USAF officers want Hybrid LTA Strategic Airlifters with air cushion landing gear to create suction with the ground for connection to the ground when landing even in high winds!

Air Force Journal of Logistics, Volume XXIX, Number 3/4 File Format: PDF/Adobe

The first known way (that at least historians accept) for men to fly was by Lighter-Than-Air aircraft. Today's Lockheed-Martin "Skunk Works" P-791 LTA hybrid heavy lifter with air-cushion landing system (ACLS) is a good contrast for the drawing of the LTA balloon attack envisioned during the 1800s. LTA hot air ballons probably were used by even ancient peoples. We think Leonardo Da Vinci discovered LTA and probably flew the first gliders by men in the post-ancient era judging from his mysterious art work showing scenes only perceptable from the air and his strange health problems we suspect received from glider crashes.

Da Vinci destroyed most of his books pertaining to military inventions so one has to wonder what he was actually able to do.

The drawing above show's Napoleon Bonaparte's idea for airborne mine attack on the British.

LTA is making a big comeback since America's military needs to move anywhere across the globe and deliver tracked AFVs to then dominate a fight. Agile see-thru blimps that can remain undetected are also needed to provide 24/7/365 continuous overhead presence to smother insurgencies in sub-national conflicts.

Agile Clear HyperBlimp Model shows Sky Camouflage, too

Robert Rist and Brian Martin founders of Ohio Airships, Inc. of Mantua, Ohio, presented a slide show on the company's Dynalifter prototype now under construction.

Airborne Aircraft Carriers & Chuck Myers' HULA

www.navyleague.org/sea_power/jul_03_01.php

Speed, Huge Payloads Are Attractive But Experts Remain Wary of Uncertain Costs

The comeback trail for military airships is getting wider and smoother in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The conflict underscored once again the military's need to rapidly transport huge volumes of defense materiel long distances at rapid speed, especially to landlocked areas. The sight of the 4th Infantry Division's equipment awaiting off-load in the Mediterranean made some defense strategists more determined than ever to infuse the Pentagon's logistics chain with greater speed and flexibility. The unit was assigned to northern Iraq, but Turkey refused access rights to the United States.

Army Lt. Col. Michael Woodgerd said "40 to 50 x C-17s would not have changed the fate of the 4th Infantry Division. Airships could have made a difference."

Woodgerd works on ultra-large airlifters and other lighter-than-air issues for Arthur K. Cebrowski, the Pentagon's director of force transformation. They view airships as a potential transforming technology that could place a sustained competitive advantage in the hands of U.S. forces. In a Sea Power interview in June, Cebrowski said the Navy soon would come under "tremendous pressure to improve high-speed lift." In addition to very high-speed ships, the solution will be found "in work on airships. Probably, but not necessarily, hybrid airships."

Other high-ranking Pentagon strategists are touting the values of lighter-than-air vehicles as a means to speed up the Defense Department's transportation system. Vice Adm. Joseph W. Dyer Jr., commander of the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), told other members of the Navy's senior air staff that a lesson of the Iraqi war is the need to reduce the build-up time prior to a campaign. Speaking at the Naval Aviation Symposium 9 May 2003 in Pensacola, Fla., Dyer said he is assessing lighter-than-air craft as a means to rapidly deploy forces to world hot spots. Other possible solutions, Dyer said, are seaplanes or Wing-in-Ground Effect craft that resemble flying boats and travel over the water on the air cushion created by their own hulls and wings.

NAVAIR has done some preliminary work on a conceptual family of hybrid aircraft called HULAs, or Hybrid Ultra-Large Aircraft. Envisioned for several military missions, especially long-range heavy lift, the HULAs would be lighter-than-air vehicles with a payload of several hundred tons. NAVAIR is discussing the concept's feasibility with the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Airships also are being developed for other defense tasks, such as border surveillance and telecommunications relay. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is developing the High-Altitude Airship (HAA), an unmanned craft for surveillance tasks linked to border security missions that would operate at about 70,000 feet. The Aeros Corporation, Tarzana, Calif.; Lockheed Martin's Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Akron unit, Akron, Ohio; and Boeing's Unmanned Systems Unit, St. Louis, Mo., have contracts to further develop the HAA concept.

The comeback of lighter-than-air vehicles in the military began, sort of, in 1985 with the launch of an aerostat at High Rock Grand Bahama Island by the Coast Guard and the Customs Service. Today, the Tethered Aerostat Radar System created to search for drug traffickers is run by the Air Force and comprises about a dozen radar aerostats at sites from Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., to Puerto Rico. Purists would not consider them true airships, however. The last flight of a genuine U.S. military airship occurred in 1962 when the Navy disestablished its lighter-than-air unit at Lakehurst, N.J.

The resurgence of U.S. military airships depends in large part on the fate of programs like the HULA and HAA. Typically, conceptual efforts like these lead to traditional defense procurement programs to fulfill a military requirement. Cebrowski's Office of Force Transformation favors a different approach: the creation of what Woodgerd calls "a value network" to encourage and accelerate the development of lighter-than-air vehicles by government and industry. The utilization of the vehicles would be based on the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) program, and the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement, which permit the Pentagon to mobilize civilian aircraft and ships, respectively, in time of war.

Therein lies a hitch, however. Industrial use of airships is minimal and limited primarily to advertising. That is why Woodgerd wants to bring together government and commercial organizations that share an interest in lighter-than-air vehicles, or simply in the things that airships can do. Large construction firms and gas and oil companies, which move huge payloads, could be among the Pentagon's partners should some sort of sharing arrangement materialize, Woodgerd said. Currently, industry interest in airships is limited to feasibility studies on moving large payloads over difficult terrain, such as in the Arctic or Siberia, said an industry source.

Nonetheless, the tremendous potential of lighter-than-air vehicles continues to entice military strategists. Airships would not need airfields for their operations. The loading and off-loading of weapons and materiel would be radically reduced. And airships could bypass choke points and even operate from sea bases.

Equipped with airships, military forces could move tons of materiel at approximately five times the typical speeds attained today, Woodgerd said. Current modes of transportation, principally sealift, require 32 days to ship six Army Apache helicopter battalions from Ft. Campbell, Ky., to Saudi Arabia. Using airships, the first helicopter attack battalion would be ready to fly in 13 days, according to Woodgerd's calculations. Three attack battalions would be ready for operations in 26 days, he told Sea Power, while the remaining command and support units would be on-scene in 32 days. He bases his comparison on the use of 20 notional airships with the capabilities of the Cargolifter 160, named after the German company that designed it. The airships would be deployed in CRAF-style phased airlift.

Woodgerd, who began working on airship issues in early 2000 at the Center for Army Analysis, said the airships of old "reached their technological end-point in the 1930s, but the technology has advanced" and it is now possible to build much larger, safer airships. It remains to be seen whether the benefits outweigh the costs in military and commercial markets.

Heavier-Than-Air (HTA) Flight Schematic

PEA = Pilots, Engine and Airframe

Methods of flight

CTOL = conventional powered take-off and powered landing on wheels or tracks or skis/skids or aircraft belly

CATO-SKL = Wright brother's Flyer launched by catapult, landed on skids

STOL = take-off and landings within 300 feet

The first airplanes with thick wings and even a second set of wings (bi-planes) from 1903 to 1943 were all STOL and capable of taking off from grassy fields. From the middle of WW2 onward planes became heavier and heavier requiring longer and longer runways to the current absurdly long runway jets with thin wings to enable faster flight. Long runways are easily detected and attacked by the enemy and having to fly from them to other long runways places the pilot in a dependency and a predicament if he has an in-flight emergency or the weather will not let him reach the long runway he requires.

Why boundary layer control (BLC) or Burnelli type lifting body fuselages has not been employed to lower landing and take-off speeds so ALL planes are STOL and much safer can only be attributed to corporate greed and military ego.

300 feet or a football field can be easily smoothed by a bulldozer within a few hours.

STOLskis, STOLskids, STOLbelly, STOLtracks, STOLaircushion

The above landing gear types can rapidly slow down a plane upon landing much faster than rolling wheels except for air cushions. German gliders landed on a center skid wrapped with wire to come to a stop as fast as possible; they even landed on top of Belgian forts for a surprise attack. Air cushion landing gear would be gentler on the aircraft by keeping it completely out of contact with the ground but would facilitate STOL by increasing the places where aircraft could operate from but would need some kind of thrust reversing to keep the landing roll short.

LTO-LL = Long take-off and Long Landings over 300 feet on land or sea

The impediment to land aircraft size is the current wheels need smooth runways and widening them is costly and often not available so the Airbus double-decks its A380 into a 550+ passenger tube & wing deathtrap tragedy waiting to happen. In contrast, seaplanes have unlimited runway length possibilities and are safer when flying over oceans since they can land there in an emergency and taxi or float for rescue.

Seaplanes flying low over the water can exploit wing-in-ground effect. Someday when the airliners are bankrupt financially as they are now morally, they will see that SAFETY is the issue and maybe then they will start using safer airliners which should be seaplanes for overseas flights.

LTO-LLaircushion

If we perfected air cushion landing gear, seaplanes would not even have to touch the water and could take-off and land in very rough sea states. Land planes with air cushion landing gear would be able to land on far rougher and uneven ground than current wheels and even tracks can tolerate.

JATO-LL = Jet (actually rockets) assisted take-off to cut down on LTO run but plane has to land back on long runway

ZELTO-LL = zero length (vertical) take-off and long landing

STO-BAR = short take-off but arrested (tail hook) recovery; first Naval aviator LT Eugene Ely did this from battleship USS Pennsylvania in 1911

SKI-BAR = Russian and Indian Navies use ski jumps to launch CTOL jets using only a part of the flight deck

CATO-BAR = catapult take-off but arrested recovery; what USN planes do from large aircraft carriers today

SeaTO-SeaL (STOSL) = sea take-off and sea landing

The key mistake of the USN large seaplane patrol community in the 1940s/50s was to accept the STOSL handicap which meant the tender ship has to come to a full stop to crane the big seaplane to it or run lines to it to refuel it. In 1942, a large PBM Mariner was successfully catapulted from a barge that could have eliminated 50% of the sea state hassles so these big seaplanes would be CATO-SL like the smaller seaplanes were on destroyers/cruisers/battleships.

The Germans had earlier cat-launched 4-engined landplanes from ships from the Antarctic.

Sea landings could have been improved by having the tender ship's stern lower a ramp and have the large seaplane taxi up onto it while the ship was moving and then have it be raised from the water as SEALs come ashore today in small boats.

Certainly the USN aircraft mafia brass did not want to invest much if any R&D money into improved seaplane tenders and when they realized seaplanes even with boat hulls had been perfected by Glenn Martin to fly even faster than land planes---which are what aircraft carrier planes are using artificially crated dry landing runways on top of ships---the Navy egomaniacs had to pull-the-plug on seaplanes lest their aircraft carrier cash cow racket be revealed to the taxpayers for what it is.

JATOseatoseal = JATO sea take-off, sea landing

JATO was successfully used in COMBAT in WW2 and the post-war era to improve both large and small seaplane sea take-offs; while very helpful when the seaplanes were on their own, it still meant if on a ship tender that it would have to stop and offload them into the water for take-off.

CATO-SeaL = catapult take-off and sea landing

One of the dirty secrets the USN carrier mafia doesn't want you to know is that you DO NOT need a large aircraft carrier flight deck to launch planes if you shoot them off with catapults. The USN brass use public ignorance of this fact to squeeze money out of them for oversized supercarriers that stroke their egos and budgets. Small catapults on swiveling turn tables can launch small seaplanes without the ship having to turn into the wind to help the plane take-off.

