PDF Review: L’Aeronautique, post-Great War

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Jan 282019

The Internet Archive has a *lot* of stuff. One thing there is a scan of the French-language aeronautical magazine “L’Aeronautique” covering 1919-1921. It is available in a number of formats, including PDF, here:

https://archive.org/details/la02b9eronautiqu03pari/page/n2

Included in this is a design for a truly gigantic aircraft with a wingspan of 110 meters, produced by Professor Junkers, presumably Hugo Junkers of Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG.Hugo was an innovator in the field of all-metal aircraft construction, including the first practical all-metal aircraft the Junkers J 1 from 1915. The giant aircraft would have a wing area of 1,400 square meters and a gross weight of 60 tonnes; 12 engines would produce 4,000 horsepower and drive six propellers. Two tractor props would have a diameter of 6 meters, while four pusher props would have a diameter of 3.7 meters. No performance data seems to be given, but it can be assumed that it was meant to be a long range passenger or cargo transport.

Support the APR Patreon to help bring more of this sort of thing to light! Alternatively, you can support through the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

Bonus: A helicopter design from one Douglas Shaw. This would have failed entertainingly.

Space Station concept art

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Jan 042019

Two pieces of NASA-marked (but likely not NASA-produced) concept art from the 1960’s depicted artificial-G space stations.

The first station (previously presented here in black and white not so long ago) depicts a substantial three-armed station witha multi-segment spine and three habitats. At one end of the spine is a nuclear reactor and its radiator; at the other end is a presumably rotationally0decoupled docking section. There is also an external “track” with two cars seemingly to provide transport from one habitat to another; it doesn’t really seem like this would provide a substantial improvement in transport over simply taking an elevator from one hab up to the spine and then down another elevator to the destination hab.

This space station, which appears from the art style to be a Grumman design, is a single-launch space station to be launched atop a Saturn V. The two arms would fold back for storage on the launch vehicle and would deploy once in orbit. An Apollo CSM is shown approaching for docking along the centerline; it’s not clear if the docking cone was rotationally decoupled. if it was not, the two Apollo-like capsules hanging off the sides of the cone are a bit of a head scratcher.

Both renderings have been uploaded in their full resolution to the 2019-01 APR Extras dropbox folder. This folder is available to APR Patreon Patrons and APR Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers at the $4 per month level and above.

APR Historical Documents: December 2018

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Dec 242018

2018-12 Rewards are now available for downloading for APR Historical Documents subscribers. This month the rewards include:

1: A large document: “Sea Launch and Recovery of Very Large Rocket Vehicles,” a 1962 Aerojet report on the sea Dragon concept

2: “Ryan Aeronautical Company Plane Portraits,” information, photos and three-views of a sizable range of Ryan aircraft, manned and unmanned

3: “Nova,” a blueprint of the NASA “Saturn C-8” launch vehicle with 8 F-1 engines

4: CAD diagrams: Star Raker scrap views

If you are interested in signing up, you can do so either at Patreon or directly through PayPal. Signing up now makes you eligible for rewards starting with the *next* months rewards. The directly-through-PayPal system is new; it would probably be best to sign up after the first of the month.

APR Monthly Historical Documents Program

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Dec 182018

For some years I have been operating the “Aerospace Projects Review Patreon” which provides monthly rewards in the form of high resolution scans of vintage aerospace diagrams, art and documents. This has worked pretty well, but it seems that perhaps some people might prefer to sign on more directly. Fortunately, PayPal provides the option not only for one-time purchases but also monthly subscriptions. By subscribing using the drop-down menu below, you will receive the same benefits as APR Patrons, but without going through Patreon itself. The APR Patreon itself will continue; this is just an alternative for those who wish to go a different route.

PDF Review: “Neptun,” the German Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle

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Dec 042018

In the late 1960’s H.H. Koelle of the Technische University Institut Fuer Raumfahrttechnik in Berlin devoted considerable effort to studying a reusable heavy lift launch vehicle. A good, well-illustrated report was put out in 1968 covering the design:

Entwurfskriterien fur groBe wiederverwendbare Tragersysteme (Design Criteria for Large Reusable Space Transportation Systems)

Note that the Neptun was *gigantic.* It was a two-stage ballistically recovered design, unusual in that rather than being circular in cross-section it was hexagonal. The individual propellant tanks were each the size of or bigger than the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V.

A number of payloads were proposed. One was a sub-orbital intercontinental passenger transport, The passenger “capsule” would land separate from the Neptun itself.

