h a l f b a k e r yThere goes my teleportation concept.
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The new warships being built are radar-stealthy and
resemble
submarines with their limited radar reflecting deck
accessories such as guns and masts. The idea is to take it
one
step further and add submersible ability to these ships so
they could completely disappear as necessary.
They
wouldn't be constructed as modern submarines
designed
to go down thousands of feet, just a few hundred feet to
avoid surface detection.
I'm a big believer in deterrence, and I think the entire US
Navy disappearing from all the radar screens of the world
during drills and times of crisis would send a message that
this was a force that probably shouldn't be messed with. As
I watch us trying to find this lost airliner in the
Indian ocean it becomes apparent how good the sea is at
hiding things.
Submerge to 200 feet, change course and after a few hours,
unless there was a submarine trailing you to begin with,
you're not going to be found. Add un-manned mini subs to
patrol and attack any tails that were put on these ships and
you've got a virtually indestructible Navy. With more
survivable ships, we could build fewer of them and save
money.
I'd start with stealthy / submersible aircraft carriers.
Heck, they look like subs already.
http://www.foxnews....US+Latest+-+Text%29
[doctorremulac3, Apr 12 2014]
or...
http://en.wikipedia...ubmarine_Russia.svg
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 12 2014]
http://en.wikipedia...ne_aircraft_carrier
submarines with on-board aircraft [xenzag, Apr 13 2014]
Prior HB art
Submersible_20AirCraft_20Carrier
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 15 2014]
[link]
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This is a practically impossible excellent idea, although
submarines the size of aircraft carriers would be difficult to
move around undetected. Just the sound of 5,000 sailors
breathing would light up SOSUS nets for nautical miles in
every direction. |
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Load tube 1 with a buttered croissant and fire! |
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Hear what you're saying. Couple of things you could
do. These new ships already are very automated and
carry about half the crew of the ship it's replacing
and on top of it you could add soundproofing as well. |
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But yea, it would bring back the "run silent"
command from WW2 times. Everybody standing still,
whispering and looking up (for some reason) like in
the movies. |
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Those movies weren't exactly realistic. The number of
highly accurate submarine movies I've seen could be
counted on a lumberjack's hand. |
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My provisonal bun is there as presuming there's a machine that goings "ping ping ping" at about 45 minute intervals and someone has to drop a spanner... |
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Got an idea for a video game to keep the kids quiet.
"Silent Running" There's a mic and they sit on the WII
balance board to sense motion as they watch the
animated sub on the TV, they need to keep
completely quiet and still or the sub gets depth
charged. The lurking destroyer's sonar pings and
swishing of the propellors fading in and out to add to
the effect. |
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There is a WII game where you sit in the lotus
position on the balance board and if you move at all
you loose. There's a candle flame that flickers with
the slightest movement of your body and if you blow
it out the sensei tells you you've lost. A sub blowing
up might be more interesting than a candle blowing
out. |
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Actually, you wouldn't need the mic. The balance
board is sensitive enough that if you talk, your body
moves enough that you blow out the candle. I've
played it, it's not as boring as it sounds. Standing
completely still is actually pretty hard. |
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"News that the British submarine M2 had sunk during aircraft launching trials during 1933, and damage to the XSL-2[4] during aquatic testings in the Anacostia river area, caused the whole idea of submarine-borne aircraft to be abandoned by the U.S. Navy." |
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Huh. Not sure I believe that. |
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It's true, but it's not the whole story. The Borg can probably
quote chapter and verse for us. |
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There are/have been many submarines capable of
transporting and deploying aircraft; I think the Reds even
looked at designing an ICBM tube-launched rocket fighter
to defend their big boomers from antisubmarine aircraft. |
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It's just that if we're going to submersify the entire navy,
we'll need to build submarines the size of fleet aircraft
carriers, which when surfaced will function as fleet
carriers, because the strategic effectivity of the modern
navy is pretty much centered around fleet carriers, and a
fleet carrier is not something that just goes sneaking
around wherever it pleases without being noticed. At two
hundred feet--or even two hundred yards--a submerged
object that size would be visible from low-flying aircraft.
