gambit
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As if being wrong about some business deals, many of which failed at the last minutes, really matter...
Pentagon Chooses Two Companies to Build Flying Humvee
- Thread starter Thomas
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I am sure DAPRA has moved forward with this, because that chinaownseverything dude gave them some of his metamaterials -which he keeps in his magic pocket- and they can now create a pair of levitating plates to create a hover-vee...
gambit
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We did. But Lockheed got carried away. The Air Force Chief of Staff amazed everyone at a meeting where the new paperclip held everything in place but no one could see the damn thing. The project was immediately classified uber-secret.
Done. The check is in the mail.But if they are taking open submissions,
Job done you can mail me the check.
pkpatriotic
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The futuristic flying car that's a helicopter and a plane AND a Humvee
By Ian Drury
2nd December 2010
It looks too far-fetched to be anything but a childs toy.
But for front-line troops in Afghanistan, this revolutionary vehicle could soon be a reality.
The road-going army truck turns into a helicopter at the touch of a button, allowing it to fly above hazards such as roadside bombs.
Take-off: A concept design for the Transformer vehicle which will be able to fly troops safely over areas littered with roadside bombs
And military chiefs believe the American-made vehicle, complete with rotor blades and wings, could transform the fortunes of soldiers fighting the Taliban.
It would be similar to a Humvee vehicle for patrolling on the ground but could turn into a helicopter at the touch of a button in an emergency.
Troops could manoeuvre past lethal roadside bombs, improve resupply operations to remote patrol bases and insert elite Special Forces into Taliban strongholds.
The vehicle would also enable soldiers to escape quickly by air if they were caught in a Taliban ambush.
It would also reduce the time required to evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield because they would not need to wait for a medical helicopter - increasing the chances of survival.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a £41million programme to develop a flying armoured vehicle that can carry four servicemen or women.
The vehicle - which uses composite armour to protect crew from gunfire, IED blasts and missiles - would be able to travel 280 miles by land or in the air. It could take-off and land vertically - like the Royal Navy's Harrier jump jets - to increase access to rugged terrain.
Fitted with automatic flight controls, it could be flown by someone who was not a qualified pilot - increasing its flexibility.
And it would be fitted with machineguns and cannons to kill and maim attacking insurgents.
Convertible: The vehicle's wings fold away so it can operate like any other armoured car
The 20ft car could reach speeds of around 65mph on the ground and more than 150mph in the air.
A prototype of the vehicle, dubbed the Transformer, or TX, could be ready by 2015 when British and U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan.
A DARPA spokesman said: 'We are seeking to combine the advantages of ground vehicles and helicopters into a single vehicle equipped with flexibility of movement.
'The concept is to provide options to avoid traditional and asymmetrical threats while avoiding road obstructions.
'With this type technology, transportation will no longer be restricted to trafficable terrain that tends to make movement predictable.'
Terrafugia, a company which has already pioneered a flying car for commercial use, has been drafted in to help produce a prototype armoured truck.
The commercial vehicle, which costs about £132,000 - a similar price to a Ferrari - has wings rather than rotor blades with a 27ft span when lowered. This means it needs 1,700 of clear road to take-off.
A military source said: 'We take an interest in the development of all new technology that may have the potential to help our Armed Forces, no matter how ambitious they may appear to be.'
Parts for the futuristic vehicle will be developed by a number of different military hardware firms
By Ian Drury
2nd December 2010
It looks too far-fetched to be anything but a childs toy.
But for front-line troops in Afghanistan, this revolutionary vehicle could soon be a reality.
The road-going army truck turns into a helicopter at the touch of a button, allowing it to fly above hazards such as roadside bombs.
Take-off: A concept design for the Transformer vehicle which will be able to fly troops safely over areas littered with roadside bombs
And military chiefs believe the American-made vehicle, complete with rotor blades and wings, could transform the fortunes of soldiers fighting the Taliban.
It would be similar to a Humvee vehicle for patrolling on the ground but could turn into a helicopter at the touch of a button in an emergency.
Troops could manoeuvre past lethal roadside bombs, improve resupply operations to remote patrol bases and insert elite Special Forces into Taliban strongholds.
The vehicle would also enable soldiers to escape quickly by air if they were caught in a Taliban ambush.
It would also reduce the time required to evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield because they would not need to wait for a medical helicopter - increasing the chances of survival.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a £41million programme to develop a flying armoured vehicle that can carry four servicemen or women.
