Boeing Gets Patent On Drone That Turns Into A Sub

looks cool but it seems odd that it would need to detach it's wings upon entering the water. It would be even more cool if it could somehow take off again.

This seems almost more like the design of a guided cruise missile (one time use, so things like shedding fins wouldn't matter), though I guess these days anything is a "Drone".
 
A patent eh? So that means it's more easier for China to copy the designs
 
What if I told you that you could just make an underwater drone and launch it from a sub.
 
So when the Malaysian airlines go down they can float around for a while?

... too soon?
 
looks cool but it seems odd that it would need to detach it's wings upon entering the water. It would be even more cool if it could somehow take off again.

This seems almost more like the design of a guided cruise missile (one time use, so things like shedding fins wouldn't matter), though I guess these days anything is a "Drone".
Two reasons:
1. wings add lift, completely negating its ability to dive in the water. The bernoulli effect will still work underwater.
2. The wings themselves add negligible drag in the air, but the increased surface area under water will increase drag and make the thing slower than a snail.

Tearing away and leaving the symmetrical wing root for directional stability underwater is a simple compromise.
 
So thy take a 7th grader's drawing and patents it. Then wait for others to produce one and call dibs on profits once it becomes possible.


Nice.
 
Two reasons:
1. wings add lift, completely negating its ability to dive in the water. The bernoulli effect will still work underwater.
2. The wings themselves add negligible drag in the air, but the increased surface area under water will increase drag and make the thing slower than a snail.

Tearing away and leaving the symmetrical wing root for directional stability underwater is a simple compromise.

How about folding the wings into the structure before driving into water and then they can be reused for flying again or even take off from water.

Maybe I should patent it.
 
Definitely the new prototype for Malaysian Airlines.

A lot of possibilities though. Some sort of quick reaction, reusable sonar buoy/torpedo would seem plausible. Maybe some underwater tourism setup, but doesn't seem cost effective.
 
One of their competitors is probably building a drone/plane that has breakaway wings in case of a water crash to enable recovery of the drone and they want a piece of this action.
 
The biggest issue I would have in something like this is that in the air you need an air frame that's as possible and just strong enough to not tear apart, underwater you need a frame that is beefy and strong enough to resist crushing forces from all around. Those two types of frames are not similar, so if you make an airplane than can dive you're making a shitty airplane, or a dangerous sub. I feel it's like the flying cars prototypes we've seen, sure they can drive like a car and fly, but they really don't do either particularly well.
 
Looks like panels on top of the body. My guess is that after the mission is completed, it hits the water when it is out of fuel, then uses solar power to drive through water to return to wherever. Recycled with new wings and ready to go again.
 
"Hey guys, this shitty drone's wings keep falling off, we have to axe the product."
"Screw that. Call it a submarine transformer, patent it, sell it to the Pentagon for $100B!"
 
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