back to article 'Humvee of the Skies' robot air-car design unveiled

A company in Colorado says it will build a miraculous flying robot Humvee, able to hover in midair or zoom along at up to 450 mph. The "Hummer of the Sky™" could be used to resupply US troops with ammo, food etc during battles - or, naturally, it could be tooled up with an array of deadly weaponry and join in itself. The V- …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's with the colours?

    Surely if it's going to be spending most of the time in the air and above us in the sky and camouflage is an issue then blue/white would be more appropriate than the sandy colours shown on the thing in the photo?

  2. Gordon Pryra

    resupply US troops with ammo, food etc during battles

    It is probably cheaper to just let the front line troops die and send in new ones to replace them.

    Theres enough bieng born every day for this idea to work.

    Saving millions in development costs and getting rid of the excess "American Poor" into the bargin

  3. oxo
    Paris Hilton

    Ha ha ha ha ha

    Exhaust gas recirculation seems like a great way to make it fall out of the sky (assuming it can get there in the first place)

    Paris, because she knows when to blow and when to suck...

  4. Dangermouse

    Wind Tunnel Test...?

    ...Schmind Tunnel Test.

    I can do "wind tunnel tests" on any old tat made from balsa wood, yogurt pots and sticky tape. And a nice powerpoint slide.

    Can I have £50 million, please?

  5. John Ferris
    Go

    is it me or...

    does the design look a bit like Thunderbird 2?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Military Mile High Club

    in the Hummer of the air

    Obligatory Paris, because she's an expert on Hummers, yes?

  7. James Anderson
    Happy

    Thunderbird 2?

    I think Brains should sue - he obviously has prior art on this one.

  8. ChessGeek

    Appropriately Named...

    It probably will fly about as well as a genuine Humvee.

  9. Frank
    Unhappy

    Is this effective?

    "Unusually, the flying Hummer's payload bay is situated inside the central hub of the hover fans. (This is intended to benefit the craft's stability)"

    I assume the rest of the volume of the vehicle is used for fuel storage?

  10. TeeCee Gold badge

    resupply.

    With a payload of 180kg, the word "repeatedly" is well used in this context. You'd need a never-ending stream of the bloody things waffling back and forth to keep the logistics under control.

    Also, "Humvee of the sky"? To qualify here it would need to carry five or six fully equipped troops and mount a machine gun on the roof. The monicker "Chocolate teapot of the sky" would seem more appropriate here.

    This all way too reminiscent of the Avrocar project. The US military went all starry-eyed over the idea of their troops dropping into combat from miniature flying saucers and shovelled money into Avro, until it became apparent to anyone with more than a passing interest that it was never going to do anything that a helicopter couldn't do better already (like flying for example).

  11. Fluffykins Silver badge

    G- g- g- g-

    Gee, Mr Tracey

  12. Anonymous John

    Re What's with the colours?

    The picture only shows the top, so it makes sense for it to blend in with the ground. The underside could well be blue and white.

  13. Stone Fox
    Black Helicopters

    What's the point?

    Aren't blackhawks doing the job perfectly well at the moment?

  14. Steve

    I don't think the chopper pilots are scared yet.

    So, they've managed to create something that can reach the battle in a third of the time it takes a helicopter while managing to combine it with the payload capabilities of a bloke with a wheelbarrow?

    Surely the only use for this is to draw fire whilst the guys on the ground wait for the real helicopter - you know, the device which can hover over an area, land, unload a hell of a lot more than 180kg supplies and then load up about a dozen soldiers for the trip back to base.

  15. Tim
    Boffin

    Safer than a chopper...

    ... no swinging blades. Then again, I'm more interested in the article I read this morning about the flying saucer experiment. No moving parts and the propulsion works with or without the atmosphere. Now where did I read that....Reuters? Wired? New Scientist? Science Fiction Theatre? It's conspicuous by its absence from my RSS feeds now!

  16. Unkle Al
    Joke

    @Gordon Pryra

    They tried that in 'Nam, wasn't well received.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    thats not camoflage

    its a flying insult to anyong trying to aim for it

    just add lots of rude expressions in arabic

    anyone looking too closely will be so incensed at what is writen on it, they wil be completely distracted from trying to shoot at it, as they start ranting and raging that it is an abomination againt islam/the locals/ the taliban,,, etc.....

    they will then give up trying to shoot it down, as it had by that time left the area or dropped something on them to shut them up.

  18. Charles Manning

    re: What's the point?

    The point of any of these projects is to get funding. It does not have to work in the real world, it does not have to give the troops an advantage. It just needs to impress the holders of purse strings.

  19. StopthePropaganda
    Coat

    payload capacity and airspeed in Reg units?

    how many coconuts can it carry? what's it's airspeed velocity in Unladen Swallows?

    Are ye suggestin' Humvee's migrate?

  20. Alex
    Coat

    FAB Virgil....Thunderbird 2 is clearly a go-er

    Like the man said. prior art...where's Gerry Anderson with that lawsuit.

    mines the one with the papers to hand to the lawyer

  21. Dave Bell

    I recognise the colour scheme...

    It looks like a texture file you can download for free at www.renderosity.com

    And the way the UVmapping of the model doesn't quite work is also suggestive.

  22. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    Boffin

    Will it blend?

    Even if it doesn't fly it, that top-mounted intake shows great promise in making entertaining YouTube videos.

  23. Derrick

    Functional design, not pretty

    For all the fair wits who actually design aircraft, you can get more information from their website at www.frontlineaerospace.com It's indeed in early design, but it looks like a good innovation to meet military-defined resupply objectives. I'm not in favor of the suggestion that we simply let 'em die and send out more, unless it's that poster's family, not mine. The problem now is that to get the same amount of critical supplies like food, water, ammo to fellows under fire, it does indeed take a long time, with convoys of lorries or HUMVEEs, hitting IEDs and getting drivers captured. Yes, the literature says this means lots of quick sorties but at much lower risk. Not sure why the article says "most" aviation analysts question it. Of several websites I've searched to get more information, only one from a credentialed source is snide, and there is a reasonable reply. We'll see if it ever flies. It looks designed for a specific function, not to be pretty.

  24. C Blackmore
    Happy

    Humvees?

    Oh, those things Our Boys (TM) pull out of ditches in Afghanistan with Land Rover Defenders....

  25. Ian McNee
    Black Helicopters

    Big Apple Pooch Hoover

    No description of the alleged "street-cleaning truck" was given here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/16/mutt_suck_truck/ other than to say "the truck was speeding". Perhaps this was in fact a low-level urban test flight for this new robo-wombat-suck-blow-a-tron.

    And what a success: the stealth capabilities made everyone think it was a municipal garbage truck and four-legged-fleshy death was dealt out in double-quick time.

    P.S. Thunderbird 2-point-oh-one?

  26. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Verily, this will be God sent...

    All mujaheddeen will need to do after spotting that thing in the air is to watch it until it comes to a hover then fire their mortars at the place.

    Alternatively they can just shoot it down at that point, happy at the thought of it crushing on the heads of GI's it was meant to resupply...

  27. Jerome
    Thumb Up

    Re: Military Mile High Club

    Does it count as a Mile High Club membership if the act in question is self-inflicted? With a payload of 180Kg it would have to be (leaving the midget jokes aside). Hmm, that icon nearly works...

  28. NRK Blue
    Black Helicopters

    HL2

    It looks a lot like one of the gunships from Half-life 2... http://www.hlfallout.net/images/content/enemies/full/gunship_full.jpg

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