Isilith wrote:lyonheart wrote:Hi all,
My only quibble is the 80 tons the 5 Chinooks are carrying, double their usual max load; unless they have somehow drastically increased engine power etc, but at the moment I've forgotten the year this is supposed to have happened, so I suppose its possible in ~20 years or so.
Still I think it looks very promising.
All the best Christmas wishes to all,
L
Also, the father thinks they are Shongair aircraft, and bigger than ours. I would think that they are just very similar to Chinooks and that is why Torino calls them that? Or, we took the Chinook design and added in some Shongair tech upgrades and plugged that design into the Shongair fabricators that we now have?
Currently, the Army is Trialing replacing the Engines in the current Chinook with the new engines destined for the CH-53K King Stallion.
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-to-test-ch-47-chinook-with-two-7500shp-engin-458380/This would up the engine HP on the Chinook by over 50%. Current empty weight is ~11 Tons, with max takeoff at ~22.5 Tons. If the 50% extra power can be completely dedicated to load, A single Chinook should be able to haul ~20 Tons of cargo, as long as the airframe and Rotors can handle it. That would give 5 upengined Chinooks the lift capability of ~100 Tons.
So expanding the Chinook to to carry 16 tons each is something probable out of just the human kit in the next couple years.