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Pentagon Selects Companies To Build Flying Humvees
longacre sends in a quote from Popular Mechanics:
"The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected two companies to proceed with the next stage of its Transformer, known as TX — a fully automated four-person vehicle that can drive like a car and then take off and fly like an aircraft to avoid roadside bombs. Lockheed Martin and AAI Corp., a unit of Textron Systems, are currently in negotiations with DARPA for the first stage of the Transformer project, several industry sources told Popular Mechanics at a robotics conference here in Denver."
The picture included with the linked article says it all, really.
... until hollywood actors, then rappers, then any jackass with money wants to buy one?
Why did it take them so long to realize that the best way to avoid roadside bombs might involve getting off the road?
On the other hand, FLYING CARS!
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
I'm pretty sure existing humvees upon discovering an exploding IED at close range fly through the air already.
That is clearly a M.A.S.K. vehicle.
At this rate we'll have flying school buses before flying cars.
Trolling is a art,
that we've clearly got out budget priorities straight in this country.
But fell out of the car after forgetting to belt-in. Splat instead of kaboom - still not a pretty way to go.
Military spending is out of control, this program should be killed.
Yeah! I can't wait to see a VT flying/walking around town!
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
What. To avoid roadside bombs, we're making Humvees that can fly automatically.
Tomorrow's news: in order to prevent heat stroke in our soldiers, the Pentagon has begun selecting companies to build a satellite that will block out the sun.
Is it just me, or does it seem kind of redundant to have a rotary wing (helicopter style rotor), and fixed wing with rear-thrust device (can't tell if it's a jet or what it is, but the picture seems to have something at the rear of the car which looks like it's to produce thrust). I suppose sometimes redundancy is good, but in this case, wouldn't those two different types of flight systems interfere with each other (that is, either one is making you fly and the other is creating unnecessary drag/weight, or vice versa?)
Did I accidentally get redirected to The Onion?
Armor.
What kind of armor can a flying Humvee really have? Military-spec Humvees are already heavier than a fat chick at an all you can eat buffet with a bag of holding...how do they expect to make them take off quickly at any given time?
Living With a Nerd
I can tell you right now this will fail and I can tell you why - it will cost less to run a heavily armoured vehicle than it would to fly even a lightly armoured one. It would also cost less to produce and be easier to maintain. Oh plus safer from ground fire and rockets.
But apart from all of those blindly obvious holes, this is a grant plan.
The point of a Humvee is that it's cheaper/easier/safer to drive than fly. If they can "take off" to avoid a road-side bomb then that implies they know where it is so they could also, you know....stop? Or turn around? I'm sure insurgents would love it if not only does the convoy stop when they encounter a roadside bomb, but instead of getting out and clearing the area/shooting insurgents they instead start spinning up giant rotors of death in close proximity to each other and then slowly become airborne targets to which even small arms fire can now cause catastrophic failure.
Of course, when you say you want an armor-plated flying humvee, he might just drop dead of a heart attack, so break it to him gently, please?
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
Them Duke boys will now be asked to make those supply runs for the military. I just hope that there are enough dirt ramps in the middle east for them to succeed!
a fully automated four-person vehicle that can drive like a car and then take off and fly like an aircraft to avoid roadside bombs
That those smart military people have decided that bomb blasts are only 2 dimensional.
Why would you want to make an armored vehicle that flies? There already is such a thing - it's called a HELICOPTER. But I guess when you have access to virtually infinite defense funding, I guess you're allowed to re-invent the wheel.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Coming from a guy that designs military combat vehicles for a living, this is another disaster in the works. If you need some reference material look at the Osprey program or the AAAV program. Both are massive failures with colossal budget overruns and they are similar in scope to this flying humvee idea.
Autobots can't transform into flying things. Only Decepticons do.
This can't be allowed. We can't let the US Military get infiltrated by Decepticons!
DARPA is out there to look at the strategic techonologies that might be required in the future battlescape. Just because it starts out as a design concept that doesn't necessarily seem the best of ideas it's there to further flesh out and seek out innovation from industry/private sector. So many are quick to chastise DOD research, yet there is so much out there that wouldn't be possible without DARPA and other Military/Goverment funded research. Healthcare (ie Trauma response) is always a huge beneficiary to this research. Across the board it pushes technology and innovation in fields which may not have had the funding to be researching such.
