Airgeeps, Flying Jeeps, Flying Landrovers,

[Mossie]

Elsie, sounds like your thinking along the lines of the AVE Mizar or the flying jet car in The Man With the Golden Gun.  Kind of a bolt on kit that can turn a standard Landie into an aeroplane?  What scale is your Landie?  I've got a Tamiya 1/35 SAS Landrover & I compared it to a 1/72 A-10 wing.  To me it looks like you'd need something larger to go with 1/35 scale either a 1/48 A-10 wing or one from a larger 1/72 aircraft.

There's a good page here with a few 'roadable aircraft' designs.  In general, they tend to have long, straight wings due to the low speeds.  There's some fan driven aircraft as well.
http://inventorspot.com/articles/experimen...lying_cars_6835

What Jeff mentions about the Glencoe Airgeep kit is a good idea.  I've got this kit & funnily enough I've intended cross kitting it with Tamiya's Landie, but only to use the various accessories from it.  I can scan some pics of the British 'Jumping Jeep' concepts, but it might not be for a day or two.  Family round for Christmas y'see!

[Jeffry Fontaine]

>>>snip>>>I've got this kit & funnily enough I've intended cross kitting it with Tamiya's Landie, but only to use the various accessories from it.>>>snip>>>

Mossie,

There was no nationalistic pride involved in the selection and use of the M151 as a source for the parts.  The idea of using the LR parts on the Airgeep is one that I had not considered previously due to the availability of decent LR kits.  If Tamiya had provided us with a plethora of Landrover variants, I would have been all of that like white on rice.  As it is, the Tamiya LR kits are but two choices, the SAS Pink Panther LR and the Ambulance LR kit.  Italeri is the only other source for a decent priced LR and they basically provide you with the SAS version and a standard unarmed vehicle.  Now I do have some spare GPMG and mounts from a scrapped PPLR kit that may eventually be mated up to one of the Airgeep kits, afterall the U.S. Army is now using the M240 version of the GPMG in large enough quantities to make that viable.  

The Glenco Airgeep is a nice kit of the first vehicle, it was limited in what it could carry as a useful load.  Apparently the Airgeep II had two engines which give it a lot more lifting capacity and it also had powered wheels to allow it  to travel in ground mode at speeds up to 35 miles per hour (56 kmh).  Granted that would have been on a flat surface with minimal obstacles but it sure beats walking.  

Now if there was to have been an improvements to the vehicle in the lift fan department by switching to a propeller/rotor that had more than the three blades of the original vehicle, I wonder how that would have improved the lift performance of the vehicle.  Maybe a six, seven, eight, or nine blade propeller and a deeper cavity for the duct to help increase performance while in hover and flight mode.  I would think that with the recent developments in ducted fans and lightweight materials that the Airgeep would stand a much better chance now than it did back in 1960.  

[Mossie]

Jeff, I didn't mean to infer any.  The only reason I said 'funnily enough' was because you mentioned the Airgeep & the thread was about the Landrover, & I happend to have an idea to cross kit those two kits.  I wasn't trying to be facetious.


I think the selection of the Ford Mutt is good idea, like you say it's well kitted by Tamiya.  The cross kitting I'm going to do with the Landie won't involve a kit bash, I was simply going to use the accessories from that & the SAS Jeep to kit it out as an Airgeep operated by the SAS.  I don't think that version of the Landrover will be that useful for a kit bash.  The selection of the SAS as the operator wasn't really national pride as such, just insipiration from JCC's model.  I really liked it & the way he adapted it for snow & it made me think, how could I build one & not have to paint it in green, or copy the snow idea?  I thought of a desert environment & was initially thinking of US troops in Desert Storm, then I remebered the SAS 'Pinkies' & thought that painting the Glencoe Airgeep pink would make for a really interesting model!

[Mossie]

As promised, 'Jumping Jeep' desgins:

Bristol Siddley designs.




BAC P.35



Foland designs

[Jeffry Fontaine]

As promised, 'Jumping Jeep' desgins

Those are some really odd looking concepts.  It looks like some of the designs attempted to incorporate a hovercraft into the vehicle.  Would any of those hovercraft types vehicles have been capable of anything but riding on an aircushion?

