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AT Black Knight Transformer Hits the Road and Takes a Hop
Zothecula (1870348) writes "Following on from driving tests that wound up in December last year, the Black Knight Transformer prototype demonstrator has taken to the air for the first time. California-based Advanced Tactics, Inc., announced its vehicle, which combines the capabilities of a helicopter and an off-road vehicle, completed its first flight tests last month, being remotely piloted at an undisclosed location in Southern California."
....is no longer an undisclosed location.
And everyone knows Batman works in Gotham City. Duh.
Special ops? those engines/motors couldnt take a 7.62x39 mm bullet (popular militia / rebel round) . The whole crate would come crashing down . Add armour , the weight will be too much for sustained flight .. Looks very nice but IMO it's got a long way to go before it gets practical.
Air, land and water are just too different.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
"Does it come in Black.....?"
Bruce Wayne. ;-)
Yeah space as well. The Apollo CSM was a significantly better space craft than the Space Shuttle, but the shuttle was a slightly better aircraft.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Who's the only person on earth that could really foresee a reason to need to be a motorcycle and a helicopter at the same time.
At least you linked directly to the Gizmag article, instead of linking to another site's report on a story that was in Gizmag DAYS ago, like you usually do...
Black Knight Transformer, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist.
Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless in a world of corporations and politicians who operate above the law.
how do you figure that? I never saw the apollo space craft pull up along side another space based object latch on to it and conduct repairs on it. the closest we got was the CM and LM would latch up for a joined flight after it was in space.
The space shuttle was big but it had very useful features like a large cargo bay that not only could take things into space but also return them. It could sleep 7 for two weeks. If we are ever going to build in space we need that ability. we have enough junk up there as it is to make building space stations even more dangerous.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The space shuttle was big but it had very useful features like a large cargo bay that not only could take things into space but also return them.
Yes, because this capability was indispensable for so many missions that the whole program would have been more expensive without it, right?
Ezekiel 23:20
The shuttle was highly specialised and quite delicate. It could only accelerate at four gravities and in the challenger disaster, fell completely to bits when turned sideways against its direction of travel. An airliner would have at least held together and an apollo command module wouldn't have cared much at all. Apollo could aerobrake at 11 gravities and because of its triangulated structure could actually take a lot more of a beating than its occupants. It could land anywhere on earth, in smaller places than even a helicopter would require. The shuttle was limited to a few very long runways.
Because of its modular architecture, Apollo could have been extended for deep space missions. Attach an extended service module for long duration. Maybe build a skylab type module as a cruise stage habitat.
But my main point is that shuttle was limited to low earth orbit by its poor aerobraking capabilities, while Apollo flew to the moon and would have coped with missions to near earth asteroids. That makes it a better space craft.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It would make a lot more sense to simply develop a quad (well, octo)copter lifter that can attach to a variety of vehicles than to try to develop a vehicle which is both in one. You'd burn through more fuel having to carry more redundancy, but it's worth it to not have to make stupid compromises and to have the lifting platform be able to move more than a box on wheels.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ok, that thing is lame. It looks like someone built it in their garage (they probably did.) And Monster truck? What? They have it next to a stock F150 and it has less ground clearance, smaller tires and I see no front axle shafts (so no 4x4) and in fact, it's hard to see but I don't think there are rear drive shafts either. All this is, is a giant quadracopter with landing gear off a Honda Civic. They should just do away with the tires to save weight and be done with it.
This actually looks good to me. Most helicopters can be shot down with a rifle. They are huge engines with large fuel tanks and large, whirling blades, and it is not that difficult to get them to destroy themselves with their own momentum, height, or fuel.
I concur. Helicopters are a collection of single-points-of-failure, disasters waiting to happen. (Particularly the pilot - they have to be continuously controlled and crash almost instantly if anything incapacitates him.) Their vulnerability is justified only because their extreme usefulness oughtweighs it. With eight rotors I'd be surprised if this vehicle couldn't at least come to ground safely with at least two of them destroyed, and the multicopter approach has been under autonomous computer control from the start - made practical only by the automation.
I envision this thing's missions as being primarily extreme rough-country ground transport, with short hops to bypass otherwise impassible terrain, reach otherwise inaccessible destinations or targets, attack from above, or put on a burst of speed when time is of the essence. Think a truck-sized "super jeep" ala Superman. Being primarily a ground vehicle lets it perform longer missions and reduces its visibility and vulnerability compared to a helicopter.
Just because you CAN fly doesn't mean you DO fly all the time. As is pointed out in the webcomic Schlock Mercenary: "Do you know what they call flying soldiers on the battlefield?" ... "Skeet!"
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Dang. Typo broke the first, more-punchline-worthy, Schlock link.
I'm really begining to hate the keyboard on this new laptop.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The Apollo CSM never pulled along side another space based object and latched on because it didn't need to on any of the missions except 13, and that mission wouldn't have needed to do so if the service module hadn't had a one-in-a-program explosion. The DID do that during at least two Gemini missions that I watched growing up.
The original design version of the shuttle would have been far more useful, but it was Proxmired away.
Pfft...
Where's the robot mode?
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Why would you not have just one bigger engine powering a generator, and electric engines for the rotors and wheels?
In retrospect I think STS would have worked better as sort of a winged Apollo service module. Consider an Apollo command module in the expanded rescue configuration as the shuttle flight flight deck. Hatch through the heat shield like the Gemini wet lab. The CM could eject and land on its own in pretty much any failure scenario.
Of course, an Apollo stack did one or two repair missions on Skylab. It was short on storage space in comparison to STS.
http://michaelsmith.id.au