From a 1946 NACA wind tunnel test report, a diagram of the 1/4 scale model of the Bell XS-1 (Army Project MX-653, later known as just the X-1).
Jun 182012
Jun 172012
The McDonnell Douglas Model 176 was a generic spaceplane design derived from the FDL-7 (Flight Dynamics Lab – USAF Wright-Pat). It was incorporated into small spaceplanes adequate for taking a few crewmembers to a space station on up to Space Shuttle competitors. Below are two pieces of art (found in the NASA HQ historical archive) showing a late 1960’s concept for a Model 176 optimized for the ILRV (Integral Launch and Recovery Vehicle) role. ILRV was one of the immediate predecessors to the Space Shuttle program.
The Model 176 was a sleek dart-like design with stubby fins. While details varied from iteration to iteration, all (or nearly all) featured high aspect ratio variable geometry wings for landing.
Jun 162012
After WWII, the US Navy contracted Bell Aircraft to modify two of their P-63 Kingcobras to have highly swept wings, to test low-speed flight characteristics of the Wings Of Tomorrow. Below is a three-view of the resultant L-39 test aircraft taken from a 1948 NACA-Langley wind tunnel test report.
Jun 142012
Taken from a January 1947 NACA-Langley wind tunnel test report are some images describing the Naval Aircraft Factory “Float wing convoy interceptor.” This was an unconventional single-engine, single-seat fighter plane designed to be catapulted off of a ship (a cargo ship, presumably), land in the water and then be picked up by crane and returned to service. There was no landing gear. The unusual fuselage had substantially more drag than a conventional one, due to the cutout needed for the mid-ship mounted propeller. The model was 1/4 scale. Full-scale information includes:
Engine: one Ranger XV-770-9, max 625 hp
Normal gross weight: 4000 lbs
Fighter overload gross weight: 4319 lbs
Wingspan: 29.83 ft
Wing area: 160 sq. ft
It seemed to be a poor performer. Not only lots of drag, but the rudder had a tendency to shake badly. This was clearly a WWII-era design; by 1947, not only was its design obsolete, so was its role.
Jun 122012
Found in the NASA HQ Historical archives was an artists impression of a supersonic manned ramjet powered aircraft, dating to either the late war years or early postwar period. It’s a fairly sizable craft with very small wings of unusual planform, razor edges and angular cross-section. The fuselage is almost entirely engine; the cockpit is squeezed into a structure used to hold the internal “spike” diffuser.
On the whole the design looks like it’d fly extremely fast, after having been launched to altitude by a rocket booster (or carried by a large aircraft), but I certainly wouldn’t want to try to land it.
Jun 112012
An artists impression of the National Aero Space Plane by United Technologies/Pratt & Whitney, ca. 1989. P&W was seeking to win the contract to build not the airframe, but the scramjet propulsion system. From a brochure found in the NASA HQ historical archive.
Jun 042012
Designed in April of 1962, this NASA-Marshall Future Projects Branch design for a space station was to serve as both a scientific research facility and as an orbital launch facility (OLF). The research station concept is straightforward enough, but the OLF is more interesting.
At the time, it was just accepted that by the end of the decade Apollo would have proven successful… and was to have been merely the first step in the conquest of space. Lunar bases and missions to Mars would have followed soon on the heels of the Apollo program. To support these expected missions, the OLF would have served as a construction facility in space. Unlike many later orbital construction facilities, this OLF would have a telescoping hangar, providing a long cylindrical shield to protect the spacecraft and those working on it from excessive sunlight and micrometeoroids. Additionally it would provide a controlled lighting environment.
The facility would be launched in two components, each on a Saturn C-5 and both initially unmanned. The scientific research base would have a 30 kilowatt nuclear powerplant, and would be made from a Saturn S-IC liquid oxygen tank. The OLF would similarly use an S-IC LOX tank as a basis, and would dock to the scientific base once on orbit.
A 10-man crew would be needed for orbital launch operations, and a further 15 for the scientific base.
Scientific lab with reactor extended.
Diagram of assembled orbital launch facility
Scientific lab
Orbital Launch Facility
Jun 012012
NASA has recently uploaded to YouTube an early video presentation on the NASP, showing the initial “du Pont” configuration.
[youtube 2bkZ2Sbsjp0]
May 272012
Because eventually your supersonic nuclear powered seaplane is going to fail, you are going to need a way to bail out at speed and at altitude. Obviously ejector seats are out of the question… you’d get shot distressingly close to both the reactor and the radioactive exhaust. Additionally, punching a hole in the massive lead cockpit shield big enough to get an ejector seat through *without* torching the crew would be problematic at best. So, Convairs solution to the problem, as shown in this 1956 diagram, was to eject the entire cockpit as a capsule. This is similar to the method used on the F-111 and the B-1A.
Note that the three parachutes are shown hilariously out of scale.
May 262012
Several conceptual layouts for cockpits for a supersonic nuclear powered seaplane from Convair, drawing in 1956. To protect the crew from radiation, the cockpit was surrounded by a massive lead-lined shield, and only a relatively small leaded-glass transparency was provided for the pilot to see through. To minimize what was necessarily an enormous mass, the shield and transparency were flat and un-aerodynamic; the aircraft needed aerodynamic fairings around them. Easy enough except that the pilot needed to be able to see through those as well. So very large secondary windscreens were needed. Several possible layouts were examined and are shown below.