The vehicle - which uses composite armour to protect crew from gunfire, IED blasts and missiles - would be able to travel 280 miles by land or in the air. It could take-off and land vertically - like the Royal Navy's Harrier jump jets - to increase access to rugged terrain.
Fitted with automatic flight controls, it could be flown by someone who was not a qualified pilot - increasing its flexibility.
And it would be fitted with machineguns and cannons to kill and maim attacking insurgents.
Convertible: The vehicle's wings fold away so it can operate like any other armoured car
The 20ft car could reach speeds of around 65mph on the ground and more than 150mph in the air.
A prototype of the vehicle, dubbed the Transformer, or TX, could be ready by 2015 when British and U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan.
A DARPA spokesman said: 'We are seeking to combine the advantages of ground vehicles and helicopters into a single vehicle equipped with flexibility of movement.
'The concept is to provide options to avoid traditional and asymmetrical threats while avoiding road obstructions.
'With this type technology, transportation will no longer be restricted to trafficable terrain that tends to make movement predictable.'
Terrafugia, a company which has already pioneered a flying car for commercial use, has been drafted in to help produce a prototype armoured truck.
The commercial vehicle, which costs about £132,000 - a similar price to a Ferrari - has wings rather than rotor blades with a 27ft span when lowered. This means it needs 1,700 of clear road to take-off.
A military source said: 'We take an interest in the development of all new technology that may have the potential to help our Armed Forces, no matter how ambitious they may appear to be.'
Parts for the futuristic vehicle will be developed by a number of different military hardware firms
pkpatriotic
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Why The Army’s New Combat Vehicle Is Doomed
Loren Thompson - forbes.com
Dec. 2 2010
The U.S. Army has wasted an inordinate amount of money on failed technology projects over the past 10 years. An airborne sensor designed to seek out hostile emitters was canceled after the contractor failed to pick a plane big enough to carry the equipment. An armed reconnaissance helicopter said to be the “quarterback of the digital battlefield” was killed after years of delays, and then the helicopter picked to replace it was killed too. A family of networked fighting vehicles consumed $18 billion and then was terminated because policymakers concluded it wasn’t suited to current combat needs. And a sophisticated ballistic weapon the Navy was counting on to arm future warships was canceled by Army managers even though program development was nearly complete.
You’d think after making so many mistakes, and wasting so much money, the Army would have learned something useful about how to buy weapons. Maybe it has, but you’d never guess that from looking at its latest efforts to replace Cold War tactical vehicles. The Government Accountability Office recently estimated that a next-generation jeep the service plans to buy could cost $800,000 per vehicle, making it too pricey to replace the thousands of aging Humvees in the current fleet. And earlier this week the service unveiled the revised plan for a next-generation Ground Combat Vehicle that could cost over $10 million per copy (the Army’s target is $9 million to $10.5 million). As chance would have it, the same week the costly new vehicle concept was revealed, the Navy Department was moving to cancel a Marine amphibious vehicle that cost a similar amount, mainly because the price-tag was too high.
There’s a strong case to be made for developing the new Army vehicle, based on recent operational experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army leaders say they want the protection of a “mine-resistant, ambush-protected” truck like the ones used in Afghanistan today, the mobility of a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, and the versatility of a Stryker wheeled personnel carrier. Unfortunately, the program they have kluged together from these aspirations will yield a system that costs as much as three of the aforementioned vehicles combined. And that’s before the cost increases and delays that inevitably accompany any technology development program. In a world where armored vehicles are frequently destroyed by improvised explosive devices costing America’s enemies only a few hundred dollars each, the notion of a ten-million-dollar combat vehicle is politically and operationally doomed, as the Army will soon discover.
But a big price-tag is just the beginning of what’s wrong with the Ground Combat Vehicle. The Army says it wants the first production version of the new vehicle available within seven years, which is an aggressive schedule when all the required prototyping, testing and integration are included. In order to facilitate a fast-track schedule, it proposes to give up to three industry teams funding to carry out a 24-month technology development phase leading to competitive assessments. That’s two years to develop a design, conduct necessary engineering, secure inputs from suppliers, and carry out the myriad other activities required so the Army can pick a winning design. According to one industry insider, the real amount of time available when other features of the solicitation are factored in is 18 months, which is a lot less time than General Motors would spend on developing a new vehicle concept like the Volt.
