The Giant Flying Wing Concept That Made 747s Look Small - Boeing 759

Today we start a new series where I take a look at some of the most interesting, inventive, or downright fantastical aircraft designs that never left the drawing board - and we begin with the Boeing 759.
Recommended reading:
American Secret Projects 2: US Airlifters 1941-1961 -
amzn.to/3s0ah6A
American Secret Projects 3: U.S. Airlifters Since 1962 - amzn.to/3SeHV2T
Want to join the community? Visit our Discord - / discord
Want to support the channel? I have a Patreon here - / rexshangar
Sources:
American Secret Projects 2: US Airlifters 1941-1961 -
amzn.to/3s0ah6A
American Secret Projects 3: U.S. Airlifters Since 1962 - amzn.to/3SeHV2T
web.archive.org/web/201005102...
web.archive.org/web/201005180...
web.archive.org/web/201005201...
web.archive.org/web/201005270...

[@RexsHangar]

F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.

[@RexsHangar]

shoutout to @fireknergy2524 who put me in mind to finnaly launch this series, of which I had about 15 videos sitting on the backburner

[@aabumble9954]

Could your next video please be about the far less outlandish Vickers victory bomber?

[@jaws666]

​@@RexsHangarawesome...welcome back Rex.👍👍👍

[@jehoiakimelidoronila5450]

How about the previously mentioned YC-14 STOL cargo plane? Or the Rockwell XFV-12?

[@gclarkbloomfield8848]

…hey, Rex…Greg here…Yank born in Cheyenne, Wyoming…once HQ for a young United Airlines…with lots of childhood friends who were kids of former USAF/United pilots who had married former United Stewardesses ( their school remained in Cheyenne until mid-50’s)… …I have a passion for the elegant small civil aviation aircraft which became staples of private and business owners during the late 30’s through the late 60’s…including, but not limited to: 1. Beech Staggerwing (biplane), 2. Beech Super B-18 3. Martin 4. Lockheed 10 and Electra 5. Beech D-18 6. Stinson V-77; and many more… …these were the twin radial civil aircraft populating Cheyenne’s Municipal airport when I was taken for my first ride… …there just isn’t anything remotely similar to these thumping radial classics…their strong, reliable sounds populate my dreams…as they did in my childhood… Cheers, Rex…and may I say I appreciate all your video offerings…and look forward to your future offerings..

[@Sacto1654]

I think the biggest problem was finding a runway and taxiway that could actually accommodate such a big plane. I think *THAT* was the final downfall of the project.

[@Bird_Dog00]

Oh, I'm sure they would have built a suitable airfield... "Good News! We've built an airfield capable of servicing our Mega-cargo plane." "You built one airfield?" "Yes." "That means, the plane can take off, fly around and land at the same place?" "Yes." "So, you now have a huge, extremely expensive cargo plane that can't go anywhere?" "Yeees...."

[@RCAvhstape]

"The USAF has announced it has purchased a new site for an airfield: the State of Delaware. Bulldozers began clearing the area this week."

[@jebise1126]

lol no... making wide airfield would not be a problem. but actually make something so big to fly... long wings flex in air. longer it is bigger are forces on it. than control surfaces on such huge machine... etc etc etc.

[@calvingreene90]

The B-36 was designed with single tire main gear with giant tires, this resulted in damaging taxiways and runways. They switched to a four tire design using normally sized tires and solved the problem. The behemoth would have had lots of tires but not destroyed airport infrastructure.

[@davidlindburg1921]

The accountants input wouldn't have been none too pretty either.

[@TheEvilpossum]

I've worked with this concept in science fiction. I've come to call it the "Fat wing" aircraft, which isn't limited to flying wings. One that has influenced my designs is the Kalinin K-7, an astonishing plane that deserved better luck.

[@masteronone2079]

Why not just run with Thunderbird 2. It ticks all the boxes, is proven technology though it was a bit sluggish at only Mach 7.8.

[@anthonyjackson280]

I can't even imagine the moments of inertia for cargo being along the entire wingspan. turning circles would have been continental. Landing in NY the traffic pattern and turn to final approach would be somewhere over Minneapolis....

[@rgm96x49]

Man, the next Ace Combat boss is looking wild.

[@barrybend7189]

Armory wing.

[@John-qv5ux]

This looks like a Project Wingman airship, something the Federation would use.

[@user-sd3ik9rt6d]

I do like some of the strange ideas designers have had. Nice to have them mixed in with the regular stuff.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

This is kind of like Cone of Arc's "Cursed by Design" unbuilt series.

