PDF Review – Page 5 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

PDF Review: STS tiles. Every. Single. Vertex.

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Oct 162014

This is the second of four “PDF Reviews” I plan to have in October, to make up for the lack of any in September. The idea is to present interesting online resources for those interested in the sort of aerospace oddities that you can find in the pages of Aerospace Projects Review. This little project is supported through my Patreon campaign; at current levels, I’ll post two such reviews per month. If you’d like to see more, or just want to contribute to help me along, please consider becoming a patron.

This one is a bit different from usual. Instead of a report full of art and diagrams and charts and, well, sentences, this one has none of those. Instead, what it does have is 5,271 pages of data. Data, specifically, on the X-Y-Z positions of every single vertex of every single tile on the Shuttle. Of what value is that? Well, someone with a whole lot of patience could, I presume, feed this data into a 3D modeling program and produce a *really* accurate model of at least part of the Space Shuttle. So… knock yourself out.

Orbiter Coordinates of All the Vertices on the Outer Mold Line (OML) of Each of the OV-ID5 Tiles

The abstract page is HERE.

The direct download link for the PDF file is HERE.

PDF Review: “Advanced Supersonic Technology Concept”

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Oct 012014

NOTE: this is the latest official “PDF Review.” (Two were supposed to be released in September, but events prevented that. So this is the first of four to be released on October.) The idea is to present interesting online resources for those interested in the sort of aerospace oddities that you can find in the pages of Aerospace Projects Review. This little project is supported through my Patreon campaign; at current levels, I’ll post two such reviews per month. If you’d like to see more, or just want to contribute to help me along, please consider becoming a patron.

The Boeing 2707 supersonic transport was cancelled in 1971. The cost of developing the aircraft, coupled with the increased fuel costs due to the oil embargoes of the early 70’s, doomed the effort. However, NASA continued to spend money on studies of supersonic transports throughout the 1970s and into the 1980’s, focusing their interest on SSTs with advanced aerodynamics and propulsion systems in order to reduce fuel burn and thus operating costs.

One such study was performed by Ling Temco Vought for NASA-Langley in 1973. The study described a four-engine SST design to serve as a baseline for further study and refinement. Basic characteristics of the design:

Mission range of 4000 nautical miles with 292 passengers
Take Off gross weight of 762,000 pounds.
The engines were non-afterburning, yet provided a cruise speed of Mach 2.7 at 60,000 feet.
For a standard-day sea-level takeoff, a maximum 10,500 foot runway was needed.

The initial design was based on a previous Boeing design from 1968, the Model 733-336C. While broadly similar to the earlier design, the LTV design deleted the Boeing’s deployable canard, used larger non-afterburning engines, moved the main wing forward, increased the size of the tail and cranked the wing sweep slightly. Additionally, the four-abreast seating of the Boeing was changed to five-abreast in the LTV design, with an increase from 234 to 292 passengers. This was made possible by a slight enlarging of the fuselage.

The very latest in computer graphics, 1973 style.

Pages from Advanced supersonic technology concept study reference characteristics_Page_10

Note: the following two illustrations were stitched together from separate pages in the PDF. The full resolution versions are available to all APR Patreon patrons HERE.

The NTRS abstract page:

Advanced supersonic technology concept study reference characteristics

The direct link to the PDF file on the NTRS:

Advanced supersonic technology concept study reference characteristics

PDF Review: “Advanced Atlas Launch Vehicle Digest”

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Aug 282014

NOTE: this is the third official “PDF Review.” The idea is to present interesting online resources for those interested in the sort of aerospace oddities that you can find in the pages of Aerospace Projects Review. This little project is supported through my Patreon campaign; at current levels, I’ll post two such reviews per month. If you’d like to see more, or just want to contribute to help me along, please consider becoming a patron. This PDF was originally on the NASA Technical Report Server. But it seems to no longer be there… probably a victim of the needless security panic, NTRS shutdown and subsequent database lobotomy. So, I’m hosting the 17 megabyte PDF file HERE: Advanced Atlas Launch Vehicle Digest

In the mid-1960’s, Convair produced an unknown number of issues of a a magazine-like publication about the Atlas, this being issue #2 from April, 1967. This described the state of the Atlas space launch vehicle at the time… recent successes and configurations available or soon to be available.

