Shadow Master
Banned
Hi all, finally found my chosen entry for the most ridiculous aircraft design, and thought I would post this idea while it is still in my swiss cheese brain.
So, the WASP was built back in 1974, and the military rejected it. But what if some additional development work had been done, to where they got the craft into a form that could carry a pilot and a single squad of combat loaded infantrymen to 10,000 feet, or cross an impassable river/canyon? Assume the avarage infantryman + gear is => 300 lbs. 9 or 11 man squads, so 3000 lbs +/- 300 lbs.
Jump forward to 9-11 and the fall of the towers.
Could such craft, operated by fire departments in cities with building taller than the ladder trucks can reach, have been able to save the folks trapped in the towers, if they were commonplace and available in numbers?
So, the WASP was built back in 1974, and the military rejected it. But what if some additional development work had been done, to where they got the craft into a form that could carry a pilot and a single squad of combat loaded infantrymen to 10,000 feet, or cross an impassable river/canyon? Assume the avarage infantryman + gear is => 300 lbs. 9 or 11 man squads, so 3000 lbs +/- 300 lbs.
Jump forward to 9-11 and the fall of the towers.
Could such craft, operated by fire departments in cities with building taller than the ladder trucks can reach, have been able to save the folks trapped in the towers, if they were commonplace and available in numbers?