The Orange County Register October 18, 2002
Boeing's big idea
By GARY ROBBINS
HUNTINGTON BEACH It's the sort of bold idea that rarely makes the leap from the minds of engineers into the annals of aviation.
But some determined noodling is going on at Boeing Phantom Works on the concept of a four-engine cargo plane much larger than any that now exists and capable of exploiting a natural phenomenon to skim about 20 feet above the sea on transoceanic trips.
The Pelican Ultra Large Transport Aircraft is meant to fulfill the Army's emerging demand for aircraft capable of transporting an entire combat division abroad within five days. Phantom Works, Boeing Co.'s technology incubator, envisions the plane being used to carry the containers that now travel by cargo ship. ''We're looking to design an aircraft that would represent an attractive middle ground between relatively slow ships and relatively expensive planes,'' said Blaine Rawdon, who is managing the nascent Pelican program from Boeing's Huntington Beach plant.
Like the bird it is named after, Pelican would be big and gawky. The latest conceptual design depicts an aircraft with a 400-foot-long body, one that would easily surpass the distance between the goal posts of a football field. The body could hold as much as 2.8 million pounds of payload, or about five times that of the world's largest cargo aircraft, Russia's An225.
Conceivably, it could carry 17 M1 Abrams tanks, which would require Pelican's landing gear to have some 76 tires to spread out the weight.
The wing would span 500 feet and cover more than an acre, allowing the plane to maximize its use of a phe nomenon known as ''wing-in-ground-effect,'' which engineers call WIGE.
The phrase refers to the thick cushion of air that develops beneath an aircraft's wings as it flies close above any comparatively flat surface. The air cushion helps low-flying planes -- and birds such as pelicans -- to almost glide over the surface. WIGE also reduces aerodynamic drag, which can translate into better fuel efficiency for long-distance heavy-lift cargo planes.
Or so say Phantom Works officials, who estimated in a Boeing publication that, ''With a payload of 1.5 million pounds, the Pelican could fly 10,000 nautical miles over water and 6,500 nautical miles over land.''
The Pelican resembles Howard Hughes' HK-1 flying boat, nicknamed the Spruce Goose. But unlike the HK-1, Pelican would use conventional airports rather than serve as an oversize seaplane.
The aircraft would be capable of flying as high as 20,000 feet on long-distance cargo hauls. But the WIGE is getting the most attention from engineers at Boeing Phantom Works, a research and development division that has more than 4,000 employees at plants across the nation. Said Rawdon: ''A pelican has the ability to wring every iota of efficiency out of the environment while in flight. We're trying to do the same thing.''
If Boeing builds a prototype of Pelican, it would represent an evolutionary rather than revolutionary advance in aviation. Engineers have known about ground effect for at least 80 years. Some designers have built WIGE aircraft.
The Russians seem to have invested most heavily in the technology, producing several WIGE aircraft called ''ekronoplans''for military and aerospace roles.
But no country -- nor any company -- has yet come up with a WIGE plane that has been sufficiently reliable, economical and useful to stimulate demand from the military and commercial sectors.
The Pelican is still merely a concept that Rawdon described as ''an idea linked to other ideas.'' But he also said technical advances, especially in computer-assisted design and composite materials, have aided Boeing's work on a WIGE plane.
The company felt confident enough in its progress to ask the Army to consider Pelican as part of its Advanced Mobility Concepts Study, which is meant to winnow out ideas for future transport carriers.
The Army included Pelican in the study, which is expected to be completed next spring. A favorable review could lead the military to invest in the development of Pelican, perhaps bringing more engineering jobs to Southern California.
''It is too soon to say whether (Pelican) is the best solution. But it certainly is on the short list of potential solutions,'' said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a company in Arlington, Va., that evaluates new technologies.
Pike has doubts about Pelican's appeal outside military circles. ''If there was a large pent-up commercial demand for this type of service, something like Pelican would already be serving the market,'' he said.
Another analyst, Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va., said, ''Boeing Phantom Works is doing what it's supposed to be doing -- giving the military potential options. But at this time I don't see any commercial demand for this plane at all.''
Copyright 2002 The Orange County Register
