Project Axoxohuicoatl

Project Axoxohuicoatl
Role	Transport
Designer	NTT Program Special Design Unit Axoxohuicoatl
Status	Design study
Primary user	Zacapine Navy (projected)
Number built	None 1 testbed produced
Developed from	Aketzalli Proposal

Project Axoxohuicoatl is a Zacapine experimental design project seeking to create a prototype for a large nuclear-powered military ekranoplan which would function as an flying aircraft carrier. The design initiative is the responsibility of Special Design Unit Axoxohuicoatl, a temporary body of the NTT Program incorporating resources from the NTT 99, 97 and 75 design bureaus. The proposal for the large, expensive and highly unorthodox vehicle at the suggestion of the Zacapine Navy's aviation unit was nicknamed as the "beast of the seas" in the early proposal documents, resulting in the official designation of the design project, Axoxohuicoatl, meaning "Abyssal Serpent" in Nahuatl. The Special Design Unit Axoxohuicoatl was created on March 3rd, 2008, and has been officially developing the proposal since that time, although design interruptions and stoppages due to budgetary constraints have been unofficially acknowledged. To date, Project Axoxohuicoatl has cost less than a quarter of the total development expenses for Zacapican's most expensive single NTT initiative, the design of the Navy's Teomictiani aircraft carrier.

Background

The impetus for not only Project Axoxohuicoatl but a variety of related and ultimately canceled projects has been the Zacapine geopolitical desire to improve the military's power projection capabilities beyond those already available to the Navy and its carrier groups. The litmus test for these experimental military projection projects has been the hypothetical capability to relocate meaningful reinforcements from Zacapican to Malaio within a specified short period of time, often a 24 hour period but in some cases as short as a six hour period. This desire of Zacapine military planners addresses the Tonalcalaquiyan scenario, a hypothetical worst case scenario which planners frequently test against to gauge the readiness and strength of the Zacapine military in wargames and simulations. The Tonalcalaquiyan scenario and its many variations present a hostile Ozeros sea power, varying from a specific nation to an non-specific coalition of Ozeros states aligned against Zacapine interests in their home region, which launch a sudden and overwhelming attack against Zacapican. Certain variations of the scenario test the ability of near-Malaio forces of the Zacapine Navy and Marines to resist such an attack, but the majority presume the defeat of local forces which presents the immense logistical problem of waging a trans-oceanic war in which military forces must be moved from Oxidentale to Malaio, often penetrating hostile waters and conducting contested landings.

The desire to develop a high speed means of reinforcement or direct attack capable of traversing the Ooreqapi or the Makrian oceans in a matter of hours rather than the days it would take for a naval task force on a similar mission has generally led the military planners to request ever larger and more unorthodox aircraft designs, most of which have been conventional aircraft. The earliest such designs were variants of strategic bombers already in service with the similar function of striking targets in Malaio from air-bases in Zacapican or on Zacapine controlled mid-ocean islands. These initiatives yielded a variety of high capacity transport aircraft, some of which would later enter into active service, but none of which adequately addressed the problem of operating without a friendly airfield on which to land or having sufficient power to launch from a base in Zacapine territory, carry a heavy cargo to the target area and return to base. While some solutions such as aerial refueling were proposed, the direction of design ultimately fell on increasingly unorthodox nuclear-powered aircraft designs far exceeding the size and lift capacity of any existing aircraft. Project Axoxohuicoatl is only the latest attempt to finalize such a design capable of carrying and supporting reinforcements or an assaulting force across thousands of kilometers of open ocean to a target on the other side of the world within a short window of time.

