Originally Posted by
gums
Salute!
With the new nav stuff for the missiles and the possibility of active and useful GPS at launch, I like the idea. Hell! Get those 747's outta storage and have them fly about during times of international tension.
Having a transport drop a cruise missile on a drougue chute is no big technical challenge.
Gums sends...
Back in the 1980's, there was a serious study of using the 747F as a bomb truck (or more accurately a cruise missile truck). The basic concept was to take a 747F and give it the ability to open the side cargo door in-flight. Then the cruise missile rotary launchers would spit their cruise missiles out the cargo door, then rotate next launcher to position and launch it's missiles. IIRC it would have been able to launch ~100 cruise missiles in about 10 minutes. The idea was to have a fleet of these 747s, during times of crisis they would orbit a couple hundred miles off the USSR - if push came to shove they would simply overwhelm the Soviet air defenses with numbers.
The beauty was it wouldn't take much development on the aircraft side - the only real technical challenge would be a side cargo door that could open in flight - the existing cargo handling system could handle moving the rotary launchers around (I don't recall what the plan was for the crew when they depressurized - to keep the flight deck pressurized or simply have the crew on O2). Plus, if tensions were low, the aircraft could still be used as a conventional freighter.