Any bad ideas you've had (that some engineer hasn't already)?

Avimimus

Avimimus

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So, growing up we've all had various ideas (giraffe tanks, shrouded wing helicopters, wind powered airships)... some of them feasible, some feasible but unwise, some in the technically 'unpossible' category...

One of the biggest revelations for me given by this forum over the years is that almost everything I've thought of some engineer had already proposed (no matter how foolish)... In some cases they were proposed by cranks with a poor understanding of engineering or physics... but they were still semi-seriously proposed.

So here is my question for you:
- What are the weirdest ideas you've had that someone actually had already proposed?
- Did you have any bad ideas that someone else didn't some time in the past?
 
_ What are the weirdest ideas I have had that someone actually had already proposed?: Solar powered aircraft, nuclear powered aircraft, self defense anti missile missile for fighter, anti submarine nuclear missile
_ Did you have any bad ideas that someone else didn't some time in the past? fighter mounted rail gun
 
Ideas that I haven't have time to research prior art: All ideas seems good until disproven by physics! Sadly I think there is almost no chance that I'm the first one to think of them.

1. Instead of having lift fans on the aeroplane, have blow fans on the carrier to blow the airplane into the air! Also blow fans to slow down aircraft at landing.
2. Tethered EVTOL to help lift (properly sized) airplanes for launch. (I'm sure some engineer thought about it after looking at scaneagles)
3. Submersible/Low profile ship with large wide angle EO/IR air search, linked to remote missile launchers
4. VSTOL Jet powered ballistic projectile launcher
5. Seaplane tanker: move fuel from ships into the air
6. Rocket (for power) + Multicopter (for stability) drop-pod for opposed landings
7. A vertical envelopment concept for urban warfare by using drop-pods with light UGV
8. Split crewed remote control vehicle: have a onboard/offboard crew: when vehicle lose comms the onboard crew can disengage/operate reduced operating efficiency.
9. Non-piloted crewed aircraft: let the computer/remote crew fly the airplane, the crew can do something else unless other system fails. Also enable ultra-long missions on one man aircraft.
10. Semi-automated multicopter deployed solar-battery powered unattended sensor/mine/(call artillery) complex
11. Aero-turning "diving" artillery for high velocity/steep descending artillery (or maybe just alter trajectory of smooth bored mortars)
12. Multi-jointed ultra-low profile stealth vehicle
13. Buoyancy Controlling drift mine (see google loon but in water)
14. Air to air swordfighting techniques (it works for dragon riders right?)
15. Kinetic penetrating self burying mines (via bomb/artillery deployment: some adjustment for terrain conditions)
16. Automated sensor coverage optimization system for distributed platforms, and countering system for exploiting/creating sensor gaps based on extrapolations from opponent constraints.
17. Low velocity mortar launched missile system with mechanism like 2S4 mortar but optimized for long range PGM
18. Submerged AIP refueling/battery recharge via nuclear subs...and maybe even weapons
19. Submerged dispersed "base" with sea floor sensors, defensive smart mines, float upward SAM/SSM, cabled communication networks with disposable floating nodes, and prepositioned supplies
20. "Reusable" mobile decoy with armored engine/compute block inside a large facade. Should be fairly doable with compact electric motor/battery combo
 
Wyvern said:
How about tanks with legs? Similar to the AT-ATs in Star Wars. We all know how well those ended up.
Click to expand...
You mean like in Thunderbirds "Pit of Peril"
 

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I theorized noise-cancelling electronic speakers back during the 1960s. Too bad electronic circuits did not think fast enough back then.

During the early 1980s, I theorized a collapsible pilot chute with a centre kill-line.

I have invented a couple of parachute packing tools and used one of them yesterday.

Parachute harness leg pads with rolled edges.

A couple of airplane folding techniques that I have not modelled yet.

As for STEALTHY RADAR EMMITTERS ... how about hanging your emmitter on a loyal wingman?
 
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Yesterday's dumb ideas may become tomorrow's smart ideas with improvements in materials. Never write-off the unlikely as impossible. That's what is dumb.

Old ideas of human powered flight unworkable on Earth may yet work in air-filled lava caves on the Moon.

The dumbest ideas come from businessmen trying to find ways around having engineers or other skilled labor.
 
