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This is the ultimate cargo plane.

It has no fuselage and can carry huge oversized cargo like an american pickup truck, It was designed to Switch to military operations in a heart beat, and was even able to load nearly 200 passengers - sometimes even not at the gate!

And best yet, it was cheaper than any other equivalent plane of its time.

But this strange concept was never built, and left us scratching our heads why. It's time to meet the Lockheed Flatbed!

The name Lockheed Flatbed is the give-away - this was to be a cargo plane with a flatbed or open cargo section.

Yip, we’re talking an open cargo floor, much like a flatbed road transporter or rail carriage, except this one would be airborne.

So, on this aircraft there’s no actual fuselage as one would normally see on a cargo plane.

According to the Lockheed design, the flatbed or open-air section would be used to haul cargo containers, outside vehicles or machinery. In fact, most of the cargo would be housed in removable modules,

much like the huge containers stacked on the cargo ships that ply the world’s oceans.

Importantly, the Flatbed design also allowed for passengers on board, who would be sat in a removable module. The passenger module could be the same size as the cargo hold area or fairing.

These modules could be uploaded and unloaded as a single unit, whereby they’d slide forward off the bed or deck of the open cargo area onto or from a special-purpose truck.

The aircraft would be designed to sit low to the ground, allowing loading trucks to drive up to the aircraft and push loads onto the cargo deck.

Parallel I-beams would be used as the primary load-carrying structure for the cargo hold, atop which metal sheeting would ensure a smooth walking surface.

As with most cargo aircraft, the Flatbed would have rollers in the cargo hold that would allow loads on pallets to be rolled on and off with ease.

The Lockheed Flatbed was designed to deal with instances of when a plane “masses out” before it “bulks out”.

This essentially refers to when a plane reaches its maximum take-off weight or MTOW before the cargo bay’s volume is at capacity. It is a huge headache for the cargo industry and military alike, which is why Lockheed went full steam ahead with this design.

Importantly, Lockheed’s design could work as both a flying flatbed and a closed cabin, as needed.

Some of the applications proposed included:
Flat bed operations, carrying both outsized civil cargo
And outsized military cargo, such as tanks
As well as unpressurised intermodal containers from trains
Pressurised containers, both outside and inside a cocoon

And as mentioned, passengers.
These passengers could be loaded conventionally at the airport gate, or just the model could be rolled up on a truck, then loaded onto the plane later.

Passengers woul;d have been in a 3 dash 3 layoutout, with 20 seats in first and 160 in coach. Typical of a boeing 737 today.

For airports that lacked ramp facilities, the plane could actually carry its own ramp to unload huge loads, as well protection against storms and sand.

Nevertheless, there were of course adverse aerodynamics to the Lockheed Flatbed design, due to it carrying cargo in the open, since an open section to an aircraft at altitude results in aerodynamic compromise.

But Lockheed estimated that this would be a smaller penalty than having a big, bulky cabin when flying a half-empty aircraft.
Some experts have pointed out that Lockheed’s concept would probably have required specialised loading facilities and equipment, such as loading ramps and loading cranes.

This would have escalated the cost of the Flatbed cargo plane, making it more expensive to operate compared with the more standard way in which other cargo planes,

such as the Hercules, Globemaster and Galaxy, are able to load and off-load their cargo.

Then there is the small matter of cargo integrity, which is industry lingo for making sure that the cargo remains intact whilst in transit.

It’s not a stretch to imagine cargo exposed to the elements at high altitudes may be in constant danger of becoming detached and flying off.

It would seem that very heavy or oddly-shaped components and equipment would be more difficult to maintain fastened down during flight in an open-air configuration.

Let's explore why it was never built.