Lockheed "Flatbed" transport designs

[martinbayer]

Anyone look to a flatbed concept for—if not TSTO—orbiter ferry?

Staggering landing gear to drive on the flatbed…then re-affix the tail?

Like trucks, the flatbed is backed up to a dock.

Trailers often have telescoping strut in the nose by the reefer unit.

Several of those could pass the load from a segmented removable ramp directly to the tarmac—without the airframe “feeling” the weight while rolling…which would doubtless be stressful.

Once your payload is seated and evenly distributed, you remove ramp sections and let the load gradually rest upon the plane’s landing gear…and extract the “legs” from holes and button it up.

The goal is to baby the wingbox as much as you can…

Now, wings flex…the whole plane does. A front-end loader frame has no give. Could ground equipment cause a “pinch” or bind…or could earthmoving equipment itself be built by the plane manufacturer such that the equipment helps become the plane’s backbone in flight?

The rolling on and off of dense equipment—especially forklifts—that’s what breaks things.

BTW if we ever have heavy equipment on the Moon—drive slow…the mass is still there even if some of the weight isn’t, and your load will pull you right over if you try to stop too quick.

I have to admit I pretty much stopped reading at the very first line of your post, because that particular question falls squarely into the subsonic transport aircraft first stage/reusable orbiter launch vehicle category, like the rocket powered An-225/Skylon degenerate combo, so yes, the airbreathing subsonic TSTO orbiter ferry/launch concept has unsurprisingly be considered before. To reiterate a point that to the best of my recollection I quoted on this august forum before, according to the then esteemed Secretary of the United States Air Force Sheila A. Widnall in December 1992, “The earth is covered by two-thirds water and one third space launch studies.” As a random particular point of reference, consider for example https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20120000791/downloads/20120000791.pdf. Whether you launch from a "flatbed" or a traditional pressurized hull is at best a secondary trade that depends a lot of optimization parameters, the first and foremost being availability.