What do you get when you cross a blimp and a helicopter? One potential answer is the Skyhook JHL-40.

The JHL-40, mind you, is still essentially in the blueprints-and-artist's-renderings stage. It's an aircraft that Boeing and its partner Skyhook International are pitching as a short-haul commercial transport rig.

Boeing says that the neutral buoyancy of the JHL-40 would let it hoist and move far greater payloads than can be handled by existing rotorcraft. The aircraft, the companies say, should be able to lift a 40-ton sling load and then transport it 200 miles without refueling, a capacity that would come in handy in harsh, undeveloped regions like the Canadian Arctic where "conventional land and water transportation methods...are inadequate, unreliable and costly."

Here's how it would work: The helium-filled envelope would support the weight of the aircraft itself (fuel included). Four rotors sticking out from the sides of the envelope would provide the lift for the external payload.

The venerable twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook helicoptor, by comparison, has a range of about 200 miles, but lifts only on the order of about 10 tons.

Posted at 03:54PM Jul 09, 2008 by Kevin P McAuliffe in Astound  |  Comments[0]