Here's a Flyingboat with a difference

[kitnut617]

Scroll down until you see the DHC-4 Carabou. It caught my eye because it had stablizer floats under it's wings.

http://www.combatreform.com/c130.htm

Robert

Whoops! my mistake, it's a DHC-5 Buffalo  

[rallymodeller]

Boy, the guy who wrote that page doesn't like Marines very much, does he?  

[Ollie]

That guy has no clue at all.

Quite funny to read his diatribe.

 

[Aircav]

That air cushion landing system was in the Speed & power magazine in the 70's        

[RLBH]

The chap's off his head, to be sure, but in amongst the cr*p, there's some decent stuff.

I mean, I found that website ages ago and explored it a bit, then lost it. There are scores of pages like that, and you'd have to try REALLY hard to write that much and have all of it be absolute garbage.

I think it was that guy who came up with the ArTank - a tank with a 155mm howitzer. His responses to comments (not mine) about ammunition supply were colorful, to say the least...

[cthulhu77]

What a jackass.

[Jschmus]

I noticed he uses the term "Gavin" for the M113.  Is this the same fellow who says that all of the Army's armored vehicle problems would be solved if they'd buy a stretched M113 with a turret supporting crew-served weapons?  I think I remember the site.  He also advocates putting ducted tail rotors on all helos and buying Seamasters.

[Sisko]

I hate music on websites.

Especially when you are surfing at work. ^_^  

[Lord Darth Beavis]

Want a real laugh?  Read his spewing on the V-22!  Oh my frelling ghid!  What a bunch of steaming feces!

[B777LR]

I like that C-130 gyrocopter and C-130 floatplane

[kitnut617]

Opps! seems I touched off something I didn't mean too.  I hadn't read any of the text as I was just looking for pictures.  The C-130 Gyrodyne and the C-130 Floatplane are really neat.

Robert

[Mossie]

Theres a little more on the C-130 Gyrodyne on the  Groen Brothers Website.

Note the waterbomber version for anyone joining Captain Canada's GB, (I've already posted it there).

It'd make a fantastatic whiff, especially alongside the floatpalne!

Simon.

[kitnut617]

The rotor diameter is emormous, greater than the C-130 wing span, or has it been shortened.

[Mossie]

Your right Robert, the rotor appears huge but the wings have been clipped, I guess to fit the image to size rather than show the true configuration, they're a bit blunt.  Also, the rotor appears offset, being longer on the right than the left of the picture.

If you look at the image of the 'Monsoon' water bomber, the rotor diameter appears to nearly meet the nose & tail but not not the wingtips.



A huge rotor would seem to fit the concept, the Rotodyne Z we're looking at had a 109ft/32m rotor for a 75ft/22.5m wingspan and 70.5ft/21.16m fuselage, nearly a third larger than the extremities of the aircraft.

Simon.

[jcf]

Your right Robert, the rotor appears huge but the wings have been clipped, I guess to fit the image to size rather than show the true configuration, they're a bit blunt.  Also, the rotor appears offset, being longer on the right than the left of the picture.

If you look at the image of the 'Monsoon' water bomber, the rotor diameter appears to nearly meet the nose & tail but not not the wingtips.



A huge rotor would seem to fit the concept, the Rotodyne Z we're looking at had a 109ft/32m rotor for a 75ft/22.5m wingspan and 70.5ft/21.16m fuselage, nearly a third larger than the extremities of the aircraft.

Simon.

You'd need to have the rotor span greater than the wingspan if you wanted to hover easily, the Groen configuration has way too much structure beneath the rotor disc...the downwash impinging on the wings and fuselage would cause extreme stress and dramatically reduce the vertical lift capability and hover stability.

An example from the real world:
Sikorsky built the S-61L and N which were airliner versions of the S-61/SH-3/HH-3 family. They were four-feet longer than the military versions. In the mid-90s I worked for Heli-Pro in their Bellingham,WA shop and the big project was shortening the L & N birds for the Canadian heli-logging market by removing a four-foot plug from behind the flight deck. Being of mostly aluminum construction the plug didn't weigh much...but removing that fuselage area from beneath the rotor disc increased the lift capabiity by over 1,000 pounds.

You want a helicopter the size of a C-130?...then build a big helicopter.

For a 'converti-plane' then the Rotodyne Z dimensions make more sense...however it still would not perform as well as a pure helicopter in the heavy-lift role.

BTW I have detailed info on the ACLS from an 30-year old copy of Jane's Surface Skimmers...it was a very slick setup  that included a braking system and when retracted(deflated) against the belly produced a relatively small amount of drag.

Cheers, Jon