M6 AADV

That looks like a certain McDonnell Douglas design.
 
Thanks! But can you tell us anything more about it? What does AADV stand for?
 
From another source..."1965-68 time period. The AADV was the rapid accelerator. It was originally planned to be launched from a C5A to get launch point variability that landed conventionally".

All I have for now as my source is away for several days...perhaps when they return I can fine out more.

Airrocket
 
Since air turboramjets produce a decent amount of thrust at low speeds, the boosters are curious. They'd make the whole package pretty heavy for air-launch as well. Wonder if the configuration depicted is a ground-launched version, maybe a ZLL thing.
 
Yes the boosters raise questions as to which phase of the flight they were used. Someone involved with MCD from that time period might know .....
 
From my source...AADV was a soviet sub launched ballistic missile hunter concept. Patroling the coast from a C5. It would launch from the C5 and accelerate to M5 close on missile and launch up to four air to air missles at up to four targets.
 
That seems like the hard way to do it. Why not load up the C-5s with the missiles (assuming an anti-SLBM mode) and cut out the middleman?
 
George Allegrezza said:
That seems like the hard way to do it. Why not load up the C-5s with the missiles (assuming an anti-SLBM mode) and cut out the middleman?

A little late in replying, but the idea, as far as I can tell, was to be able to rapidly react to boomers detected while preparing for launches or, in the worse case, actual launches themselves. Also in wartime conditions, the (limited number of) C-5s would have been badly needed for other duties, so could have not been long spared (or indeed directly risked) for this tasking.
 
Airrocket's description sounds like the GIUK intercepter. A hypersonic rocket boosted airbreathing aircraft that is airlaunched and recoverable looks like a McDonnell Douglas follow on to the Lockheed D-21. It would be interesting to see more data on this design. I wonder why you would be concerned about recovering an unmanned vehicle on a runway after you just took out a Soviet boomer class submarine?
 

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