"What is there a tank on the boat? WHY IS THERE A TANK ON THE BOAT?!?" L4D2
Valmorification compete
Flying Humvee, $1,800,000.00 IED, $3.50.
Looking at the concept image in TFA, I can say quite confidently that I drew that on the back of a notebook in third grade.
I'm totally suing.
Cyberpunk 2020 : See Aerodyne Vectored Thrust Vehicle.
We have only 5 years till Doc comes to get the tech to upgrade Deloreans to make them able to fly. Doing the practice in Humvees won't translate too well for a car that different, and things will get worse if we are too busy doing this to be able to develop MrFusion. Believe me, you don't want to create time paradoxes.
This design looks like a militarized gyrocopter.
Ruggedness, anyone? Now we have big flying targets well over the horizon to be seen by snipers and guys with RPGs.
Turn into a jet (like a boss)
Bomb the Russians (like a boss)
Crash into the sun (like a boss)
Now I'm dead (like a boss)
Uh huh. So that's an average day for you then?
No doubt
You chop your balls off and die?
Hell yeah.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Where is Caractacus Potts when you need him?
I drew pictures like that way back in third grade. This is very old news, and I'm sad it's taken military officials so long to catch up.
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
From the U.S.A.'s largest corporation: The Pentagon.
Yours In UVB76,
K. Trout
I'm waiting for the AT-AT...seriously people, these have been in the concept stage for a long time. If we can walk dozens of men in a huge machine all over the place, we wont have to get on the roads.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
I thought the problem was detecting the IEDs, not avoiding them. DARPA is great, they gave us this global porn distribution network and all, but this idea is just beyond stupid.
If the purpose is to avoid roadside bombs, why not develop an UAV dedicated to that purpose?
It would also help with the clearing of minefields.
Imagine the meeting. Sitting round the table and the next item on the agenda is insurgency and road side bombs.
How do we avoid the casualties?
The best answer?
"I know! We make the humvees fly!"
Deleted
to bring them all the americans back home.
For the past few centuries, the biggest technological developments were driven by the military. Mass production started with guns. Aircraft were first made into actual tools by the military. Jet engines. Nuclear power. I don't have to tell you guys how much of modern computing is derived from the military, from ARPANet to microchips. Whatever your thoughts on the ethics of it, the military drives technology.
Now we're just co-opting that process to get me my flying car.
Yep, looks like a gyroplane to me.
Enter the submacopter: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1294
Because amphibious vehicles have worked out so well that now everyone owns one! I suspect it is even harder to build something that both makes a good aircraft and a good car than it is to build something that both makes a good boat and a good car. As a child, my father sold Allsport Tracker amphibious ATVs. Guess what -- they sucked. Big time.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
How about not replacing democratic governments with dictators, fixing our excessive consumption of hydrocarbons, and eliminating the need to fight wars to keep the hydrocarbons flowing? Might be a better investment than concocting stupid toys like this. Just sayin'.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
That's the stupidest looking picture I've ever seen. It looks like the evil love child of a helicopter and a VW Thing. Too bad Moller seems to be mostly kooky; I've been watching for Skycars since I was a kid. And, for [appropriate war-like deity]'s sake! WHY DON'T WE JUST USE ALL THAT FRICKIN XENOTECH WE'RE HIDING IN A'51?
For that matter, why doesn't DARPA spend their time and money on something truly revolutionary: ending war.
We need the Knight Industries Two Thousand and Michael Knight.
KITT can leap over hazards (Turbo boost)
Has a supercomputer built in
Voice (Anharmonic) Synthesizer - nasal voice that is multilingual and can emulate other sounds
Alpha circuit to allow the computer to self drive
Pyroclastic Lamination - resists heat up to 800F
0-60 in 2 seconds
Anamorphic Equalizer - cool red lights in the front that give the car x-ray as well as infrared vision
Way too many more to list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KITT#Features
Anyone with the number for Knight Industries should call the Pentagon
More like:
Defense Industry rep: "We're running out of gimmicks and excuses. How can we spend more money on really expensive idiotic military equipment?"
General: "Put rotors and wings on everything! You know, humvees, 55 gallon drums, propane tanks, latrines. Hell, let's make backpacks with rotors and make all our troops fly! Or jetpacks! That would be fucking cool!"
