Discussion
I had an idea last night which made me wonder, What would happen if you had a very very large cargo plane with a drop down ramp at the rear, like a hercules but bigger. Now imagine you are a pilot in a fast jet, lets say a eurofighter, and you have seen too many episodes of knightrider.
Would it be possible to land one aircraft inside another while cruising along at say 300mph, now i personally don't think its possible, but i did see some pictures of a eurofighter very very close to the rear of a hercules some time ago for what i think was an advert being made.
Edit:found the pictures here http://www.guy-sports.com/humor/pictures/picture_c...
Now looking at those pictures, another plane length and he would be in there, what does everyone else think. And please no conveyor/treadmill jokes please
Would it be possible to land one aircraft inside another while cruising along at say 300mph, now i personally don't think its possible, but i did see some pictures of a eurofighter very very close to the rear of a hercules some time ago for what i think was an advert being made.
Edit:found the pictures here http://www.guy-sports.com/humor/pictures/picture_c...
Now looking at those pictures, another plane length and he would be in there, what does everyone else think. And please no conveyor/treadmill jokes please
The biggest issue is always going to be wake/turbulance and jet wash from the larger aircraft..
Something like a globemaster would be kicking up a huge storm behind it.... try flying a twitchy jet into a tiny little hole whilst in that lot... if you can keep the jet airbourne atall...
Remove turbulance and I dont see why it wont work...
No different to driving a car into a moving bus!
Something like a globemaster would be kicking up a huge storm behind it.... try flying a twitchy jet into a tiny little hole whilst in that lot... if you can keep the jet airbourne atall...
Remove turbulance and I dont see why it wont work...
No different to driving a car into a moving bus!
tegwin said:
The biggest issue is always going to be wake/turbulance and jet wash from the larger aircraft..
Something like a globemaster would be kicking up a huge storm behind it.... try flying a twitchy jet into a tiny little hole whilst in that lot... if you can keep the jet airbourne atall...
Remove turbulance and I dont see why it wont work...
No different to driving a car into a moving bus!
...but as soon as the small jet was iside the larger one, it would be effectively flying in stationary air, so there'd be a massive speed differential to overcome almost instantaneously. Think when a car climbs the ramp of a moving car transporter or whatever - both are doing say, about, 40mph (the car slightly more), but suddenly when the car hits the ramp, its immediately trying to drive at 40+mph up the ramp. Factor this effect up by 10x for the aircraft scenario, and there might be a bit of a problem...Something like a globemaster would be kicking up a huge storm behind it.... try flying a twitchy jet into a tiny little hole whilst in that lot... if you can keep the jet airbourne atall...
Remove turbulance and I dont see why it wont work...
No different to driving a car into a moving bus!
The idea of larger aircraft having smaller aircraft attached, suspended below or actually stored onboard has been around for a long time. As has been mentioned already, the main problem was when the smaller aircraft tried to rejoin the "mother ship". Turbulence from the larger aircraft meant rejoining the carier aircraft was extremely difficult.
Edited by Eric Mc on Friday 23 October 13:29
dr_gn said:
tegwin said:
The biggest issue is always going to be wake/turbulance and jet wash from the larger aircraft..
Something like a globemaster would be kicking up a huge storm behind it.... try flying a twitchy jet into a tiny little hole whilst in that lot... if you can keep the jet airbourne atall...
Remove turbulance and I dont see why it wont work...
No different to driving a car into a moving bus!
...but as soon as the small jet was iside the larger one, it would be effectively flying in stationary air, so there'd be a massive speed differential to overcome almost instantaneously. Think when a car climbs the ramp of a moving car transporter or whatever - both are doing say, about, 40mph (the car slightly more), but suddenly when the car hits the ramp, its immediately trying to drive at 40+mph up the ramp. Factor this effect up by 10x for the aircraft scenario, and there might be a bit of a problem...Something like a globemaster would be kicking up a huge storm behind it.... try flying a twitchy jet into a tiny little hole whilst in that lot... if you can keep the jet airbourne atall...
Remove turbulance and I dont see why it wont work...
No different to driving a car into a moving bus!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYlstdCWzCY
without watching it again, I think it basically turned out that although the wheels of the car are going very fast, the momentum from the weight of the car slows them down very quickly, and driving it up the ramp was relatively easy. I'd imagine the same principal would be true with planes, although it may be a bit more tricky to get the balance right - who knows?
Think about a eurofighter sitting on the ground with its brakes on, and full throttle. The engine is producing the same amount of thrust (pretty much) that it would be were the aircraft travelling at say 600mph. However, when you take the brakes off, it does not suddenly reach 600mph, it just starts to accelerate. The same would be true flying it into another aircraft, it would just be a question of whether you could get the throttle off before you accelerated too fast... and of course the turbulence, which I think would be the main problem.
Can't think why they thought the car/truck one might not work. Besides, the Italian job beat Knight Rider to it by a good 15 years.
In the aircraft equivilent it's not speed that's the problem, it's lift. A Eurofighter weighs about 20 tonnes, meaning that in flight it's wings are generating 20 tonnes of lift from the air that's flowing over them. As soon as you stop that airflow you've got a 20 tonne brick. As with the car you'd need to rely on momentum, flying in a parabolic arc, so the pilot experiences weightlessness, means there's no lift on the wings and you could in theory lob it in to the back of another aircraft, but the turbulance means it would probably get knocked of course anyway. I've heard it claimed that if you kick a football out of the back of a Herculese it comes back in again due to the recirculation around the tailgate.
Easier to do with boats though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHztE34Wuuo
In the aircraft equivilent it's not speed that's the problem, it's lift. A Eurofighter weighs about 20 tonnes, meaning that in flight it's wings are generating 20 tonnes of lift from the air that's flowing over them. As soon as you stop that airflow you've got a 20 tonne brick. As with the car you'd need to rely on momentum, flying in a parabolic arc, so the pilot experiences weightlessness, means there's no lift on the wings and you could in theory lob it in to the back of another aircraft, but the turbulance means it would probably get knocked of course anyway. I've heard it claimed that if you kick a football out of the back of a Herculese it comes back in again due to the recirculation around the tailgate.
Easier to do with boats though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHztE34Wuuo
Great pictures of relevance to this thread* on this website:
http://www.geocities.com/usarmyaviationdigest/airb...
http://www.geocities.com/usarmyaviationdigest/airb...
- sort of.
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