The Liberty Lifter: America Wants to Build a Gigantic Surfing Seaplane.

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If they don't call it the "Spruce Goose Deuce" I'm going to be MAD 😤😡

Calling the C-130 "Time-Tested" is quite a understatement...... It's a great example of "Do it right the first time." It's been around for EVER.

We need a Megaprojects video that goes over the entirety of Simon's career, here, on youtube. I mean, he runs Megaprojects, Sideprojects, Xplord, Into The Shadows, Warographics, and definately a few others. I'd say that is, truly, a Mega Project.

That rapid airfield seizure mission is almost solely the job of the 82nd Airborne Division and the 20th Airborne Engineer Brigade @Ft.Bragg/Liberty. The specific mission is called GRF (Global Reaction/Respone Force.) These Army units constantly rotate to ensure there is always soldiers ready to deploy within 18hrs to sieze, secure, and repair airfields. I had the pleasure of being on this GRF mission multiple times while I was stationed at Bragg from 08-11. I was an Airborne Combat Engineer, by the way.

It's the Spruce Goose .... again?

Anyone else getting a Tailspin vibe from these planes?

"Delays in military procurement" in things involving DARPA and other black projects usually translates to "finessing and perfecting areas in which the project needs improvement or upgrading to speed, stealth and other secret parameters". The fact that we're even hearing about this means this project is going to end up nothing like we're seeing here, or doesn't actually exist and is a red herring. Think Aurora.

Clearly DARPA is thinking Pacific theater here. Good idea to plan ahead for the logistics that would be required.

If anyone is curious, ground effect is caused when within a wingspan or so of the surface. Air flows up and over and around the wings then swirls under them approximately the height of the wingspan when flying, especially in slow and heavy flight. This air flowing over the wings creates that cushion of air between the wings and ground allowing very low drag flight and the ability to fly at less than the stall speed. You learn this your first week of flight training, as in a smaller plane it really effects takeoff and landing. It's cool to see projects taking advantage of this

I am a big seaplane fan - BUT there are things to be said: Any ground effect vehicle is good - as long as there are no big waves and there is no bad weather... even when a future "liberty lifter" can climb in "aircraft mode" up to an altitude of 10 000 feet - that means not that it can climb out of bad weather like any "normal" cargo plane. Second: The idea of "starting and Landing at every shoreline worldwide" sounds great (the german seaplane constructor Claude Dornier used to speak of the "worldwide aerodrome" available for seaplanes) - but in reality things are quite different: Look at the places in north america where a lot of seaplanes are used - you must bring the cargo to the seaplane, you need docking and repair installations, the air- and seatraffic must be coordinated - short: You need dedicated seaplane-airports, or seaplane-harbors, or seaplane-stations or however you will call them - perhaps the "liberty lifter" will be an amphibian so that it can start and land on a normal runway at an normal (military) airport, but at least for training there must be some "wet" landing and starting facilities... and those stations must be build, manned, maintained etc. - and all this new-to-build infrastructure must be paid, and added into the calculation for the rentability of the "liberty lifter".... - and there are many people that think that there are better ways to use idyllic shorelines than building there military bases for noisy seaplanes.... Third: Flying so low over the water - there will be a lot of problems with bird-strikes... and an collision with an 30 lbs albatros at 100 knots can do a lot of damage, even to such an big aircraft like the planned "liberty lifter"... I dont believe that this project, that seems to be an only US Marine Corps idea, will be realised. 🤔🤔🤔

WONDERFUL!! As long as there's no bad weather or waves, you'll be fine!!!!!!

I smell a massive intra branch fight coming here. There’s no way the navy department is going to let Air Force have this plane as this definitely belongs with the Navy/Marines over the Air Force. Wondering who will win this fight.

Somebody discovers the monster of the Caspian sea (ekranoplane) 😂

This is an exxciting development. I'm in the "autumn of my years" but as a retired airline pilot I do hope someday to see this float and fly. I suppose it will be assigned to the Navy although the Air Force is usually tasked with the heavy airliift machinery.

An excellent exposition. The Liberty Lifter fills a gap that needs filling.

Thank you FactBoy for giving me something to do when conversation with ChatGPT starts to lag. I know you’re busy feeding and watering your basement people, but Im’a take the opportunity as first comment to request that nature/animal channel you’re dragging your feet on. If you record it, they will watch.

Convair made the Tradewinds R3Y that could and did fly and was in service. They even were able to use it as a airborne tanker refueling jet aircraft. It could haul almost as much as what this idea would cary. The Navy's problem at the time was that they wanted a means of carrying a nuke and we had airfields "EVERYWHERE" so why do we need to land on the sea. Times have changed and China has built islands and many of the thousands of runways are either not in friendly hands or not close enough to where what it carries needs to be. Martin built a swept wing seaplane that was designed as a nuclear bomber, but the airforce won that argument so it didn't get put into service. Currently the Navy is looking at Japan's seaplane for SAR and "other" uses. But it doesn't have a large carrying capacity.

Given the increase in efficient, I wonder how good it would be in a commercial rather than military context. Slower than regular cargo planes but WAY faster than ships and possibly striking a really nice balance of speed and cost per cargo ton mile. You'd have to work out onload/offload infrstructure but if that can be managed relatively easily with regular port facilities, churning out thousands of these for commercial use would do wonders for the per unit costs for both commercial an military version.

the render livery being US Airforce made me chuckle.