On 17 Dec 2003 05:35:42 GMT, Stan Gosnell me@work wrote:

Charles Gray wrote in
:

The conceptual art for the gunship designs had them
hovering to
launch their ordanance, and one conception had the rotors
interfering with the underwing gunpods in horizontal
flight.
So, I wonder if the intended use of the design was to
use the
horizontal flight as a dash and transit mode, and then
quickly transition to Vertical hover to fire thier
ordanance before dashing off somewhere else.


The rotors wouldn't interfere with the guns in horizontal
flight. The ability to fire through the propellor was invented
in WWI. It's trivial to do it now.

Well the gun was an underslung turret much like the cobra-- the
underwing hard points appeared to be either TOWS, or Hellfire
missiles-- since the design was a mid-1970's, early 1980's, they might
have been artist conceptions of hellfires, or one of the other ATGM's
that never actually made it to service.
If they're not wire guided, I could see dropping for a short
distance before the moter engaged, thus clearing the roters, but for
anything like unguilded 2.75 rockets or wire guided missiles, it
wouldn't be so easy.