Theoretically, such accelerated development plans can yield good results if contractors are properly incentivized to apply the resources needed to get things done quickly. In practice, though, the government customer often derails those plans by continually tweaking requirements after contracts are signed, forcing contractors to go back and redo tasks already thought to have been completed. The Ground Combat Vehicle will be no exception. In the case of GCV, though, the Army has coupled an aggressive development schedule with a harsh structure of incentives that could spell major losses for the competing companies. For instance, the contracts awarded for technology development will have a fixed price with companies having to absorb any cost overruns, despite their lack of visibility as to what changes the government customer might make after proposals are accepted. The normal practice in weapons purchases is to transition to fixed pricing only after technologies and designs are sufficiently mature so that cost estimators can anticipate possible deviations from the plan.
The proposed structure of incentives also doesn’t reward contractors much for saving money. Although they must absorb 100 percent of all the costs incurred above the fixed amount the government provides, if they should manage to deliver their vehicle concepts for less than the amount allotted, they only get to keep 20 percent of savings. However, the real issue for each of the competing industry teams is how much of their own money they will need to commit beyond that provided by the government in order to be positioned at the end of the technology development phase as a plausible winner. Only one team will prevail, and the competition is expected to be intense since the Army plans very few new program starts in the years ahead. In other words, if companies like General Dynamics and BAE Systems don’t secure the Ground Combat Vehicle contract, they may have to wait a long time before comparable opportunities materialize. Meanwhile, GCV will be undercutting demand for their existing combat vehicles.
The dilemma the companies face is that they are making a lot more money on existing, mature vehicle lines than they are likely to make during the early years of the new program. And given the Army’s recent track record of failing to keep technology projects on track, there’s a high likelihood the whole effort could collapse long before winners break even on the program. So the Army has managed to combine in one program a politically controversial price-tag and risky development plan with an unattractive structure of incentives that gives contractors little reason to support its most important new vehicle initiative. Add to that the declining availability of funding for new weapons as Washington heads into a prolonged season of budget cutting, and the Ground Combat Vehicle looks doomed before it even gets going.
Loren Thompson - forbes.com
Dec. 2 2010
The U.S. Army has wasted an inordinate amount of money on failed technology projects over the past 10 years. An airborne sensor designed to seek out hostile emitters was canceled after the contractor failed to pick a plane big enough to carry the equipment. An armed reconnaissance helicopter said to be the “quarterback of the digital battlefield” was killed after years of delays, and then the helicopter picked to replace it was killed too. A family of networked fighting vehicles consumed $18 billion and then was terminated because policymakers concluded it wasn’t suited to current combat needs. And a sophisticated ballistic weapon the Navy was counting on to arm future warships was canceled by Army managers even though program development was nearly complete.
You’d think after making so many mistakes, and wasting so much money, the Army would have learned something useful about how to buy weapons. Maybe it has, but you’d never guess that from looking at its latest efforts to replace Cold War tactical vehicles. The Government Accountability Office recently estimated that a next-generation jeep the service plans to buy could cost $800,000 per vehicle, making it too pricey to replace the thousands of aging Humvees in the current fleet. And earlier this week the service unveiled the revised plan for a next-generation Ground Combat Vehicle that could cost over $10 million per copy (the Army’s target is $9 million to $10.5 million). As chance would have it, the same week the costly new vehicle concept was revealed, the Navy Department was moving to cancel a Marine amphibious vehicle that cost a similar amount, mainly because the price-tag was too high.
There’s a strong case to be made for developing the new Army vehicle, based on recent operational experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army leaders say they want the protection of a “mine-resistant, ambush-protected” truck like the ones used in Afghanistan today, the mobility of a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, and the versatility of a Stryker wheeled personnel carrier. Unfortunately, the program they have kluged together from these aspirations will yield a system that costs as much as three of the aforementioned vehicles combined. And that’s before the cost increases and delays that inevitably accompany any technology development program. In a world where armored vehicles are frequently destroyed by improvised explosive devices costing America’s enemies only a few hundred dollars each, the notion of a ten-million-dollar combat vehicle is politically and operationally doomed, as the Army will soon discover.
But a big price-tag is just the beginning of what’s wrong with the Ground Combat Vehicle. The Army says it wants the first production version of the new vehicle available within seven years, which is an aggressive schedule when all the required prototyping, testing and integration are included. In order to facilitate a fast-track schedule, it proposes to give up to three industry teams funding to carry out a 24-month technology development phase leading to competitive assessments. That’s two years to develop a design, conduct necessary engineering, secure inputs from suppliers, and carry out the myriad other activities required so the Army can pick a winning design. According to one industry insider, the real amount of time available when other features of the solicitation are factored in is 18 months, which is a lot less time than General Motors would spend on developing a new vehicle concept like the Volt.