Avimimus said:
So, growing up we've all had various ideas (giraffe tanks, shrouded wing helicopters, wind powered airships)... some of them feasible, some feasible but unwise, some in the technically 'unpossible' category...

One of the biggest revelations for me given by this forum over the years is that almost everything I've thought of some engineer had already proposed (no matter how foolish)... In some cases they were proposed by cranks with a poor understanding of engineering or physics... but they were still semi-seriously proposed.

So here is my question for you:
- What are the weirdest ideas you've had that someone actually had already proposed?
- Did you have any bad ideas that someone else didn't some time in the past?
Click to expand...
Avi -

Howdy !

While I did not think of it… old tymee French “ Fierce Face “ naval vessels.

British and Cherman “battle cruisers “. Here again, not thought up by me.
For that matter, anybodies battle cruisers.

Russian N-1 moon rockets, that had a zillion main engines; and questionable engine controls.

Deliberately exposing GI’s to nuclear blasts.

Exposing GI’s to things like: asbestos…. “Agent Orange “…. depleted unranium munitions… “ burn pits “ in Iraq. Nothing I would have dreampt up !

“ Time Compliance Technical Order ( TCTO ) 1F-4-908…..which added a “water seperator “ and its associated coalescer bag “ anti-ice “ system to the cockpit
“ Environmental Control System “ ( ECS ). TCTO -908 was intended to help minimize cockpit “ fogging “ encountered by F-4 aircrews during take off; and while flying under 10,000ft in SE Asia ( Vietnam era ). During operation, the new system produced excusrions of + / - 2,000ft in “ cabin altitude “….. producing an uncomfortable and distracting “ Waa Waa “ pressure effect on the aircrew’s ears. It also flexed ECS fragile bellows tubing sections, which blew out in bunches of tiny… small metal shards.
This “ FOD “ would scatter throughout the cockpit ECS bay ( under door 6R )….. including all the way down to the near inaccessible gap between the ECS Heat Exchanger outlet forging and the nose wheel well side wall and Rt Sparro missle well.

* Took me 8.5yr to get the USAF to remove the system by performing another mod to the ECS. During that intervening 8.5yr, I pushed the Air Force Logistics Command (ALC) to authorized units having repeated aircraft groundings due to cabin pressure surging
damage to be granted allowance to “de-activate “ TCTO -908…. to keep unit’ aircraft
availability rates anything like reasonable. Sometimes, a 24 Aircraft F-4 unit ( example
Air National Guard ) could have 4 aircraft grounded; due to ECS surging damage on a given day. The problem was encountered during warm/ humid weather flying conditions.

When pushed… I got 2 other ANG units to join me in complaining to the ALC, so that they did not think I was somehow wrong about what I was reporting.

When the ALC’s appointed Engineer and also the F-4 ECS “ System Manager “ showed up to perform ground engines running ECS testing… to see for themselves…. they came to our base on a day when it was -15* F. Even though it was certainly not a hot day,
I had the crew chief in the cockpit select full cold on the cockpit temp control knob.
The ALC reps were astounded, when they saw the ECS tubing flexing ( Panel 6R removed ). It took them the better portion of 2 years to grudgingly admit that I was right, and the ECS needed a “ fix “ mod performed on the whole F-4 fleet ( USAF, ANG, AF Reserve ). And when they did validate my complaint, the did so by distributing it in comments made on “ micro fiche “, which was sent out every 90days… it even that often

Probably THE stupidest aircraft systems mod I saw, in my 37yr of service; covering multiple fighter types.

With regards,
357Mag
 
My personal favorite terrible idea is the shrouded-rotor helicopter. One shows up in the Bubblegum Crisis world (in the AD Police anime, IIRC), and another shows up in the Cyberpunk 2020 "end of days" campaign books:

This is a 1:100 scale model by Darkest Star Games:
Hippogriff Aerodyne gunship.jpeg
IIRC the version in the anime has a bigger rotor/fan, but this is the basic idea of what the one from AD Police looks like.



The Lockheed Nimbus stealth EW Aerodyne from Cyberpunk 2020:
Lockheed_Nimbus_Electronic_Stealth_Warfare_AV.png
Stealthy in both radar, IR, and audibly, it's got 10x ~Hellfire- or ~Javelin-class (6km range) missiles onboard but it's designed for sneaking in and deploying smaller drones to find targets, up to and including placing computer taps so you can attack the enemy's network.