CATO-SLskis

Had we continued operating military seaplanes it would have become apparent that a boat hull would not be necessary to land on the water since skis which can also retract to eliminate any aerodynamic drag penalty, can keep a plane afloat as long as it keeps moving. In retrospect, its too bad Stroukoff didn't convince the USN to adopt his pantobase skis because all that would then have to be done is improve seaplane tenders to have a capture rear ramp so these aircraft could taxi up onto them and be raised out of the water even while the ship was moving. The small or large seaplanes could be craned onto catapults for launch for the next mission.

VTOL

Vertical Take-Off and Landing

VTslownoisyflightVL = conventional helicopters
VTslowquietflightVL = NOTAR helicopters
VT250mphnoisyflightVL = compound helicopters
VTsubsonicnoisyflightVL = Harrier lightly loaded
VTtransonicnoisyflightVL = F-35B lightly loaded

STOVL = short take-off, vertical landing, Harrier, F-35B JSF fully loaded but uses entire LHA/LHD flight deck length

SKI-VL = Royal Navy and others to safely launch STOVL jets

Methods of Escape

PEAcrashland = no-inflight escape

This is the current immoral set-up of civilian and military transport flight. Only option is to crash and burn. Tube & wing planes are flimsy, full of volatile fuel and the seats are not even facing backwards to provide modicum of crash protection. Cheapskate airlines dangle engines under wings necessitating long stork landing gear placing people in tubular fuselage dozens of feet above the ground, if planes land wheels up, engines will grind into ground or runway, catching fire, exploding the volatile fuel inside.

PEAcrashland-BOP = in a more moral and humble past, people in military planes were at least given bail-out parachutes to escape in-flight emergencies if G forces and aircraft was not spinning too badly

PEAcrashland-ESP = as aircraft performance increased the ability of pilots to climb out became doubtful and ejection seats to separate men from aircraft and parachute to safety were fielded in MILITARY JETS. Other than one model of Russian helicopter all helicopters are crashland only.

PEAcrashland-RP = some people who want to live have not bought into PEAcrashland fatalism and have fitted ballistic recovery parachutes to some civilian planes. Some military planes have tail chutes to recovery from spins and help on landing braking. Military men think world revolves around them and if they eject from plane the civilians owe them a brand new plane and have no interest in economy at salvaging their plane by a RP or much concern that their fuel laden lawn dart may slam into the pampered civilians and kill them and their children.

PEAcrashland-ESP-RP = what should be the minimal standard in all military aircraft; planes built to crashland safely on water or land or aircrew ejects and plane descends by recovery parachute; same or differing chute for spin recovery/braking also

FIXED-WING

Fixed-wing aircraft converted from civilian airliners or bombers could only drop Paratroopers through fuselage openings and drop equipment bundles through the door or underwing shackles. This made it necessary to tow gliders to deliver artillery, jeeps and light tanks. Gliders also provided a stealthy silent, surprise landing to take out key points like bridges and forts.

Delivery means:

Forced-entry Parachutes

ALL the world's combat Airborne operations (Airdrop/Airland)

Exiting the aircraft-in-flight:

CDS bundles leave rear ramp of C-141B Starlifter

Cargo from Wing-shackles
Cargo Containers from wing ordnance hard points
Door cargo bundles
Floor cargo bundles

www.ruudleeuw.com/c119-info.htm

Chuck Lunsford wrote me the following in explanation: "that Canadian airplane is dropping 'para-tainers.' Full name was parachute containers, and they were bundles hung from a rail that went from back to front in the center of the cargo compartment. A winding motor would pull them toward the front where they would drop off the rail and fall through the hatch.

The paratainer hatch was in the floor just behind the forward bulkhead. The doors in the cargo floor were opened manually inward, and the outer doors electrically or hydraulically. The switch to open them was on the forward bulkhead in the cargo compartment. Nobody knows much about dropping paratainers--I never did it, nor did anyone else I'm in contact with. We don't know if the pilot actuated the automatic drop mechanism, or if it was done by crew chief or loadmaster in the cargo compartment.

The order to drop would have been given by the pilot, but whether he had a switch, or just turned on a green light (or maybe he shouted down the flight-deck ladder) nobody knows. The only other picture I have ever seen of a 119 dropping paratainers was a C-119B/C doing it in Korea while simultaneously dropping troops. Unfortunately, I lost that picture. There may have been some safety reason we never used them, but we never did, not even in the big maneuvers where we were dropping food and gasoline to the mudsloggers of the U.S. Army. For those, we removed the clamshells, and all the drops were 'push it out the back'. "

Bill Reid wrote me in May 2006:

"The system for the para-drop from the bottom doors of the C119 was called a monarail drop. A very unreliable system, so it was not used often. The captain would notify the loadmaster over the intercom and use the light system at the same time.

I was on one monorail drop in six years of flying as a Flight Engineer. It was for an air force day airshow. We were supposed to do the drop over the runway in front of the crowd. Instead the the system jammed up and we droped across a highway and a trailer park!!

Thank goodness no damage was done and no one was hurt on the ground. The aircraft was 22131 and the date July 1st, 1961."

In May 2006 Andre Swygert made me aware of a posting on the HistoryChannel.com bulletinboard by John M Hays, which I here reproduce in part:

"I missed the opening few seconds of the segment of Mail Call tonight, about the way combat cargo hits the DZ. There were all sorts of whistles, gongs, etc., demonstrated as to how cargo gets right down on target.

Then following was a segment on the "Dollar Nineteen". I was assigned to the 921st TAG of the 433 TCW at Kelly AFB, TX. Our unit was equipped with C-119s, the newest manufactured about 1953.

The C-119 had a hard time hitting a 40 acre target with cargo using the drag (out) chutes that extracted the cargo over the DZ. Our unit's senior loadmaster (do not remember his name) noticed a long ago feature on the plane that had long ago been abandoned.....the "paratainer" gear.

The C-119 had a power cable system on which were hung paratainers (about the size of a 15 gallon grease drum) with a small cargo chute attached. There was about a 4'x 4' "bombbay" door toward the front of the cargo deck. The system was probably last used during Korean hostilities. When the plane passed over the DZ, the door was opened, the paratainer system cable was put in motion and the containers dropped out the door in the floor. The problem was that only about 4000 lbs. of cargo could be suspended on the cable and the containers' opening was pretty variable, the chute pins being pulled by a static line, rather than the chute being pulled out by the line.

Our loadmaster came up with the idea of rerouting the cable with a few new pulleys. And wrap that cable around cargo pallets to be dropped with the chutes being pulled out the packing as they exited the plane. It worked! We could hit within a few feet, instead a few hundred yards o the DZ target. I don't recall who came up with the idea of calling it "Sling Shot," but that was the system's ultimate identity. It worked like a charm.

Some of us in the PIO were drafted to document the process and accuracy with still and motion pictures.... sometimes being suspended over the back door of the plane in cargo nets with no room for a parachute ourselves.

After a year or so, Sling Shot became SOP in the Reserve units flying Dollar Nineteens. It was more accurate from 500' than a C-130 making a ground level parachute extraction approach....but the C-130 didn't have the old paratainer hardware.

Ultimately the 433rd was awarded a Loening Trophy as the best AFRes unit and we all got some kind of ribbon to wear.

The next year we flunked the Operational Readiness Inspection when the aircrews on our night drop assumed the red flares marked the DZ at old Hondo AFB. It seems that the flares marked an 18 wheeler with a load of watermelons and a flat tire. Another trucker with a similar load had stopped to help his buddy... Our three plane formation was perfect! They crushed every melon and bent severely both truck beds and smashed the cabs with the simulated "heavy loads" they deposited on that Texas Farm to Market road about 10 miles from the DZ..."

John M Hays

His posting 28Jan05

Container Delivery System (CDS) from t-tail/rear ramp or side doors
Paratroopers through hole in floor
Paratroopers through the side door(s)
Paratroopers through t-tail/rear ramp
Cargo/vehicles through t-tail/rear ramp

Descending to the ground:

C-17 Globemaster III unloads a Type V airdrop platform with ground vehicles during a LVAD at 900 feet

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ppX5wY5pU&mode=related&search=

Low-Velocity Airdrop or "Heavy Drop"?

Consider this.

When a HEAVY vehicle is DROPPED 5-10 feet from the rear ramp of an USAF transport planes is it a HEAVY load?

Yes, it is.

Is it being DROPPED?

Yes it is.

So really LAPES is "heavy drop", too, isn't it?

But the dumbass enlistedman-who-doesn't-know-shit, calls it by its proper acronymn but not the other form of airdrop at 600-900 feet by its proper name; in fact, he calls it "heavy drop" which is stupid because its not only the wrong term it can also describe LAPES which like a moron he calls it something else even though if he were consistant it'd be a form of "heavy drop", too.

So if you call heavy drop at 5-10 feet by its accurate term, "LAPES" but not refer to heavy drop at 600-900 feet by its proper term you LOOK LIKE AN IGNORANT DUMBASS and probably are one because its a lack of understanding and professional study that has caused you to call LVAD the slang term "heavy drop".

So thanks to a bunch of idiot "Airborne" types beating their chest that LAPES is no longer being done in typical look-at-us-we-are-doing-risky-things self-adulation, we have a moronic Army and DoD that thinks there's no way to airdrop light tanks to the battlefield because the understanding of Airborne Warfare has been short-changed by morons using slang and the CAPABILITY gets short shrift.

Go read the airdrop rigging manuals that date back to the 1960s. Its called LVAD.

Its about making WE THE AIRBORNE not look like ignoramasses not the "legs". Ignorant dumb Airborne types call LVAD "heavy drop" because it shows they haven't studied a single book on air delivery or Airborne Warfare tactics, techniques and procedures. Some folks mention "LAPES" on their web sites, but need to mention its companion technique, LVAD or else they look like snobby, arrogant Airborne dumbasses.

We need the help of Airborne veterans today to not to stroll down memory lane but to unfu*k our Airborne so we can get the Bin Ladens of this world by effective 3D maneuver that has light tanks ie; M113 Gavins parachute dropped and airlanded to surprise and overwhelm the enemy with tracked shock action not M16 versus AK47 "BlackHawk Down!" debacles.

Can we stop for one minute being the proverbial, dumbass enlisted man and think like professional tacticians?

If we keep talking about the good 'ole days while we need to LEARN SOMETHING THAT WE NEED TO USE TODAY (airdrop light tanks) there won't be any safe America to pop open a beer to enjoy a BBQ because YOU WILL BE THE BBQ--a nuclear one.

High-Velocity Airdrop
Delayed-opening
Freedrop
GPES
LAPES

GPES & LAPES had their finest hour to date at the Vietnam war battle of Khe Sanh (scroll down and see C-130 YOUTUBE videos) resupply a Forward Operating Base (FOB) safe enough for a fly-over at 5-10 feet above ground level (AGL). GPES is the better of the two techniques because the load is hooked out of the aircraft without need of even extraction parachutes but to pay for this capability, up-front the FOB on the ground must stage equipment. This is the minimalist way to airdrop supplies and it should be SOP for all FOBs to have GPES gear.

LAPES doesn't require anything from those on the ground except that it be safe to fly-over very low. It has added costs in extraction parachutes. Both techniques are very, very dangerous and are no longer SOP by the USAF after the LAPES crash at Fort Bragg shown below where the pilot actually was TOO LOW and the LAPES platform with a M551 Sheridan light tank rolled off the rear ramp and touched the ground and the aircraft at the same time, ripping the tail from the fuselage.

