Message posted by Vahe Demirjian (Member since 04/28/2022) on December 15, 2023 at 20:52:17 PST:
In the article "Focus Aircraft: HALE/MALE Unmanned Air Vehicles Part 1: History of the Endurance UAV" from volume 15 of the magazine International Air Power Review, there is a passage mentioning a 1983 proposal by Lockheed for a gigantic non-stealthy HALE unmanned aerial vehicle: "Lockheed had unveiled a concept for a giant HALE UAV in 1983. Spanning 267 ft (81.4 m), it would have had an endurance of 24 hours and would have been propelled by 47-ft "turbojet/turboshaft engines' driving immense (14.32-m) diameter two-bladed propellers. The dual-cycle engines were necessary because the propellers would be locked in a horizontal position for take-off and landing." Since the article mentions that Lockheed's 267-ft span HALE UAV proposal lacked the stealth of the ultimate Quartz design (the 205-ft span Boeing Condor was also non-stealthy but relied on piston power) and the dual-cycle gas turbine engines were to have the two-bladed propellers locked in a horizontal position for take-off and landing, were the propellers of the Lockheed proposal designed to be in vertical position during level flight like those of the Boeing Condor?
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