[@admiraltiberius1989]

I absolutely love flying wings and I'd never heard of this before. What a great way to start the day.

[@zotfotpiq]

right? plus our technology has advanced so far since that era, seems like some of these concepts might be doable now.

[@qlum]

@@zotfotpiq As far as I understand there is still some work done on the concept as in theory it should net a more efficient aircraft, but making one that is practical and controllable is still very hard. As well as other compromises you may need to make. For one big problem I could for see is balancing the wings properly, especially for passengers.

[@LightOfZeon]

The temptation to say 'this design never really took off' must have been immense. Props for holding back and saying 'never left the drawing-board' instead.

[@LukeBunyip]

Makes some of Gerry Anderson's models for the "Thunderbirds" seem tame by comparison.

[@Tuberuser187]

When you consider the various disastrous spills and fires related to ocean going oil tankers the idea of a flying oil tanker is beyond absurdly comical, even if the thing could actually be built.

[@johnladuke6475]

While they're on nowhere near the same scale, there are plenty of flying tankers for air-to-air refueling. I agree with you that it's a bad idea because of the potential for insane disasters when something goes wrong. But that doesn't mean that it couldn't be accomplished, though it's hard to imagine it being more economical than surface transport with ships, trains, or pipelines.

[@ronjon7942]

@@johnladuke6475Great point about air-to-air refueling…as well as just about any aircraft, which seems to be mostly fuel.

[@Thunder-cj4ck]

Hell yeah he's back!!!

[@tenofprime]

To me some of the fascinating designs in any field are those that never make it out of the drawing board or prototype stage. This is a perfect example.

[@Calilasseia]

Wow. This looks EXACTLY like the sort of weird aircraft Gerry Anderson would have introduced into an episode of "Thunderbirds" ... a flying wing version of Fireflash ...

[@jeffreylayton6255]

Span Loaders :) I worked on those at NASA. It's an interesting concept but has some problems that need to be overcome. BTW - Notice that tactical cargo are starting to look like span loaders, primarily for signature reasons, but also to start taking advantage of the span loader benefits.

[@SDPBALLCOACH]

They designed and built this stuff W/O computers... Remarkable!!

[@terryperkins3368]

We are very glad to have you back! Congratulations on your new house!

[@thatsme9875]

Rex, please do the Victa Airtourer, which as far as I am aware, is the only aircraft actually constructed by a company whose speciality was lawnmowers!!

[@philliprobinson7724]

Hi. The "Flymo" rotary lawnmower uses "ground effect" lift instead of wheels to whisk across the grass. The two disadvantages are that it can't be wheeled back into the shed, and setting the cutting height is not possible. Cheers, P.R.

[@ronjon7942]

00.35 I drooled over this FSW artwork ever since seeing in a Popular Science article featuring the X-29; I seem to remember it in one of my ‘future’ aircraft books. It’s so perfectly proportioned I wanted physics suspended for wing twisting.

[@Pwj579]

Nice work, never heard on the Boeing 759

[@sengo2143]

And you never will. Boeing 759 is his imagination. Try to google Boeing 759.

[@safetysandals]

I wonder if it ever crossed the minds of Boeing's engineers what would happen to the aircraft when they so casually eject an 88 ton ICBM from a moving aircraft. Sure, the gross weight of the plane was 900 tons, but shedding 10% of that weight at once in flight surely would've been an event.

[@davidrivero7943]

Wings are still alive & favored in the FPV rc World.

[@yumazster]

This new series is an excellent idea. On Hazegrayart channel there are animations of things being dreamt up in late 60s and 70s but in space sector. Learning more about mayhavebeens of this era will be great. Much drugs was consumed, I think.

[@SuperchargedSupercharged]

I do love the "trending longer" videos. Never heard of this one, thank you!

[@ScarletTermite]

Nice video. This series will give you a chance to let your snark out which is my favorite thing in your vids.

[@kevinwilhelm3205]

What a plane for you comeback, an absolute unit.

[@marcusott2973]

Much awaited, much appreciated excellent insights as always from you.