This accident resulted in the discontinuation of LAPES in favor of LVAD. However, what should have happened is modifying C-130 rear ramps with wheels so in event the plane is too low, a LAPES platform will not smash the ramp into the ground and rip off the tail but will slide off as the ramp rolls with the aircraft.

Follow-on Airlanding

The downside of civilian aircraft is generally they are low-wing designs resulting in the landing gear holding them high off the ground, requiring Material Handling Equipment (MHE) to lower cargo and stairs to have Soldiers walk down to the ground. Military cargo aircraft are usually high-wing designs so the fuselage is lower to the ground so a front/rear ramp from the aircraft allows roll-on/roll-off loading/unloading without need of MHE. Airland operations use different type internal loading than airdrop.

Load/offloading

Small Pallets

During WW2, the standard 40 inch by 48 inch warehouse pallet was loaded into airplane side doors using forklifts. These aircraft did not have a T-Tail or a Twin-Tail and a rear opening for airdrop so they had to land and then off-load their cargos. Today there is no reason why the Containerized Delivery System (CDS) pallets which are on plywood to slide out of aircraft don't have pallet tongue slots so they can be lifted and moved once on the ground.

463L/ECDS LARGE pallets
These balsa-wood core, aluminum covered wonders are jealously guarded by the USAF. Fragile, they don't like them abused in any way. We need a better system for fitting cargo into USAF aircraft that is not so pampered, that can be passed onto the Army without the time loss/complication of breaking bulk and returning the 463L pallets back to the USAF. ECDS seems to be the answer.

Vehicles strapped/chained to the floor

Vehicle stacking
When vehicles are loaded into aircraft often they use up floor space but leave overhead space unused; vehicles that can stack themselves like the Flyer-21 or having scaffolding like the Russians do with their AN-225 cargo jets can maximize airlift efficiency. Future vehicles should have stack capabilities whenever possible.

Flyer-21 self-stacking feature

Russian vehicles stacked inside AN-225 cargo jet

Russian stacking system scaffolding details

PLS system flat racks

A lot of time is wasted "breaking bulk" of air-delivered items from 463L pallets into truck loads even if they are slide off ERO over the rear ramp; or using MHE to move the 463L pallets until they can be broken down. The next generation USAF C-130 Hercules replacement, the ATT and the Army Chinook replacement, the FTR/JHL should employ the Palletized Loading System of flat racks to load/unload themselves, so after the cargo is off the aircraft, PLS equipped NATO/U.S. Army trucks and the Future Combat System to replace the M1/M2 series AFVs can re-supply themselves without breaking bulk. The AMS-SG proposes that the FTR/JHL be a pod-equipped aircraft that can self-propel itself in some versions, carrying inside PLS flat rack modules, or current Gavin/Ridgway/Buford and in the future the FCS.

Side cargo doors
Rear ramps
Front ramps
Side Paratroop doors
Bombbay Doors

A very interesting way to lower cargo to the ground from aircraft with elevated landing gear and vice-a-versa is to have a bombbay floor that raise/lowers by cables. This was actually done with the C-74 Globemaster I aircraft.

Research reveals that while the Russians were the first to air-motorize armored cars and air-mech tanks in war games by both airdrop and airland, the Germans deserve credit for the first airlanded air-motorized, air-mechanized combat operations on Crete in 1941 and North Africa in 1942. We do not buy into this notion that a military maneuver has to be in the face of enemy fire to be important, but to make the distinction for others who need the self-validation of combat, we'll refer to airland/airdrop operations into contested territory as "assault" operations. The British deserve the credit for the world's first combat air-mech assault delivering 20 Tetrarch light tanks and 9 Bren gun carriers by Hamilcar heavy glider into Landing Zone "N" on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Jeep with 57mm anti-tank gun rigged to airdrop

Moreover, Keith Flint reveals in his book, Airborne Armour on page 131, that on June 10th, 1944 "the Halifax squadrons involved successfully dropping six 6-pounder anti-tank guns and their towing jeeps by parachute into the airborne bridgehead" making the British the first to parachute drop wheeled combat vehicles in an air-motorized assault. What is significant about parachute vertical airdrop landing (VADL) is that if you can pay for it up front by complicated special preparations, no one has to land a fixed-wing aircraft to the ground, but simply get close or fly over the spot desired. The parachute decelerated load like the Paratrooper human "crash-lands" more or less vertically, requiring less space than sliding to a stop as in a glider. The rigging of items to do VADL is a complicated art form requiring dedicated Rigger professionals. If the parachute air items are not recovered, its very expensive for continual operations but the cash-strapped French could do multiple airborne assaults in the first Indo-China war so there's no excuse why we can't be less lazy than the current craving for a smooth runway to airland pampered USAF t-tail transport planes. What we need to do is to use sturdier TRACKED ARMORED M113 Gavins that can be VADL delivered with minimal amount of air items instead of fragile wheeled trucks like the jeep which as you will see below needs a lot of TLC to survive parachute delivery.

Translated from French into English from:

When British Airborne Divisions were setting-up, the question of transport, the routing and the delivery of their heavy materials was posed quickly. The glider took the principal role then, but for the SAS which operated in the greatest secrecy, using very small drop zones (DZs), the parachute remained the best means to put on the ground very heavy loads like a 4x4 small truck "jeep" for example. Its crew also had to be parachuted in separately... this operation in fact very little described and explained up to now!

It was SAS use that transformed the jeep beginning in 1944, to be able to be parachuted. The now Brigade-sized SAS reconstituted itself for future operations of unloading and of release of jeep-mobile teams into Northern Europe and it was necessary at the same time to develop all the concurrent techniques to insure the success of their missions. It was a mission common to the RAF - CLE to develop these new techniques.

The principal transformations carried out, which all were not intended to facilitate the dropping were:

Lawful modifications envisaged by the three plans that we have in our files, M.E 8/534 and M.E 8/535 "Details of modifications for S.A.S. Cars 5 CWT 4X4" and "Details for mounting for Vickers 303 MMG one Bus 5 CWT 4X4" ME8/SK/622.

- modifications of the chassis before vehicle, statement and reinforced (see photographs)

- modification of the avoid-shock before addition of additional fuel tanks under the seat before and two side tanks protected by layers from caoutchous-foam to the back from where

- removal of the back seat

- assembly of a pivot enters the tanks to adapt a machine-gun

- possibility of oter the wheel which was on this model of jeep maintained in place by a nut "butterfly" (for the dropping)

At far left flying prepared for the dropping - seen on the right, the wing nut

The detachable steering wheel of the Airborne jeep

Here are the problems which the RAF (298th & 644th Squadrons) had to face:

The dropping of a loaded vehicle is a very delicate operation. It is necessary to take account of multiple factors which all have their importance:

- weight of the load to be released

- its transport (out of compartment or outside)

- the system of dropping and the adapted support (plate shock absorber for a jeep for example), parachutes (some are then to create)

- constraints - weight - force of the wind - catch to the wind of the "parcel" - speed of the plane during the flight

- identification of the DZ - contact with the team on the ground - visual and radio

- the constraints approaches the zone altitude of dropping - reduction the speed of flight - direction of the wind - drift

The failure of the first droppings of jeeps at the time of the preliminary drives without protection entraina quickly, the creation of a "plate" of maintenance and transport of the vehicle provided with foam rubber shock absorbers thick to absorb the shock with the landing, straps, hooks and snap hooks of maintenance of the vehicle during all the operation. It then remained to define the model and the number of parachutes which would be useful for a successful dropping. After several tests, the parachute with heavy material, 42 foot diameter was retained. One would then use it in bunches of four per vehicle.

The unit was moreover to be easy "to dismount" once on the ground, the jeeps leaving immediately Drop Zone by their own means. The dropping at night was only authorized if the conditions which the jeeps are released is in clear weather (directives of the QG/SAS)

It as should be specified as if Airborne Divisions were installation on broad and roomy DZ, it was not the case of those used by the S.A.S which were to be discrete, very camouflaged from sight of the omnipresent enemy, very protected, that could be exfiltrated from quickly at the speed of dropping a "handkerchiefs from the pocket".

The DROPPING OF the JEEPS EAST GOVERNED LIKE the WHOLE OF the OPERATIONS Of AIR TRANSPORT AND AERO DROPPING BY "AIR MINISTRY AIR PUBLICATION N° 2453 B - ABN FORCES AND SUPPLY BY AIR - BEG DROPPING" WHOSE FIGURE IN OUR FILES COPIES; THIS ALLOWING US TO CARRY OUT EC CHAPTER

SAS jeeps had characteristics inherited from modifications made to operate in the deserts of North Africa - which already made them very different from the standard G.I. models. Thus it did not have windshields, no back bench, a machine gun mounting different from the "desert" model and which thus lost the possibility of the ground tripod firing option. One was not going to remain in one location for very long and the jeeps were still going to evolve/change throughout 1944 -1945; in particular on the level of the shielding before which was non-existant on the desert model and the models used in 1944. As for their weapons for firepower, it was decided that they would be released within containers "C". The British SAS even made use of guns as large as 37mm---which they placed in trailer of their jeeps. As was the case for Squadrons parachuted on the Center of France!

CONDITIONING OF THE JEEPS FOR DROPPING.

The three operations necessary to preparation of a jeep:

- disassembling and conditioning of the rear one

- and accessory-delivered out of containers

- installation and fixing of the vehicle on the plate shock absorber and dropping

- installation of the 4 parachutes: two on the cap and two in back place - Mle heavy loads 42 feet

* Installation with the planes:

- 1 jeep with trailer or 2 jeeps alone by Stirling

or

- 1 jeep and trailer or 57mm or 75mm towed gun or 2 jeeps by Halifax

The dropping of the jeeps required:

- that the crews are parachuted in first

Paratrooper exit cone - "Bath-tub" of evacuation of the parachutists

Sight of lower part of Halifax: the figures indicate the usual position of the bombs. The yellow central parts show the position of a jeep and its trailer or 2 jeeps. Under the wings the yellow sites indicate the position of containers which will be released with the vehicle.

Compartment of transport of the bombs, it is in fact under this compartment that the jeep(s) was hung

- or that a time ago necessary between the parachuting and the dropping of the vehicles

- that the D.Z is recognized with the folding screen and profits from a committee of reception on the ground "

Regulations of QG SAS
Note of March 30, 1945 - Signed Prendergast
Forecasts of operation AMHERST

EXTRACT OF the BOOKLET AIR MINISTRY AIR PUBLICATION No. 2453 B - ABN FORCES AND SUPPLY BY AIR - DROPPING

Details of the shoes officially named shock absorbers "CRASH-PANS"

One sees clearly on this photograph, the transformation of the chassis before jeep and legs of reinforcement tube being pressed on to avoid shocking the framework of the vehicle

Assemblies of the parachutes on the back of the jeep. They are posed on a removable light sheet plate which covers all the back part. This plate is definitely visible on the right on the photo in top.

24. Bags of the parachutes

25. Bag of opening delayed of the straps

26. Double longes of maintenance of the parachutes in 2X2 bunches

27. Rubber band of maintenance of the automatic strap of opening

28. Snap hooks 914G type

29. Cable of suspension of the extractor-parachutes unit

30. 4 cables and 1 strap of pulling up 42 - bindings (pulling up 400 lbs.)

To be able to release the jeeps by means of bombers "Halifax " A MK-3 and MK V, and some since "Stirling Shorts" one due oter the doors of the bomb bay and the jeep was placed at this place. It in fact was suspended under the fuselage and it is the Warrant officer Bomber who actuated the device of dropping as for the "drops" of containers. At the beginning, with the drive, the jeeps were released without plate and some were crushed. A plate intended to deaden the shock at the time of the contact on the ground was created thereafter and numbers it parachutes was changed to 4 instead of 3. (parachute with heavy material 42 ft) the jeeps were parachuted only for the S.A.S, the vehicles of Airborne Divisions all being transported by sailplanes.

