This airplane looks like some kind of nonsensical Zeon aircraft from The One Year War.
@bunny_jane What bugs the heck out of me is that I totally see what you mean but my engineering brain is like "no zeon craft would be half that sensible in design"
@elfi What's so unrealistic about flying tank turrets :)
This is the US's Project Astron from 1955. Stuff like this was leaked to the public as a form of psyop and made it's way into scifi shows like Gundam.
@bunny_jane @flateric better than a fixed-wing aircraft with a cannon on it :'D I'd still be impressed if this actually worked though
@elfi @flateric LOL yeah. I'm not saying Zeon's Magella tank is practical, just that it's realistic in the sense that it's realistic to expect militaries to build absolutely wild shit like that.
I don't know if the U.S. ever built a full Astron tank, but vehicles very similar to the turret part were built and flown. They were determined to be impractical for mass production.
@bunny_jane @flateric I'd love to see the prototype for sure if they ever showed it off
@elfi @flateric This looks like it's related to the turret. Like maybe they saw this and were like "lets put it on a tank."
Or maybe it was being developed for the Astron.
Or maybe it was developed for the Astron and then they were like "the tank treads are just for show" and got rid of the tank part.
@bunny_jane @elfi do youDo you want somwthing,.
@bunny_jane I still boggle at FLYING TANK TURRETS