Mankind is in a never-ending arms race against himself,
other nations, religions and whoever is deemed a threat to existence. This
leads governments to spend enormous amounts of money on even the
craziest of ides, often leading to ridiculous weapons that eventually
disappoint or simply never get developed.
Also known as Project 119-A, the plan was to Nuke the
moon to boost public morale in the United
States after the Soviet Union took
an early lead in the Space Race. This was never carried out, because they
figures putting a man on the moon was better than trying to blow it up.
Iceberg Aircraft Carrier
Also known as Project Habakkuk, the Brits developed a plan
during World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out
of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice). It took
them some time, but developments in the war effort and realizing what a huge
waste of resources it might be sunk the idea.
The Flying Dorito
The A-12 Avenger II was also known as the flying
Dorito. It was to be an all-weather,
carrier-based stealth bomber replacement for the Grumman A-6
Intruder in the United States Navy and Marine
Corps; The development of the A-12 was troubled by cost overruns and
several delays, eventually being cancelled in 1991 after wasting more than $5
billion on the project.
Soviet Doomsday Device
Some say it’s a myth, but in the early 1990s several
former high-ranking members of the Soviet military and the Central
Committee of the Communist Party in a series of interviews to the American
defense contractor BDM admitted the existence of the Dead Hand,
making somewhat contradictory statements concerning its deployment. What is it? Possibly still fully operational,
a nuclear-control system that can automatically trigger the launch of
the Russian Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) if a nuclear
strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity and overpressure sensors,
creating a fail-deadly deterrence.
The Un-landable Plane
Instead of having an aircraft take off only from carriers,
the US
government wanted fighters on all their ships. From that, the XFV Salmon was
born, a plane with landing gear on its tail. After development and some
thinking, the plan to have a fighter jet on every ship was scrapped, because
pilots couldn’t land backwards. The jet was also much slower than other
contemporary fighters and was too complicated to fly.
Intruder From the Future
Imagine a bomber, designed to carry atomic bombs, that can
fly at an altitude of 15 miles and three times the speed of sound. The B-70
Valkyrie was supposed to be the aviation dream from the future, but while it
was developed, the improvements of high-altitude surface-to-air
missiles, the change to low-level penetration bombing, the program’s high
development costs, and the introduction of intercontinental ballistic
missile (ICBMs) led to the cancellation of the B-70 program in 1961. Two
prototypes were eventually used; one of them crashed following a midair
collision in 1966.
The Thunderscreech
The XF-84H was an
experimental turboprop aircraft, powered by
a a turbine engine that was mated to
a supersonic propeller. Too many aerodynamic decencies and
the fact that it was the loudest aircraft ever made; the sound of its
engine starting up could be heard 25 miles away, along with blowing out
eardrums and causing severe nausea among the ground crews led to its
cancellation.
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