AT Black Knight Transformer flying truck - video

[Altair]

Advanced Tactics Black Knight Transformer flying truck. 2:28 video.

Previously:

AVE Mizar flying car - video
Plane Driven PD-1 roadable aircraft - video
Goodyear Inflatoplane - photo and video

[WmRMeyers]

I'm pretty sure you give that to a young soldier, the first thing he's gonna do is break it.

Bill

[Hoosiersmoker]

Put 1000 lbs (450 kg) in that thing and lets see it fly 5 or 10 miles (8 or 10 km) at 1000 ft (305 m). It might be useful then, otherwise this just looks like a "just because we could" or "we just had an extra $5 mil (3.5 mil GBP) in our budget this year." It definitely has a cool factor but not much of a transformer it starts out a wheeled, flying truck and... stays a wheeled, flying truck. Give it hiding, swing out, sealed side panels and make it seaworthy and you might be on to something!

[WmRMeyers]

Put 1000 lbs (450 kg) in that thing and lets see it fly 5 or 10 miles (8 or 10 km) at 1000 ft (305 m). It might be useful then, otherwise this just looks like a "just because we could" or "we just had an extra $5 mil (3.5 mil GBP) in our budget this year." It definitely has a cool factor but not much of a transformer it starts out a wheeled, flying truck and... stays a wheeled, flying truck. Give it hiding, swing out, sealed side panels and make it seaworthy and you might be on to something!

It's a prototype of a "new" sort of flying machine. Proof of concept, more or less. It actually flies, which is a good start, but with all those rotors, and the extendible arms, it's about got to be electric. That's either a lot of batteries, or fuel and generators. Then add in control systems. It is essentially a GIANT drone but with a human pilot. Engineers get excited about such things. Most of the rest of us not so much. Especially if we have experience doing maintenance on such experiments. Once upon a time, I was a young maintenance tech (Crew Chief) on F-111D fighter/bomber jets. Designed in the 60's, they had about all the bells and whistles you could put on such a thing at the time. One of the early Glass Cockpits. Variable geometry wings that would let them take off slowly, then sweep the wings for supersonic flight. Internal guns and bomb bays, and external pylons for fuel tanks, external guns, ECM & target designation modules. Terrain following radar for piloting, and a very capable attack radar system. Lots of goodies. When I was working on them in 1974-1975, it cost about $12K per hour of flight time. The Navy bought a variant because they thought it would be a great carrier aircraft. Didn't work out so well. I don't remember the specifications for those, but my birds had a max takeoff weight of about 98,000 pounds, while the fully loaded, fueled, and crewed weight was in excess of 104,000 pounds. If you had a full load of weapons, you had to take off first, then hit a tanker for inflight refueling to top off the tanks. They were pretty fast, rated at Mach II, and one of the ones I worked on made it to Mach III. And then required about $50K of repairs. A tear-down and inspection of the engines cost about $100K, and that was a periodic maintenance expense. They used an epoxy sealant on the fuel tanks in the fuselage and wings, and the stuff was notorious liquifying and leaking fuel when it got too hot and humid. Fuel was JP4, a highly refined and purified kerosene. I was perhaps a bit anal retentive about working on them, so I wound up with several of the hanger queens, getting them back to flyable status after a major malfunction, usually a fuel leak, for the last several months before I ruined my knees. Bottom of the aircraft is low enough that you cannot stand under it, and a bit too tall to effectively work on it kneeling. The last F-111 of any variation was taken out of service in 1998. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genera...ardvark#F-111D

[Floradawg]

Yeah, the Aardvark. If I remember correctly they used those to bomb Muammar Gaddafi's home and other Libyan targets.

[WmRMeyers]

Yeah, the Aardvark. If I remember correctly they used those to bomb Muammar Gaddafi's home and other Libyan targets.

Yep, F-111F's from RAF Upper Heyford. The French and others refused permission to overfly their territory, so our guys had to go way out and around to get there. Multiple inflight refueling events, and a lot of extra hours in flight. As I understand it, they hit his tent, but he wasn't home. One of his little daughters was, and died. I think he started to get the point, after that, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_U...mbing_of_Libya