| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Tech |
| Completely new order of aircraft |
| 2004-09-06 |
| The work of a brilliant amateur, it looks something like a grain harvester, but it quieter and has a stronger lift than a helicopter of the same weight. It has vertical take off and horizontal flight capabilities. And the Pentagon is strongly interested. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #15 Whoops.... killed the pic owners bandwidth alotment. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-09-07 6:20:37 AM |
| #14 And I was kinda thinking it looked like something out of Dune. |
| Posted by: Asedwich 2004-09-06 7:55:40 PM |
| #13 Yep, it's the real deal, designed at Auburn University, it can plow, fly, land, and transport your bass boat to Florida. In short it's everything you want in a flying combine. Loans are easily avilable at your farmer bank for morons |
| Posted by: Ms Massey Feurgson 2004-09-06 2:44:15 PM |
| #12 Anybody notice that many people were wearing "short shorts" in the pictures? Are these still in vogue somewhere in the world, or do these pictures date from the mid-80s? |
| Posted by: Asedwich 2004-09-06 2:03:42 PM |
| #11 Looks to me like a squirrel cage blower with a PhD. The big question is; How many hamsters and where do they put them all? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-09-06 1:55:58 PM |
| #10 .com---had the same idea. Would like to make one this winter and try it out. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-09-06 12:49:29 PM |
| #9 #1 - .com, I went to their web site and found a number of videos showing various models taking off and landing. None were very elegant, but not horrible. A model of this would be interesting. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2004-09-06 12:15:49 PM |
| #8 But the blades are only open at the top - and given how the wing shape relies upon this configuration, I suspect aerobatics are out... at least sustained inverted flight might be out of the question... This is a brain-bender! AP / GK - we should pitch in and order up model kits and youze guyz could test it in all flight regimes. Weirdness! |
| Posted by: .com 2004-09-06 11:36:44 AM |
| #7 And if we really want to get mean we can fly low enough to 'harvest' their turbans..... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-09-06 11:30:19 AM |
| #6 LOL. My first reaction was that Anonymoose has been visiting the photoshoppers over at FARK. I'm forwarding this to my son-in-law who is an aeronautical engineer. |
| Posted by: GK 2004-09-06 11:25:59 AM |
| #5 Holy smoke! It's a side-wheeler vessel. All kidding aside, I like this weird stuff. Thinking outside the box brings great ideas and designs. Look at the B-2, starting from Jack Northrop's flying wing. One idea inspires another. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-09-06 11:25:40 AM |
| #4 Matt - The Gimme Cap visual is a treasure! Lol! |
| Posted by: .com 2004-09-06 11:20:50 AM |
| #3 If we can equip all those John Deere tractors and combines with flight capability and Hellfire missiles the terrorists are really screwed. "Run, Mahmoud, it's a Green Monster of Death!" Merely dropping a gimme cap could cause panic. |
| Posted by: Matt 2004-09-06 11:12:31 AM |
| #2 Blade rotation in direction of travel The idea is to get the air moving faster over the top of the wing than the bottom, thereby providing lift (judging from the diagrams). Takeoffs and landings shouldn't be a problem, but you're right about the forward speed. Is there sufficient thrust to get the thing moving reasonably fast? Interesting. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-09-06 11:09:40 AM |
| #1 International Harvester enters the UAV field. Ahem. It appears to work - but I am quite suspicious - all vids show it in-flight, descending, landing. No takeoffs. Smells funny. Blade rotation in direction of travel - implies it should have problems with limited forward speed as experienced by rotary craft... Weirdness! I dunno if this is a joke or not! Thx for the post! |
| Posted by: .com 2004-09-06 10:48:08 AM |