Mobile Country

[Lawman]

Browsing the web, I came accross the following:

http://www.freedomship.com/

This is a huge floating city, with a nice runway on top. This gave me the idea for a mobile country. Given the size of the runway, something like 4-5000ft, it is obvious that any aircraft would have to be modest in size, but what would its fighter force be? Assume an almost unlimited budget (i.e. multi-billion dollar budget available).

Suggestions?

[Archibald]

Yeah , I remember a TV-show on the subject, they explained how such a thiing woud resist to a poseidon-like tidal-wave    

Would look good along a MOB (Mobile Ofshore Base, a fantastic concept   )

[dy031101]

Their newer designs look much neater than the first artist impression that I've come across years ago.  IIRC, its very first incarnation looks like a parallelogram when viewed from top- and I have a hard time convincing myself into thinking it looked good.  The new ones look much better.

One would probably think that whatever works against a ship will work against the Freedom Ship also...... that means long range anti-ship missiles? (It is estimated that the ship will spend 30% of its time in transit...... if it's to be a country on its own, does anyone here think that it'll spend more time on the high seas?)

In short, I couldn't get F-14 off my mind.  Then we also have the noise requirement to contend with......

[RLBH]

Lovely idea, but sadly won't work. The chap who claims it's viable from an engineering point of view is a structural engineer; naval architects almost universally agree that it is not viable. As to claiming it won't be built in a shipyard, because they can't: quite right. Where else do you propose building it? On top of a mountain?

Excepting such real-life problems, I'm not sure it would have much of an air force. Maybe some Cessnas to chase away annoying light aircraft, and perhaps some helicopters.

[B777LR]

Oh no, not the freedom ship again.    It wont ever happen.    Its a hopelessly big hunk that will guzzle up fuel, or hit a rock and sink.  But in the military role however... (landing ship to dock in a harbour, with snipers and gunners on the balconies)

[dy031101]

Incidentally, that made me remember "HMS Habakkuk"...... the iceberg-hull aircraft carrier project.  It seemed like a very costly expediture that would only have been attempted if the Allies couldn't beat the U-boats (but then again the Allies did beat the U-boats).

Of course, Freedom Ship is to be little more than a vastly-oversized barge, while, IIRC, Habbakuk is still a ship in the strict sense.

[Lawman]

With the needs for offshore banking, and privacy, the freedom ship might be a cheap way to develop a smaller real island, i.e. buy a 1/2 acre mini island, and just park this thing next to it. You would be able to host the mega rich, and provide a luxury home away from home for people to get away from the paparazzi! Assuming the chosen location is somewhere near Bermuda or the Caribbean, then it might be sensible to have a small fighter force on board, to keep the Cubans from trying to invade! Perhaps a small squadron of a dozen or so F-16s, or Gripens?


In terms of the engineering, how about simply building the Mobile Offshore Base, which is a genuine structural proposition, but completing it with luxury accomodations instead of normal quarters? It would be pretty much the same sort of deal, and could probably take somewhat larger aircraft too.  

[GTX]

Wasn't there something like these in one of Clive Cussler's novels - "Atlantis Found" I think.

Regards,

Greg

[Mossie]

With the needs for offshore banking, and privacy, the freedom ship might be a cheap way to develop a smaller real island, i.e. buy a 1/2 acre mini island, and just park this thing next to it. You would be able to host the mega rich, and provide a luxury home away from home for people to get away from the paparazzi! Assuming the chosen location is somewhere near Bermuda or the Caribbean, then it might be sensible to have a small fighter force on board, to keep the Cubans from trying to invade! Perhaps a small squadron of a dozen or so F-16s, or Gripens?


In terms of the engineering, how about simply building the Mobile Offshore Base, which is a genuine structural proposition, but completing it with luxury accomodations instead of normal quarters? It would be pretty much the same sort of deal, and could probably take somewhat larger aircraft too.

The original idea for the Freedom ship was to circumnavigate the world once every two years, this way it could be in summer in constantly so the rich & famous could keep their tans topped up at their own convienience.  The ship would never be closer than two miles to shore & usually further away so that it could take advantage of international waters as much as possible like you mention Lawman.  It'd be too large to dock at any established port anyway, hence the need for it's own runway & dock for smaller vessels.

[dragon]

Wasn't there something like these in one of Clive Cussler's novels - "Atlantis Found" I think.

Regards,

Greg

There was also that old Jules Verne novel called "Propeller Island". B)  

[Sisko]

To power the ship plus all the infrastructure it would have to be nuclear.

[Andrew Gorman]

Who needs a giant boat when you can have...Walking Cities!  I really like the Archigram scheme from 1964-
http://www.archigram.net/projects_pages/wa...lking_city.html
and a better picture, more information and some other projects in French at:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...ficial%26sa%3DN
High concept, low impact but ineffably cool architectural daydreaming.
Andrew

[Archibald]

With the needs for offshore banking, and privacy, the freedom ship might be a cheap way to develop a smaller real island, i.e. buy a 1/2 acre mini island, and just park this thing next to it. You would be able to host the mega rich, and provide a luxury home away from home for people to get away from the paparazzi! Assuming the chosen location is somewhere near Bermuda or the Caribbean, then it might be sensible to have a small fighter force on board, to keep the Cubans from trying to invade! Perhaps a small squadron of a dozen or so F-16s, or Gripens?


In terms of the engineering, how about simply building the Mobile Offshore Base, which is a genuine structural proposition, but completing it with luxury accomodations instead of normal quarters? It would be pretty much the same sort of deal, and could probably take somewhat larger aircraft too.

The original idea for the Freedom ship was to circumnavigate the world once every two years, this way it could be in summer in constantly so the rich & famous could keep their tans topped up at their own convienience.  The ship would never be closer than two miles to shore & usually further away so that it could take advantage of international waters as much as possible like you mention Lawman.  It'd be too large to dock at any established port anyway, hence the need for it's own runway & dock for smaller vessels.

Yeah, and just imagine that this thing goes circa the straight of Malacca, there Pirates decided to attack the "Freedom ship"... your "rich people" would ran into trouble very quickly...  

[Archibald]

Dang, the idea of a "civilian" MOB is cool!

It could be a  floating Las Vegas, with 737s (or Gulfstream V if you're not part of the Vulgus Pecum) directly landing on it.

The MOB would need its own thread !!