Boeing’s Skyhook Shot: Redefining the Aerial Heavy-Lift Market?

Skyhook concept(click to view full) In April 2006, “WALRUS Hunted to Extinction By Congress, DARPA?” dealt with the cancellation of DARPA’s WALRUS ultra-heavy lift program. WALRUS aimed to develop an airship that could lift between 250-500 tons, offering capacity that rivaled ship-borne options, but offered the benefits of transport all the way to the front without requiring ports and related infrastructure. The program would have developed a 30-40 ton capacity demonstration model in its early stages, which would have had a useful role of its own. “Walrus Heavy-Lift Blimp Rises, Falls” also noted the requests of combat commanders for airlift options that could be used with smaller airfields, that cannot accommodate the 20-ton capacity C-130 Hercules aircraft. Not to mention related items like pressure to lower fuel use at the Pentagon, and 2005 warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers about energy costs/supplies and future military operations. Now a private consortium sees similar needs and trends in key civilian sectors. A Canadian/American partnership that includes Boeing has set itself the public goal of building the commercial equivalent of DARPA’s desired demonstrator… The JHL-40 Skyhook Platform Logger’s friend,forest’s friend(click to view full) Boeing is careful to characterize the JHL-40 as a […]