Oil Industry rep: "Yeah! Think of all the fuel they would use! In a war zone! Imagine the premium per gallon!"
Other Defense Industry rep: "Can you imagine how much each one of those things would cost! It's a fucking fortune!"
[They now all slap each other on the back and light up some cigars; Lobbyists take feverish notes]
Our nation is practically bankrupt, over 10% of the workforce is chronically unemployed, thousands are getting thrown out of their ex-homes per month, we are mired in two unbelievably expensive military occupations that do absolutely nothing to defend or protect our nation, and some asshole decides we need flying fucking humvees.
Who's the idiot that forgot it's way easier to hit a flying target than it is to hit target on the ground?
Way more potential enemies that can lock in on a target flying overhead, too.
Who's the dumb ass who thought of this
Smarter and smarter vehicles for dumber and dumber wars.
I think the Knight Rider approach would be much more practical and effective here. KITT...we need you buddy!
it's not needed. Think about it, it rolls along and somehow it'll fly to protect its occupants from roadside bombs? Doesn't it have to detect them before it jumps to the air? Otherwise, it's just and airplane or helo with some forward movement capabilities.
I don't get how this could be justified and if anything, they should be running around with corded tiny copters out infront of the convoys carrying sensors to ID the buried bombs. Cabled or corded so it can have lots of power and be pulled in quickly for evasive moves. Not something without enough protection from the bombs or other fire power just so it can fly over a threat. my $.02
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
It makes sense when you remember that these contracts exist to funnel tax payer money to corporations not to actually produce anything useful.
Get the Humvees armored. Shape the profile so bomb-blast get re-directed.
Even better, increase the budget for ground pilot AI. Get armored drones on the ground.
Always gets the cool toys first!
...is that stupid looking. Government sure does come up with some harebrained excuses to drop tons of cash on fatcats all the time...
Hey, here's a thought....don't invade other nations where the locals don't like you and resort to any weapon they can come up with to stop you. Of course I know this doesn't make the fatcats any *more* money, but really....
Look at those pics....geez....the "insurgents" will enjoy their skeet shooting. And the oil companies will enjoy their profits, after first having to transit five other fatcat DOD "contractors" pockets first. What is it in ashcanistan now, 400 bucks a gallon for fuel delivered, something like that? Can you imagine the fuel an even slightly armored flying dork mobile like that will need to burn to get off the ground and stay aloft?
That headline made me immediately think of that old screensaver for the Mac with flying toasters - a bunch of humvee's with flapping wings all flying in formation across my screen...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I found a new sketch drawing of the project.
You are raising phantom issues. The point isn't to do something useful and intelligent with great efficiency and resourcefulness. The point is to spend money. Lots of it. Lots and lots of it. Few things are better at spending money than making things be able to fly around on their own.
(recruiter's office)
- Yeah, I been thinking about what you told me last week, but I've been looking into some of the associate programs down at the community college, like automotive repair, or maybe nursing, and, like, I could be making like forty grand a year in about two years? Plus I've been talking to my brother's buddy Dan, who just got back from two tours in Afghanistan, and he's really having a tough time readjusting to civilian life. Like, his back is all screwed up from this one non-com accident so he can't work, so he's just been sitting on the couch playing X-BOX all day and he's gained like fifty pounds, and he smashed up this one guy's car with a tire iron just caused he honked at him after the light turned green, y'know? And I heard his fiance took the baby and moved back in with her parents after he punched her out in his sleep for God's sake. So I mean it sound like a great opportunity and all, but I talked it over with my folks, and after weighing the pros and cons I'm gonna hafta say....
- Has anyone talked to you yet about our new flying humvee program? (hands him a picture of the concept vehicle)
- (studies the picture for about ten seconds, then looks up) Go on...
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Waste more money on war wonderful, thought we learned from BUSH administration to stop this and create jobs for americans instead.
IEDs will just have to get a longer reach. Something that can take out a flying humvee.
The US Army had an operational flying jeep 53 years ago, the Piasecki VZ-8 Airgeep. You can see a video of it in action here. And it didn't need any dorky wings to fly, either.
"No matter where you go, there you probably are." -- Buckaroo Heisenberg
Wouldn't it be easier to have a CH-66 slinging a Humvee? Cheaper to? Of course it would carry far more then 4 soldiers, don't want that.
