Convair concepts for Project Gusto of the CIA to replace the U-2 (without guarantee of correctness from top and left: SUB-6, 234B, SA-2S, VSV-1, VSF-4, LCS-1) : 1960

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Zcube73@reddit

seems very advanced for 1960 i'd say more like 1980

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7LeagueBoots@reddit

Convair was pretty far ahead of the curve on ideas as far back as the ‘40s. Not always *good* ideas mind you.

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Federal_Cobbler6647@reddit

Have you seen Kingfish that Convair actually proposed for the project. Looks like 80s craft.

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Sadly not a 1960's design, they rocked the design for this out in the bloody 1950's. Imagine you're just over a decade out from the absolute bees knees being a superprop late P-51 or one of the new fangled P-80's and someone shows you this thing...

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Federal_Cobbler6647@reddit

True, I think it looked like this in ~1958. Wild. It somehow jumps completely over the pointy fast thing of era and gets to second generation.

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MonsieurCatsby@reddit

One of the other proposals, the Lockheed CL-400, was pretty much an F-104 Starfighter with liquid hydrogen motors on the wingtips. So at least that embraced the pointy thing go fast aesthetic.

Of course they entered the stealth era properly shortly after Kingfish in 1962 when Boeing actually mocked up the Model 853 Quiet Bird to prove its RCS, which again just does not look like a 1962 design....

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Federal_Cobbler6647@reddit

Also rather menacing.

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ShakyBrainSurgeon@reddit

I actually think, having such large air intakes would be absolutely necessary with a pure Ramjet, since the French built a partially Ramjet-powered aircraft too and despite the air intake being comically large it wasn´t big enough.

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Federal_Cobbler6647@reddit

This actually was to have traditional jet engine with just different ramp design.

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ImNot6Four@reddit

That thing looks like it would be fast

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Federal_Cobbler6647@reddit

Supposed to be as fast as Blackbird, but much stealthier.

Its predecessor "FISH" First Invisible Super Hustler was supposed to cruise at 4.2 mach but that did not take off.

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verwinemaker@reddit

None of these could be in the same picture unless on the tarmac

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francis2559@reddit

The hell is going with lefty, who has a trijet and then an enormous scoop on top of that. Is this AI?

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adotang@reddit

Is this AI?

No, it's merely a 20th century military vehicle concept.

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Verb_Noun_Number@reddit

This reminds me of the droid attack ships in the phantom menace

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zaynzairul@reddit

Revenge Of The Landships!

Kind of reminds me of the Jungle Cat-series from Thunderbirds

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OcotilloWells@reddit

I feel like someone read Edger Rice Burroughs when they made that.

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MajorLeagueNoob@reddit

my guess is that it’s a tri -jet ram jet combo. Ram jets only work above mach 1 iirc. So maybe the tri jet gets the aircraft off the ground and up into thin air where the Ram jets could fire.

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DarthBrooks69420@reddit

And what? Past mach 1 the trijet's built in generators connected to the turbines take over and the jet chargers capacitors for a big frickin' laser beam attached to the front of the jet?

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MajorLeagueNoob@reddit

yeah it will only cost tax payers 8 billion dollars, but when you look at how big the laser is you’ll know your getting a deal.

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ctesibius@reddit

Ram jets work below Mach 1. The first ram-jets were tested on a bi-plane.

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MajorLeagueNoob@reddit

maybe i’m thinking about a scramjet then

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dmr11@reddit

You're thinking of efficiency. Ramjets at low speeds are outperformed by regular jet engines, and they perform best at high speeds (around Mach 2 or 3).

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ctesibius@reddit

A scramjet isn’t defined by needing to be above Mach 1. It means that it can operate without slowing the air (relative to the engine) below Mach 1. Any other form of engine has to slow the incoming air down. That was the function of the intake ramps on Concorde, or the cone in the intake of the Lightning for instance (they had other functions as well, but they were necessary for this purpose).

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francis2559@reddit

I could buy that. Such a miserable setup, it’s so tall.

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SporesM0ldsandFungus@reddit

Just imagine how long the landing gear would need to be to clear that scoop. It would look like a flamingo.

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MajorLeagueNoob@reddit

I agree. it looks like mrs puff.

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Sh00ter80@reddit

Thats a silly billy!

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KokoTheTalkingApe@reddit

But look at it kick ass!

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Arsene_Yuka_1980@reddit

These are truly weiiiird wings.

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Accomplished_Sock293@reddit

Is that a fucken Space Shuttle ???

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Blah-Blah-Blah-2023@reddit

Had a baby with a 727 though

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dibipage@reddit

so that’s what these two are doing

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Fluffy_Muffins_415@reddit

It's definitely interesting looking. I hope it's parents loved it at least lol

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ashzeppelin98@reddit

Looks like considering how much replacements it's outlasted the U2 is going the way of the BUFF..

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RamenTheBunny@reddit

You know how it goes with Convair.

(This is technically from a later program - ISINGLASS, the SR-71 follow-on - and technically from General Dynamics after they absorbed Convair, but the entire nose section is basically cloned from KINGFISH.)

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RamenTheBunny@reddit

If you ever want to see some truly stupefying shit, I cannot recommend anything more than the proposals (that we know of) for ISINGLASS and its’ later sister program RHEINBERRY. This is Convair/GD’s configuration “R-3”: a Mach-9, 130,000-foot altitude, rocket boost glider, with massive swing wings and a Bristol-Siddeley S-100 engine (designed for a VSTOL aircraft, by the way!) jury rigged into the back purely for landing and atmospheric maneuvering because it was the most powerful turbofan they could get on the market at the time that could also be angled *around* the rocket engine bell.

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Wahgineer@reddit

My head says the one on the top right is the most practical, byt my heart says the one on the bottom right is the coolest.

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Annual-Advisor-7916@reddit

Well, the bottom right isn't a bad design either. The top inlet allows for a flat belly which is beneficial for a lower RCS from ground based RADARs. The chinese J-36 (no idea if the designation is official) has a similar design though with a more reasonable cockpit placement.

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