Convair Model 49 Advanced Aerial Fire Support System

F-14D said:
Actually, there might have been another big factor that you identified in one of your previous posts:

"Maximum speed was 400 mph (355 knots) at 10,000 feet."


From the bureaucratic and sandbox points of view, would Army really want to take on all the fire and brimstone that would come their way from USAF if they said they wanted to develop a vehicle that could do that?
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And it could fly at 27,000 feet. Downselect on AAFSS was only six months before the Johnson-McConnell Agreement. AAFSS also passed on the Boeing tilt wing which probably had similar high performance. Another element suggested by Robert Bradley is that adopting a VTOL plane like this would have invovled a lot of reshapping of tactics and training. The Lockheed and Sikorsky offers downselected for project definition were just helicopters that could fly fast. Convair and Boeing (and perhaps others) were offering aircraft that could TOL and hover like a helicopter.
 
I've put an article together on the Model 49 here: http://hushkit.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/the-us-armys-ring-wing-transformer-the-strange-story-of-the-convair-model-49/

Anyone have any pictures of the small proof of technology demonstrator?

Thanks ;)
 
Thanks Mr/Miss. Blam Blam,
I've now added it to that thread.
 
Can i start calling Scott "Miss Blam Blam"? ;D
 
yasotay said:
Can i start calling Scott "Miss Blam Blam"? ;D
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thats-sad.jpg
 
Okay so this has perplexed me ever since I discovered this project. The text clearly mentions the potential loadout of all three turrets and the external hardpoints for heavy weapons. But what in the world is actually depicted within the central turret in the image below? Logic tells me it can’t be more than a single 30mm cannon because the barrels would be side-by-side and of equal length. It looks to be a 30mm but it seems to have a smaller barrel to the left of it. Could that potentially be the WASP rocket launcher also mentioned in the text? That would explain the round structure at the base of the barrel as it could be the “ammo cassette” for said launcher. The technical three-view drawings clearly show 2 barrels,one shorter than the other. Also,what’s that horizontal black line on top of the barrel? Some kind of strengthening/support or just a wayward shadow? I know this was a lengthy one so thanks for your patience!
 

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Abraham Gubler said:
Abraham Gubler said:
Does anyone have any idea what the "WASP Rocket" mentioned in the Convair AAFSS offer is? The limited information says that the centre turret could be equipped with either two 30x113mm cannons with 1,000 rounds for each gun or a single 30mm and 500 WASP rockets. If weight is matched between the options this would mean each "WASP" would weigh about 1kg (2.2 lbs). I would imagine something like the 66mm rocket of the M72 LAW? Google turns up nothing except that the Yugoslavian name for their M72 clone was 'Osa' or 'Wasp'.
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By chance I may have stumbled across an answer to the enigmatic nature of this “WASP” system.

The Martin LARA brochure details a WASP II 40mm grenade launcher. This came in either the ASP-1 automatic strafing pod of the ‘Side Firing WASP pod’. These pods weigh 150 lbs with the ASP-1 firing 60 grenades either forward or aft (depending on which way it is mounted) using a revolver mechanism. Three 40mm grenades were mounted in a triangle unit (WASP II) and are fired without the benefit of a barrel, assumedly by a rocket motor. The side firing pod has 78 rockets fixed to fire downwards and is mounted on swivelling lugs.

Judging by the previous imagery of a large revolver type launcher I would assume the WASP (I) as proposed for AAFSS used single 40mm rockets. These weapons would be similar to the SNEB 37mm rocket but using the 40mm grenade as a warhead.
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Well done and many thanks Abraham Gubler ;)


Regards
Pioneer
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
View attachment 679059

Closeup doesn't really help.

View attachment 679060
This drawing is labelled (14) XM140 gun, (15) WASP rocket
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overscan (PaulMM) said:
View attachment 679059

Closeup doesn't really help.

View attachment 679060
This drawing is labelled (14) XM140 gun, (15) WASP rocket launcher. Drawing doesn't seem to match the painting.
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Ugh this just amplifies my frustration. What's even stranger is that the XM-75s to either side don't have that black bar over the barrel *just* the central turret.
 
elpoderdelasgalaxias.wordpress.com

BTZ Hanneton II: Still Tomorrow’s Plane.

The French Bureau Technique Zborowski was created after WW2 to discreetly exploit the technical knowledge of Austrian count, and former SS officer, Helmut Graf von Zborowski. The latter proposed du…
elpoderdelasgalaxias.wordpress.com elpoderdelasgalaxias.wordpress.com

Could it be that Zborowski was somehow involved or consulted by Convair?
 
Basil said:
elpoderdelasgalaxias.wordpress.com

BTZ Hanneton II: Still Tomorrow’s Plane.

The French Bureau Technique Zborowski was created after WW2 to discreetly exploit the technical knowledge of Austrian count, and former SS officer, Helmut Graf von Zborowski. The latter proposed du…
elpoderdelasgalaxias.wordpress.com elpoderdelasgalaxias.wordpress.com

Could it be that Zborowski was somehow involved or consulted by Convair?
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I wouldn't be surprised if they did consult him or it's just the engineers at Convair at the time used the French Coleopter design for the Model 49 .
 
Such a weird thing.

You're not stacking them that tight on a ship, not for takeoff and landing anyways. Remember that ships move, so especially for landing you want more space than your footprint suggests. I've had 19000tons do in excess of 2 knots straight up in a bad storm before, ship took 27deg rolls and was pitching +-10 through the water. 20 degrees of pitch across 280ft (half ship's length) is on the order of 100ft from peak of upper travel to trough of lower travel.

Yes, we had guys get launched out of their racks and across the ship, fortunately nobody had worse than bruises and some very green faces. Thankfully we were on a sub so as soon as we caught the message traffic we were able to dive to over 500ft to get out of the wave action.

Jemiba said:
Great idea, and we shouldn’t forget, that shape and take-off/landing characteristics are making
the Model 49 the ideal aircraft to be based on submarines. A modification of the Ohio SSBN
(drawing from http://www.globalsecurity.org/ )could easily take 6 Mod 49, if a double-storey
hangar could be realised even 12 ! Would be a nasty surprise for, say, Somalian pirates, if a flight
of Mod 49s (it would need an appropriate name of course, maybe “Grizzly II” ?) would roar down
and smash their base, although no US warship was known to be in the vicinty !
Looking like giant soldiers, when in a hover and mowing down every resistance with ease, would
surely have an enormous pyschological effect ! ;D
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Tube diameter limit is 7ft. Could maybe do drones for that but not a manned plane.

But my preference is the LockMart Cormorant drone.
 
Firefinder said:
Have a video on this with a good animation of it in flight and fighting.

View: https://youtu.be/_dB5gHEdcRg
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The working demonstration or "exhibition" model at timestamp 11:16 appears to be Lockheed's AMCS (Advanced Mechanical Control System) upgrade for the AH-56A Cheyenne (with the ring gyro below the rotorhead). This is the first time I am seeing this and quite interested to know the source of this video.
 

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