Theoretically, such accelerated development plans can yield good results if contractors are properly incentivized to apply the resources needed to get things done quickly. In practice, though, the government customer often derails those plans by continually tweaking requirements after contracts are signed, forcing contractors to go back and redo tasks already thought to have been completed. The Ground Combat Vehicle will be no exception. In the case of GCV, though, the Army has coupled an aggressive development schedule with a harsh structure of incentives that could spell major losses for the competing companies. For instance, the contracts awarded for technology development will have a fixed price with companies having to absorb any cost overruns, despite their lack of visibility as to what changes the government customer might make after proposals are accepted. The normal practice in weapons purchases is to transition to fixed pricing only after technologies and designs are sufficiently mature so that cost estimators can anticipate possible deviations from the plan.
The proposed structure of incentives also doesn’t reward contractors much for saving money. Although they must absorb 100 percent of all the costs incurred above the fixed amount the government provides, if they should manage to deliver their vehicle concepts for less than the amount allotted, they only get to keep 20 percent of savings. However, the real issue for each of the competing industry teams is how much of their own money they will need to commit beyond that provided by the government in order to be positioned at the end of the technology development phase as a plausible winner. Only one team will prevail, and the competition is expected to be intense since the Army plans very few new program starts in the years ahead. In other words, if companies like General Dynamics and BAE Systems don’t secure the Ground Combat Vehicle contract, they may have to wait a long time before comparable opportunities materialize. Meanwhile, GCV will be undercutting demand for their existing combat vehicles.
The dilemma the companies face is that they are making a lot more money on existing, mature vehicle lines than they are likely to make during the early years of the new program. And given the Army’s recent track record of failing to keep technology projects on track, there’s a high likelihood the whole effort could collapse long before winners break even on the program. So the Army has managed to combine in one program a politically controversial price-tag and risky development plan with an unattractive structure of incentives that gives contractors little reason to support its most important new vehicle initiative. Add to that the declining availability of funding for new weapons as Washington heads into a prolonged season of budget cutting, and the Ground Combat Vehicle looks doomed before it even gets going.
Reminds me of another doomed concept..
The air cushioned launch pad for jets to take off if the runway is damaged in an attack and go after the attackers..
Concept art showed a F-15 sitting on a hoversled of sorts..and being propelled to take off speeds..
How the F-15 ever got back to base.. or did he even need to get back to the otherwise devastated base..was never discussed.
The air cushioned launch pad for jets to take off if the runway is damaged in an attack and go after the attackers..
Concept art showed a F-15 sitting on a hoversled of sorts..and being propelled to take off speeds..
How the F-15 ever got back to base.. or did he even need to get back to the otherwise devastated base..was never discussed.
TenjikuKensei
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Good one. I remember seeing the concept image and wondering the same. I assumed that somehow there would be some other base nearby which the planes could use to land....unless of course they were planning a Doolittle raid
CardSharp
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Good one. I remember seeing the concept image and wondering the same. I assumed that somehow there would be some other base nearby which the planes could use to land....unless of course they were planning a Doolittle raid
The cockpits seal from the outside
TenjikuKensei
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TenjikuKensei
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Convertible: The vehicle's wings fold away so it can operate like any other armoured car
One would think that these companies would listen to the soldiers on the ground a bit before they go around drawing up such plans.
Irrc most of the attacks the convoys /patrols face in Afghanistan and iraq come in the form of ambushes...almost always preceded by a IED explosion(s), followed by Rpg and Small arms fire.
With such a design the "rotors" and the "fan" would be one of the first to get hit. I'm betting good money that these things will not be able to take off with damaged rotors, doubly so when even "unfurling" such a rotor would require the function of more than a few motors and actuators. With every additional contraption, the chances of getting one of them damaged at the start of a firefight increases exponentially.
What a truly silly idea.
CardSharp
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Which cockpits? the F-15's?
A joke they'd never do that with an F-15 but that's what they did for Kamikazes in WWII.
TenjikuKensei
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Ah, I didn't know the kamikaze planes had locked cockpits. I'm pretty sure that he who drew up the plans for hovercraft based takeoff thought of it after watching Red Dawn
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