Described and illustrated are the various strap-on solid rocket boosters, upper stages and payload fairings available. This is done with quite a number of reasonably high quality engineering diagrams and paintings, trajectory diagrams, data tables and graphs showing payload and velocity ranges. This “digest” would be useful for preliminary payload planning, for missions from 100 n.mi. circular orbits, to geosynchronous transfers, lunar impact missions and planetary flyby missions as far as Pluto.

The illustrations are, as might be expected from a 1967-vintage publication, all non-computer generated.

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PDF Review: Swept-Wing X-1 “The Effect of Negative Dihedral”

Patreon, PDF Review, research No Responses »

Aug 162014

NOTE: this is the second official “PDF Review.” The idea is to present interesting online resources for those interested in the sort of aerospace oddities that you can find in the pages of Aerospace Projects Review. This little project is supported through my Patreon campaign; at current levels, I’ll post two such reviews per month. If you’d like to see more, or just want to contribute to help me along, please consider becoming a patron.

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In 1948, the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Langley Field, VA, put oput a technical paper with the snappy title “The Effect of Negative Dihedral, Tip Droop, and Wing-tip Shape on the Low-speed Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Complete Model Having a 45 Degrees Sweptback Wing.” This described the results of wind tunnel testing of a model of the Bel X-1 supersonic research aircraft with swept wings. At the time, supersonic aerodynamics was in its infancy, and while it was known by this point that swept wings had superior supersonic drag than unswept wings, the details were murky.

Numerous studies were made of re-winged X-1’s, including forward-swept wings. As it happened, no version of the X-1 was ever equipped with anything but unswept wings (though the later versions had substantially thinner wings). Such studies were performed by not only Bell Aircraft but also the NACA; the latter studies may have used the Bell X-1 wind tunnel models, but may not have indicated an intention or desire to actually re-wing an X-1. Instead, the X-1 was a known commodity, and by modifying an existing wind tunnel model, changes in performance could be quickly and inexpensively determined without having to design and build entirely new models.

In this study, several different wingtips were evaluated, including squared-off tips, rounded tips and droops tips.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
The results of low- speed tests made to determine the effects of negative geometric dihedral, tip droop, and tip shape on the aerodynamic characteristics of a complete model having a 45 degree sweptback wing are summarized as follows :

1. The use of -10 degree geometric dihedral resulted in a reduction in the average value of the effective-dihedral parameter C2V through the low and moderate lift- coefficient range that was about 65 percent as great as that usually obtained for unswept wings.

2 . Drooping the wing tips 45 degrees (maintaining the same ground clearance as that with -100 geometric dihedral) resulted in a decrease in the average value of C2V through the low and moderate lift-coefficient range equivalent to about -14 degrees geometric dihedral and also caused an increase in the maximum lift coefficient of 0.15.

3. Changes in the wing- tip plan form indicated that C2V was lowest for the parallel and circular tips and highest for the tips skewed either in or out .

4. By changing a square- cut tip to a faired tip of revolution, the maximum value of C2V for the model with parallel tips was reduced by an amount equivalent to about -4 degrees geometric dihedral.

5. Deflecting the wing tip (from zero) resulted in rolling and yawing moments about the same as that produced by a conventional aileron on a similar sweptback- wing model.

This file was originally added to the NASA Technical Report Server in the mid/late 1990s, and featured rather sad 2-bit (black and white) scanning… fine for text, adequate for line drawings, terrible for art & photos. When I re-accessed it for this review to make sure that it was still available, it had been re-scanned and re-uploaded in full color, provided vastly better image quality.

The abstract can be seen HERE. The PDF file can be downloaded directly HERE.

Three-view of the swept-wing X-1 showing levels of dihedral.

Photo of the wing tunnel model. Note the markings applied to the model. As wing tunnel models are very rarely painted except as needed by the science of the tests, this indicates that this may have been a conventional X-1 wing tunnel model that, after testing, had been painted to turn it into a display model… and then brought back into the shop and re-purposed as a wind tunnel model again.

Drooped wingtips studied.

Different wing planforms & tips examined.

Jan 232012

I keep getting asked the same questions, so I guess I should have a Frequently Asked Questions page for my downloads. Well, here it is.
Q01: How does this work?