[@Claymore5]

From what I remember at the time, both the McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed proposals (whilst extraordinary) were somewhat more grounded in reality. However, I do remember seeing drawings of a cargo lifter referred to as 'The Flatbed'. The idea was to be the aviation equivalent of a pickup truck or container ship - indeed, the design was such that you could load six to eight full size containers in a 2x3 or 2x4 configuration. A military version was to be able to carry three or four Main Battle Tanks literally chained to the cargo deck (h'mm drag effects anyone). There was also a passenger pod which would have been loaded onto the Flatbed and presumably been an early form of a 'plug and play' unit. I think this was a Lockheed concept - but I could be wrong.

[@jeffkellybaldwin7712]

Good to see you back! Hope the move is everything you hoped for! And your health has appreciated the “break”!

[@bearddevil]

I am really looking forward to this series. I LOVE hearing about the insane ideas that popped up when the future was infinite.

[@loddude5706]

No mention of quickly-deployed M.A.S.H. units in multiple 'Thunderbird 2' pods then? : )

[@egg_musubi]

This is the exact type of content I want to see from this channel, super cool stuff!

[@chriskuhn7140]

Another excellent video! My favorite aviation history channel by far. Always look forward to your productions!

[@jwg72]

One interesting feature is that they needed huge computers amto operate the flight controls, because these designs could tear themselves apart at speed (the spanloading that makes these designs efficient, also makes them delicate). So these designs ended up with many semi-ndependent control surfaces along the wings and tons of computers (it was the 70s, computers were big).

[@carlkalman1148]

The computer space needed for systems at that time, would take probably up roughly the same space as a truck…..at the minimum.

[@brivas3343]

Excellent new series! I love the oddball machines.

[@parrotraiser6541]

hat sortof airport infrastructre would support that sort of monster? Aside from the pressure on the ground, imagine the spacing required for things like taxiways. (And hangars.)

[@DavidSiebert]

For hangers, you would probably slide them in sideways. For the ICBM launcher, they would just base them out of places like Edwards or build crazy big runways in Montana and North Dakota. Well if they can find enough flat empty land... :) The bigger problem is where do you build them.

[@applicationuser9764]

Nice to see you back!

[@peterjohnson6273]

Thanks. Always interesting.

[@adventuresinmodelrailroading]

I don't want to consider the ground facilities this beast would have required.

[@MortRotu]

Defs worth the wait, Thanks Rex!

[@rippervtol9516]

Oh they are still working on air launched missiles. A friend I graduated with works for Boeing and his first project was calculating loads for the exact concept shown here but out of a C-17 and for "satellites"

[@DavidSiebert]

It is a done deal. The USAF air-launched a Minuteman from a C-5 in 1974. Currently, the Hera target missile is often air-launched so the still working part is more like they are making air-launched missiles. The US already launches satellites into orbit from aircraft and have for years.

[@jebise1126]

@@DavidSiebert but they kind of abandon part of ICBM being launched from aircraft because such big and long object made launch very dangerous for transport aircraft. would work with bomber but bomber uses cruise missile normally... i mean i suppose its a bit weird to use aircraft in first place for ballistic missile when cruise one makes way more sense

[@kbjerke]

Boeing also collaborated with deHavilland Canada on an air cushion landing system for the DHC-5 Buffalo.

[@bobwise1347]

i love this channel. rex and greg do the best videos

[@alanrogers7090]

Glad your back, Rex.❤

[@lewiswestfall2687]

Thanks Rex

[@lifesahobby]

Thanks for you work . Chilling out with my dog here , we appreciate your comical efforts especially

[@gclarkbloomfield8848]

…whoa, Nellie!!!… ….this is the sort of fantastical engineering one would have expected out of Howard Hughes…not Boeing, Douglas not Lockheed… …If, I count correctly, in addition to the 12 (!!??) Pratt & Whitney turbofans, a total of 8 landing gears stretching along the loaded wings would require a runway roughly 4 to 5 times the width of even the largest currently in use… …Buck Rogers material, more like…😳⁉️✈️🤔⚠️🆘😎

[@emjackson2289]

Or of course, C Montgomery Burns with his "Spruce Moose" to get cargo from New York's Idlewild Airport to the Belgian Congo in around 15 minutes

[@johnladuke6475]

@@emjackson2289 I said _GET IN_

[@unclenogbad1509]

"Insane aircraft designs". Oh, you know my weakness, Mr Rex. I'll be glued to these, thanks.

[@alexandergustafsson4245]

So happy to hear your vice again, and to watch a Rex hangar episod again 😊👌

[@50043211]

I love it that all of these are in metric from the get go.

