October 2019 Rewards

 bomber, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Patreon, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports  No Responses »
Oct 312019
 

It was in some doubt on my end, but I managed to get the October rewards issued in the nick of time. I have been uprooted and moved well over a thousand miles into smaller digs; much of my stuff was abandoned or outright tossed but my files seem, so far, to have survived the journey intact and hopefully complete. I’m in the process of straightening that all out now, and with luck November will be more orderly.

The October rewards included:

Diagram: A very large format scan of the McDonnell Douglas Model D-3235 Supersonic Transport from 1988

Documents: The Boeing “Airborne Alert Aircraft”

A new scan of the Goodyear “METEOR Junior” report, this time scanned from a pristine original

A scan of a collection of JPL CAD diagrams of a Pluto flyby spacecraft circa 1994… sent to me during my college days with the hopes that I could make a display model of it (beyond my capabilities at the time)

In lieu of the CAD diagram usually created for $5 and up Patrons, which I had nowhere near the time to create, a scan of some North American Rockwell brochures on the HOBOS homing bomb system.

If this sort of thing is of interest – either in receiving these sort of rewards or in helping to preserve this sort of aerospace history – consider signing up for the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 3:44 pm

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Hypervelocity Research Vehicle

 hypersonic, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane  No Responses »
Sep 122019
 

Continuing…

In 1985 Rockwell considered the business case for a small unmanned research vehicle to be released from the Orbiter payload bay. It would be *something* akin to the X-37, though of an utterly different lifting body configuration.

Also note: this vehicle re-appears later in the report, including a nice three-view of an “operational” version.

 Posted by at 11:31 pm

Rockwell: “Possibilities for New Business Growth,” 1985

 hypersonic, launch vehicles, nukes, research, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane  3 Responses »
Aug 152019
 

One sizable document I’ve scanned for preservation is a Rockwell presentation package from October, 1985, showing a large number of space programs that the company could capitalize on. These included everything from minor mods to the Space Shuttle to major changes… stretching the orbiter, stretching the tank, adding additional boosters. Heavy lift boosters to put SLS to shame; heavy lift SSTOs; small experimental spaceplanes; manned military spaceplanes; space-based weaponry; space stations; space based nuclear power.  Figured this stuff might be of some modest interest. So why not, I’ll post little bits of it from time to time.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 4:13 am

McDonnell-Douglas Phase B Shuttle Model

 hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane  No Responses »
Jul 012019
 

For much of the time while the concept of the Space Shuttle was being developed the vehicle consisted of a manned flyback booster of relatively enormous dimensions, coupled with an orbiter that included sizable internal oxygen tanks, sometimes with external hydrogen tanks, sometimes internal. The model below, a masterpiece of late 1960’s model makers craft, illustrates one such concept. the orbiter is similar to the Grumman H-33 except larger, with completely internal hydrogen and oxygen tanks.

Had this type of Space Shuttle been built and flown successfully, there is every chance that it would have been substantially less costly to operate than the Shuttle we got: flying the booster back to a runway landing and refurbishing it would theoretically have been a lot faster and easier than fishing solid rocket motor casings out of the ocean and shipping them to Utah for refurb. But getting the design to the point of operation would have been a nightmare. The booster was unlike anything previously attempted, and would have been an aircraft roughly the size of the C-5 Galaxy, with a top speed like that of the X-15

 

I have uploaded the full resolution scan of the photo to the 2019-07 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to $4 and up subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 1:01 pm

AGM-183A ARRW test flight

 future projects, hypersonic, nukes, rockets  No Responses »
Jun 172019
 

The USAF is already flying bits of the AGM-183A ARRW.