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
And tie the Humvee to the soldiers? Just sayin'. Mmm strawberry lemonade delight = sugar trip.
The military has too much money.
Give it to NASA.
Heck, maybe they should just make a few mine-sweeper heavy vehicles. They're bound to be much cheaper and have the bonus of removing/defusing bombs.
I RTFA, okay not closely but I did read it. If you are going to fly periodically over short distances to avoid roadside bombs wouldn't you already have to know where the bomb is in order to avoid it? If you already know where the bomb is wouldn't it just make sense to take a different road?
If the driver doesn't know there is a bomb (like in most every IED attack) the ability to fly doesn't do you a bit of good because you have already been turned into applesauce.
load "$",8,1
All I have to say is this:
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Facepalm
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
"...take off and fly like an aircraft to avoid roadside bombs."
Did anyone else read this as "...take off and fly like an aircraft to quickly* deploy assets to quell the masses from the air while keeping the soldiers relatively out of reach of citizen retaliation."
*quickly meaning not having to wait for traditional air support after the call is made.
Yes I know the tinfoil is a little tight today.
Who was that pointy-eared bastard?
Just when I was think how stupid Vikings are, and how no one in their right mind would create a military vehicle to switch between two forms of combat when you could just stay in the air, I see this.
Oh, and it's VTOL, too? Better and better.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
It must be the most popular of their topics.
FUCK YEA! Sounts like a damn good reason to join the military!
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
...I have ever seen. How old are the people involved in this, 7?
Yes, let's make Humvees fly. Find a way to make a gas-guzzling black hole that weighs as much as 4 cars fly.
What an enormous waste of money. Idiots like this are why our government needs to radically slash military spending.
The fact that this idiocy was even considered means they have enough cash flow to make this seem viable.
Here's an idea- ban electronics. Confiscate all electronics inside these countries. As absurd as that is, it's more viable
than this shitpile of an idea.
DARPA is the canonical "high risk, high reward" agency. Sure some of their funded proposals/contracts sound bat shit insane, but what if this actually succeeds? This is, after all, the organization that brought us the precursor to the internet and the predator drone. A pilot-less combat plane you say? Blasphemy. Lay people exchanging information and culture near instantaneously across the world using light traveling through a cable? Apostasy. IMHO, quit whining about what in all reality is a small, small fraction of the federal budget, and focus on what really matters. And by that I mean ensuring net neutrality. =)
Remember Project Orion? They should strap four nukes to the wheels of the hummer, then when they see a bomb in the road and they're ready to fly, they can press a button and ... Erm, nevermind.
clearly watch too much futuristic action sci-fi and as such need to come down to Earth.
Yeah, did anyone even ask the Tax-payers? Did anyone even ask themselves what's causing the wars? Look at the balance of wealth/poverty and it will become obvious...
Recognize. Educate. Peace.
So now the Army has money for flying robotic humvees just in case we have to occupy another country after we get out of the already grotesquely expensive occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan... and the Republicans are still trying to rob the Social Security trust fund.
Goodbye, USA. It was nice while it lasted.
Oh come on. All I want is a couple of extra express busses on the route I take to work in the morning so I don't get left standing on the curb as a full bus pulls away. Do you suppose my federal, state, and local governments could scrounge up some funds for that after they're done funding the military, some new sports stadiums, and tax cuts for billionaires? Pretty please?
http://www.moller.com/ Just send a few billion dollars to Moller. He'll either finish the damn thing (it's been a few years away from production for at least 30 years now) or just go away.
Learn to love Alaska
Holy Shit!
The enemies of Democracy are
Some asshole did not decide any such thing. You'd know that if you had the slightest clue what DARPA is and what it's for.
the M2 Bradley !!!!, now with sharks with frickin' lasers!!
Why not just put wheels on a chopper??! Cars are a thing of the past, along with communism and democrats.
and a pony.
The Humbee is too big and its wings too small to fly.
"[...] fly like an aircraft to avoid roadside bombs."
Because most roadside bombs are clearly labeled.
Nice work, Pentagon.
Pretend this program gets off the ground.
Bad drivers tend to survive crashes in good cars.
Bad pilots don't do quite so well, excepting the occasional embarrassing ground roll on landing.
Helicopters require more complicated controls than planes.