[@thewitch7342]

boeing CEO: guys we need a new cargo plane and it must be huge! boeing engineer with a ruler and pen: i've got an idea

[@l2etranger]

9:00 It could be that they wanted to include another propulsion technology that's still working with this ambition, the hovercraft propulsion. It virtually goes anywhere that's flat and could overcome amphibious challenges other vehicles have been encountering.

[@blu___1612]

thanking you glad to watch

[@DaveSCameron]

Top upload Sir 👍

[@paulsmodels]

It looks like they never considered the economical impacts on the infastructure requirements needed for super large, and heavy aircraft such as these wild design ideas that were floating around at the time.

[@rdmcfoxinator2131]

I quite like the shorter format paper only videos, and I think it would go nicely with the occasional longform videos, just to prove that you’re not dead.

[@2down4up]

Long format videos rock!

[@sadwingsraging3044]

No Rex. The M stood for 'Murica!🤬yeah!'

[@rocksnot952]

Welcome back!

[@itsjohndell]

It's good to have you back and you obviously are in good spirits having obvioudsly enjoyed the ludicrous subject matter. Moving house is a nightmare, happy that you survived it. Now, let me tell you about my aircraft idea. It will have a 5000 ft wing span, three pools and a sundeck, a carpark, four cinemas and a footnall stadium. 5 Mach and 30, 000 NM range. Only problem is it will only operate from your OutBack to The American desert. 🤠😎

[@davidgreenland9136]

brilliant ,as all ways . hope your going to cover the crazzy insane stuff REO Saunder came up with .some of them make this Boing look small

[@chesspiece81]

Oh how I love this content

[@paulholmes672]

Span-wise cargo loading is an okay concept, although I would be real curious to see how the loading/unload would go, especially with unbalanced loads. The elephant in the room, however, for flying wing passenger flight will always be the ability (or lack thereof) to pressurize the "Cabin" at least to less than 10K feet altitude pressure. After that can be economically done, then the 'sky will be the limit' for this kind of flying wing world.

[@maryclarafjare]

Super fascinating, thanks for all your hard work on these things! (Mary Keesling)

[@VictoryAviation]

The subtle humor is 🤌🏼

[@maxpayne2574]

Just where the heck did they think this thing would land.

[@steveshoemaker6347]

thanks

[@nocount7517]

Now we know where the idea for the _Hresvelgr_ came from.

[@Commander-McBragg]

Very cool. Would make a great private jet/home!

[@MonkeyJedi99]

Or a portable shopping mall?

[@stephenremington8448]

....and then someone discovered the LSD factory's waste pipe accidently plumbed into Boeing's water supply. Nice to see you back ☺

[@robertdragoff6909]

I think I saw a similar video on the same planes…. To solve the problem of takeoffs and landings, there was a version of this monstrosity where smaller planes like 747s and even Lockheed Galaxys docking to load and unload people and cargo to these behemoths. They maybe outrageous, but to me they’re kinda cool….

[@johnladuke6475]

I'm imagining taking that idea to the extreme. Don't just dock smaller planes to ferry cargo and lighten the load; simply _never land_ the giant monster. Keep it flying forever, cycling a route between cargo waypoints, with fleets of 747's bringing loads of cargo up and down.

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

​@@johnladuke6475at that point, go with the CL-1201, a nuclear powered super plane that would serve as America's back up plan if it somehow lost all its allies to Communism and had to power project exclusively from the mainland...

[@hfl7393]

Great video as always Rex, I'm looking forward to see a video of the Fiat C.R42 :)

[@zotfotpiq]

come on, Rex... we can make hovercraft landing gears happen!

[@greenseaships]

REX IS ALIVE! HE LIVES!!!!! in a new house :P

[@90lancaster]

+0:38 Gi Joe would so order at least 20 of those. I dig the double hull jumbo too.

[@The1Pope]

The more sane looking front loading cargo plane at the 1:33 mark was a proposed Boeing 754 specifically for Cargolux. It was a design based on the work of Texas born Vincent Burnelli. Could have easily been made with the technology of the time. Pretty simple, stable and profitable looking to me.

[@DADeathinacan]

Wait, it was proposed to use ACLG? Neat!

[@davydatwood3158]

Peacekeepers being solid-fueled rockets, the risk of a crash with a pair of them on board really wouldn't be any higher than any other aircraft crash - the most dangerous thing aboard is the jet fuel. The warheads themselves would be extremely unlikely to detonate - Hollywood notwithstanding, it's actually really hard to make a nuke actually work, and really easy to break them, so the main problem from the warheads would be the risk of radioactive material scattered across the crash site. I agree with the other comments saying "where would you land it," though - there's so many videos on KZbin of 787s and ever 747s clipping things with their wings, I can't imagine the airport that could accommodate this beast!

