Convair HST, 1966

hypersonic, jetliner, transports 1 Response »

Nov 062012

In the mid 1960s, supersonic transports were just around the corner. And the trends in aviation development showed the aircraft designers and air travel planners that hypersonic transports were less than two decades away. Consequently, all the major aircraft designers in the US devoted effort to designing passenger transports that could carry paying customers at Mach 5 or greater. But a combination of politics (the OPEC oil embargo as well as a wider economic downturn, as well as largely trumped-up ecological concerns) and technological issues managed to assure that SSTs were never developed beyond the Concord stunt. And if a jetliner couldn’t get to Mach 1, it surely couldn’t get to Mach 5.

But in 1966, these issues were not yet seen, so Convair was busy designing a whole range of hypersonic transports. They might have missed out on the first generation of SSTs, but they were not going to miss out on the HSTs.

Scramjet artwork

hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, spaceplane, transports No Responses »

Oct 092012

A piece of NASA-Langley artwork describing the future of aeropropulsion… the scramjet engine. The provenance on the art is hazy at best… found in the uncatalogued collection of a former Langley engineer, it probably dates to the mid 1960’s. The aircraft illustrated here has been seen from the early 1960s up into the late 1980s, so that at best brackets the art. The aircraft has been used as a hypersonic transport and as the first stage of a space launch system. As shown here, the model used was *probably* a wind tunnel model repainted and repurposed as a display model… none of the diagrams I’ve seen of it have included the “hump” on the underside of the aft expansion ramp. Most likely that’s the connection point for the support “sting” for tunnel use. Alternatively, it *could* represent a fairing for a rather sizable rocket engine, though that seems unlikely… during scramjet operation the hump would not only mess with exhaust flowfields, it would also be subjected toa whole lot of thermal unpleasantness.

Anatomy of the SST

jetliner, transports No Responses »

Sep 062012

From an ebay auction, a 1966 Boeing cutaway drawing of the early swing-wing version of the 2707 SST. While the wing would have made low speed flight, in particular takeoffs and landings, more efficient and comfortable, the technology of the time would have made the wing pivot and associated systems simply too heavy and complex for a commercial system such as this. Thus the final 2707-300 SST did away with the variable geometry wing.

But damn if it wasn’t sexy.

Photo of display models (from this auction)

Supersonic flying wing: video

future projects, jetliner, transports No Responses »

Sep 032012

A followup to this. This seems to raise more questions than it answers… there are only two rather small engines, which would seem insufficient to drag this thing to Mach 3, especially being up above the fuselage in a lower pressure recovery region. The wing is necessarily thick and draggy, but it looks *really* thick and draggy.

[youtube bmzsyNeUrCQ]

Supersonic Flying Wing

bomber, future projects, jetliner, transports No Responses »

Aug 302012

NASA has just signed a small ($100 K) study contract for a “ninja star” shaped jetliner. It would be a pointy cruciform in plan view; at low speed the longer axis would be the wing and at high speed the shorter axis would be the wing. To accomplish this, the jet engines would need to rotate 90 degrees.

Supersonic Flying Wing Nabs $100,000 from NASA

This is not an entirely new idea. In the 1970’s Boeing studied a similar concept… supersonic aircraft with single-pivot rotating wings that would present long wings for low speed and short wing for high speed.

And it goes back even further. in 1963, former German aircraft designer Richard Vogt filed a patent via Boeing for a “TWO POSITION VARIABLE SHAPED WING” based on the same idea. The patent drawings seem to show a supersonic transport.

Bell Fold-Rotor Concept Model

transports, VTOL No Responses »

Aug 232012

A photo of a Bell Fold-Rotor concept. The Fold-Rotor was a tiltrotor design that used the props for vertical flight and to get moving forward, but for high speed used other propulsion systems (in this case, the turboshaft engines mounted in the fuselage that drove the wingtip props would disengage and become straight turbojets), and the rotors would stop and fold back to reduce drag. It was an interesting idea, but it still had all the weight of a tiltrotor system, and then some, but with added complexity.

Boeing 733 artwork

jetliner, transports No Responses »

Aug 022012

An artists impression of one of the fairly vast number of SST designs put forward by Boeing under the designation “733,” which predated the “2707” designation. This one features angular delta wings and delta canards… and apparently no passenger windows. Dates from the early 1960’s.

Nuclear C-5

nukes, transports 6 Responses »

Jun 192012

A simple Nasa-Lewis concept from 1971 for a nuclear-powered subsonic transport aircraft, clearly based on the Lockheed C-5. No other data available.

Conroy “Virtus” Article

space shuttle, transports 1 Response »

Apr 302012

The Houston AIAA section has published a 4-page article I put together on the Conroy “Virtus,” a twin-fuselage heavy lift aircraft built from B-52 parts meant to serve as the Space Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. You can download it (in the March/April 2012 issue of Horizons) for free here:

http://www.aiaa-houston.org/Newsletter.aspx

Bell V-22 Artwork in Hi-Rez

hi-rez, transports, VTOL No Responses »

Apr 132012

Dates from the late 80’s or early 90’s.

You can download a 3 megabyte JPG file. The link to the JPG file is HERE. To access it, you will need to enter a username and password. The username: the first word in the body of the text on page 13 of APR issue V3N1. The password: the first word in the body of the text on page 21 of the same issue. Note that both are case sensitive.

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