It's entirely feasible that both surface sensors and
surveillance sattelites would be able to track its
movements by momentary changes in local water
displacement. |
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Each is capable of generating and travelling inside of
a tidal wave, and at times can be propelled just by
the inertia of the water alone, although they are
nuclear powered warships. |
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How about fleets of smaller "Harrier carriers"? |
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This form of the fleet idea could be extended to a kind of "Mechano/Lego" full scale carrier too. The flight deck travels in sections. When it's time to become a floating airfield, tie up to your neighbour, and winch the thing together. |
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When not in use, and submerged, the parts could be separated. Make them "louvred shutters" that hang down when not in use, and rotate 90 degrees - with as little drag as possible - to form decks. (Once above water, the louvres could rotate to form a flat surface instead of a "stepladder"). |
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Actually something like that might even be able to go and lurk down below the surface once the planes were gone? I don't know what the turnaround time would be. |
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Just in case that's not clear enough. The "stepladders" hang so as to present the thin edge when not in use. To deploy, twist them, so they "lie flat". And then twist the "rungs/steps" at any convenient time to turn them into full or partial decking. |
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Idea already baked by the entire navy of Nejhaanistan. |
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[skoomph], I like the 'multiple modular submersible carrier'
idea, but
you have to work out what to do if you lose a chunk out of
the middle. Maybe you make the individual craft identical
and each capable of being the bow, stern, or amidships?
Also, the fit-up would have to be very tight, since the
surfaced carrier must be underway during flight ops. |
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There's a bigger problem with all these ideas. |
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Go back a very long time. Someone one day realises that with a big enough stick he could win his next fight. So he gets a nice stick, practices hitting things with it, wins a fight with it. |
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He loses his next fight. The other guy has a better stick. |
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This goes over to the troop scale. We attack those big guys with sticks... And from behind (new innovations are constantly evolving now). This troop beats the neighbours, but at some point news of the stick gets out, and somewhere else in the world is the genius who ties a rock to his stick, and wins a fight that way. |
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Someone invents armour. Swords. Matchlocks, flintlocks... and now you all have known where I'm heading with this. |
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Yes, that's right. The long term effect of inventing the stick used for hitting people with, is that more people are killed in battle than was previously the case. That's it. Strategically it changes nothing or little. The news gets out; the world re-arms; the fights get bloodier. |
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I suppose in fairness to the eternal arms race, one has to remember that when war and fighting get deadlier people lose some of their natural enthusiasm for it. We live in pretty peaceful times in spite of all the lunatics out there who long to bathe in rivers of blood, and it's the Bomb that did that for us. |
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I believe the French tested out the submersible
navy concept in July 1940, with mixed results. |
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[Alterother] I think I must've been out jumping fences on the hobbyhorse when you commented on the modular carrier. |
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I'm assuming that it's not just underway, but also doing a much higher speed than the Queen Mary when busy with flight ops. That would make things a bit more difficult in the (likely) situation where it's a displacement hull (rather than eg. a hydrofoil), because the waterline length sets the "speed limit". Lots of small craft are going to go slowly. |
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This being the Halfbakery, the way to save the day would seem to be to have about 2km worth of runway-craft, and to move a bit more slowly. Maybe have 4km worth to make up for holes that get shot into the structure. |
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Better still, travel with a very rapid Pycrete generator, and just build a gigantic iceberg to operate from. |
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//I believe the French tested out the submersible
navy concept in July 1940, with mixed results.// |
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I was thinking more of one that comes back up
afterwards. |
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I don't remember the precise speeds involved, but in order
to launch and recover airplanes an aircraft carrier must
steam into the wind at a pretty good clip, like fifteen knots
or something. |
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If you want to put a carrier together out of separate craft
which lock together, they must mate so tightly as if they
truly were one hull, and then perform under power as so. |
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I do not understand why a modular locking platform needs to be moving in order to either launch or recover aircraft if it is long enough. If a majority of the craft remained submerged then surface waves under a certain size could be compensated for. |
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As I understand it, steaming into the wind helps the
launching airplanes gain a little bit of extra lift and for
those landing it provides additional drag at a crucial
moment. I suppose that if the modular aircraft carrier
could be made the size of a landborne airport then it could
just sit there, but something that size that has zero
mobility would be tremendously vulnerable to attack, both
during flight operations and during assembly. |
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That's why you have it semi-automated, so all the subs can come from many directions, pop up above the surface when they are close together and lock together within 30 seconds after surfacing. Quickly launch or land a few planes, then split appart and dissapear. |
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In a major naval battle, if you've got say 3 or 4 times the number of carrier modules that you need for a single landing strip in one general area, all of the units cans be moving around in ways that appear somewhat random and hard to predict for the enemy, but runways would pop in and out of existance as needed to support the aircraft. |
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//something that size that has zero mobility would be tremendously vulnerable to attack, both during flight operations and during assembly.// |
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Not necessarily.