A FIRST FRENCH OPERATION

- SUNFLOWER X (code name R.A.F):

OPERATIONS RECORD BOOK R.A.F. Station Tarrant Rushton

- Summary of Events - SECRECY.

June 17th, 1944: 1058 hours. Mass takeoff by aircraft of No. 644 Squadron - 15 Halifax-Hadrian combinations took share. `SUNFLOWER X' - 2 Halifax aircraft from each of No. 298 Squadron and No. 644 Squadron dropped 4 jeeps, 12 containers, 12 troops and 4 spare wheels for jeeps one DZ `Dingson 9'. Two aircraft from No. 298 Squadron and No. 644 Squadron dropped 4 jeeps, 20 containers, 4 troops, 1 pannier and has bundle of stretchers and blankets one DZ `Bullbasket 6'. Weather cloudy to dawn, later to fair to fine.

June 27th, 1944: Special operation `PROFIT VII' 1 Halifax piloted by Squadron Leader NORMAN of No. 644 Squadron dropped two SAS troops, 1 jeep, six containers and one pannier containing W/T sets one DZ. Weather cloudy with light showers afternoon and early evening.

August 4th, 1944: Squadron "Jeeps" 4th SAS (French), DZ Malachappe, Morbihan. N.W. Auray operation LOST

6 Halifax aircraft from No. 298 Squadron 6 jeeps dropped by parachutes

Signed: H. QUINLAN, (Flight Lieutenant)

FOR GROUP CAPTAIN (COMMANDING)

RAF STATION TARRANT RUSHTON.

The Parachutists of France-Free had always been appreciated by the British Command and thus Lt Marienne had set up at their request a Section of Experimentation of the airborne techniques within the 1st B.I.A which inter alia had remprté the famous record velocity emission per stick equipped since C-47 Dakota. For the chapter "Jeeps", French had been also largely solicited.

The technique well developed, it only remained to try out it in natural size and it is what was made in the night of the 17 at June 18, 1944. The 4th B.I.A still comprised "Squadron Jeeps" in its flow chart and a Group of 4 jeeps was brought back to Fairford there to be affrêté and embarked (Pon Grandière). The four jeeps which answered in the name of baptism of "Pirate", "Pirate", "Corsaire" and "Flibustier" were embarked on board 4 Bombers "Halifax" of the 161ème Groupe and were released a few hours aprés with the top of the DZ Baleine which bordered the PC of Nouette on the commune of Sérent meadows of St-Marcel.

The operation in it even was a mitigated success because only one jeep fell on the DZ the others fell into the trees which it borden and it took hours to recover them, extremely fortunately all intact. The Vickers machine-guns had less chance. Conditioned in containers with lighters, those in contact with the ground fused, causing irrevocable damage to the firepower of the jeeps. One needed Sergeant Gall to show the ingeniousness of an arms manufacturer to dismount the remainders and to assemble of them what remained parts to reconstitute... and then only one of them! The jeeps were thus armed only with a F.M Bren, the more so as dice the following day, they had to deliver combat then following the dispertion of the Base "Dingson" aprés the combat St-Marcel being camouflaged under the straw in farms of the area and Vickers K Gun required by radio thus did not arrive...any action and any dropping being temporarily suspended.

The British had less luck and several jeeps were wrecked. One of them having fallen in a large tree and is folded in the middle in "V" shape.

When with the remainder of Squadron "Jeeps" of the 2nd RCP, on August 3 with Malachappe, Morbihan. N.O. Auray within the framework of operation LOST 6 jeeps joined by parachuting. It was the last parachuting of jeeps for Brigade SAS the following day 12 jeeps were air-transported by gliders. At mid-August, 2 RCP passing from the "motorized" mode accepting its jeeps in Normandy where they were unloaded just like Squadron Jeeps of 3 RCP. But there they were completely normal jeeps and not having undergone the transformations intended to parachute them. It is only for Operation "Amherst" that a batch of special jeeps were allotted but it is known that they were not released because of the bad weather.

Astonishing photos showing the dropping by a SAS jeep by 4 x 42 foot parachutes. This operation was carried out by the RAF at the time of the filming of the mythical movie "BATTALION of the SKY". There is not much documentation of the dropping of the French jeeps in Brittany in June and July 1944.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HANDLEY PAGE HALIFAX MK V and MK VII

Heavy night bomber modified to the transport of the parachutists and of their heavy material like to the towing of the heavy gliders "Hamilcar" for vehicles. Nickname given by the Paras "Halibag"!

ENGINE: 4 piston engines Bristol-board Hercules C out of star of 1.800 CH

PERFORMANCES: maximum speed alt 6.705 m, 502 km/h; rise 6.096 m in 50 mn; practical ceiling, 7.315 Mr.

WEIGHT: With vacuum 17.690 kg - maximum on takeoff, 30.845 kg

DIMENSIONS: Scale: 31,75 m - length: 21,82 m - height, 6,32 m - surface wings 118,45 m ²

ARMAMENT: 1 put of 7,7 mm in the turret from nose, 4 in 1a dorsal turret and 4 in the turret of tai

CAPACITY: maximum 5.897kg

RANGE: 3330 km

Copy official Note treating of the problem of heavy load release of jeeps

System of dropping of bombs used for the dropping of the containers - On the right the compartment from where the jeeps were released, the two doors were dismounted beforehand.

Rare documents of time (1944) showing the dropping of a jeep then of its crew. R.A.F

It can transport 16 Parachutists equipped and two Dispatchers, also 3629 kg of load out of containers in the low part of the fuselage (bomb bay). The principal door which is also useful for the exit of the parachutists is located in the back floor of the apparatus and opens internally or outside. A luminous device "red-green" actuated by the Dispatcher and a cable of fixing of the "static-line" (S.O.A) are installed in the fuselage. Also, the apparatus can carry a jeep on plate of dropping.

Other Airdropped gun-jeep operations:

Operation Dingson - 160 men and 4 jeeps of 4 French Parachute Battalion (4 SAS) parachuted into Vannes area of Brittany to organize local resistance, establish a local base of operations, and harass enemy forces in the area. (July - October 1944)

Operation Franklin - 186 men from 4 French Parachute Battalion (4 SAS) deploy in 31 jeeps to support U.S. VIII Corps during the German Ardennes Offensive. (Belgian Ardennes, December 1944 - January 1945)

Operation Hardy - 55 men from 2 SAS (with 12 jeeps) parachuted into eastern France to establish a base on the Plateau de Langres, northwest of Dijon and carry out intelligence and harassment operations. (July - September 1944)

Operation Kipling - 107 men and 46 jeeps from "C" Squadron 1 SAS parachuted into the area west of Auxerre, central France, and tasked with aiding the Allied airborne landings due to take place in the Orleans Gap. (August - Sept. 1944)

Operation Lost - Seven men from 4 French Parachute Battalion (4 SAS) parachuted into Brittany, France to meet up with parts of 4 SAS and conduct large scale operations against the enemy in the area. (June - July 1944)

Spenser - 317 men of 4 French Parachute Battalion (4 SAS) mounted on 54 jeeps, infiltrated enemy lines and conducted operations designed to effect major casualties to the retreating German Army. (August - Sept. 1944)

Operation Wallace - 60 men from 2 SAS in 23 jeeps (divided into three groups) landed at Rennes, tasked with strengthening SAS bases in the area, later attacked the German HQ in Chatillon. (1944)

Streamlined External Loading (SEL)

Russians actually streamlined external load (SEL) carry armored cars and light tanks under TB-series bombers to include AIRDROP WITHOUT PARACHUTES! (Free drop) These are the works of Grohovskiy with TB-1, TB-2 and TB-3 bombers.

American SEL Experiments by Walter Christie & Vincent Burnelli

Here's an actual pre-war B-17C SEL carry of a Christie light tank

In the 1930s Burnelli experimented with carrying cars under his lifting fuselage aircraft as depicted above. In WW2, we experimented with M22 Locust light tanks underslung C-54 four-engined transports without turrets. Tests showed upon landing the chassis could be driven to the tail and the turret re-attached after being lowered from the fuselage side cargo door in under 10 minutes--but a C-54 needed a runway to land on. Task Force Smith flown in by C-54s to defend South Korean could have taken turretless M22s and reattached a better turret with 106mm recoilless rifles to stop the 100 x North Korean T34/85 medium tanks leading the enemy invasion--had we taken then MG Gavin's advice in 1947.

Detachable pods/gliders
Towed gliders
Towed Tanks/Gliders-Airplanes

Not only had the Russians done aircraft-suspended vehicle delivery or Streamlined External loading--SEL under TB-1 TB-3 bombers T18 and T27 light tanks and D-8 armored cars in the 1930s, legendary American inventor J. Walter Christie proposed it in 1932-35 to deliver tanks, but of course it was rejected--how many Tanker and Paratrooper lives in WWII would have been saved had we followed through on the idea to give them 3D maneuver, armored mobility and fire support? Burnelli offered a lifting fuselage plane to offload tanks.

Air/Ground Vehicles

Legendary Walter Christie's M1932 Flying Light Tank is still the best concept to date and still demands fulfillment using today's technologies.

With WW2 underway, ways to make tanks fly are explored....

Hafner's Valentine medium tank with rotors to be towed in flight

Russian Antonov A-40 KT-40 fixed wings to tow a T60 Light tank as a glider

Japanese KU6 Light Tank Glider Combo

Project Maeda Ku-6

Even air/ground vehicles are considered...

Grohovskiy G-26 (Attempt of the creation flying car)

Christie and the Russians experimented with making the light tank into a glider and having it shed its wing/tail upon landing---a great idea that predates even Simpkin's Air/Land vehicle concept. He even came up with the first "KIWI" pod idea to expedite civilian air travel in 1932!

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/07/10/flying-tanks-that-shed-their-wings

Flying Tanks that Shed Their Wings

by Lew Hold

Imagine those two formidable weapons of modern warfare, the airplane and the armored tank, combined into one terrible machine of destruction! Fantastic as the idea sounds, it is fast taking physical shape as a reality for Uncle Sam's army. The whole amazing story is presented to you in this important article.

IS WAR, already made terrible to contemplate by the invention of too-efficient methods of destruction, on the verge of being banished forever by an amazing new weapon so horrible in its possibilities that nations of the world will not dare to risk its fury?

This is the idea conjured up by J. Walter Christie, noted builder of tanks for the U. S. Army, who has been secretly working on the most revolutionary war invention since the discovery of gunpowder-an armored tank which flies as swiftly as a bombing plane, and which, by simply shedding its wings when on the ground, can travel over any terrain with guns blazing at speeds of 70 miles an hour!

Changes Modern War Strategy

The entire strategy of modern warfare will have to be altered when Mr. Christie's flying tank is proved practical. Trench warfare, which played such an important part in the World War, will be well-nigh impossible, for with a swarm of a hundred flying tanks descending into No-Man's Land, no infantry in the world could resist the withering fire.

Nor is the flying tank so grotesque an idea as might appear at first glance. During the late war no one even conceived the possibility of an armored tank's being propelled through the skies on wings like an airplane, driven by an airplane motor.

Flying Tank Now Being Built

Yet Mr. Christie's tank, he promises, will do precisely that. Because of his success in building speed tanks for the army and his extensive knowledge of this phase of warfare, there can be no doubt that he knows just what he is doing. He is not a man given to exaggeration, and the fact that the tank is now taking shape in the plant of the United States Wheel Track Layer Corp., at Linden, N. J., proves that the idea has advanced beyond the paper and plan stage.