There would be a significant population of competent truck drivers who would struggle to pilot an ultralight helicopter-truck.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
I was hoping for something more like this.
So... the idea is that "flying humvees" can drive most of the way, and fly over the dangerous parts, right? Now the only question that springs to mind is, how do they know which parts of the way to fly and which parts of the way to drive?
First "Flying Humvees" THEN "Automated Flying Humvees". AKA where's my flying car?
As a foreigner who wishes US military failure and defeat in all its wars of aggression, I completely approve of this retarded idiocy.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The picture included with the linked article says it all, really.
Your puny Jedi mind tricks won't work on me.
I'm still not going to RTFA.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Let's have the tricycle gear, flying, snake dropping, driving, backfiring when stopping, autogyro and gyro-pilot from road warrior!
And none of them have ever worked well enough to produce. See http://www.vectorsite.net/avplatfm.html for the long, sad history of DARPA's drive to fly.
Footnote, as it is in the link above, about the Avro Aircar. When it wouldn't work right, some of the engineers suggested putting a skirt around the edge to catch the blow-down and make it float on an air cushion. They head engineer refused to try it. Had he tried it, Avro might have gotten rich. Instead they failed. But less than 5 years later the Army was flying equipment into ports in Viet Nam too shallow for too far out to get their ROROs (roll on, roll off) ferry ships into, using their own hovercraft, usually called "blow boats". And they're still using them. And of the head engineer? Who knows. But the Avro aircar was finally taken off display outside the Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis VA because nobody had the money to scrape off the rust and repaint it. They're still using the blow boats, AFAIK at Ft. Story (Va. Beach, VA) and in Hawaii.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar
See, when you say "it can fly", the picture people have in their head is going to be "like a hawk" or at the very least pretty good gliding "like a buzzard." This thing though? I wouldn't be surprised if it flies like a chicken. Possibly of the frozen variety. Only it probably won't be as useful as the chicken, which can always double as catapult ammo if you're really bored.
Sounds like a much better plan to me.
Anyone remember the "funnies" from D-Day? Tanks equipped with all kinds of gadgets to destroy mines and other obstacles? They still have tanks like that, so why not just simplify a rig like that and just have some cameras, heat sensors, magnetic detection stuff on brooms mounted on the first vehicle in a convoy? Couldn't cost more than a couple hundred bucks at most and might be a heck of a lot more workable.
KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Even for DARPA any program that is never going to get anywhere is just wasting money.
A vehicle that can carry 4 people, drive like a car, and take off and fly...
Why not just put wheels on a Huey?
I dont give a shit how politically correct it is to own one if i can get my flying car before i die im getting one.
Now stfu.
what the military really wants is that ueber-cool ... and maybe
"what-shall-we-call-it" that cobra has
make it a tad smaller.
it's way cooler then the jeti-fied ospray of the G.I. joes.
Can't wait.
The top rotor provides a constant torque but the flying car in the picture doesn't have a tail rotor.
How will the engineers avoid that the car it starts spinning in the air?
it would be a better move for the armed services to do it's own in-house r&d and production. do a reverse gi bill where you go to school to become an engineer or whatever than have to serve for like 5 years. it is way better than letting these companies bilk our money that would be better spent elsewhere (or even left to the people in the first place).
...
to find a way to detect road-side bombs from a distance in the first place?
Think of the relative advantages of that kind of technology:
- Eliminating the entire roadside bomb issue.
- Making minefield clean-up easier and safer (think of the children).
- Hopefully can apply to unexploded cluster bombs.
- Better detection of valuables at the beach.
- +15 to Detect Hidden Traps.
But no.. let's make a hummvee fly, it's cooler.
So they are looking for an Inexpensive Flying Armored Personal Carrier?
Take an attack chopper, get rid of all the pointy bits, strap more armor onto it. Done. Now how hard was that. For next weeks discussion we can talk about how impractical it would be to train people to fly it, to transport effectively 3 or 4 people, and how much resources it would take to keep these operational both in maintenance and fuel.
For a slightly more practical effort, simply make more Blackhawks, or cargo craft outfitted for troop deployment. Then the enemy can make as many IED's as they want and you can watch them try and throw them as far as possible. Likely portable Surface to Air missiles are harder to come by.
Or you could just stop randomly invading countries. Use the Trillions instead on your poor, or to make the world love you. Or just give it to wall street, your call.