Oct 312014
 

All I have on this: a 1970 design by the German aircraft firm HFB (Hamburger Flugzeugbau) for a “flying panzer.” Clearly it’s an armored car with jet propulsion and vertical lift capability; I would assume that this is only capable of extremely limited flight for such things as hopping rivers, trenches, minefields, battlefield debris and other such tasks. Basically, the vehicular equivalent of the Bell “flying belts” or “jetpacks” which were popularized in the 1960;s, but which were too cumbersome, expensive and far too short-duration to be of any real practical value.

Still: “Flying Panzer.”

1970 HFB flying panzer

The vehicle is depicted in the foreground hopping over anti-tank obstacles and in the background crossing a river. Note that it appears to have a rudimentary skirt system; if those wheels could be drawn up above the skirt, this would make it capable of operating as a hovercraft. This would allow it to “fly” over the surface of a river much more economically than on pure jet lift. I have no idea if this was a serious design effort or just artistic doodling.

 Posted by at 4:43 am

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