bomber – Page 14 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

US Bomber Projects #15, Transports #04, Launchers #02 Now Available

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Jul 082015

Now available… three new additions to the US Aerospace Projects series.

US Bomber Projects #15

USBP#15 includes:

Bell D2001: A 1957 eight-engined Bell VTOL strike plane for the Navy
Lockheed “Harvey”: AKA the Hopeless Diamond, Lockheeds first design for what became the F-117
Convair Model 35: An early push-pull concept for the B-36
Rockwell D661-27: A nuclear powered strategic bomber
Boeing Model 464-49: The penultimate major design in the development of the B-52
Boeing Model 988-123: A highly agile stealthy strike fighter
Boeing Orbital Bomber: An early concept for a Dyna Soar derivative with eight nukes
Boeing Model 701-251: A twin engined concept on the road to the XB-59

USBP#15 can be purchased for downloading for the low, low price of $4.25.

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US Transport Projects #4

USTP#4 includes:

Boeing Model 473-13: An early twin-engine jetliner
ICARUS Troop Transport: 1,200 marines, anywhere, anytime
Republic Model 10 SST: A little known SST competitor
Lockheed CL-593: A giant, if slow, logistics transporter
Boeing 763-059 NLA: A whole lotta passengers in one place
Fairchild M-534: A B-36 converted into a vast cargo carrier
Lockheed CL-1201: Probably the largest aircraft ever designed
Oblique All-Wing Supersonic Airplane: A supersonic variable-orientation flying wing

USTP#4 can be purchased for downloading for the low, low price of $4.25.

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US Launch Vehicle Projects #2

USLP#2 includes:

Juno V, 4 stage: An early design that became the Saturn rocket
Boeing “Space Freighter”: a giant two-stage spaceplane for launching solar power satellites
Boeing NASP-D: A rare look at an operational National Aerospace Plane derivative
LLNL Mockingbird: The smallest SSTO ever designed
Boeing Model 922-101: A fully reusable Saturn V
NAR Phase B Space Shuttle: a fully reusable two-stage concept
Martin Marietta Inline SDV: A Shuttle-derived heavy lifter
Scaled Composites Model 351: The Stratolaunch carrier aircraft

USLP#2 can be purchased for downloading for the low, low price of $4.25.

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Jun 272015

(Post in progress…)

Click on the images to bring up a larger version…

2015-06 APR Patreon Rewards are out

bomber, hi-rez, launch vehicles, nukes, Patreon, Recon, rockets, spacecraft, stealth No Responses »

Jun 272015

For APR Patrons, here’s what you now have available:

Documents: 2 General Electric reports on nuclear turbojets, *packed* with diagrams

Document: Mercury/Redstone booster recovery

Large diagram: 2 this time… “Long Tank Delta” space launch rocket and “Honest John” battlefield nuclear missile

CAD diagram: Convair “FISH,” 1958 configuration

If you’d like to access these and many others, or if you’d simply like to help the cause of recovering and making available forgotten aerospace ephemera such as this, please check out the APR Patreon page.

PDF Review (sorta): USS United States

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Jun 182015

The USS United States (CVA-58) was a supercarrier that was begun in 1948, but never finished. Even though the keel was laid, the actual layout of the final ship has always been pretty poorly defined in published sources. It would have been an angled-deck supercarrier of modern design, but with no island at all, just a flat deck. But diagrams of it have always been vague, unofficial or dubious.

Huzzah! The National Archives has a number of high-rez plans of the ship as designed in October 1947. Five diagrams of slightly differing study concepts are available; I’m not sure which – if any – most accurately depicts the ship as it was eventually to be defined.

CV-New Study Arrangement Plans

Here’s one of the diagrams… greatly reduced in size. See the National Archives page for the full-rez versions.

“City in Space” and TAV art

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Jun 172015

I have just uploaded 300 dpi-high-rez scans of two things to the APR Patreon “Extras” folder (2015-06 sub-folder):

1) An article from the May, 1956, issue of Popular Science, “Now They’re Planning A City In Space.” This article, illustrated with full-color paintings, describes the gigantic artificial gravity space station proposed by Darrell Romick of Goodyear Aircraft Company as part of the METEOR project. This space station is forward-thinking by today’s standards, and is challenged in scale only by the likes of the O’Neill space colonies.

