Project Walrus
The US Army contemplates building an aircraft the size of a football field
The Walrus Project is the newest adddition to an old concept of LTA or “Lighter than Air” aircraft. In this case, the Walrus is upscaled with the newest technologies and created to act as a “tri-phibian” aircraft that can be used on land, sea and air. Project Walrus would entail an aircraft as large as a football field. It is intended to carry payloads that are more than 500 tons and transport it over 12,000 nautical miles in less than seven days.
In peacetime the “Walrus” could offer a myriad of solutions to trade by transporting large loads by air instead of by truck thus reducing congestion and cost. The Walrus also does not require hangers or towers and can act as a minature city to house people or troops.
WALRUS will require little or no infrastructure to build or maintain, and will not be limited by the need to use runways or other infrastructure (masts, etc) at the landing location. The system will not require a hangar for storage while not in use, and will be able to withstand adverse weather conditions throughout operational life without significant tie down or other manpower intensive operations.
via weird events
September 28th, 2005 at 12:44am
Sounds like a great solution to a lot of problems. We could use a few of those right now in NO.
September 28th, 2005 at 3:06am
Does that look like Thunderbird 2 to anyone else?
Especially the green one…
September 28th, 2005 at 2:11pm
to bad those blimps do not fly when it is a bit windy..
September 30th, 2005 at 11:52am
Is the eiffel tower really that big ?!