One of the more interesting payloads contemplated was a large Orion nuclear pulse vehicle, transported in two pieces (propulsion module in one launch and payload/pulse units in the other). Presumably this would be a NASA Orion hitching a ride on a West German booster; I suspect politics would have negated the likelihood of the West Germans developing a mass production line for nuclear explosives.

This fusion-powered interplanetary spacecraft is also a NASA design, dating from the early 1960’s.

Support the APR Patreon to help bring more of this sort of thing to light!

Bell STOL transport art

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Nov 232018

In 1972 Bell designed a STOL jet transport, a concept that competed for the Advanced Medium STOL Transport role that the McDonnell-Douglas YC-15 and the Boeing YC-14 were built for. The Bell aircraft appeared to be largely conventional in layout, but it was actually quite different from every other transport: the engine nacelles were not only fitted with Harrier-like thrust vectoring nozzles to redirect the core exhaust, the flow could be diverted from the fans to augmenters in the wings. These, it was hoped, would greatly increase static thrust, allowing the aircraft to lift off from unimproved runways in a short distance. As part of their proposal, Bell also designed a proof of concept demonstrator to be built from parts of a C-130. The demonstrator could itself be used as a fair cargo transport, though of course it would not be as well optimized as the all-new vehicles. Unfortunately, the augmenter-wing concept for vertical thrust turned out to be a major disappointment as it steadfastly refused to scale up well.

The demonstrator was recently diagrammed and described in detail in US Recon & Research Projects #03, and the operational version in US Transport Projects #08.

USRP #3 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4.25:

USTP #8 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4.25:

I’ve uploaded the full rez versions of these scans to the 2018-11 APR Extras folder on Dropbox, available to all APR Patrons at the $4 level and above. If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

Shuttle Program Orientation Course

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Nov 052018

In June 1973 Rockwell put together a short course – presumably or employees new to the STS program – that described the Space Shuttle system as it was then designed. There were a number of clear differences between the STS of the time and the STS as actually built. Differences included a forward extension of the OMS pods, continuing well onto the cargo bay doors. Also, the forward RCS thrusters on the sides of the nose were contained behind sizable doors to protect them during re-entry, a protection that was found to be unnecessary. There were also important differences with the SRBs and ETs.

I have made the full-rez scan of the document available to $10+ APR Patreon patrons. If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

Manned Mars Spacecraft

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Nov 022018

This is what a manned mission to Mars dating from the late Apollo era would have looked like: a cluster of hydrogen tanks with a small number of NERVA nuclear rockets. The spacecraft would have been relatively gigantic as it leaves Earth orbit; large enough that it would have been assembled in space from at least six Saturn V launches. When it returns to Earth it would have been little more than the mission module; this would blast past Earth and continue in solar orbit while the astronauts and a few trifling hundreds of pounds of Martian souvenirs would have plowed into Earths atmosphere in a compact entry capsule. The mission module itself is described fully and heavily illustrated in US Spacecraft Projects #3.

I’ve uploaded the full rez versions of these renderings to the 2018-11 APR Extras folder on Dropbox, available to all APR Patrons at the $4 level and above. If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

APR Patreon October 2018 rewards

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Oct 282018

I’ve just sent out the rewards for October, 2018, to APR Patrons. This months rewards include:

CAD diagram: 20-meter Orion spacecraft

Diagram: Genealogy of Piper aircraft

Document: “Story of the Uprated Saturn I” NASA-MSFC brochure circa 1966 describing the Saturn Ib, including future possibilities

Document: “Preliminary Design Study of a Three Stage Satellite Ferry Rocket Vehicle,” 1954 Goodyear paper describing the METEOR launch vehicle. First of a number of METEOR documents I have.

Document: “The Rocket Research Aircraft Program 1946-1962,” Edwards AFB booklet describing the various rocket aircraft tested up to the x-15

If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

September APR Patreon rewards

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Oct 022018

Patrons of the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon received last month:

Diagram: A foldout diagram of an Apollo-derived logistics spacecraft

Document: “The Piasecki Story,” an illustrated history of the company and its products

Document: “The N.S. Savannah,” a brochure about the sole nuclear powered merchant vessel

Document: “Lunar Spacecraft Design” A paper describing the evolution of the General Electric Apollo design, quite similar to the later Soyuz spacecraft

CAD diagram: 1985 design of the British HOTOL spaceplane

If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

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