The Insane Nuclear Powered Flying Tug - Pulls C-5s Across The Atlantic

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This aircraft design was so powerful, it could drag two fully loaded c-5 galaxy aircraft around the world. It would allow unmatched military transportation and thanks to its nuclear reactor, would make jet fuel obsolete. This was the Lockheed Nuclear Tug and it planned to change aviation forever - but it was never built and today, all we know are rumors.

The US military had a problem in the late 70s. They needed to keep their many overseas bases supplied, and needed rapid deployment of home-based soldiers. They used a world-spanning network of aircraft and ships, but this was rather inefficient and cost billions to operate. So thinkers got to work on a new solution and stumbled upon the idea of using a system of tugs to move heavy cargo in the air.

While research done at the time showed no improvement to aircraft design with a tug and glider model - essentially it made more sense to just put engines on the glider, turn it into a plane, and do normal flights instead, BUT there were advantages in other ways.

namely, a tug and mission plane system would extend the capability of an existing aircraft fleet, at less cost than acquiring a new type of aircraft. the plan of using a tug, and dragging an existing aircraft over the ocean, would be cheaper than finding new ways to extend the range of existing aircraft. The air force could keep its bombers and transport planes, with the range extended by a cheaper-to-build single tug.

And what if this tug was to use a fuel source that made it have... infinite range. Such, as Nuclear power.

The ATOM, the wonderful power source of the last century was back, and this time to be used with the tug-and-plane model. With a reactor, the tug would have almost unlimited range and endurance, running out of food and water for the crew before it would run out of fuel. It would have little application in commercial civil operations but would pay dividends in the military. It would allow increased transport of military supplies around the world, and could even be retrofitted to carry and perhaps launch ICBM missiles - much like the later nuclear ICBM 747 project that we have featured on the channel already right here.

The other huge advantage of a nuclear tug, instead of putting a nuclear reactor in a plane like the C-5, was the problem of take-off power. By making the nuclear aircraft the tug instead of the mission aircraft, it would free up the C-5 Galaxy mission aircraft to carry only fuel for its take-off, climb, descent, and landing - plus a little for reserve.

The nuclear-tug design shown here has a gross weight of 2 million pounds or 900,000 KG; of which, 40 percent would be the reactor. The plane would be a seaplane, giving it the flexibility to land at any port in the world, and would fly only over water. If it were to fly over land, the design would have to include protection for the reactor in the event of a crash, entailing a heavier weight penalty. By being a seaplane, the reactor shell could be much thinner.

Once up in the air, the tug would be able to drag two Lockheed C-5 Galaxies over any ocean at cruise speeds. It would connect to them via long cable that would allow the C-5s to glide outside of the wake of the plane - something that would require complex wind tunnel studies, and tap into the power supply of the plane. Once arriving at the destination, the tug would disconnect and return home, with the C-5 galaxies full of fuel and ready to move onwards.

There was also a study into civil applications of this technology, to see if passengers would use the concept to cross between new york and London. In this case, it made economical sense for the tug to not land at either and simply drag the commercial planes, in this case, 747s, over the north Atlantic tracks two at a time, as long as crew replacement requirements would permit. The study concludes that while 747s would be good, a new aircraft would be required to truly take advantage of this concept.

Alas, there are a few good reasons why this aircraft was never built.

For one, the nuclear technology was nowhere near ready for such an application. Nuclear reactors at the time were heavy and there were concerns about a fission plane crashing or having a malfuncion and polluting half the world's ocean.

Lastly, Any nuclear reactor would have a marginal advantage over a more fuel efficient plane developed in the future and in the end it seems that the military went with just better plane engine technology. Like all things, the endless march of time makes the vision of the future obsulte before it even got its chance.

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