In the words of the inventor, "The flying tank is a machine to end war. Knowledge of its existence and possession will be a greater guarantee of peace than all the treaties that human ingenuity can concoct. A flock of flying tanks set loose on an enemy and any war is brought to an abrupt finish."

Details of the tank's construction are astonishing. The flying fortress will be armed with a 75 millimeter gun, with supplementary small machine guns. Personnel will consist of two men. The body of the flying tank is amazingly light because of new principles of construction closely guarded by the inventor. In fact, the finished product, ready for military duty, will not weigh over four tons.

Its lightweight engine can develop 1,000 horsepower, and by an ingenious system of gearing the motor drives both the back axle, for propelling the tank on the ground, and the propeller for flying duty.

Take-off Problem Solved

Eight large wheels are provided on the tank, with twin pneumatic tires over which the caterpillar tread fits. With the special springing equipment, pneumatic tires and patented caterpillar track, Mr. Christie's tank can make 70 miles an hour across rough country, it has been calculated, and as much as 100 miles an hour on a smooth surface. Its speed makes it a difficult target for enemy fire.

"It is an established fact that a single pair of wings can support this tank in the air," Mr. Christie explained to the special representative of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. "Any aviator can tell you in two minutes the exact wing spread required.

"The most serious difficulty seems to be the take-off. Several of my flying friends have told me that many army planes require three-quarters of a mile of prepared ground for a runway and they insisted that my machine would need a still greater starting space. There were also those who doubted that my tank would even leave the ground.

"After three years of experimentation, I was prepared to meet their queries and their doubts. This is the solution: My machine will work up to a flying speed while it is still on the ground. At a hundred yards the tank will be going fast enough to rise the moment the power is transferred from the wheels to the propeller, no matter on what kind of surface the tank is traveling.

"The caterpillars will function on any condition of base. The Christie speed tank which has been already acquired by the United States government bears testimony to that advantage.

Treads Simplify Landing Problem

"The other hazardous stumbling-block, the landing of the flying tank, has also been overcome. My machine can alight on very limited space. The pilot can observe his air speed by means of his instrument board. When he switches from being a pilot to being a chauffeur he will know his land speed, both on the caterpillar tracks and on wheels, whichever he may choose to bring into use.

"All that the man at the controls has to do is to start the wheels of the caterpillar in motion and adjust them to the air speed.

This is done merely by keeping an eye on the speedometers. As soon as the tank touches the ground, he brakes it as he would an auto truck.

"If he wants to liberate the tank from the wings, he has only to press a lever and that operation is completed in a jiffy. Then if he wants to, he can proceed along a highway on the rubber-tired wheels at a rate of 100 miles an hour."

That is how Mr. Christie's latest invention will work. But he has already begun to plan for a further improvement on this device. He will soon begin work on a detachable airplane as applied to the armored tank. The plane will deposit the tank at a desired post and then return to bring up others, or engage in other maneuvers.

In connection with these latest experiments, a valuable peacetime use of the flying tank principle suggests itself.

One of the several problems confronting passenger air lines today and, from the passengers' standpoint, certainly the most annoying, is the business of getting passengers to and from the airport-the actual point of arrival and departure of the airplane itself.

Airports are perforce located at a considerable distance from the downtown district of a city and it naturally follows that the larger the city the more inaccessible will be the airport or air terminal. In the minds of prospective air passengers the immediate accessibility of bus and railroad facilities contrast pleasantly with the annoyance attendant on purchasing a ticket, riding out to a field, transferring to a plane and repeating the performance at the flight destination.

The time-saving feature, most practical appeal of air travel, is thus not so much in evidence or even may be totally absent in flights of less than 300 miles.

Bringing Airports Close to Town

Several remedies for the situation are feasible. One, and the most frequently heard of, is to build airports in the heart of a city, by utilizing the tops of large buildings with or without the aid of catapult launching devices, by spanning whole blocks of streets with wide bridge-like structures or spanning convenient rivers in a similar manner. All these ideas have been mentioned at different times. All of them suffer from one common disadvantage.

To bring an air terminal into the heart of a city would not only result in air traffic at an altitude we are obliged to regard as unsafe, but would further imply taking off and landing over these crowded centers. The airplane of today is hardly suited to operating under the conditions just outlined and therefore this otherwise attractive solution of the problem must, for the time being at any rate, be abandoned as a serious consideration.

Another course is open and fantastic as it may appear at first glance the idea has been approached a number of times and there are no serious difficulties in the way. The idea involves the building of passenger planes in two distinct and self-contained units. One, the airplane portion, would contain all the essentials for flight and consist of wings, tail surfaces, motors, pilot's control room and the landing gear.

The passenger cabin complete would form a second separate unit. Capable of being attached or detached automatically from the airplane unit, this cabin would have the appearance of a large bus or Pullman car and would be capable of independent operation on the ground by means of a light motor driving wheels which would be drawn up when cabin and plane formed a single flying unit.

Such a combination would enable passengers to enter the cabin at a central depot in the city itself, travel out to the field (in extremely large cities where the passenger traffic justified the expense, on special roads) and there be instantaneously attached to the airplane portion of the combination to proceed by air to its destination.

Leaving our baggage at the checking counter, we then repair to the excellent restaurant to obtain a light meal and pass the time until our plane time arrives. As the time approaches for the plane-car to leave we retrieve our baggage and pass through the door to platform No. 5, to see immediately before us a smooth metal buslike car into which passengers are now pouring. A capable attendant relieves us of our baggage and we enter the car and pass along the central corridor to the small but comfortable observation room in the rear.

Glancing through the windows which surround this compartment, we notice numbers of other plane-cars. Some are standing at their respective platforms, others are arriving or departing through the low doorless exits of the vast hall. At 5:15 to the dot our car glides smoothly forward and we pass out of the hall onto a wide high-speed road which leads directly to the flying field.

Travelling at an even sixty, we arrive at the field to see a number of curious looking planes lined up before the service hangars. They appear to be all wings and tail and are lined up over sets of trough-like tracks which serve to guide the wheels of the cars into exact position as they arrive to be hooked up to the plane units. Into one of these sets of tracks our car wheels presently glide, the car stops and the ground crew busies itself locking the connections into place.

A few moments pause and then the motors of the plane, which have been idling as we approach, burst into a mighty roar and in what seems to have been but a few minutes since we entered the car at the central depot we are sailing high over the city on our way to Minneapolis.

Descending at the Wold-Chamberlin airport at Minneapolis our wheels have scarcely touched the ground and the plane approached the concrete apron before the landing gear is retracted, the car wheels extended and the release gear operated to allow our. car to shoot forward on the ground once again under its own power while the airplane unit is run into the service sheds to await the car's return with a fresh load of passengers for the return flight. Minneapolis air traffic being insufficient to justify the expense of a special speed road we proceed along the ordinary highways and city streets to the loop district and pull up inside the central depot to leave our car exactly three hours from the time we entered it in the Chicago central depot.

A flight of fancy? Perhaps. But not beyond the bounds of possibility. Until such time as planes are capable of arrested flight or are so dependable that they may be operated from the heart of a great city without undue risk to either passengers or inhabitants, this may well prove to be the most satisfactory solution of the airport problem. It is true that the necessity of taking passengers to the field has not been eliminated but the inconvenience element has been totally done away with and furthermore, in the case of large cities where the volume and radius of travel warrants the expense, high speed airport roads will permit the cars being shuttled back and forth at speeds quite impossible under present conditions.

A modification of the detachable car unit described in this article would lend itself admirably to freight purposes. In this case the freight cabin or car need not be equipped with motor or ground wheels but could be detached directly onto skeleton trucks or trailers for distribution at the terminal airports.

Still another application of the idea would be of inestimable value to sport planes. Arrived at a field the owner-pilot could detach and park the airplane unit and proceed in what would then become a lightweight closed car to his city destination. The car in this instance would in all probability resemble the little three-wheeled "tear-drop" car illustrated in the April issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions.

Christie M1932

Produced in 1932 by U.S. WHEEL TRACK LAYER CORPORATION

Total production = 1. CREW: 3

ARMAMENT: Could carry one 75mm cannon and one or more machine guns.

ARMOR: 0.375" to 0.5". (Thicker armor could be installed).

MAXIMUM SPEED: 60 mph on tracks, 120 mph on wheels.

SUSPENSION: Similar to 1931 model but with a maximum vertical movement of 24 inches; wheels of duraluminum with Firestone pneumatic tires. The two rear wheels had a slightly greater diameter than the front pairs.

TRACKS: Forged steel plates; 11" wide; 7" pitch; track pin 3/8" diameter.

GENERAL ARRANGEMENT: Cannon in front; crew in front center; engine & final drive in rear.

DIMENSIONS: Length: about 22 ft.; Width: about 7 ft; Height: about 5' 8".

WEIGHT: about 5 tons.

ENGINE: Hispano-Suize, 12 cylinder, V-type, 750 HP, forced water cooling. HORSEPOWER Per Ton: 150.

TRANSMISSION: Sliding gear, 3 speeds forward, 1 reverse. It had a power take-off for the flying propeller. One modification provided for a transfer gear case to propel a helicopter roter above the vehicle for lift purposes. OBSTACLE ABILITY: Could jump across a 20 foot trench from a 45 degree slope.

FUEL RANGE: unknown.

FUEL CAPACITY: 89 gallons.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Of very light construction throughout for airborne role. Chassis consisted of a double hull which enclosed the suspension springs. The inner hull was made of welded duraluminum plates, and the outer hull of welded steel plates. Rear ground wheels were driven through a knee-armed gear box when the tracks were off.

Originally it had been proposed that the chassis be equipped with a disposable biplane and propeller assembly. Using this arrangement the vehicle would become airborne by taxiing along the ground on its tracks to gain momentum and then transferring power to the propeller. Later plans contemplated carrying the tank by a special aircraft and releasing it close to the ground. In this case dual air-speed indicators would enable the tanks driver, before being dropped, to accelerate his tracks to a speed equaling that of the aircraft. Adaptation of these concepts and designs in the form of permanently installed, high-speed track-laying airplane undercarriages would permit the operation of large aircraft from unimproved fields. The M1932 was modified twice and then sold to Russia, who had a keen interest in the flying tanks idea.

WHAT IF? An ultra-light tank or tankette. For infantry fire support or cavalry operations?

Let's say we employed the Christie M1932 flying tankette.

WW2 begins.

ETO = European Theater of Operations

Instead of driving overland in M3 Stuart light tanks with 37mm guns, kicking up dust clouds for miles in North Africa, seen by the Afrika Corps, a swarm of M1932 flying tankettes with 75mm guns lands at night and in force to recon a key mountain pass. They discover the Germans and open fire with hull-mounted 75mm guns that blast their Mark III light tanks to smithereens as they run around them with 60 mph speed. The flying tankette cavalry commander decides to hold this ground and radios back for the main body. The main body avoids the ambush waiting for them at Kasserine and hits Rommel in his rear. However since timid Fredendall is in charge he orders the cav troop back to base. Rommel attacks our bases and loses a lot of tanks and men because we are alerted but Fredendall gets fired and replaced by PATTON.

Patton takes over and flies a huge force of flying tankettes into loosely-held German territory to cut off the retreat of the Afrika Corps. He repels the attack at El Guettar and goes on the defensive. The fleeing Germans do not fall back and fight another day, they are annihilated as they fall into the sights of the flying tankettes. No more Afrika Corps, sooner.

