Laurein C10M Atlas

Laurein C10M Atlas
A C10M2 of the Meridonian Air Forces on approach to landing
Role	Strategic airlifter
National origin	Meridon
Manufacturer	Laurein Aircraft Company
First flight	2 July 1971
Introduction	3 June 1972
Status	In active service
Primary user	Meridonian Air Forces
Produced	1969-present
Number built	81

The Laurein C10M Atlas is a large Meridonian military transport aircraft, designed and produced by Laurein Aircraft Company. Designed to meet a requirement of the Meridonian Air Forces to deliver and deploy outsized cargo and high payloads, the C10M design proposed by Laurein won a lengthy competition for such a design primarily due to the fact that a large amount of components to be used on the design were already in development or production for the airline's L110 airliner, reducing overall costs. A small number of C10M aircraft have been built and sold to civil cargo transport companies, although sales of these nature were prohibited after 1987.

The C10M was designed to be able to carry all air-certifiable cargo in the inventory of the Meridon Defense Forces, including main battle tanks, outsized loads, and heavy industrial machinery. It is also capable of conducting parachute drop operations of cargo and airborne infantry.

The C10M3 is a recently overhauled version of the aircraft designed to extend its service life until at least 2050, pending the fielding of a replacement airframe. The few civilian variants of this aircraft that exist are designated as C/L-110M, of which at least five are known to be actively flying as of 2022.

Design

A view of the civilian L110 aircraft, with which the C10M shares a large amount of commonality in parts and design.

The C10M was born out of a defense white paper in 1965 that found that the Meridonian Air Force's Air Transport and Sustainment Command (ATSC) with its current fleet of C8M Pecheron and TBD aircraft would not be capable of conducting the projected airlift missions of the future, which required higher payload capacity and the ability to rapidly transport and deploy outsized cargo around the world. Particularly, both the Army and Navy were in need of an aircraft that could rapidly deliver large quantities of defensive fortification materials and patrol boats, respectively.

A request for information and bids was issued by the Defense Forces in 1966, with 2 companies responding to the bid- Lanceair and Laurein. Lanceair's design, designated the LC-202 was a fresh-sheet build, and was intended to be their most significant aircraft building project of large size after they had made some initial success with their midsize airline jets. Laurein's bid was based off of it's then in-development L110 airliner, among the largest in the world at the time. The initial design shared nearly 65% parts commonality with the design of the L110, with the C10M requiring reinforced landing gear, additional control surfaces and a different fuselage.

The selection of the C10M over the Lanceair bid was highly contentious. While the LC-202 promised increased performance in nearly every aspect, it was deemed high-risk by the Air Forces both due to the large amount of untested hardware to be used in developing the aircraft, as well as Lanceair's lack of experience in building very large aircraft. It was also deemed less cost-effective, owing to both this complexity of design and start-up costs involved with the procurement and establishments of facilities needed to produce the aircraft. Lanceair, who had invested a significant amount of resources into the project, sued the Defense Forces accusing them of favoritism. While the Defense Forces settled out of court, the incident was a financial disaster for Lanceair, who ultimately abandoned their production of airliner jets due to these losses.

The C10M benefitted greatly from work already performed on the development of the L110, and the first example, serial number 42-1102, was rolled off of the production line almost 2 months in advance of the estimated time. Initial production L110 equipment, however, was found to be unsuitable to the stresses of military work and subsequent examples underwent modifications, particularly to the wing joints and engines.

