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With the ability to transport an Army brigade of 3,000 troops and 7 and a half thousand tons of equipment within ninetysix hours, this colossal aircraft design would have put America’s army right on the world front door.

And it couldn’t be built fast enough, with the pentagon ramping up design to deliver a fleet of aircraft by the end of 2020.

Its 500foot wingspan would make it the largest military transport in the world, regulating the Antonov 225 to look like a regional jet, but the accountants at Boeing thought why stop there? They came up with grand plans to change commercial and cargo aviation as well.

But it never happened, and the year 2020 came and went without the ULTRA plane gracing our skies.

This is the story of the Pelican Super Transport!

Design work on the Pelican Super Transport plane began at Boeing Phantom Works in 2000.

The brief from the United States military was fairly straightforward: design a plane large enough to transport thousands of troops, weapons, military equipment and other needed provisions during wartime or at the height of battle as fast as possible.

By way of comparison, one performance standard that the military demanded would be the ability for the aircraft to deploy an Army brigade of 3,000 troops and 7,300 tons of equipment within ninetysix hours, or four days max. compared to the 91 to 183 days, or three to six months, that would normally be required to move those numbers of troops and equipment.

Interestingly, the Boeing Phantom Works team considered at least three different possibilities:
the first was a large blimp or dirigible airship, the second a smaller but wider airship that created dynamic lift while in forwarding motion, and the third a larger airship with wings spanning 700 feet or 213 metres that would fly at low altitude. They were all rejected. Also rejected by the team at Boeing were ideas for a fast oceangoing ship and a seabased vehicle with ground effect.

Boeing Phantom Works then settled on a ground effect landbased aircraft that would form the basis for the giant Pelican super transporter.

It’s important to note that the Pelican was not designed for contact with bodies of water, which meant it could not take off or land on any body of water.

Instead, it was designed to be lighter and more aerodynamic than other large planes of the seaplane variety.

This is because the Pelican was able to exit ground effect to climb a few thousand feet and thus enter into its descent like other aircraft.

The Pelican’s wingspan therefore allowed the aircraft to fly beyond ground effect.

This ‘beyond ground effect’ capability of the Pelican was unlike other massive ground effect aircraft such as the Soviet Union’s Ekranoplan or Caspian Sea Monster, which could only fly at low altitudes in order to maintain constant ground effect due to its relatively narrow wingspan.

The Pelican would spend most of its time flying at between 20 feet and 50 feet, or roughly six to 15 metres, above the surface, although it would have the allimportant ability to cruise at up to 20,000 feet or 6.100 metres in order to avoid terrain and loweraltitude inclement weather.

These specs included:
1. a 500foot or 152 metre wingspan
2. a wing area of over one acre, which is 43,560 square feet or 4,047 square metres
3. A maximum takeoff weight or MTOW of 6 million pounds or 2.7 million kilograms, or 2,700 metric tons. That is equal in weight to 7andahalf fullyloaded Boeing 747s!
4. a payload of 1,270 tons of cargo
6. The ability to move the equivalent of 17 M1 Abrams tanks

This ground effect factor was a big selling point for the military. As Deborah BeronRawdon, the head of strategic development within Boeing Phantom Works, said at the time: “The Pelican is landbased, and that's where we are garnering most military support. It seems to have gained a lot of traction recently within the Defense Department. Whether or not there is a civil interest, our focus is on a military version for strategic deployment.”

By the way, the Pelican was conceptually very simple: it was a massive, conventional wingbodytail cantilevered monoplane, whose payload would be carried in standard seagoing containers inside the enormous, unpressurised fuselage.

The cavernous hull would be able to fit containers twodeep on the main deck, which would also be able to carry outsized vehicles, such as the military's large battle tanks.

An upper deck could be used to store a further single layer of containers. In short, the Pelican was to be a glorified hulk of a cargo plane.