[@theemperorofmankind3739]

Considering how heavy they were and the speed. The biggest issue would be in a crash would likely be the kinetic energy of the thing on impact. Roughly a fully loaded 747 weighs about 400 tons being generous. And these things would likely being in the 10x weight, so you are looking at around 4 000 tons. Travelling at around 0.8mach. So roughly you in Kinetic Energy you would get around 150.5 Billion Joules. TNT is roughly 4.184 million Joules per kg. So this thing hitting the ground would be around 35 970 kg of TNT or in other words the largest non-nuclear explosive the GBU-43/B MOAB is around 11 tons of TNT equivalent; or just over three of them hitting an area. In short it would not only destroy whatever it hits but as you said it would burn everything on top of that.

[@davydatwood3158]

@@theemperorofmankind3739 You make a cromulent point - but that's something that would be a problem whether the thing was carrying missiles or potatoes. So the notion of putting PEacekeepers aboard still isn't all that crazy.

[@johnladuke6475]

I would like to try the drugs that the design team was on at the end. "So man, the thing is so huge that it might break landing gear, right? So what if we make it a _hovercraft_ and then it doesn't _need_ landing gear?!?"

[@lukecreamer8426]

This is technologically and industrially feasible today, but there's a lot of risk in putting a whole tank brigade in one aircraft in today's A2/AD environment. There are also operational flaws with the earlier design. It needs to take off and land vertically in unprepared airstrips, and have tons of guns for self defense against both missiles and fighters. Build *that* and we would have the US version of the Trade Federation Landing Ship from Star Wars, and Reagan would be proud.

[@laurencemoore2105]

Simply put - The Boeing design team's collective cheese dream.

[@drlong08]

This kind of aircraft will land everywhere....because you need that much room to do that.

[@90lancaster]

Chris is moving to a New "Hanger" to house all of his books.

[@kennethng8346]

Is anyone else reminded of the TV show The Thunderbirds on seeing some of these designs?

[@Steve-bw4oh]

Some of these concept planes are like. You want me to get on that?

[@Emdee5632]

0:25 Some of these designs do not seem out of place in an episode of The Thunderbirds.

[@drstevenrey]

Another thought: You are tickled pink because you get Gate 3, not 627, but with that wing span, gate 3 is still 7 miles away. :)

[@abitofapickle6255]

Video Suggestion: P-61

[@Simon_Nonymous]

7:52 why is there a toilet roll on one of the warheads? Otherwise, this is a great video. I have been drinking heavily for six hours, and I still think these concepts are completely bonkers. Well done Rex, glad the house move is complete, and you are back doing your thing!

[@theangrymarmot8336]

Some of those designs remind me of the StratoLaunch

[@Miko-yi5zw]

Imma build the pictures at the start when Flyout comes out

[@mechrob1]

those designs look like they would fit in a 31st Century Battlefield for conducting planetary assaults.

[@maciek_k.cichon]

My favorite type of paper planes. Paper bound.

[@t5ruxlee210]

Asking major air force contractors to design a complete flying army base is either the world's most expensive joke or 22nd century strategic genius anticipating practical anti gravity power systems.

[@effenbeezeetravel4474]

The air cusion system was used or is in use for landing on snow and ice !

[@YouTube_user3333]

Missiles being pulled out of a transport plane by a parachute for easy deployment.That sounds familiar 🤔😆

[@dmfraser1444]

Not the first time that the Feature Creep caused a project to die.

[@michaelleslie2913]

The project might have been cancelled, but it was nice of them to give the designs to Gerry Anderson for thunderbirds and captain scarlet 😂

[@Zbigniew_Nowak]

Messerschmitt Me 323 Gigant took people in empty spaces in the wings, this method was even used in fighters during the evacuation from Stalingrad, although, of course, this was not foreseen by the designers. By the way, when the Poles were building the PZL.37 Łoś bomber, they accidentally came up with a partially laminar wing precisely because the designer's task was to fit bombs inside the wings.

[@kbjerke]

Have you ever heard of a VTOL Avro Arrow? I saw the drawings and initial proposal paperwork. Thanks for your videos!

[@mpetersen6]

The Spanloaders. There was also a proposal to build freight aircraft to transport oil from the North Slope