the shuttle in Avatar
@thebigcabezon There´s been several experiments on morphing or aeroelastic wings. Some pitch entire sections of the wing, like the Boeing X-53 Active Aeroelastic Wing, others have flexible wings that can twist, and there are many other types of morphinh such as changing the airfoil shape. The advantage is generally much better control and stall characteristics, but with obvious downsides like complexity, material weaknesses, etc.
Not very controllable on engine loss. This is very in line with in game presentation. Pelicans seem to be very fond of violently spinning towards the ground on the first lost engine.
You seam to miss the point that the pelican is a dropship rather then just a transport. That means it not only flys in space as well as in atmosphere but also that it needs to both enter and leave that atmosphere. So while the c130 can do with just wings the pelican would need those thrusters regardless of wing length and those thrusters would need to be rather powerful. Add in the fact that unlike the c130 the pelican has to fit in a tight space when not in use and its just not a fair comparison.
i think that, functionally, the pelican would be a comparable combination of a chinook and an osprey.
In Halo 2, mission 3, when the scarab hits the dead end, pelicans do fly bys on the front with missiles
The Pelican has always seemed weird to me. Like, if they just extended the cargo compartment to run the entire length of the shuttle they would have double or triple the cargo capacity. Using such a large vehicle to transport one or two teams of infantry is horrifically wasteful. A Pelican should be able to carry one or two platoons of infantry.
Also, having a warthog, or a tank, hanging off the back of the shuttle must be a chore to fly with. That thing is bound to catch the wind and cause all kinds of horrible turbulence. Considering the strength of the engines required to keep the Pelican stable during such flights it shouldn't be a problem to just have a larger cargo compartment and carry the warthog inside the shuttle.