2) A McDonnell-Douglas painting depicting a Trans Atmospheric Vehicle in orbit.

These items are available to all $4+ APR Patreon patrons, and were made possible by the support of APR patrons and customers. If you’d like to access these and many other extras, please check out the APR Patreon page.

“Hot Flight” NB-36 film

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Jun 052015

A Convair film about the NB-36H, a heavily modified B-36 bomber equipped with a nuclear reactor. The reactor was not hooked up to anything but instruments; all it did was sit there and give off radiation. Which was in fact the point of the exercise; the plane was an experiment in support of atomic powered aircraft, but the experiments were to see how crew, structure and instruments would stand up to the radiation environment produced by an airborne reactor.

General Dynamics AMPSS artwork

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May 042015

A piece of artwork from General Dynamics, circa 1963, illustrating their AMPSS (Advanced Manned Precision Strike System) design. This was a predecessor program to the AMSA (Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft – a.k.a. Americas Most Studied Aircraft) that was a predecessor to the B-1 program. The General Dynamics design shown here is very similar to (possibly the same as, though the engine arrangement and canopy frames look a little different) the design presented in US Bomber Projects issue #6, available here and here. This was much like a scaled-up F-111 in terms of overall configuration, especially visible around the cockpit. However, few if any actual components would carry over.

I have made the full-rez version of this scan available at the APR Patreon for $4-and-up patrons. It is in the APR Patreon “Extras” Dropbox, in the 2015-05 folder.

US Bomber Projects 6-11 now available on Amazon for Kindle

bomber, Dyna Soar, future projects, hypersonic, nukes, spaceplane, stealth, US Bomber Projects 2 Responses »

Apr 272015

Just added five more issues to Amazon for $2.99 each. These are Kindle-fied versions of the issues otherwise available as PDFs here.

US Bomber Projects #14, Transport Projects #03 Now Available

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Apr 062015

Now available… two new additions to the US Aerospace Projects series.

US Bomber Projects #14: System 464L Special

USBP#14 brings together the competitors to Weapon System 464L, the first major effort in the Dyna Soar program. These designs were previously shown individually in prior issues of USBP; here they are brought together, with some updates, as well as a few extra diagrams and a section of diagrams formatted for 11X17 printing. This issue includes info and diagrams of the Lockheed, Republic, General Dynamics, McDonnell, Boeing, Douglas, Northrop, North American and Martin-Bell entries as well as their various booster systems. Also included are detailed diagrams of the ultimate Dyna Soar design, the 2050E.

USBP#14 can be purchased for downloading for the low, low price of $6.25.

Also available:US Transport Projects #03.

Included in this issue:

Lockheed “Environmentally Responsible Aviation” box-wing jetliner
Martin Commercial Twin-Hull concept from 1942
North American Aviation NAC-60 SST competitor
McDonnell-Douglas Cargo Spanloader
Boeing Model 763-058 “New Large Airplane”
BoMi Passenger Transport Rocket
Lockheed L-152-1 early jet transport with unusual inlets
Aerial Relay System: for when crazy is preferred

USTP #03 can be purchased for download for only $4.25:

PDF Review: A nuclear flying wing

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Apr 052015

More than sixty years ago, the US government and various aeronautical contractors began examining the application of atomic energy to powering aircraft. A mountain of documentation was produced, much of which has been lost, forgotten or is still locked behind classification. But some things come out from time to time that provide tantalizing hints as to what the designers of the time were thinking.

One such document is a short memo from June, 1948, describing a lecture given to unnamed staff by one William van Zelm of the Glenn L. Martin Corporation, describing aspects of aircraft design for atomic flight. Being simply a description of the lecture, the details are lean, but a sketch was included:

The design, crude and simply reproduced as it is, looks very reminiscent of a number of “stealth” aircraft that have been designed over the years including the A-12 Avenger II and the General Dynamics “Sneaky Pete” concept. This one, of course, was nuclear powered and apparently capable of supersonic speeds. It would be interesting to find more about this particular design.

The memo can be downloaded HERE.

Much more aerospace stuff is available via the APR Patreon.

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