Assembly could be accomplished while submerged. Instead of a submerged ship, consider a submerged train with modular cars which are each their own engine and so can detach from the caravan in any given configuration. The length of runway is predetermined by the aircraft needing to be deployed, and submerged reinforcements can be engaged as needed. |
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It's a real shame that this will only end up being a military funded project. The benefits to humanity of being able to tackle the oceans before we overrun the surface area of Earth vastly outweigh the strategic importance of one-upping the competition. |
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It's that old story of "He who wants peace had better prepare for war". |
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In fact the great cost and difficulty of implementing schemes like this could even be seen as money well spent, rather than as waste, because costliness immediately puts some potential war-makers out of business - and possibly even makes them peaceful. Push the cost of war down and the blood will flow. (Ask at Kalashnikov for more details on how to commit that crime against humanity brilliantly.) |
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Also one's existing systems have been studied by groups of experts almost as astute as the Halfbakers, so their weaknesses are known and calculated. Something like an underwater navy is an unknown. It might not be able to deliver on all its promises, but who can know? That messes up the calculations, which is exactly what the peaceful want to do to those who lust after blood and burnt flesh. |
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Exactly. Calculation is the central word to consider
when dealing with potential conflict. |
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People in power often decide they want more power,
so they come to the card table that is geopolitics
with dreams of a glorious empire where as many
people as possible live under the iron fist of their
decree, whatever that might be. The conquered
people need to hand all power over to the state,
specified god or just the glorious leader himself. |
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The other people at that card table have card hands
that might win or loose when the aggressor "calls" the
rest of the players at the table by initiating armed
conflict. The goal of people who just want to sit at
the table in peace is to stop the aggressor from
"calling", that is, initiating war where his military
assets go up against the target's military assets. |
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Here's one thing you, as somebody wanting peace
have going for you. The aggressor probably isn't going
to pull the trigger if it knows he's not going to win, or
even if he's UNSURE, he's going to win. Ironically the
thing that's been most effective at keeping the peace
over the last half century is that bomb under the
card table that will blow everybody up if any one
person decides to push the button, mutually assured
nuclear destruction. However, for that to work, the
aggressor needs to think the defender will actually
push the button and blow all the players up. |
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So what's a dictator to do in the age of nuclear
weapons? He needs to take it slow. He needs to win
little wars. Incremental taking over of this and that
territory in a slow and methodical process. Putin
might be doing this right now. |
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So how do you counter that? Make each hand he plays
a looser. When he builds up his military for potential
non-nuclear conflict, build up yours with better
equipment so when they do the math, they see that
pulling the trigger would be bad for them, or at least
create an unsure outcome. When they grab territory,
bolster your defenses in the next territory in his line
of conquest. This isn't too difficult to understand. It's
been going on for as long as there's been war. When
they bring new or more numerous arms to the table,
bring better ones for your side. |
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So where does this, or any concept of improving
means of waging war fit in? It minimizes it's impact
on the people who have to pay for all of this, the
taxpayer and maximizes it's deterrence to any
potential aggressor. If we're going to have a navy, I
think it would be better to have fewer ships with
better designs. There's been an east vs west,
numbers vs quality debate going on throughout the
cold war specifically in the design of air superiority
fighter design. To over simplify, east thinks "I'll make
5 fighters for every 1 the evil west makes." and the
west says "We'll design a fighter that can shoot down
6 fighters for every 1 we loose." Which policy is
better is up for debate another time. |
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Anyway, a stealth navy makes pulling that trigger to
start a war that much more of a guessing game, and
if you want to follow the Art of War rules, you're
supposed to leave as little to chance as possible when
waging war. Winning a battle against a disappearing
navy would be a very chancy thing. |
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And by the way, I'd add a whole new advanced art of
radar spoofing to this, that is, little robot ships all
over the place getting painted by radar and sending
out amplified radar reflections so you think you're
looking at an aircraft carrier when you're looking at
something the size of a tugboat. (Not sure how
feasible this is, it seems like something that might be
possible.) So when the bad
guys asks his admirals any question about the enemy
fleet location, strength and capability, the answers
are always "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know."
