my initial, uneducated reaction when i recently discovered that at one time an inflatable aeroplane existed and had been flown by humans was for my testes to shrink rapidly and then retreat towards my spine. i put it down to the bad rap that inflatables have had in the past. you say ‘inflatable aircraft’, i think ‘hindenburg‘, plus i’ve seen a lot of balloons pop for no apparent reason.



obviously the u.s. army had brains, thought differently and in the 1950s asked goodyear’s aerospace subsidiary to look into the possibility of building an inflatable aircraft. they duly responded with the inflatoplane, an aircraft with rubber fueselage and wings which, when deflated and folded-up, could fit into a relatively tiny 5ft² container.



2 different models (one single-seater and one double-seater) were developed and the idea was to have them carried on rescue planes and trucks in warzones, ready to be dropped near soldiers in need of a sharp exit. once the container was opened, an air compressor would inflate the plane in 5 minutes using less pressure than that of a car tyre. the propeller was then attached and the engine started by hand.



the inflatoplane could even continue flying should the rubber be pierced by a couple of .38 calibre bullets, however the project came to a halt in the early 70s following a death during a test flight (a stray cable ultimately led to a wing folding up, only to be chopped up by the propeller) and the realisation that the inflatoplane wasn’t that easy to start - an obvious problem during a supposedly rapid escape.



so now we’re without inflatable planes. such a shame.

however, while we’re on the subject of quick rescues i just want to mention an escape carried out by the caped crusader himself in the dark knight (a film which still to this day amazes me after seeing it a couple of weeks ago). for those who haven’t seen the film, don’t read on unless you don’t care about twists being ruined.

there’s an incredibly nifty scene where we see batman kidnapping lau from within a skyscraper, using a device called a skyhook. if you were as easily impressed by that scene as me you’ll be pleased to know that christopher nolan didn’t actually pluck that invention from the air - the skyhook exists.



although i’m pretty sure no-one’s managed to pull off an escape as effortlessly as batman did, the ‘fulton surface-to-air recovery system’ has been used as recently as 2001 to rescue a british soldier in afghanistan, and the principle is exactly the same as was shown in the film. there’s a pretty good wiki page about the system here. check out the clip below of the skyhook in action.



sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6