Submersible Aircraft

It appears the military wants to hand-out money for the development of a submersible aircraft. If I were a naval architect, especially one that worked with light-weight carbon fiber and ceramics, I'd love to work on this project.

http://www07.grants.gov/search/sear...04673657?oppId=42978&flag2006=false&mode=VIEW

Seems to my untrained eye the easiest way to do that would be to take a winged hovercraft (hotlinked below) and make the craft submersible. The cockpit could be covered easy enough...but the engine is another thing I guess:
http://www.hovercraft.com/content/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=34_53

short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FViP5izaj8E&feature=related

 

Now that's really wicked. It's obvous that it's not time of economic crisis for everyone. The military guys always have enough money for their sick ideas.

 

I would guess the hard part is to make sure the engine is sealed be four submerged.
I guess for a gas turbine or a jet fresh water should be no problem.
I also think the big glass surfaces in the cockpit would prove a challenge if going to deep.
I'm sure it can be done, but not shure if it's worth the trouble.
Did not the Germans have catapult's for aircrafts on some of there big submarines?

 

How do you take an aircraft -- which must be lightweight to fly -- and make it submersible, which means being built heavily enough to withstand the pressure involved?

Sounds like another oxymoron, kinda like "military intelligence."

 

My lucky guess is small depths.

Maybe flood the engine witch would not be a probleme for a jet if submerged in fresh water (did anyone see the testing of the rolls royce engines for airbus on discovery?)

Carbon or titan hull has allot of strength and is light.

I don't really see the point.

It would be a much bether point to build submerged aircraft carriers. then you would not nead to compromise the aircrafts performance in the air.

 

Keep a round tube architecture for the fuselage which doubles as pressure vessel. Use the wings for ballast and fuel and then their hollow and non-ideal cross-section (for pressure tolerance) is not a liability.

Jimbo

 

I've seen recovered turbojet engines from helicopters that had to ditch. A hot engine dunked in salt water is not a pretty sight. Perhaps the idea is to transport to the fight underwater then launch in surprise mode. Recover ashore or on a carrier.

 

You flood it (wet cockpit), but as you pointed out near impossible to do.

 

Home built hovercraft (like the UH shown) are typically fiberglass over foam (composite) construction, they float like crazy.

Might want to use aluminum instead.

 

Seems to me I saw such a thing in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science back in the 60's. It wouldn't be cheap, but It can be done.

 

started a search on idiot, ***** and crazy than typed
flying submarine and submarine flying and a world of sf opens

 

Thinking cruise missile in reverse as a good place to start?

http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-Cruise-Missiles-1985.html

 

This old post may be of interest:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/open-discussion/sci-fi-boats-anyone-20047-5.html

 

The first thoughts that occured to me were:

Engine to be non-air breathing
Thin wing profiles, maybe lifting fuselage
Fuel tanks to be floodable (usual internal bag arrangement of course)
Floodable fuselage with wet-suited pilot

However, one caveat: the award ceiling is a little low, $0

Have to wonder what for it's for though. Does it have to fight as well? What could this do that a sub that could launch a plane or a minisub that could launch a RPV couldn't? It's not gonna be either a good plane or a good boat.

 

Basically, in order to fulfill the requirements, that contraption will have to be a combination of a very bad airplane and a vary bad submarine.