This is the kind of thing that makes an aggressor
think "Hmm, maybe today isn't the best day to start
my war. Maybe I"ll just have another parade to stroke
my ego." |
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Alright I'm convinced, but I see the international hauling of freight as having a far greater benefit than threat deterrence will.
Cargo could be hauled even under the arctic ice in trains miles long and far larger than any conventional train could be. There would be no weather patterns to contend with, you'd have guaranteed delivery times, more direct line-of-sight travel, minimal piracy, and the military would still get to tweak the designs because the trains would require, or need to contain their own, escort. |
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If somebody's going to end up with the invisible navy it might as well be Canada. |
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//
That's why you have it semi-automated, so all the
subs can come from many directions, pop up above the
surface when they are close together and lock together
within 30 seconds after surfacing. Quickly launch or land a
few planes, then split appart and dissapear.
// |
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I think the reality may interfere slightly
with your brilliant concept. It takes more than thirty
seconds to simply change direction in a large oceangoing
vessel, not to speak of conducting complex maneuvers with
many craft. |
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With technology that does not yet exist, it might be
possible for a bunch of subs to pop up and form into a
functional airstrip in a few hours, if the weather's nice.
Plus you've still got to steer it so that the planes are taking
off into the wind regardless of the length. Trying to land an
airplane on a floating platform in a crosswind is shear
madness. |
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If most of the "subs" (taking that as an adaptable concept) were pylons when holding up decking - each with an autonomous motor, then when orienting to the wind, the platform might be more manoevreable than a carrier. Each pylon could kind-of pirouette in such a way that the structure as a whole rotated round its centre. (Like those arrays of small wheeled vehicles used to move and position megastructures on land.) |
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A completely different option that now occurs is that of piggy-backing fighters on VSTOL "take-offers" whose specialized task is to get planes up to operating altitude - and possibly even beyond - quickly, and without net consumption of the fighter's own fuel. A rocket might even do (although G-forces etc might be a problem). A huge problem is landing. The best solution I can come up with is that everyone "crashes in the ocean" when done. Trouble is even if you manage that, turn-around would be slow. I imagine that often you'd want the fighters to go straight back to battle after quickly re-arming and refueling. |
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Pretending the objections away certainly gives a difficult target to track, and lots of surprise. Even if not building something like this oneself, it would probably be a good idea to at least continually seek to make it feasible, just to have some understanding of it. And now is not a bad time to start at least thinking out the defences against the "rocket and splash" airforce, just in case some other arms racer figures out how to make something like it work. |
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It's not beyond the realm of reason that current-gen fighter
technology could be built into a flying boat sort of thing.
And rocket/jet-assisted takeoff is old hat (wiki 'JATO' for
full details and resultant urban myths), no serious issues
with G-forces or anything. It's even been done off of ships a
few times. |
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Another way to achieve this effect is to keep the
current navy at the current sea level then wait for
global warming and the purported rise in sea levels
accompanying that phenomenon. |
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The perfect plan for any nation that wants a two-feet-
underwater navy and doesn't want to pay for it. |
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I can forsee navy pilots experiencing some difficulties landing on a submerged aircraft carrier. Apart from that, the idea seems OK. |
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We just need to equip them with Sky Captain jets, that's
all. Problem solved. Hell, we'll get SHIELD's helicarrier* to
schlep them around. It's been a submersible a time or two
in the comics. |
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* I'm sorry for the caps but since I brought up the subject I
need everyone in the room to hear this: I HAVE NOT YET
WATCHED CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER AND
WILL NOT UNTIL IT IS OUT ON BLU-RAY, SO DO NOT TELL
ME ANYTHING ABOUT IT OR I WILL MAKE YOU VERY VERY
SORRY. |
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Well, it goes like this.....Captain America arghhh <succumbs to curate-tipped dart from alterother> |
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//The balance board is sensitive enough that if you talk, your body moves enough that you blow out the candle. I've played it, it's not as boring as it sounds |
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My, how those long winter nights must fly by... |
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-- Rat pie, rat salad ... Ullo, there's a dead curate on the landing. |
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-- Who cares? It's only a curate. |
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--- Right... um ... Some rat salad, then, please. --- |
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Submerging the cable arrest systems on an air-craft
carrier would probably not be wise. Of course, one
could always just go the way of Harriers. |
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Blimps. forget the flight deck and lift the planes with
temporary blimps. |
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So what if we explore the other end of the runway length vs. aircraft carrier operating speed window... Can we get a boat just big enough to carry one jet up to takeoff/landing speed? Think of it like a float plane that leaves it's floats on the water. |
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I'll leave the details to your imaginations. |
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//a float plane that leaves its floats on the water// Excellent idea, apart from the rogue apostrophe. How would landing work though? If the plane had a long springy arrestor hook that suck out in front, that could snag on a big elastic loop on the floats, so as the plane approached the stationary floats to land, the hook would grab the elastic and both slow down the plane and yank the floats up to speed just in time for touchdown. |
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hmm...