Sizewise, Cyberpunk says it's a 5ton airframe, but their other aircraft are listed at about half the weight they really are (the Cobra/Apache equivalent is listed as being 4 tons while the real things are ~8 tons MTOW, for the easy example, and given all the weapons I believe that comparing their "AH-99" with the AH-56 is the most accurate guess of combat weight, so ~12 tons). I suspect it'd be closer to a 10-12ton airframe if actually built and so need at least 20,000-24,000lbs thrust out of the central fan.

Shaping-wise, this thing is terrible. Doesn't look like it's got any edges aligned!
 
Like anti-gravity, an elegant/non-kludge equation as to how the universe works--or a winning lottery ticket--it is one of the things we want to be real.

Not that it is dumb--we just all would rather have something hovering overhead that won't go all Vic Morrow/Twilight Zone on you.

Dumb, do-able, and safe are three very different things. Having a form of travel that isn't an amputation hazard is not dumb--but apparently not doable just yet.

Choppers are do-able, therefore not dumb, but not exactly safe to be around.

The Christmas Bullet was dumb, unsafe and undoable all three.
 
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@Training_Dummy

I'm going to add this here to entertain the idea of an additional HVAA asset for sensing. @Training_Dummy 's original quote:
As for air targets, as that’s what I was focusing on, I very much had a FUTURE HVAA in mind such as J-36 or even a less offensive oriented critical sensor that might have DEW defense on board, and how that future threat target may need 2+ long range missiles to be brought down.
Click to expand...

I was prototyping a similar idea the other day where instead of a huge AEW platform that has to emit all the time and has neither the speed or maneuverability to escape a missile, how feasible would it be to have a 2 - 3 engined heavy fighter sized aircraft that's just equipped with large comfornal arrays and passive arrays and whose entire job is ELINT or AEW with high power generation and fuel capacity and maneuverable / fast enough to escape if targeted?

I'd imagine such an aircraft would at least need to be an F-111 sized plane and adaptive cycling engines so that it's got fuel economy, loiter time as well as the speed necessary to escape pursuing aircraft. It may or may not even need VLO coatings and extreme signature reduction since it's going to be emitting anyway.
 
As a kid I thought forward swept wings might be able to turn an airplane better than regular, swept-back wings. I based this on my experience hanging my arm out the window of the car going down the highway.
 
For a reconnaissance/early warning aircraft, it needs to remain airborne for as long as possible to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance. While high maneuverability and speed can enhance survivability, they also necessitate the aircraft's withdrawal from the very battlefield it is tasked with monitoring, thereby failing to fulfill its mission.

Therefore, I speculate that unmanned stealth reconnaissance aircraft like the RQ-180, which leverage stealth capabilities to ensure survivability while maximizing operational endurance over the theater, may represent a viable solution.
 
DeltaGreen said:
For a reconnaissance/early warning aircraft, it needs to remain airborne for as long as possible to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance. While high maneuverability and speed can enhance survivability, they also necessitate the aircraft's withdrawal from the very battlefield it is tasked with monitoring, thereby failing to fulfill its mission.
Click to expand...
If an E7 gets launched on it also has to turn cold and attempt to defend. Besides withdrawal doesnt mean its just going to RTB. It can return on station once the missile has been defeated and the launcher is being engaged by air cover.

I think something like the rq-180 or HALE uavs like the Wz-9 work because they were meant to stay high in safe zones protected by IADS. As forward AEW I struggle to see how they are survivable when missiles are getting longer and longer ranged.
 
This has been done before in the past with balloons and fighter planes.
That said
1. size wise today's fighters using fuselarge conformal arrays would have about the same aperture size as that of an AWACS's (one of 3 arrays that is). But they can't measure up to the TR element density so resolution won't be the same let alone be better.
2. The AWACS' raw radar energy output is about 10000x that of the F22 or 1000x of projected F47. A focused beam would increase that by another ~43x or so.
3. An AWACS costs about 80 million (E3 fly away) compared to 6th gen that's anywhere +100 million.
4. Data processing power gap seem to be at least about 100x.
It's doubtful a fighter will ever truely replace an AWACS. But I do see them being replaced by smaller business jets like the EMB 145.

As for avoidance or defense the modern radars should be able to fry an incoming missile's electronics. It won't be easy to keep the focus, though, but using multiple beams won't be a problem either.
 

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