Sicily: the flying tankettes with Airborne Paratroops take Messina...or block the German withdrawal to the Italian penninsula, they seize Rome right after we land at Anzio, forcing Lucas to get off his ass and catch up with the main body...shortening the war....we have Rome in 1943 and are in southern France by year's end...MAYBE WE DON'T EVEN NEED TO LAND AT NORMANDY AT ALL?

PTO-CBI = Pacific Theater of Operations, China-Burma-India Theater

Imagine launching the flying tanks from some sort of aircraft carrier to LAND on islands and take them from the inside-out....landing strips are cut out from the jungle by paratroopers for the flying tankettes or fighters, bombers and transports.....the flying tankettes shed their wings and fan out on the ground offering paratrooper infantry fire support....

A real, 3D air/ground maneuver, mechanized CAVALRY. Something we still lack today.

The beauty of the flying tank is that NO ONE HAS TO ASK AVIATORS "MOTHER MAY I?" to fly as when dependant upon a mother aircraft from another unit. You (your tank) are your own aircraft.

More on Detachable pods and ISO Containers...

General James Gavin's KIWI pod concept from his book, Airborne Warfare

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCbOobGmRBc

The detachable pod as envisioned by General Gavin in 1947 in his book, Airborne warfare, has the biggest pay-off in terms of speeding air delivery. Instead of unloading the aircraft, the pod detaches and the aircraft can fly away to get another pod. See C-120 aircraft listing below. If the pod has an APU, it can drive itself to an area out of the way of incoming aircraft for off-loading. Most importantly, the pod can be supplied to EVERY UNIT IN THE U.S ARMY so they all can have a "place holder" so they can get into the 3D Air-Mech-Strike warfare business. They can train on the pods at home station, have them loaded for "C-1" combat readiness. It eliminates needing an aircraft present to conduct Air-Mech-Strike training. These "pods" could be standard 20 foot and 40 foot ISO Sea/Air/Land containers in use by the entire world! Just look at a container ship to see them action. The same pods used in the FTR/JHL should be able to attach to USAF B-52G/H heavy bomber inboard wing hardpoints for SOF insertions as a specially-designed glider pod. Ideally, the ATT should be able to carry two FTR/JHL pods inside its fuselage or under its fuselage, side-by-side or a maximum number of PLS flat racks.

Pods from Tractor-Trailer trucks: AIRCRAFT HAVING A DETACHABLE POD
Robert H. Reno, 1961

www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT3361396&id=i4ZvAAAAEBAJ&pg=PP1&dq=pod+aircraft#PRA1-PT3,M1

Pods that detach in-flight:

www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5110071&id=vOsZAAAAEBAJ&pg=

Personnel capsule extraction apparatus Henry J. Hunter et al

Abstract

A personnel capsule extraction apparatus having a personnel capsule mounted on extraction platform which is ejected from a low flying aircraft at an altitude between five and ten feet above the ground. A drougue parachute is utilized to deploy a large extraction parachute which pulls the personnel capsule out of the aircraft.

Patent number: 5110071
Filing date: Apr 18, 1990
Issue date: May 5, 1992
Inventors: Henry J. Hunter, Clifton W. Marshall, Kenneth Cunningham, Marvin A. Tingdahl
Assignee: The United States of America as Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force
Primary Examiner: Virna Lissi Mojica

Current U.S. Classification
244/137.3; 244/140

International Classification
B64D 0112; B64D 0114

Ground-to-Air Recovery

WWII OSS light plane snatches of agents
Glider recovery by low-flying C-47s
Fulton STAR/MC-130 Combat Talon Is

Best film the depiction is the NVA General "snatch" mission ending the John Wayne film, "The Green Berets", or Sean Connery at the end of the 007 film, "Thunderball".

Actual Cold-war spy mission using Fulton STAR "SkyHook"

Suspicions are that man has ALWAYS been technologically advanced as Graham Hancock in "Fingerprints of the Gods" reveals. Proposing that ancient people flew in gliders is actually conservative in light of the fact that ancient texts called OOPARTs (out of place artifacts to our prejudiced world view) indicate ancients flew in flying machines and engaged in nuclear warfare with technology superior than what we can do today given to them by fallen angels. The Great Pyramid in Egypt has 150-ton stones that we have today have only 1 crane on earth that could lift. How did they do this?

After WWI, Germany was not allowed to pursue a powered flying program so they threw themselves into gliders and discovered a warfare practical application: the silent assault. Their success with gliders in the early days of WWII, led to the Allies developing gliders to even deliver light tanks on D-Day and the Rhine River crossings!

During WW2, gliders were towed and released by the thousands to deliver stealthy commandos or assault troops or large amounts of cargo too heavy for existing piston-engined planes. Rather than throwing these albeit wooden gliders away, a snatching system was perfected so a low-flying plane with a hook could recover the glider and bring it up into the air to be towed back to base for re-use. They were even used to recover personnel as the report below from the aftermath of the WW2 battle for the Remagen bridge illuistrates.

COMBAT REPORT: www.combatreform.com/gliderpickupatremagen.pdf

After WWII, the rear ramp or opening clam-shell equipped aircraft to parachute drop large loads like howitzers and vehicles eliminated much of the need for the supply glider. Helicopters also took some of the delivery tasks once they gained turbine engine power. However--when the glider vanished, the assault glider attributes were lost and are now only partially attainable through stand-off parachuting using steerable wing-shaped parachutes. At some point the glider will return in order to regain stealthy,stand-off Air Assault capabilities to avoid air defenses---its problems of towing and guidance solved by modern technology means and the need to be towed eliminated by being a pod that is released by its "mother" aircraft. Glider pods would be recovered by the FTR/JHL Speed Crane with rotors deployed to hover over the pod, re-attach and fly back to base for re-use.

At the end of WW2, the Allies and Axis were alread contemplating adding engines to gliders to fly them back for re-use instead of trying to "snatch" them. The XC-122 glider became the C-123 powered cargo plane. The Hamilcar X was powered and could fly itself back to base when empty. The Germans powered their Gigant 321 gliders into the 323 models.

The Japanese Teishin Shudan airborne special forces transported Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks in KU-7 Buzzard gliders that at war's end they were fitting with engines not unlike our C-82 Packet.

www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/.../cc/torrisi.html

In the 17 November 1999, Air & Space Power Journal - Chronicles Online Journal, "Gliders - Rethinking the Utility of these Silent Wings for the Next Millennium", Steven A. Torrisi points out there are still things gliders can do that powered aircraft with built-in fuselage volumes cannot do:

1. crash-land into unprepared terrain

2. Be pre-loaded with Army vehicles/equipment/supplies

3. crash-land with stealth if launched from an off-set

He shows excellent comparisons on what the German Me-321 glider could carry compared to today's powered C-130:

And then compares the gliders of WW2 and what they could carry:

Then states the mission successes of gliders in WW2 combat:

Keith Flint in his masterpiece book, Airborne Armour shows that a male "tank" with a gun big enough to destroy even heavy German Tiger tanks within the size and weight constraints of the Hamilcar or a larger glider like the German Me-321---was possible in WW2---the British just didn't do it. Flint ever the conventional male tank enthusiast, notes a 75mm gun-equipped Mark IV medium tank with 80mm thick armor protection was transportable by a Me-321 glider. Flint wants his 360 degree spinning turret with a big gun and thick armor protection to keep enemy big gun shells out, so to have his cake and eat it, too he wants a bigger transport plane. Do-able, look at today's C-17 Globemaster III turbofan transports that can lift 70-ton M1 Abrams tanks---if you have 3, 000 feet of smooth ground to land on. If you want to surprise the enemy by landing at unexpected places and swarm him with greater numbers to get decisive victories, then you need lighter tanks. Having a turret limits the space you have for a gun or a loader and adds weight you can do without when being light enough for WW2 piston-engined Airborne transport, and Flint shows how the American M22 Locust light tank had to have its turret removed to attach directly to the piston-powered 4-engine C-54 transport plane of that time. Flint describes that upon landing, the pilot could drop the chassis 14 inches to the ground and the Driver could hop in and take it back to the tail and the turret could be lowered into position by untrained men in under 10 minutes! The author also sheds new light on the C-74 Globemaster I that its ingenious bomb bay floor could raise and lower an intact M22 Locust light tank in 1945. However, the American concept of C-54/Locust requires a smooth RUNWAY to pre-exist and Flint duly notes this is a tactical planning handicap the glider that essentially CRASH LANDS onto any open area that is flat--doesn't have. He expertly describes how to crash land, a glider on skids can accommodate uneven, unprepared terrain best. However, with the excellent Hamilcar heavy glider, experienced pilots kept its wheels on so they could steer with braking and avoid obstacles like other gliders during the crash land. Two Hamilcars at Arnhem have their wheels stick into the soft ground causing them to roll-over killing 3 men, so the ideal cow pasture glider/airplane should have skids with small wheels not likely to stick in back for ground steering. Flint doesn't connect-the-dots that after WW2 regulars in an air force are not going to want to crash-land in ANY aircraft and the glider land-anywhere capability was lost not because it was "obsolete" which is the author's favorite word to dismiss something he doesn't like.

Something Flint does like and justly so is the awesome Hamilcar glider. Its two pilots sat tandem like in a fighter plane on top of their armored loads protecting them from enemy anti-aircraft explosions. Vents took exhaust gases out so the tanks inside could be started up for a quick drive-off upon landing. The shock absorbers could be lowered quickly upon landing to get a good angle for the tracks to drive out.

Very smart, but Flint reveals some more stunning facts about this great assault cargo glider---an U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) officer saw a German Me-109 on top of a small German assault glider and proposed we put a P-38 Lightning twin-engined fighter on top of the Hamilcar. An American C-54 or B-17 or B-24 4-engined plane tows the Hamilcar/Lightning into the air, then disconnects and flies back to base for another glider combo to take-off. From that point on the P-38's engines would keep the Hamilcar glider aloft all the way to the target since the power to take-off is drastically more than what's required to stay aloft! Physicists point out the same is true with our cars, you don't need 200 hp once you get to 60 mph, only a fraction of this power so driving around with a bug engine is inefficient. It gets better. Once over the target area, the P-38 pilot releases the Hamilcar to land with its light tank and troopers and the fighter-bomber is now free to strafe the ground of enemy ack-ack guns, troops, tanks, trucks etc. or shoot down enemy fighters! Such an arrangement would free up our glider tow planes and get ALL OF THE HAMILCARS WORKING DELIVERING COMBAT POWER TO HOLLAND would have worked wonders during Operation Market-Garden where German mortars needed continual silencing by fighter-bombers to relieve pressure on LTC Frost's men at Arnhem bridge. General Gavin says the lack of en masse airlift is what doomed Market-Garden.

This realization that the power to fly once take-off was achieved resulted in the Hamilcar X fitted with two engines from "obsolete" aircraft of its own. When fitted with the most powerful engines available the Hamilcar COULD FLY ITSELF ALL THE WAY TO THE OBJECTIVE WITH ITS FULL LOAD OF LIGHT TANK(S). Now this is a class/type of assault transport WE DO NOT FULL UNDERSTAND even today. This is a POWERED CRASHLANDING GLIDER. This is a minimalist aircraft that if it breaks up in a rough landing, OK. We can accept this because we want to land where the enemy is not expecting us. We are not putting millions of dollars into it, its made of wood. This is NOT the C-130s we have today that are not only heavier and cannot crash-land but need runways, handicapping us with having to seize an airfield or stretch of road.