I can't seem to find any stats on the fastest unassisted rate of ascending for a buoyant object.
If the pilot remained pressurised within the aircraft then decompression issues are negated and there would be no G-force trauma. What kind of speed could be attained by simply releasing a very positively buoyant launcher from a great depth? Would this speed be enough to maintain flight once the aircraft were free of the surface and its carrier? Perhaps we could engineer folded wings to maintain the carriers' girlish figure even. |
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[skoom] Indeed - an ekranoplane the size of an aircraft carrier would be pretty awe-inspiring |
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I was trying to find out more about the Soviet's
looking into launching an escort fighter from their
vertical ICBM launch tubes but couldn't. Anybody got
anything more on that? |
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[2fries], whatever the rate is, the decelleration of a descending object would be equal and opposite shirley? So the aircraft could finish the mission by diving head first into the ocean where the (precision guided/positioned) submarine stood at an appropriate depth with the tube doors open (perhaps the open doors forming a convenient funnel shape). |
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Tricky, then you'd need a submersible aircraft. |
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I was wondering if a single hydro-foil deck could match speeds with a landing plane and then submerge once secure and buttoned up. |
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For launching, if the nose cone of the carrier were segmented and held closed by the water pressure around it then breaking free of the surface would cause the entire forward third of the carrier to violently open, flower-like, and the resulting drag would make it fall away from the launched aircraft very quickly.
Since the tail end of the carrier would be heavier than the nose to keep it vertical during ascent, it will fall back to the sea butt-first ensuring that the nose cone closes properly and the carrier can be reused for multiple launches. |
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"Phineas, I know what we're going to do today..." |
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In an altitude excursion, maybe drag matters less than in level flight. I'm thinking if you fling a plane upwards, it's going to have some upward momentum, regardless of how badly the plane is handling, you're going to keep on going up until you've traded in all the kinetic energy you put into going upward. And if you manage vertical ascent, obviously the lateral component stays constantly zero. |
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So do a variant of the airshow vertical ascent trying to reach just above the stalling speed of the big cloth bat wing you've got stored in your wing, and then break out, and loop gently down to some "short field". |
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Be careful not to have enemy aircraft about when performing this manoevre. |
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I know that Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier. I've read
many of the comics. I just haven't watched the movie, and
we don't go to theaters because I'm half-deaf and can't hear
the dialog and the cheap worn-out seats inflame my
sciatica, so I don't see movies until they come out on home
video. |
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So don't spoil them for me. |
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// I was trying to find out more about the Soviet's looking
into launching an escort fighter from their vertical ICBM
launch tubes but couldn't. Anybody got anything more on
that? // |
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I said "I think." Maybe I had it confused with something
else, but I'm pretty sure I saw it in one of those shoestring-
production documentaries they show at 3am on the Hitler
Channel; 'Wierd Weapons of the Cold
War' or some such. There were so many honest-to-goodness
bizarre, impossible prototype vehicles and weapons
developed during and after WWII that it's nearly impossible
to sort the real ones from the spoofs, hoaxes, and rumors. |
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Example: the Great Panjandrum. |
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Nothing wrong with the idea. I don't think the Goblin
was that much wider than an ICBM launch tube. Put
the thing in a water proof sabot style casing to get it
out of the water, solid boosters get it up to altitude,
peel away the casing, unfold the wings and go at it.
Even if they had to modify one tube to double the
width or something it wouldn't be that hard to do. |
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When the pilot shoots down any maritime patrol
planes
in the area, the pilot bails out and hopes the sub
remembers to pick him up. |
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Their target would be pretty easy since maritime
patrol aircraft are built for long range not speed and
defensive capability. They also don't have escort
fighters in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean so it
wouldn't need dogfighting capability, just a
couple of of sidewinders and maybe an onboard
cannon to make sure you'd get the target. |
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I guess it was decides that stealth was a good enough
defense to make these too much trouble to design
and not worth the payoff. |
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