A: It’s not an automated system. The way it works is that when you place an order through Paypal, Paypal sends me an email notifying me of the order. I then reply to the email address listed in the order, providing you with the web address where you can find your document, plus the username and password you’ll need in order to access it.

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Q02: “I just ordered a document. It’s been a whole 2 seconds, and I don’t have it yet. Where is it?”

A: I’m asleep/out buying groceries/fighting off hordes of zombies. I’ll respond to your email just as soon as I can.

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Q03: “I just ordered a document. It’s been a whole 24 hours, and I don’t have it yet. Where is it?”

A1: Check your “spam bucket.” Some spam filters see response messages such as you’ll get from me as spam, since there is a web address listed in it.

A2: Are you using the email address attached to the Paypal account? The response email with all your download info will be sent to the Paypal-listed email address. If you are using someone else’s Paypal address, or something like that, then *they* will receive the reply.

A3: On rare occasion, the automated Paypal system that sends me order notifications fails to do so. Thus I don’t know you’ve ordered something. Feel free to send a “where’s my stuff” email to:

A4: Search your inbox. You might have gotten the message, but not noticed or recognized it. The header will be something like “Re: Notification of payment received” or “Re: Payment received from YourEmail@YourEmailDomain.com.”

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Q04: “I ordered a document for downloading, but the username and password aren’t working.”

A: By far the most common reason for this is either you’re typing the password wrong… or if you are using cut-and-paste, you are grabbing a spurious blank space. Try again, making sure to cut *just* the password.

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Q05: “I tried that, but it’s still not letting me in.”

A: The second biggest offender is your web browser. Something or other to do with cookies, or something. If you have another web browser (Netscape, Explorer, Firefox, whatever), try that.

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Q06: “I’ve downloaded a PDF file. What do I need to open it?”

A: Adobe Reader. It’s a free program.

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Q07: “I’ve downloaded a ZIP file. What do I need to open it?”

A: Any modern computer should have come with an unzipping program built in. If not, do a search for “unzip,” and download a program to your liking.

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Q08: “I ordered a drawing set, and can see the files named ‘XYZ halfsize.gif’ and ‘XYZ quartersize.gif,” but not the full size image. Why?”

A: Some of the full size images are quite large. Sometimes they are so large that operating systems and/or image viewing and processing programs simply refuse to show them. All of the full-size images I sell are viewable on *my* system, which is a bit antiquated… but that doesn’t mean that they will be viewable on *all* systems. This is why I include the “halfsize” and “quartersize” versions, so that everybody should be able to see the images. You do still have the full-rez image… try looking at it on another computer.

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Q09: “Ooops, I ordered the wrong thing. I wanted A, but I seem to have actually ordered B. Can I have A?”

A1: If the error is due to something screwy in the webpage – rare, but it has happened that a typo in the HTML coding can lead to this sort of thing – then I’ll fix you right up with a proper download of A. Keep the other item, free of charge.
A2: A slightly more common error is on my part… you order SDOC4, say, and I mistakenly send you the link to SDWG4. In that case, let me know, and I’ll fix you right up with what you actually ordered. Keep the other item, free of charge.

A3: If the error is due to you simply ordering the wrong thing… well… the problem with digital files is that you can easily make copies of them, and thus cannot really be returned. So if my policy was to automatically “correct” “mistakes,” then it’d be the easiest thing in the world to scam me right out of half my catalog.

So… no. If you wanted A but mistakenly ordered B, I’ll be happy to fill your *next* order for A.

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Q10: “I bought one of your documents, and want to extract the images from it for my own devious purposes. However, it’s password protected. Gimme the password. Gimme.”

A: The documents (air docs, space docs and APr’s, but not DCD’s) are password protected *solely* to try to minimise piracy of ’em. The documents will open just fine and will print just fine at high rez, but image and text extraction will present a challenge. I’ve had issues with people taking the data I’ve worked hard to find and prepare and then turning it around and reselling it (grrr). However, if you have a valid use for extracted images, let me know, and I’ll almost certainly fork over the relevant password.

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Q11: “I want you to add me to your mailing list.”

A: No can do. The system I use now requires that the person who wants on the mailing list add themselves (I can add you, or the system will think I’m a spammer). So, simply go HERE and add your email address.

I’ll update this FAQ as questions come in. Feel free to comment

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