LZ "N" on D-Day, notice all the British gliders at the bottom and the many places they could have landed in BLUE. The one place today's C-130 could have landed in RED, a small road would mean one plane-at-a-time and forever to land an effective military force--parachute airdrop is far faster

When Gavin is talking about a "cow pasture" powered plane he is talking about a plane that can CRASH LAND either on skis, skid-wheels or tracks or simply drops a KIWI pod that does the skidding to a halt. Yes, if the powered Hamilcar isn't wrecked it could take-off again and fly back to base, but when the pampered, doesn't-want-to-get-dirty U.S. Air Force heavyied up our own CG-20 glider to the point that it became a RUNWAY dependant airplane we lost the capability to land anywhere. Regulars in peacetime don't want to crash-land and pilots certainly don't want to be stranded and have to fight as ground troops if their powered glider can't take-off and get them back to base. What we're saying is that the USAF's laziness and cowardice to not have to fight or get dirty has ruined our Airborne warfare capabilities because we now have to work around their planes that cannot and will not land anywhere.

The USAF has also refused to field technologies that would enable extreme short take-off and landing (ESTOL) on their existing planes or to fund a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) assault transport because it helps the Army win wars by maneuver and they want to try to win wars by themselves using Douhet firepower bombing.

The U.S. Army Airborne should adopt a Land-with-Power concept of operation. We should parachute drop M113 Gavin light tanks to carry paratroopers and some with large cannon assault guns and others bulldozer blades and Rhino Snot soil sealant trailers from existing USAF C-130s and C-17s so they need not have to land and we need not have to seize a runway. We then build the runway ourselves just as we were going to do as Flint points out in Holland using British flown Hamilcars to carry our bulldozers and airfield combat engineers. This force in light tanks is Gavin's Sky Cavalry and Grange's Air-Mech-Strike Force that has armor protection, superior cross-country mobility, firepower and vital supplies to not just "seize and hold" but can go to where the enemy is and collapse him, an American blitzkrieg. In the meantime, we should press the USAF to field a C-17 derivative that can drop 10 ISO container BATTLEBOXes from a few feet over the ground without complicated parachutes in one pass or at higher altitudes glider pods for stand-off coup de main assaults and to create a VTOL assault transport that can deliver one M113 Gavin and a 9-man squad anywhere in the world while being invisible to radar. The American airhead becomes a fortified BATTLEBOX operating base, dispersed, hardened and with self-sufficient solar/wind staying power requiring minimal resupply sorties of fossil fuel and food since it can collect its own water and shoot the enemy's ammunition.

Static Forward Air Base Security Math: Poor Force Structure Quality cannot be Saved by Quantity

Stuck--pun intended---with wheeled landing gear, aircraft have been restricted to how little of this smooth runway they can live with by their SIZE which drives runway thickness/hardness and their required run LENGTH to create lift. The length of the runway then drives the force size needed to guard it by area formula which translates into basically 6x its length. If a runway is 10, 000 feet long, at the bare minimum it needs 60, 000 feet of perimeter defended just to keep enemies off the runway from cratering it or placing obstacles on it. Generally, effective small-arms fire range is 300 meters or 1, 000 feet so to keep small caliber 7.62mm bullets out, the perimeter needs to grow in all directions by 2, 000 feet because you need stand-off from the front and back ends of the runway. So a 10, 000 foot runway requires 72, 000 feet of perimeter to keep small arms fire away. Most small man-portable air defense systems military jargon for shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) have 2.5 mile or 13, 200 foot range. To keep MANPADS away, the air base needs from its 10, 000 foot ends another 13, 200 feet added for a total length of 36, 400 feet which multiplied by 6x equals a perimeter of 218, 400 feet or 41.36 miles. To protect a minimum sized air base with a 10, 000 foot runway from direct fire weapons (small arms fire up to heavy machine guns and MANPADS) requires an infantry force of 41 companies!

www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/accp/in0754/ch1.htm

IN 0754 PREPARE AND PLAN AN INFANTRY COMPANY DEFENSE

This translates to 10+ battalions or 3+ brigades or 1 division of 10, 000 men just to defend the air base---somewhat. This doesn't defend the air base from long range mortar and artillery fires of 7 kilometers and 30 kilometers from decisively shutting down the runway and the French para's supplies as Giap's VietMinh did to Dien Bien Phu in 1954 with hidden 105mm howitzers and 20mm anti-aircraft guns. To create a "recon & security" perimeter to keep enemy mortars and artillery out of range of incinerating exposed aircraft laden with fuel, weapons and troops requires an R&S perimeter of 120 kilometers or 378 kilometers requiring 80 to 252 infantry companies or 2 or 6.3 divisions of 20, 000 to 63, 000 men! However to do static air base security right, one needs the INNER perimeter of 1 division to keep out any "leakers" who get by the OUTER R&S mortar/artillery perimeter of 2 to 6.3 divisions. Thus, to keep one single air base like DaNang or Tan Son Nhut safe in 1965 from Viet Cong direct fire and direct high explosive emplacement "sapper" attacks would require 1/3rd of the entire USMC to rotate in for 1 year or 1/20th of the U.S. Army. To actively patrol a R&S perimeter large enough to keep mortars/artillery out would require the entire USMC plus 3 Army divisions (1/7th of the then 20-division U.S. Army) for just one year then having to be completely spelled by Army thereafter at least for a 1 year hiatus with 1/3rd of the active duty U.S. Army. In 3 years of guarding such an Gavin-style enclave, the entire U.S. Army would have gone to Vietnam, but it might be not so financially costly or lethal to our forces that we could stay there indefinitely to prop up a friendly nation-state government--which we failed to do when we stopped just defending air bases and mission-creeped into career ticket-punching self-validating sweeps for the sub-national and nation-state enemy all across Vietnam. Once we took over fighting from the inept ARVN we began to be financially/casualty bled by the VC/NVA, whose leadership in Hanoi knew we couldn't sustain indefinitely. So if the VC/NVA couldn't instigate a battle defeat like a Dien Bien Phu ("Super Bowl") they would defeat us by making it too costly over time to stay in the "game" ie; we "stop playing football because our knees are shot". One way to defeat "Walter Payton" is have him "retire". War is not just won by duels between armies (battles). Sun Tzu's warning that prolonged wars bring about defeat is not heard by war racketeers who profit from our troops being bled for career officer's to advance by "combat experience".

Had we kept to Gavin's enclave strategy (see his 1968 book, Crisis Now) and refused the enemy battles to bleed us, sallying forth only as needed--say if the NVA tried to cut South Vietnam in two which Moore's 1^st Cavalry stopped at LZ X-Ray (but at needless high costs because he didn't have M113 Gavin armored personnel carriers) there is a chance that we would have had American ground forces in position to defeat NVA invasions in 1972 and 1975 in a WW2-style super bowl-type climactic linear battle we somewhat understand. We lost forfeited Vietnam because we couldn't afford to show up because when we were there our "limited war" military incompetence made our presence too costly to maintain.

Better Sub-National Conflict (SNC) Means Begin with Better Aircraft and Tanks

The point here is that we need the qualitative means to prevail in non-linear, sub-national conflicts (SNCs) where civilian life all around, tries to co-exist amongst rebels trying to overthrow the government. First, we must secure the threatened nation's borders with a Morice line type barrier with fencing and sensors patrolled by indigenous troops who we train and equip to a high standard to be an air-mobile cavalry in M113 Gavin type, all-terrain, tracked armored fighting vehicles. Flying overhead are observation/attack fixed wing planes to keep 24/7/365 pressure on any outsiders trying to infiltrate to help the rebels. MacNamara was right about his line on the DMZ to keep the NVA out and unprofessional stupidity of the validate-their-penis-by-gun-battles USMC that refused to build this necessary impediment to infiltration to create a linear separation damned our entire effort in Vietnam. The entire existence of such incompetent egomaniacs as the USMC breeds is counter-productive to the national security of the U.S. and the entire non-adaptive, obsolete outfit should be disbanded. Inside the country, walls and checkpoints manned by indigenous troops would deny warring factions or individual rebels the ability to infiltrate high explosives to car bomb and land mine attack. Americans would have primarily a training/equipping role of the indigenous government workers and have a low-key presence so as to not inflame the locals to rebel against us. We need to create a non-linear battlefield stability corps (NLB-SC) composed of older, more mature adults who have budgets direct from Congress that are ready and equipped and funded to get a nation-state government back on its feet not this "Phase IV" ad hocery that damned us in Iraq. Details:

www.combatreform2.com/johnpaulvann.htm

Now we are back full-circle--pun intended---to static air base security driven by our bullshit Air Force's desire to fly too fast and too high with thin-wing fighter-bombers that need long 10, 000 foot runways and to live in comfortable bases with a slice of excessive American consumerism replicated inside sure to infuriate the locals with our excess. By realizing we need slower aircraft to differentiate friend from foe in SNCs, these aircraft can also land on shorter runways or better yet no runways at all, drastically reducing our troop presence on the ground.

The USAF Air Commandos led by legendary genius Brigadier General Heinie Aderholt realized that aircraft slower than 600+ mph jets would be needed just to differentiate "limited war" enemies who try to belt buckle hug American forces on the ground to deny us being able to bring land/sea artillery and air strikes against them as General Ridgway did to them in the Korean war by WW1 style trench lines to create adequate separation. The Air Commando aircraft depicted below show what can be done with slower aircraft and rolling wheel landing gear.

The biggest aircraft depicted, the gunship version of the C-130 simply cannot at 150, 000 pounds plus land on anything less than 3, 000 foot runways, ending up with the Army having to defend a base perimeter of 10 miles against direct-fire weapons, 25 miles against heavy mortars and 62.5 miles to keep long-range 155mm artillery out of range. This still translates into a brigade of Army troops for close-in protection and another 3 or 6 brigades (30, 000 men) for long-range outer protection. With an Army of 30 brigades, one air base defense for one year would require 1/30th or 1/10th or 1/5th of the Army to occupy. "Air Power" using even STOL aircraft is killing the Army by having it maintain its existence through easily ambushed truck resupply convoys or make the taxpayers go broke having to Dien Bien Phu airlift supplies in at a cost of $64, 000/flight hour by C-17. We have more than one such air base in Iraq so that 150, 000 troops are there doing mostly nothing but consume supplies and keep our airplanes safe is costing us $2 BILLION a week--expenses we cannot sustain so we will have to leave the "playing field" because we cannot afford to keep the "stadium" (air field) open.

Let's return to Aderholt's planes...

Notice next the C-123 gunship with two engines that could operate from 2, 000 foot runways. This was originally the CG-20 heavy glider with rear loading ramp that Gavin wanted to crash land into cow pastures but the pampered USAF heavied up into a static runway dependant plane.

If our bases can shrink to 2, 000 foot runways the security reduction pay-off is a base perimeter of 5 miles for direct fire, 12 miles for mortars and 30 miles for tube artillery such that 1/2 a brigade for close security and 1 brigade for a mortar perimeter or 3 brigades for artillery defense. This is progress towards smaller FOBs that justifies the new twin turboprop-engined C-27J which can airdrop/airland a M113 Gavin light tracked AFV to effect 3D air-mech Sky Cavalry maneuver as Gavin insisted we need. For VTOL air assault operations a reduced-size "Mini-Gavin" can be air-meched by CH-47 Chinook helicopters. This should be the largest plane operated by a small nation's air force since it can deliver real army ground combat power without excessively sized air bases. If we applied ESTOL technologies, the areas to land could be decreased by another half and we'd regain the glider land-anywhere capability we lost when the USAF was born.

