Boeing 'Speed Agile' Concept Reminds Me Of The 60's
Saturday, July 3, 2010 at 10:43PM 
Boeing 'Speed Agile' concept image: USPTO
Looking a bit B-2ish, with an added whale tail, this Boeing 'Speed Agile' concept was unearthed over at AviationWeek.com. The 'Speed Agile' term is a way of describing what the U.S. Military is looking for in a future replacement for the C-130. The idea is to have a very STOL aircraft capable of really slow flight, but also have cruise speeds above .8 Mach (possibly transonic), with take off and landing distances of 2,000 feet or less, all while being able to tote around 65,000 pounds of battle hardware. Looks like they pretty much want it all.
More views of the Boeing concept image: USPTO (altered to show correct scale)
I think it looks pretty cool overall, and could image that there might be some significant advantages to the design. It fits with my basic view that many, if not all of the breakthroughs yet to come in aerodynamics will be found by looking at more organic shapes from creatures that God invented quite a while back. I believe that studying these shapes will help us see new and creative ways to manage air flow in and around our flying machines.
Seaview Submarine from the 1960's TV show 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'
There's always the possibility tho that the guys at Boeing are just tapping into some of the shapes they remember from the 1960's TV show 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' where they had this really cool, organicky looking submarine called the Seaview. I watched a lot of that show as a kid, but the only thing I remember, other than this basic shape of the sub, was that it seemed about every minute there was this really cool 'PING' sound. Well, it did get kinda old after a while...
PING
PING
: )
Reader Comments (3)
It would be great to see something like this become reality, some bold new thinking. I was sad that Boeing's sonic cruiser concept never got built, but this thing is even cooler. It just looks like it wants to fly.
Turb- Yeah the Sonic Cruiser was the most exciting thing I've ever seen as far as airliner concepts go... especially if it could really achieve near Mach 1 speeds. And it'll sure be interesting to see if anything comes from this 'speed-agile' concept.
Wow! This blog is really helpful, specially to those who were born in the late 70's onwards. I myself didn't know that there are tv shows that featured this kind of thing. I'm pretty much sure that it would be really be great if this comes to a reality! Kudos!
Luc Jenson
60's Clothing