Development

The development for what would eventually become Project Axoxohuicoatl began in the 1980s as the personal ambition of legendary and eccentric designer Micol Aketzalli, then director of the ekranoplan focused NTT 97 design bureau. Aketzalli had championed the development of the first military ekranoplans, the TC-14 and TC-26 already in service with the Zacapine naval aviation units. However, he remained unsatisfied and expressed a strong desire to push the revolutionary ekranoplan concept even further now that it had been proven by his earlier successful designs. This "culmination of the ekranoplan" as Aketzalli referred to it was to be a truly massive vehicle, easily rivalling the most modern Zacapine aircraft carriers of the time, yet outstripping them in top speed by nearly an order of magnitude. Aketzalli strongly believed that the ekranoplan represented the ultimate vehicle, more efficient than any aircraft, boat, hydrofoil, train or hovercraft, a potential that had not yet been realized but which Aketzalli believed would completely revolutionize transportation technology and by extension, human civilization. Although he was well respected as a brilliant engineering mind, Aketzalli's reputation as an eccentric and a substance abuser contributed to the wider Zacapine engineering establishment discounting his more ambitious proposals. Nevertheless, Aketzalli created a draft proposal for the truly massive ekranoplan vehicle he believed would change the face of the modern world, a draft which would go ignored for decades.

It wasn't until 2005, some 15 years after Micol Aketzalli's death, the lost draft was recovered and found its way into the initial proposal for Project Axoxohuicoatl. This followed the rejection of another design study proposing a truly colossal nuclear powered aircraft-carrier with a nearly 400 meter wingspan and nearly 200 turbofan and turbojet engines needed to power the craft, design features which emerged as a consequence of the absurd energy cost of keeping such a large and heavy vehicle airborne by conventional means. This critical flaw of the preceding project directly led to the unearthing of an ekranoplan-based alternative project, as an equivalently sized ekranoplan vehicle would require much less in-flight thrust to stay airborne and maintain similar speeds. It was then that the engineers and planners involved recalled that an ekranoplan of such a large size had indeed already been proposed nearly two decades prior by the late Micol Aketzalli. Significant alterations to the design to militarize it and adapt it to the specifics of the imagined function of the vehicle have been made, yet the basis for Project Axoxohuicoatl remains the original blueprint for the Aketzalli Proposal.

Design

Two different variants of the Axoxohuicoatl design have been drafted up by the Special Design Unit, designated O1 and O2. The O1 is the original transport craft, capable of being outfitted as a small aircraft carrier, and would be armed with only a modest compliment of cruise missiles for attacking surface combatants and land-based targets as well as an intricate air defense system to protect it from return fire. The O2 is an almost identical vehicle which sacrifices much of its storage space and its aircraft carrier capabilities in favor of a greatly increased array of weapons, transforming the craft into a mobile missile carrier comparable to missile carrier aircraft in role while having a significantly larger carrying capacity and operational range. Both designs would be built around a sodium-cooled fast-neutron nuclear reactor which would eliminate any restrictions to operational range from limited onboard storage capacity for propellant and main engine fuels.

The main challenged facing an ekranoplan-type vehicle of such an immense size as the Axoxohuicoatl would be getting the vehicle to the necessary flight speed to initiate the ground effect. Once harnessing this aerodynamic effect of flight close to the surface, the vehicle would require much less thrust to generate the necessary lift to stay aloft. However, truly massive amounts of energy would be needed to move and lift the vehicle in the initial stages of flight before the ground effect can come into play. The proposed solution to generate the massive amount of thrust needed for such an undertaking is the use of two modified rocket engines, designed and produced for the Zacapine MTC lunar program, which would be housed in the midsection of the craft behind the wings and would be used to provide all the forward and upward thrust necessary to launch the heavy vehicle by themselves. Once the vehicle is travelling fast enough over the water to enter into the ground effect, these rocket engines would shut off and the four main engines, two mounted near the nose of the craft and another two mounted on either side of the tail fin, would engage to provide all the thrust necessary to maintain flight. The four flight engines would be entirely electrical and run off of the onboard nuclear reactor, while the rocket engines would be powered by a limited reserve of highly refined kerosene and liquid oxygen. Fuel and oxydizer reserves for the rocket engines would be stored in separate units, each capable of powering one launch burn, with as many as four launches-worth of fuel and oxidizer being loaded aboard to re-launch the vehicle multiple times without refueling.

The proposed hull characteristics for Project Axoxohuicoatl call for the characteristics of a seaplane, intended to take off and land directly from the water. The main door to the interior spaces of the craft would be located at the nose, which would double as a loaded and unloading ramp. In a landing scenario, Project Axoxohuicoatl should be able to approach a beach, deploy its contents onto the beach, and pull itself back into the water to initiate its launch sequence using retro-thrust from its four main engines.