The U.S. Army Airborne should adopt a Land-with-Power concept of operation. We should parachute drop M113 Gavin light tanks with the latest armors to counteract land mines and advanced shoot-on-the-move firepower and stealthy electric drive band-tracked 60 mph+ off-road mobility to carry paratroopers. Some with large cannon assault guns and others bulldozer blades and Rhino Snot soil sealant trailers from existing USAF C-130s and C-17s so they need not have to land and we need not have to seize a runway. We then build the runway ourselves just as we were going to do in Holland in 1944 using British flown Hamilcars to carry our bulldozers and airfield combat engineers. This force in light tanks is Gavin's Sky Cavalry and Grange's Air-Mech-Strike Force that has armor protection, superior cross-country mobility, firepower and vital supplies to not just "seize and hold" but can go to where the enemy is and collapse him, an American blitzkrieg that can surprise, encircle and kill/capture Bin Ladens/Noriegas like we did with light tanks in Panama in 1989. In the meantime, we should press the USAF to field a C-17 derivative that can drop 10 ISO container BATTLEBOXes from a few feet over the ground without complicated parachutes in one pass or at higher altitudes glider pods for stand-off coup de main assaults and to create a VTOL assault transport that can deliver one M113 Gavin and a 9-man squad anywhere in the world while being invisible to radar. The American airhead becomes a fortified BATTLEBOX operating base, dispersed, hardened and with self-sufficient solar/wind staying power requiring minimal resupply sorties of fossil fuel and food since it can collect its own water and shoot the enemy's ammunition.

Container Transport Planes: "Cow Pasture" KIWI Pod Aircraft for Speedy, Minimalist Air Delivery

LAPES (Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System) from 5-10 feet has been discontinued from USAF use due to a fatal accident at Sicily Drop Zone on Fort Bragg, North Carolina when a M551 Sheridan light tank on a platform as it rolled off the rear ramp of a C-130 caught both the ground and the edge of the ramp, ripping the plane's tail off. The pilot was actually TOO LOW. The idea of LAPES--using the minimum of parachute materials to get a load to the ground is sound, it just didn't go far enough because it was trying to WORK AROUND A FUSELAGE, subsidizing a pre-existing inefficiency.

LTG Gavin realized this long ago in 1947, in his book Airborne Warfare [www.combatreform.com/airbornewarfare.htm] that the most efficient way to be already loaded and ready-to-fight is to be already be in a KIWI POD, and the fastest way to get this stuff to the ground is not to pull it out break-bulk from inside a fuselage but to DROP THE ENTIRE KIWI POD. If you drop the pod you don't have risks of getting caught up inside the fuselage.

We have Gavin's KIWI pods today--they are called ISO shipping containers. These containers can be made into "BATTLERBOXes" for specific Army missions like being bunkers for troops to live in as well as carry everything the Army needs to fight etc. The early-model Sikorsky CH-54 SkyCrane VTOL helicopter was ahead of its time but required special expensive lightweight pods to conserve its limited 15-ton payload that the Army couldn't afford to buy. The Army today doesn't need costly single-application pods, there are millions of ISOs that can travel by land, sea or air available at less than $5, 000 each. What the Army needs is the USAF to do its damn job and supply a fixed-wing SkyCrane-type transport plane that can deliver 100 tons and drop its BATTLEBOXes with extreme STOL "cow pasture" landing capabilities.

This is a bugaboo because the fighter-bomber jock USAF wants to try to win wars by firepower bombing and doesn't give a damn about helping the Army to win wars by maneuver. The USAF has for over 6 decades refused to supply the Army with a plane that can land on any cow pasture by conveniently only creating runway dependant transports that could parachute airdrop things IF the Army takes the time to rig them with expensive and costly parachutes. This is fine to take a drop zone by assault but afterwards for RESUPPLY the USAF wants a secure and smooth, long 3, 000 foot minimum runway which places Army Paratroopers in a suicidal position of having to first take a heavily-defended airfield or build-one-from-scratch. The latter is do-able but it takes TIME we may not have provided us by a laggard enemy.

All of this complication can be solved by simply creating a C-17 SkyCrane derivative that can carry and DROP 10 x 20-foot BATTLEBOXes from very low altitude as in ZERO---because the plane itself touches only a small air cushion and as it flies forward, ISO containers are dropped in sequence from back to front without ANY special parachutes or platforms.

The BATTLEBOXes might be lined with SKEDCO plastic on the bottom to slide easier along the ground---but that's it. The KIWI Pod C-17 doesn't need a smooth surface for landing gear wheels because its Air Cushion Landing System (ACLS) enables it to land on any roughly flat unprepared surface to then commence BATTLEBOX dropping from such a low actual height that no position-righting parachutes are needed nor any parachutes to pull it out from the fuselage BECAUSE THERE IS NO FUSELAGE! There will not be any LAPES/Sicily Drop Zone type accidents, after the C-17 SkyCrane has dropped its BATTLEBOXes, it takes-off and leaves the assault zone even if its considered "secure" because we don't want the bottleneck of "MOG rate" that occurs when wheel landing gear planes need to after landing taxi back to an upwind take-off position, hogging up the runway. With C-17 SkyCranes there wouldn't be any runways---just an open area with lanes marked on it so multiple C-17s can essentially touch 'n go and drop their BATTLEBOXes.

After the C-17 SkyCrane takes-off from its designated lane, 10 x special M113 Gavins tracked armored fighting vehicles with forklift tines on their front bulldozer blades drive to the 10 x BATTLEBOXes and pick them up like the video game "Pac-Man" and drive them to the collection point, clearing that SkyCrane lane for another pod drop-off sortie. The British figured out they needed tracked armored vehicles to clear supplies off exposed drop and landing zones by glider-landing Bren gun carriers in 1945, and we are long overdue to use this method.

The C-17 SkyCrane-BATTLEBOX would dramatically speed the delivery of supplies to Army forces because there'd be no parachute/shock absorber rigging cost/complication and at 5 tons per BATTLEBOX there'd be plenty of ammo, food, water to grab by simply opening the doors of the ISO containers and getting what you need. The Army just has to grab the entire BATTLEBOX and move it to where it wants it, to include arranging them as walls to create fortified forward operating bases. All that requires for this to occur is for Congress to order and fund Industry/USAF to create and field C-17 SkyCranes to create the EFFICIENCY up-front to deliver containerized supplies without having to work around built-in cargo volume fuselages--current transport aircraft are like old fashioned cargo ships and need to become containerized to be maximally efficient like the container ships the entire world depends on.

Fighter-IN-A-Box: Ground-Mobile Observation/Attack Planes Evade Enemy Targeting

Notice the observation/attack prop planes....capable of high G diving attacks, the heaviest, the A-1 SkyRaider can deliver fighter-bomber ordnance loads of 16, 000 pounds and this capability reduces down to the observation planes capable of only hundreds of pounds or rocket or gun pods. However, the beauty of these "grasshoppers" is that they can operate from 1, 000 feet or less strips and be ground-mobile in ISO container "BATTLEBOXes" if their wings fold or detach like V-2 missiles were in WW2 and impossible to target as Gavin notes. We could have a small grasshopper/large grasshopper team of observation/attack planes or if really hurting for money have just the attack utility plane do it all---observe, attack and transport small teams of men. If AUs can be made to diving attack effectively or have swiveling cannon on their bellies to be stand-off gunships, then they'd be actually OATs--observation/attack transports. Imagine if OATs had tracked or air cushion landing gear---they could ESTOL land nearly anywhere and operate from camouflaged and dug-in BATTLEBOXes ORGANIC to Army ground MANEUVER UNITS--in other words--no static bases needed at all if in a temporary nation-state war situation. Now look at the amazing A-37 Dragonfly capable as a microjet of 500 mph---able to fly slow as well, this jet could shoot down with air-to-air missiles enemy fighters that stray into the Army's low-level air space if they leak through the USAF's fighter-bombers as commonly occurs. We'd have the low altitude Army Air Forces with a 24/7/365 "maneuver air support" air presence we need to overlap with the medium-to-high altitude USAF that currently has the former mission but doesn't want to do it. A return of the Army Air Force would reduce our land foot print during SNCs and empower Army 2D/3D maneuver during nation-state war, by getting technologies for ESTOL and VTOL on the right track instead of being ignored by the USAF or botched by the USMC with the overly complex flawed V-22.

Gyrene Deathtrap

A brief word about the supercarrier Navy/expensive flooding well-deck marines and their lying Midway myth/Iwo Jima re-enactment bullshit sure to pick up on the need to reduce American land presence to try to further their own egorackets. First, there are places in the world where its not cost efficient to fly carrier planes inland. Second, where a watery edge is near a SNC, the grotesquely inefficient supercarrier is a dismal failure as its presence bleeds the taxpayers dry. To make matters worse, the F-18 jets fly too fast to render effective close air support for the Army. If we are to seabase for SNCs, we need affordable container ship aircraft carriers or the large mobile offshore base (MOB) operating useful-to-SNC planes---like the prop-plane SkyRaiders and Corsairs were in Korea operating from smaller fleet and escort carriers. The MOB will again offer real not make-shift runways to operate planes at sea---if we need C-17s to land Army troops ashore the MOB can facilitate this without a bunch of marines dying on a beach to self-validate and seize an air base we didn't need in 1944 to drop atomic bombs on Japan by B-29s and we certainly don't need today. If we want to try to bomb civilians and make their government leaders cry "uncle" this is best done by heavy bombers from land bases or large seaplanes capable of inflicting enough hurt to have effect not handfuls of short-range fighter-bomber "lawn darts" from aircraft carriers.

Either Army Air Forces or Air Commandos---or both

The time has come for Congress to admit the separate service USAF has been a huge mistake and create forces that will prepare for SNCs and act as a Sky Cavalry in nation-state wars. Either the USAF Air Commandos get the job with direct budgetary access to Congress so they don't have to "mother may I" budget in-fight internally with the fighter-bomber egojocks running the USAF brass or the Army gets funding to form its own low altitude Army Air Force with this mission area taken away from the power-hungry, centralizing USAF that doesn't want to do the job. If transport planes transfer to Army ownership/operation then the Army culture of blue collar assholes playing back-stabbing games will have to cease in order to retain the services of the smart adults in the USAF who will not tolerate such childish bullshit. If not, the C-130s and larger transports will remain USAF operated but Congress should mandate their development be driven by Army needs for cow pasture ESTOL operation and end the pampered air base subsidization by deliberate emasculation of transport aircraft landing capabilities. If we don't create sustainable force structures to prevail in limited wars don't complain when we continue to have self-created defeats like Vietnam and Iraq.

NOTES

General Gavin's most important works are online:

Airborne Warfare (1947)

www.combatreform.com/airbornewarfare.htm

Harper's magazine article "Cavalry and I don't Mean Horses" (1954)

www.geocities.com/gavinpetition/cavalryandidontmeanhorses.htm

War and Peace in the Space Age (1958)

www.geocities.com/gavinpetition/warandpeaceinthespaceage.htm

Crisis Now (1968) can be bought used from amazon.com

www.geocities.com/gavinpetition/crisisnow.htm

Powered-aircraft

JU-52 "Iron Annie"

Separate equipment containers being loaded under JU-52s prior to Crete operation

JU-52 fuselage used as a realistic jump door trainer (good idea U.S. Army should adopt)

JU-52 right cargo doors to load/offload Kettenkrad motorcycle half-tracks and LG 40 75mm or LG42 105mm Recoilless Rifles. Picture above shows a motorcycle and side car, dismantled 20mm anti-aircraft gun and a towed anti-tank gun being loaded into a JU-52.

German Paras History

Note: lack of control hanging from single point under parachute, no long rifles/machine guns jumped attached to the body, separate container dependant

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hURjXxbyQ9k

PART 1

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r0myiKCp4E