best gearbox available for high torque big prop Giant cargo plane

by Michael Cook
(Kent, Washington)

I am designing a heavy-lifter seaplane for use in disaster relief situations where supplies are desperately needed on devastated shorelines and long, hard runways are distant and unable to handle the volume of relief supplies.

The concept I propose is a split hull blended wing body design with six of the largest GE engines available (over 100,000 hp each.) The wingspan would be 12 ft, which is slightly less than the Hughes Spruce Goose.

The rear of the fuselage will have features of the Chance Vought 5FU VSTOL "Flying Pancake," the Boeing X-48 blended wing body, and the Russian surface effect design called "the Black Sea monster" which basically mounted a lot of engines on the top wing of a bi-plane with short wingspans on upper and lower wings.

The proof of concept model will be 1:10 scale and will probably have to weigh close to 100 lbs. I calculate the model will have to begin hydroplaning at 15 mph and may have to reach 25 mph to take off. Seaplanes typically take a lot of power to get out of the water--the Russian designs actually shut down most of their motors after takeoff.

It may be feasible to use R/C electric boat propellers to get the model up to 20 mph or so, then transition to the airplane props.

My question(s) is this: are there brushless electric motors with enough power that six of them have a hope of getting so much weight airborne? Is there a propeller available with the modern turboprop design of many smaller blades? Shorter blades means the props can spin much faster and maybe I can get by without gearboxes? check out cookaerospace.com for pix