Air Force conducts successful hypersonic weapon flight test

This was a “sensor only” captive carry, which presumably means something along the lines of a wholly non-functional mass/aerodynamics simulator. It doesn’t really look like the sort of thing that could get to Mach 20 with a meaningful payload.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 10:32 pm

A Mach 20 Arrow

 bomber, future projects, hi-rez, hypersonic, nukes, rockets  No Responses »
Jun 162019
 

In response to both Russia and China claiming to have develop hypersonic weapons, the USAF has awarded contracts to Lockheed for two new hypersonic missile systems: the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW: “arrow”) and the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW: “hacksaw”). Little info is publicly available about them just yet (though it’s a safe bet that the Chinese have a complete set of plans; I’d be unsurprised if they had real-time access to the workstations being used to design them), but the ARRW is a boost-glide system that uses a rocket motor to launch a hypersonic glider to around Mach 20. This is not a particularly new idea; ground launched ideas like this go back more than fifty years, with air-launched versions seriously considered at least as far back as the 1980’s. The image below, taken from the SDASM Flickr page, shows a (presumably 1980s) General Dynamics design for an air to surface missile using a twin-engined rocket booster (presumably solid fuel) with a hypersonic glider.

The Lockheed ARRW is likely similar in concept if not detail. The basic idea of a rocket-booted glider is the most practical approach to long-range hypersonic strike weapons, though it’s not as flashy or trendy as airbreathing system such as scramjets. but while rocket systems would weigh more than an air breather, quite possibly by a lot, they would be much more reliable, cheaper to develop and capable of *far* greater speed. The ARRW, after all, is supposed to reach Mach 20. A scramjet would be damned lucky to exceed Mach 10, and testing has shown that a scramjet would but damned lucky to maintain that speed for long.

The heavier gross weight of a rocket system compared to an airbreather means that an aircraft could carry fewer weapons. The obvious solution is to build more carrier aircraft. While there will be no more B-1B’s or B-2’s, the B-21 *may* be built, though unlikely in any real numbers. A more practical solution might be to build specialized carrier aircraft, perhaps based on modified jetliners, perhaps even made unmanned, designed to fly in massed armadas with one or two manned control planes.

 

 

 Posted by at 4:14 pm

May 2019 Monthly Historical Documents

 fighter, hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, research, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane  No Responses »
Jun 022019
 

On May 31st, APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents program subscribers were sent emails containing links to the May, 2019, rewards. This months set of documents and diagrams included high-rez copies of:

Document: “Manned Lunar Vehicle Design,” a General Electric paper from 1962 describing a direct-landing Apollo concept

Document: “AP-76 Project 1226,” a highly illustrated Republic Aviation report from May 1955 describing their design for the X-15

Diagram: “DNI-27C, VFX Design Study Fixed Wing/Buried Engine,” September 1968 North American Aviation fighter design

CAD Diagram: three-view of the Dandridge Cole/Martin Aircraft “Aldebaran” giant nuclear powered launch vehicle notional concept

 

If this sort of thing is of interest and you’d like to get in on it and make sure you don’t miss any of the forthcoming releases, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 

 



All prior “back issues” are available  for purchase by subscribers. Recent months rewards have included:

 Posted by at 11:46 pm

X-60A

 future projects, hypersonic, research, rockets  No Responses »
Feb 282019
 

The Air Force Research Lab has released a half-heartedly CGI animated video showing the X-60A hypersonic research vehicle designed by Generation Orbit. This is a small unmanned missile to be carried to release altitude underneath a modified Gulfstream III corporate jet, where it would fire its own throttleable liquid rocket engine and climb to cruise altitude (~130,000 ft). The vehicle is fitted with an unconventional set of wings and control surfaces; it’s not immediately clear just what it’s supposed to do other than go fast. One would imagine that high-Mach airbreathing propulsion systems would be of interest to the USAF these days, and scramjet technology is mentioned as part of the proposed payload, but how such equipment would be integrated into the vehicle is unclear.

 Posted by at 5:48 pm

Firefox

 fighter, hypersonic, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon  No Responses »
Feb 122019
 

As a bonus for those who subscribe to the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program at above the $10 level, I have made available a diagram I photocopied several decades ago at the US Air Force Museum archive: a detailed and seemingly accurate three-view of the MiG-31 “Firefox” from the movie of the same name. I *think* it’s “fan art,” but am not sure… but the USAF thought that it was worth archiving. If this is of interest, consider subscribing at the $11 level of higher.

 Posted by at 7:38 pm
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