Defying gravity, the flying future.

[All Darc]

Yeah, I kow it did fly. I saw some documentaries even before the movie The Aviator.
My doubt is if it could fly loaded with especified capability (750 passangers).

Empty weight: 113 399 kg (250 000 lb)
Loaded weight: 180 000 kg (397 000 lb)

Originally Posted by redpoint5

The Spruce Goose is in a museum near where I live. It did fly very briefly in real life.

Yes. But take off loaded with tons of troups and equipment would be even more difficult, am I right ?
I would like to know if Hercules needed all power to take off during the only fly demonstration it ever did.

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Takeoff from water requires MORE power than similar takeoff from land because of water's much greater density than air...as soon as the aircraft "breaks/leaves" the water and is flying/moving only thru air, much less power is needed. I worked for Hughes Aircraft Company.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by All Darc

Yeah, I kow it did fly. I saw some documentaries even before the movie The Aviator.
My doubt is if it could fly loaded with especified capability (750 passangers).

Empty weight: 113 399 kg (250 000 lb)
Loaded weight: 180 000 kg (397 000 lb)





Yes. But take off loaded with tons of troups and equipment would be even more difficult, am I right ?
I would like to know if Hercules needed all power to take off during the only fly demonstration it ever did.

FWIW: It was supposed to be only a "taxi" but it literally "flew" itself out of the water to everyone's (except Howard) surprise.

[All Darc]

I wonder someone today could get all details of the plane, power, aerodynamics for the exact shape, weight distribution, and put on a advanced computer simulation to guess if it could really carry that load (180.000kg).

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

FWIW: It was supposed to be only a "taxi" but it literally "flew" itself out of the water to everyone's (except Howard) surprise.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by All Darc

The most efficient transport will be hyperloop, vehicles in vacuum tubes...

That depends on how you define efficiency. Figure in the cost of digging a tunnel - abd not just a simple tunnel, but one that will hold a vacuum - to any & every place you might want to go, and the cost of keeping it evacuated, and suddenly it doesn't look all that efficient.

Consider that the cost of building the 31 mile long Channel Tunnel between Britain & France was close to $1 billion per mile (in current dollars).

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by All Darc

I wonder if it, despite managed to fly, it could ever fly loaded with troups and equipment, as it was designed for, or if could only fly unloaed. In the movie (The Aviator) if only took off after the engines was in maximum...

That's true for basically every airplane, from Piper Cubs to 747s: you use full power for takeoff.

[gone-ot]

The HK-1 (Hughes-Kaiser) was intended to transport troops & supplies ABOVE the Atlantic ocean, where the German submarines could not attack so easily as they did surface convoy ships. The goal was "above/out" of the water, but not so high altitude as to need oxygen masks for the troops. And, the lower the plane was to the water, the more the curvature of the ocean & earth blocked "line-of-sight" visual tracking from submarines on the surface...called "nap-of-the-earth" flying these days.

[All Darc]

NASAs X-57 have so many electric motors for one interesting reason :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VUfM92ergQ

They say it will take 1/5 of the power than a usual configuration. Hard to believe.