The Walrus: the US Army contemplates building an aircraft the size of a football field

The Walrus program will develop an operational vehicle concept design and required breakthrough technologies and will conduct risk reduction demonstrations of these new technologies. Demonstrations will include flight tests of a Walrus Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) scaled aircraft.

A key goal of the Walrus program is to establish clear and credible solutions that provide confidence that earlier airship-era limitations will be overcome. In particular, an early focus of the program will be the investigation of advanced breakthrough technologies that will support the development of innovative lift and buoyancy concepts that do not rely on off-board ballast.

The Walrus operational vehicle (OV) is envisioned to have the primary operational task of deploying composite loads of personnel and equipment (for example, the components of an Army Unit of Action) ready to fight within six hours after disembarking the aircraft. Walrus will operate without significant infrastructure and from unimproved landing sites, including rough ground having nominal five-foot-high obstacles. It is intended to carry a payload of more than 500 tons 12,000 nautical miles in less than seven days at a competitive cost. Additionally, Walrus will be capable of performing theater lift and supporting sea-basing and persistence missions to meet a range of multi-Service needs.

During the program’s first phase, a 12-month analytical effort, the two contractor teams will conduct trade studies to determine which OV design concept most satisfies the operational tasks and optimizes design capability. Phase I will explore various vehicle configurations (rigid, non-rigid and semi-rigid), and will conclude with a concept design review of the OV and the supporting technology development plan for risk reduction demonstrations including the ATD vehicle.

DARPA will select one contractor team to enter the second phase, which will be a demonstration effort spanning three years. During phase II, the program will refine the OV design needs, identify the OV’s potential military utility through modeling and studies, develop breakthrough technologies, and conduct risk reduction demonstrations of components and subsystems, including flight demonstration of the ATD vehicle. The risk reduction demonstrations, including the ATD vehicle, will establish a low-risk technology path for proving the Walrus concept and achieving the operating goals.

Accordingly, the WALRUS will probably be shaped more like a flat, lifting body as depicted in the images from the accompanying DARPA briefing slides.

The up-side for society

One of the companies in the mix to get funding for development of the Walrus was Millenium Airship Inc – a company whose primary goal is to design, engineer, build, market, support and operate the world's first heavy-lift air vehicle that is: lighter-than-air , all-weather , amphibious, semi-rigid, multi-mission and hybrid. Millenium Airship missed out on the funding but articulated the benefits to society of such an airship very well.

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