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Have you hear about works on underground systems of tunnels for icbm? They are extremely expensive, but large networks seem nearly impossible to destroy. http

• sudosysgen 5y ago
  Sure, but ICBMs aren't airplanes.
  • simne 5y ago
    Technically, many planes could been used as ICBMs, from silo. For example, F-35 have needed capabilities. Other notable examples - Harrier and its relatives. Basically, all modern fighter jets are capable to start from catapult, some need additional gunpowder accelerators (also possible to use as brake). Landing is harder, for it need big enough runway, or some sort of aircraft carrier flight deck, or plane capable of vertical landing (some F-35 modifications are capable).
    • sudosysgen 5y ago
      An ICBM is typically at 2m in diameter. The F35B has a length of 15m. You will need even more margin due to vortices. This proposal is unfeasible. You will not be able to have a silo for each airplane. If you don't, it's again easier to destroy and impossible to rebuild.
      • simne 5y ago
        > An ICBM is typically at 2m in diameter. Yes and no. 1. Diameter of silo is much larger than diameter of ICBM, if used start from silo, because part of diameter used for exhaust. Only first ICBMs, use lift, so rocket lifted to surface, and practically started from platform on surface, not from silo. 2. Plane could also use lift. And many planes used on carriers, have folding wings, and they usually moving from storage to flight deck with folded wings, and unfold wings just before acceleration. Also plane does not need to move via vertical tube horizontally, it could been tied to some platform and turn to have smallest possible cross section. - Civil planes may be not strong enough for such maneuvers, but all navy fighters all perfectly fitted for this.
        • sudosysgen 5y ago
          I know that the silo has to be greater than the diameter of the object holding them. This is much more true for an airplane than for a missile. I know that planes have folding wings. The issue is the length, not the wingspan. That's why I quoted the length of the plane. None of those planes have folding nosecones. I am considering vertical takeoff. The maneuver you are suggesting would not work, because the airplane would stall unless you accelerated it to over 300km/h. To do this in an aircraft carrier, without having to worry about gravity, is already hard enough that you either need massive steam boilers or an extremely expensive EMALS system. These catapults cost around 800 million dollars, by the way. Accelerating a 30 ton object to hundreds of kilometers an hour in slightly more than a second is extremely expensive. If you were to do it any slower, you'd need your silo to be over a hundred meters deep. Then you have the issue of trying to prevent the airplane from crashing as its wings are unfolding. Without thrust vectoring, vertically, almost at stall speeds, there is little chance the tail will be able to handle the task.
          • simne 5y ago
            I'm sure now, you have not seen those drawings, what military planned to do with silo infrastructure. They planned to make constantly working build system, so would be tens more silo's than real ICBMs, and they planned to constantly move ICBMs, so nobody will know, in which silo now exists ICBM, and which is empty, and they planned to build silo's from underground, so they will open just before ICBM launch.