The C10M is a high-winged, 4-engine aircraft with its elevator and vertical stabilizers in a traditional format. It shares common design of the engines, wings, and most control surfaces with the L110, with the wings having additional reinforcements, spoilers and speed breaks to facilitate improved short-field capabilities. Its fuselage has ramp doors at both ends, with the rear door folding down to provide a ramp and the front door movable on a hinge that opens to the aircraft's right, with a retractable ramp deploying from the front bay. It features seven passenger doors, three per side on the cargo bay and one on the left side of the fuselage on the upper passenger bay. Above the large cargo bay door is a seating area that has room for 62 passengers in a rear-facing configuration. Propulsion is provided by four Merrigo GA-1100M high bypass turbofan engines, which are modified versions of the engines used on the L110 featuring a more powerful reverse thrust system and better optimization for operation in hot and high environments. With the C10M3 upgrade in the mid 1990s, these were replaced with Merrigo C424M turbofans which improved performance in all areas, but most particularly in the availability of thrust on takeoff and landing.

Civilian variants, designated as the C/L-110M were developed by utilizing the C10M's fuselage and the L110's wings and control surfaces, which was conceived by Laurein as an additive revenue source while additional reconfigurations were made to prepare the L110 airliner for full-scale release. However, a massive scandal ensued when one of these aircraft was detained at a foreign airport and found to still have proprietary military technology installed on the airframe, most notably an uplink terminal to a secure military communications channel. The scandal saw a wave of arrests both in Laurein and the Air Forces, and the Meridonian Senate voted to ban Laurein from producing any additional C/L-110M models in February of 1987. This ruling resulted in the scrapping of at least two models of the aircraft in production.

The C10M2 upgrade was a mid-life optimization program for the models which saw the addition of multi-function displays, an upgraded autopilot system, and the upgrade of some control surfaces. The C10M3 upgrade series, conducted from the mid 1990s to 2007, saw the entire C10M fleet upgraded to feature modern avionics, a heads-up display similar to that in use in the C12M Kalua, improved engines, and replacement of the wings and parts of the fuselage with stronger and lighter variants. The engines were replaced with Merrigo C424M engines, that provided a substantial increase in takeoff and landing thrust.

Upgraded cockpit as seen in a C10M3 model.

Variants

C10M

Initial operational variant, first supplied to the Meridonian Air Forces in 1971. About half were upgraded to C10M2 standard by 1992, where the entire fleet was then upgraded to C10M3 standard by 2007.

C/L-110M

Civilian modified variant that utilized the fuselage of the C10M with the wings, control surfaces and engines of the L110M. Around 10 were produced when production was ordered to halt by the Meridonian Senate, with two of these airframes destroyed and scrapped as a result. At least five are known to be operational today.

C10M2

Enhancement program that saw improved avionics, an upgraded autopilot system, and the upgrade and replacement of some control surfaces. Roughly half of the C10M fleet was upgraded to this standard by 1992 when all variants of both C10M and C10M2 were upgraded to C10M3 standard.

C10M3

Comprehensive overhaul program conducted from the mid 1990s to 2007. Saw the replacement of flight deck instruments with modern multi-function displays, the installation of a heads-up display, replacement of the engines with Merrigo C424M turbofans, the replacement of the wings with lighter and stronger variants, and general performance improvements. All examples in the Meridonian Air Forces were upgraded to this variant by 2007.

Operators

Current Operators

• Meridon- TBD C10M3 in service with the Meridonian Air Forces.

Specifications (C10M3)

Airframe of the C10M as initially built and designed.

General Characteristics

• Crew: 7 standard (two pilots, two flight engineers, three loadmasters), 4 minimum (two pilots, two flight engineers)
• Length: 250 ft (76.2m)
• Wingspan: 220 ft 4 in (67.15 m)
• Height: 65 ft (19.8 m)
• Wing Area: 5650 sq ft (525 m2) wings only
• Empty Weight: 376,100 lb (170,596 kg)
• Max Takeoff Weight: 834,000 lb (378,296 kg)
• Powerplant: 4 × Merigo C424M high bypass turbofans
• Fuel Capacity: 60,000lb

Performance

• Maximum Speed: Mach 0.9
• Service Ceiling: 41,00 ft (12,496 m) +
• Rate of Climb: 2,000 ft/min plus (10 m/s)
• Thrust: 66,000 lbf (293 kN)