The most recently finished diagram took several days. The references were clear and detailed… and difficult to suss out in some ways, a common issue with aircraft that had deployable bits.
Oct 262022
Oct 252022
Bell artwork circa 1983 depicting the proposed JVX tiltrotor, which would become the V-22 Osprey. The cockpit and the sponsons display the greatest obvious differences from the aircraft that would eventually be built, but the design seems to be largely just about there.
Oct 242022
A photo of a wind tunnel model of a Republic Aviation design for a Manned Hypersonic Test Vehicle configuration. The photo was published in 1969, but the program was circa 1965. It used a configuration previously studied as both an Aerospaceplane (airbreathing SSTO) and Mach 10 recon. That latter design was written about and illustrated in US Research & Recon Projects #2. You can tell that this is the subscale demonstrator, rather than one of the full-scale operational vehicles, because of the additional fuel tanks, projection from the lower fuselage. The fuselage was conical and ringed with a scramjet engine; a rocket engine in the tail would, after separation from a B-52 carrier aircraft, accelerate the vehicle past Mach 7 or so to scramjet operational speed.
Oct 202022
Three magazine advertisements from 1960, depicting the East German Type 152 jetliner (which would have been a *fantastic* jetliner in the late 1940’s), the Convair F-106 and the Fiat G91 T jet trainer.
The full-rez scans of these ads have been uploaded into the 2022-10 APR Extras folder on Dropbox, available to all $4 and up APR Patrons/Subscribers. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
Oct 182022
Here’s a look at Book 4. Some of the diagrams I do are completed in just a few hours. Some take considerably longer… several to many man-days, sometimes spread out over months as I dial in details. This one was sort of mid-range. The most complex and time consuming are typically the diagrams of aircraft that were actually built… those have to be accurate, and more details are available. This one is of an unbuilt aircraft that is reasonably well documented, but was a configuration that was in a constant state of design flux.
Oct 162022
Art from 1966 showing the S-IVB stage as launched on the SA-203 flight of the Saturn Ib, launched July 5, 1966. This flight put an S-IVb stage into orbit and demonstrated engine restart in microgravity, needed on the upcoming Apollo moon missions.
Oct 152022
Photos of a physical copy, fresh from the printer, somewhere in the wilds of Britain. UK/EU buyers should start receiving them shortly, I’d imagine.
The ordering link straight from the publisher:
US Supersonic Bomber Projects
And the updated Amazon link:
US Supersonic Bomber Projects Paperback – December 23, 2022
As previously mentioned, if you are interested in a signed, dated and bonus-print copy, let me know so I know how many to order.
Oct 142022
A circa 1983 illustration of the Bell JVX tiltrotor concept, folded for storage aboard an aircraft carrier. The JVX would be developed into the V-22 Osprey. The differences between this concept and the final vehicle are relatively minor, with the sponsons on the side, shape of the nose and apparently less-lifted tail being the most obvious.
Oct 122022
I’m at work on a new series of CAD diagrams (see HERE for the first run) to be released as PDFs formatted for printing at 18X24. For example, here are first drafts of a few:
- Boeing Space Sortie (3 sheets)
- Saturn C-8/Nova
- Jules Verne’s “Columbiad”
- A-12 Avenger II (2 sheets)
- Lockheed CL-400 “Suntan”
All of these require a bit more dressing-up, as well as explanatory text. But I think they’re starting to look pretty good.
I’ve selected a fair number more to work on. If any of these are of particular interest, or if any of the many, many diagrams I’ve made over the years would be of interest, let me know.
- BIS “Daedalus” straship
- Rockwell MRCC
- Northrop Tacit Blue
- Space Shuttle Main Engine
- Boeing Bird of Prey
- General Atomic 86-foot Orion
- General Atomic Orion battleship
- General Atomic 10-meter Orion
- Martin SeaMistress
- Space Launch System
- Have Sting orbital railgun
- Casaba Howitzer
- X-20 Dyna Soar
- B-47E
- DB-47E/Bold Orion
- DB-47E/RASCAL
- B-52G
- B-52H
- B-52H/Skybolt
- Boeing Space Freighter
- Boeing Big Onion
- Shuttle C
- Rockwell Star Raker
- Lockheed STAR Clipper
- Lockheed SR-71
- Lockheed A-12 (early canards)
- Lockheed A-12
- Lockheed A-12 (honeycomb panels)
- Lockheed A-12 “Titanium Goose”
- Lockheed YF-12A
- Lockheed M-21/D-21
- Lockheed AP-12
- Republic YF-103
- North American XF-108
- Bell MX-2147
- Convair Kingfish
Oct 102022
A model built by or for Raytheon depicting their concept of a “Space Defense Platform.” Shown in early 1962 (possibly late 1961), this is a very early concept for a space-based weapon system meant to destroy other space vehicles. Scale is unknown, but if it is 1/1 scale, it seems fairly small. It is surrounded by what look like interceptor missiles, missiles which bear a resemblance to the contemporary FIM-43 “Redeye” shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. The space missiles seem to have infra-red seekers like the Redeye, four small fins up front much like the Redeyes (which of course doesn’t make any sense in context of a space-based missile), but no tail fins, unlike the Redeye. Presumably steering would be accomplished by vectoring the main nozzle or the use of divert thrust near the nose, or both. Perhaps the four small “fins” are in fact thrusters, each pointing “sideways.” Much later interceptor missiles for use in space used gas generators that ran non-stop and fired from all of the thrusters non-stop; doing so negated their thrust, until a valve closed on one or more thruster, making the thrust asymmetric.
Redeye missile for comparison:
The model has few other features of note. Some ports, some antennae, some ill-defined projections near the bottom… and a spherical item, held aloft by a short boom, at the top. Notice a small “radiation” symbol on the sphere, indicating that this spacecraft was to be nuclear powered. Presumably some sort of low-power system, an RTG or the like, rather than a full reactor. in either case, radiators are not in evidence.
For those lookign to nail down the size of the model:
1) Assume the missiles are Redeyes.
2) Down at the bottom is a shiny hemisphere… it *might* be someone’s head.
3) The ceiling lights and contours are likely made to standard sizes.