While we are at it.  The latest miniaturization of guided weapons technology has now allowed the production of a 70mm (2.75") guided missile.  With such small precision guided weapons available, I wonder if any of the actual flight test vehicles would have benefited from mounting something so small and deadly on a flying Jeep/Rover platform?  Not that it would be a tank killer with a weapon that small but it would certainly be interesting to see if it could be applied to a convoy escort role where the vehicle could fly at an elevation that would allow surveillance and stay out of the immediate blast radius of an improvised explosive device that was oriented towards attacking vehicles on a roadway. 

[Hobbes]

A flying car wouldn't be used for escort duties. The concept is so impractical it's only be feasible for special forces. Besides, with today's technology you can have an UAV overhead to do surveillance and as a convoy escort.

[Mossie]

Those are some really odd looking concepts.  It looks like some of the designs attempted to incorporate a hovercraft into the vehicle.  Would any of those hovercraft types vehicles have been capable of anything but riding on an aircushion?  

All except for the Bristol design Jeff.  The specification, which was to be able to clear an obstacle 10ft high & 30ft wide was met by the Folland & BAC designs.  Folland also looked at the helicopter & direct lift jets for true flight, but decided these would be more complex, costly & would require piloting skills.

Bristol went a step further.  Believe it or not, that little bug has a Pegasus in it.  Bristol believed that the men on the ground would only settle for a vehicle that was capable of true flight.  They believed that the army really needed a vehicle that could cruise at 200ft, & be capable of photography from 1,000ft.  The vehicle was believed to have a maximum available altitude of 10,000ft at full throttle.  Crazy eh?

Here are some Handley Page & Saunders Roe Jumping Jeep designs on Secret Projects:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1982.msg17956/highlight,jumping+jeep.html#msg17956
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3173.msg25613/highlight,jumping+jeep.html#msg25613

A flying car wouldn't be used for escort duties. The concept is so impractical it's only be feasible for special forces. Besides, with today's technology you can have an UAV overhead to do surveillance and as a convoy escort.

This was more or less the conclusion of the study.  In the end, the specification was dropped as it was realised that an off road vehicle would provide the road part of the specification, & helicopters the flying part which were only just coming of age.  It was the 'anything is possible' sixties & I guess that the Army wanted in on all this new fangled technoloy stuff that the RAF was jealously hoarding!

As an aside, there's some various designs of flying tanks & such on Secret Projects:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,724.0.html

[jcf]

Cross post from the 100 Years of Handley Page thread:
HP 120 Type B.

Jon

[jcf]

DARPA launches flying car project

Staff report
Posted : Wednesday Dec 30, 2009 12:08:17 EST

A high-tech vehicle under development by the military could offer more than meets the eye.

The "Transformer project," launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
would create a vehicle that can travel on land or through the air.

The vehicle would be able to fly like a helicopter, drive off-road and carry up to four people,
according to DARPA's Dec. 23 announcement. The ability to fly would help escape ambushes
and land mines and cross rivers.

In DARPA's terminology, flying and driving, "enables the warfighter to approach targets from
directions opportune to them and not the enemy."

The Transformer also must get good gas mileage, because it's able to conduct "tactically relevant missions"
on a single tank of fuel.

DARPA, the Pentagon office that oversees long-range research, is leaving up to private researchers and
contractors to determine how a vehicle would do all that and what it would look like. Interested firms
will meet with DARPA officials Jan. 14 in Arlington, Va.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/12/airforce_transformer_123009w/

Seems we've all been here before:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1982.0.html

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3173.0.html

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,20352.msg289816.html#msg289816

Dang if it aint' deja vu all over again.

[B777LR]

Drive, fly and good mileage all in one? Sounds like a PR thing to me. Anyhow, sounds cool, can't wait to see it.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Dang if it aint' deja vu all over again.

Yep, sure is interesting how they find funding to re-invent the wheel or in this case the flying platform/car/hovercraft... or whatever the latest buzzword is to describe it.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Yes, but every idea DARPA comes up with lately is always accepted, embraced, and given the government's full blessing.