Surely if it's going to be spending most of the time in the air and above us in the sky and camouflage is an issue then blue/white would be more appropriate than the sandy colours shown on the thing in the photo?

It is probably cheaper to just let the front line troops die and send in new ones to replace them.

Theres enough bieng born every day for this idea to work.

Saving millions in development costs and getting rid of the excess "American Poor" into the bargin

...Schmind Tunnel Test.

I can do "wind tunnel tests" on any old tat made from balsa wood, yogurt pots and sticky tape. And a nice powerpoint slide.

Can I have £50 million, please?

It probably will fly about as well as a genuine Humvee.

With a payload of 180kg, the word "repeatedly" is well used in this context. You'd need a never-ending stream of the bloody things waffling back and forth to keep the logistics under control.

Also, "Humvee of the sky"? To qualify here it would need to carry five or six fully equipped troops and mount a machine gun on the roof. The monicker "Chocolate teapot of the sky" would seem more appropriate here.

This all way too reminiscent of the Avrocar project. The US military went all starry-eyed over the idea of their troops dropping into combat from miniature flying saucers and shovelled money into Avro, until it became apparent to anyone with more than a passing interest that it was never going to do anything that a helicopter couldn't do better already (like flying for example).

Gee, Mr Tracey

The picture only shows the top, so it makes sense for it to blend in with the ground. The underside could well be blue and white.

So, they've managed to create something that can reach the battle in a third of the time it takes a helicopter while managing to combine it with the payload capabilities of a bloke with a wheelbarrow?

Surely the only use for this is to draw fire whilst the guys on the ground wait for the real helicopter - you know, the device which can hover over an area, land, unload a hell of a lot more than 180kg supplies and then load up about a dozen soldiers for the trip back to base.

The point of any of these projects is to get funding. It does not have to work in the real world, it does not have to give the troops an advantage. It just needs to impress the holders of purse strings.

It looks like a texture file you can download for free at www.renderosity.com

And the way the UVmapping of the model doesn't quite work is also suggestive.

For all the fair wits who actually design aircraft, you can get more information from their website at www.frontlineaerospace.com It's indeed in early design, but it looks like a good innovation to meet military-defined resupply objectives. I'm not in favor of the suggestion that we simply let 'em die and send out more, unless it's that poster's family, not mine. The problem now is that to get the same amount of critical supplies like food, water, ammo to fellows under fire, it does indeed take a long time, with convoys of lorries or HUMVEEs, hitting IEDs and getting drivers captured. Yes, the literature says this means lots of quick sorties but at much lower risk. Not sure why the article says "most" aviation analysts question it. Of several websites I've searched to get more information, only one from a credentialed source is snide, and there is a reasonable reply. We'll see if it ever flies. It looks designed for a specific function, not to be pretty.

All mujaheddeen will need to do after spotting that thing in the air is to watch it until it comes to a hover then fire their mortars at the place.

Alternatively they can just shoot it down at that point, happy at the thought of it crushing on the heads of GI's it was meant to resupply...