Jay

The Walrus: the US Army contemplates building an aircraft the size of a football field



September 6, 2005 Moving an elephant atom by atom costs a lot more than moving the elephant in one pre-assembled lump. And that is what the US Army’s Project Walrus is about – putting together an entire action unit of war machinery, with all the wiring and plumbing preinstalled, and placing it in the most strategic place. Whilst this would completely rewrite the way that war is conducted, the Walrus - a massive lozenge-shaped blimp the size of a football field capable of transporting 500 tons at a time - could offer solutions to myriad peacetime problems, opening land-locked countries to trade, enabling heavy construction materials to be delivered into urban centres with minimum disruption, freeing our highways of high volume, heavy loads, offering a more robust and agile air transportation network capable of absorbing disruptions due to weather or attack. Indeed, business logistics could again be completely rethought and streamlined because many physical transportation limits would no longer apply once a fleet of commercial walruses became available. The walrus does not require an airstrip and can land on water or on open ground.




The two contractors receiving Walrus phase I awards are Lockheed Martin (US$2,989,779) and Aeros Aeronautical Systems Corp (US$3,267,000).

The Walrus program will develop an operational vehicle concept design and required breakthrough technologies and will conduct risk reduction demonstrations of these new technologies. Demonstrations will include flight tests of a Walrus Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) scaled aircraft.

A key goal of the Walrus program is to establish clear and credible solutions that provide confidence that earlier airship-era limitations will be overcome. In particular, an early focus of the program will be the investigation of advanced breakthrough technologies that will support the development of innovative lift and buoyancy concepts that do not rely on off-board ballast.

The Walrus operational vehicle (OV) is envisioned to have the primary operational task of deploying composite loads of personnel and equipment (for example, the components of an Army Unit of Action) ready to fight within six hours after disembarking the aircraft. Walrus will operate without significant infrastructure and from unimproved landing sites, including rough ground having nominal five-foot-high obstacles. It is intended to carry a payload of more than 500 tons 12,000 nautical miles in less than seven days at a competitive cost. Additionally, Walrus will be capable of performing theater lift and supporting sea-basing and persistence missions to meet a range of multi-Service needs.







More here...
http://www.gizmag.co.uk/go/4538/

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indianguy4u

Will it get off the ground? Very remote. What about aerodyanamics, engine runway infrastutre etc.

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miglover5

will it use wing in ground effect?

BluMonk

HOw do yu protect a vehicle of this size if its is depositing arms and personnel any were close to the front line ?
imagine the losses if only one is hsot down ?

canoe

Forget getting shotdown imagine an in-flight accident.

nutter

Runway?

I think not... :D

Parihaka

Wow, what a target

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Anon

Someday air-carriers(and then space carriers) will rule the skies.

Gotta start somewhere. The Future always has a starting point.

Seriously, as long as they don't spend CRAZY money on this it's the kind of wild R&D program that might actually produce some ground breaking progress.

Time will tell...

hello

I agree. It sounds like the German WW-2 Me321 Gigant transport glider and it's six-engined upgrade, the Me323 Gigant. It was huge(for it's time) and made a perfect target. The Me321 glider had to be towed by 3 Me110 fighters. Once, 14 Me323s(which was an Me321 with 6 engines bolted on) carrying fuel supplies and their fighter escort Fw190 and Me109s were attacked by a swarm of Spitfires and P-40s, and all 14 were lost, along with 120 crew and 700 drums of fuel onboard.
It's like putting a super-sized Zeppelin, which sucked against WW1 fighters, in a modern-day scenario. Unless they find a way to make it stealthy(something blimps are not) and heavily armored(which will need a LOT of extra power), without making it too heavy, it doesn't sound too good to me.

leib10

Zeppelins have no place in the 21st century battlefield, just like they didn't 100 years ago. Will people ever learn?

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Jay

So, did any one read what exactly it is?

leib10

But it said the US Army was looking into it.

Vadim

The US army has no where to put its money. In the21st century, no one is stupid enough to apply that thing for military purposes. It will most likely be the ultimate target for a terrorist. I bet a home made missile could take it down.

glow

an RPG no less a MiG flying at me in that thing would scare me shitless, anyone else foresee this being another blimp going down in flames?

Parihaka

it's a sitting target for any terrorist organisation. I doubt you'd get permissions to fly it over any city...