I've seen versions of this idea where they would launch through the nose, or from VLS tubes in the top. Or even, in one version, by being shot out the side.
ACH: Boeing 747 CMCA
- Thread starter Shurik
- Start date
I've seen versions of this idea where they would launch through the nose, or from VLS tubes in the top. Or even, in one version, by being shot out the side.
I'm unfamiliar with any of those proposals. The closest thing to that, that I've seen was this pic (sorry for the huge size):
A Boeing 747, with carefully fitted hatches and carefully re-painted could covertly pre-position to a forward operating base with few observers noticing its special mission.
A Boeing 747 is never going to be totally covert. It just needs to be covert enough to fly near the enemy's borders, drop a few cruise missiles and turn for home.
There's movie plot for you ... bad guys steal a 747 tanker from Evergreen, fill it with ... weapons and launch it towards a major American target. Action adventure hero Mr. .......... sneaks on board, punches out the bad guys and saves the free world.
A Boeing 747 is never going to be totally covert. It just needs to be covert enough to fly near the enemy's borders, drop a few cruise missiles and turn for home.
There's movie plot for you ... bad guys steal a 747 tanker from Evergreen, fill it with ... weapons and launch it towards a major American target. Action adventure hero Mr. .......... sneaks on board, punches out the bad guys and saves the free world.
Unfortunately, I can't provide references, as I saw them on a blog ages ago - I think it was up-ship. I didn't see any evidence they were ever taken seriously, but they at least reached napkin-diagram stage.
As far as I know, the CMCA was rather seriously considered: only being dropped when the B-1 program was revived under Reagan. As mentioned: I don't know much about other variants.
A country with it's own cruise missile and an airliner/cargo aircraft conversion capability could relatively easily produce a handful of aircraft along these lines.
Israel via IAI Bedek Aviation and the IMI Delilah, for example. Using anything from a C-130 up to a 747. A C-130 would be good as you could potentially have the entire missile/control kit as a roll-on/roll-off package.I reckon you could fit 30 into the hold of a -J30 model without much trouble. That's a decent sized first/sneak strike capability a 1000 miles or so from home that will make a mess of someone's air defence network.
Israel via IAI Bedek Aviation and the IMI Delilah, for example. Using anything from a C-130 up to a 747. A C-130 would be good as you could potentially have the entire missile/control kit as a roll-on/roll-off package.I reckon you could fit 30 into the hold of a -J30 model without much trouble. That's a decent sized first/sneak strike capability a 1000 miles or so from home that will make a mess of someone's air defence network.
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I'm not so sure the whole "sneak/stealth/camo" idea entered into it. Rather, a large, long-ranged, munitions truck. The point of the cruise missiles is that the carrier never has to get anywhere close to the defense network: instead using 600~1,000 mile ranged cruise missiles to do the dirty work from afar.
Waaay outside the range of any normal air-defense systems. The only SAM I can think of that can come close to the range of a modern cruise missile is the SM-3/RIM-161 Block IIa: and they're very new; if even fielded yet. The most modern S300 and S400 series don't even come close.
Right. The premise sounded promising enough: gut the commercially available, and widely utilized 747, and replace the innards with around 100 long-range munitions. By using the 747-200C, nose loaded version, the nose cone is simply opened, and pre-loaded racks are just rolled right in.
Meanwhile, the upper hump becomes a limited command and control center. With huge range, massive payload (evidently 4 times the cruise missile capacity of the B-52), and low cost of entry due to the commercially available frame, it seems like it would have been a brilliant idea.
Likely even more so now, with GPS guided munitions, and smaller munition options than the AGM-86. The thing could simply loiter over combat areas, at high altitude, with drones providing intel at lower altitudes; dropping what is needed when, and where.
But would it really have been all it was cracked up to be?
Thoughts?
Launching flying things out of other flying things can be problematic (see here). But that's not an insuperable problem. The main problems are twofold
- 1) Centre of gravity. If you mess up the centre of gravity in a 747 you die horribly (see here). The best place to drop stuff out of a 747 is downwards between the wings, and - hey - guess where the landing gear is...
- 2) You can't really carve big holes in a 747 skin: there's control cables, 'lectric cables, and even if you find a space, it messes with the structural integrity and - whoops - the plane disintegrates in flight.
These aren't insuperable problems, but they do highlight the difficulty.
Here are some alternatives:
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