Strategic Air Command Museum photographic trip

hi-rez, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Origins and Evolution 7 Responses »

Sep 092021

Some time during the next month or so I plan on taking a trip to the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum near Ashland, Nebraska. I have visited that museum many times over the years, but always while traveling back and forth, thus never able to spend more than an hour or so. I wanted to get there during the work on the SR-71 book so I could properly over-photograph their SR-71, but schedule, cost and a little thing called a “global pandemic” kept me home.

I still want to excessively photograph their SR-71 in order to perfect the large format print diagrams. And additionally, a potential future book (in discussion with Mortons, but nothing certain yet) would be aided by excessively over-photographing another aircraft in the SAC museum collection. I plan on taking a *lot* of photos (likely in the thousands) covering several aircraft in painful detail.

I had hoped that the release of “SR-71” would bring in increased business (the APR Patreon/Monthly Historical Documents Program, USBP’s, etc), but as has been all too common, business has actually *dropped* since the book came out. One of these days I swear I’ll figure out how every time I try my hand at advertising business actually collapses. I suspect that the truth of it will help open doorways into research in practical time travel, faster than light travel and popularity with women.

So, once again, I’m grubbing for funds to support this trip. If interested in helping out, just below there’s a drop-down menu of PayPal options, from “moral support” to “large sums.” The “Best Of” option will get those who chose it, as the title suggests, a selection of the best photos, probably over a hundred. The “All the Photos” option gives the funder just what it says, all the photos taken at the museum, including any panoramic shots I stitch together. The photos will be provided by way of a Dropbox folder or a ZIP file with all the photos.

I *may* extend the trip another day down the road to Denver to hit up the Wings Over The Rockies Museum for the same purpose, but only if there’s enough “investment.” If that happens, those who go for the full set of photos will also get the full set of photos from the WOTR Museum as well.

UPDATE: I’ve updated the draw-down PayPal menu. It didn’t have the prices on there initially.
UPDATE 2: trying again… arrrgh

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Battleglider

fighter, transports 1 Response »

Sep 052021

A 1942 US Army Air Force artists concept of a “battleglider” depicts a troop transport glider with an unusual means for propulsion. Rather than being towed into the air, this aircraft relied on the powerplants of two bell P-39’s attached to substantial under-wing pylons. The pylons encompassed the cockpits of the fighters, necessitating large windows in the pylons for the pilots to see through.

I am *made* of questions when I look at this. During powered flight… who’s the pilot? I would assume the pilot of the glider, somehow having access to the controls of the fighters… at least the fighters engines. Do the pylons drop off after the fighter separate? Does landing gear deploy down through the pylons? You’re certainly not going to land safely with those pylons hanging down there. Who does the fighter-jettison? Again, presumably the glider pilot has control, but do the fighters have independent control? Are their aerosurfaces locked during attached flight? Can the fighter pilots force the glider to maneuver? The glider fuselage actually looks a little small; what’s the troop/cargo complement? Do the fighters promptly return to base after releasing the glider, or do they continue to provide cover and perhaps serve in the ground attack role?

DC-X-200

jetliner, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon No Responses »

Sep 012021

The 1970’s saw a lot of airlines and airline manufacturers going to great lengths to economize, thanks in no small part to the spike in fuel prices and general economic downturn caused by the OPEC oil embargo. Some of this economizing came in the form of new “air bus” concepts to jam as many people as possible into mid-sized jetliners. Wide-bodied configurations were popular for that. McDonnell-Douglas proposed a new airliner in the mid-70’s that was derived from their long-range high capacity DC-10. The fuselage was cut short and stubby; the third turbofan at the base of the vertical tail was deleted. The wings and tail surfaces were all-new. This made it slightly more economical on a passenger-mile basis than the trijet, but also made it inappropriate for trans-oceanic flight since airlines were not yet ready to accept twin-jets for such routes. Intercontinental flight in twinjets would have to wait for the 777. McDonnell-Douglas figured that up to 278 passengers could be wedged into the available space… and that even more seats could be installed in the below-deck cargo bay.

The full rez scan of the two-page article about this design has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-09 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

It’s tough to be a Loon

bomber No Responses »

Aug 302021

The German V-1 “Buzz Bomb” was a relatively simple weapon, and one that a sufficient number were found sufficiently intact that the Allies were able to reverse engineer. In the US, copies of the V-1 were built by Republic Aviation by September of 1944 as the Jet Bomb-2 “Loon.” The V-1 was found to be a crude weapons, inaccurate and not particularly spectacular… but it was cheap and unmanned. In late 1944 the US was staring down the barrel of Operation Downfall, the forthcoming invasion of Japan. Nobody was quite sure how that was going to go; the only thing the expert were sure of was that it would be a bloodbath. So a stand-off weapon that could be launched in *vast* numbers to saturation-bomb Japanese targets while putting approximately zero American lives in harms way? It was an easy sale.

The JB-2 was externally nearly identical to the V-1 but had an active guidance system, theoretically making it more accurate than the fairly dumb V-1. But even with a radar-based guidance system the JB-2 was meant to be built in large numbers… the goal of 1,000 units per month by April, 1945. However, by the end of the war only a little over 1,300 had been built. Exactly how to use the JB-2 does not seem to have been nailed down; one reasonable notion was to use it as a “harassment” weapon: on days when cloud cover negated manned bombing missions, the Japanese might be expected to be scurrying around rebuilding and reprovisioning and generally getting stuff done… and then here come the buzz bombs.

Problem was, simple as the V-1 was, getting the thing to work right was not so simple. Testing of the JB-2 continued to about 1950, by which time it was woefully obsolete and was being used as an aerial target. But early on, simply getting the thing into the air, never mind flying stably, was a chore.

Protected: August 2021 APR rewards catalogs

Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, Patreon catalog Enter your password to view comments.

Aug 282021

Now that’s stylish

PDF Review, spacecraft No Responses »

Aug 082021

A 1963 USAF report describes work on an emergency “space suit.” It’s meant to be something that can be worn as a normal outfit and then zipped up at a moments notice in the event of a pressure drop. This includes a flexible helmet with a flexible “faceplate.” the end result looks like something out of a bad 1970’s pre-Star Wars disco-era sci-fi flick. Note, though that the actual test item is substantially less Giant Polyester Leisure Suit Lapels and more Cheap Plastic Poncho.

Emergency Life Sustaining System For Spacecraft

Report Number: AMRL TDR 63-82
Author: Seeler, Henry W.
Corporate Author: Aerospace Medical Research Labs Wright-Patterson AFB Ohio
Laboratory: Biomedical Laboratory
Date of Publication: 1963-09
Pages: 13

SR-71 18X24: Rev 0

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Origins and Evolution No Responses »

Aug 042021

Woo:

Grumman ATF artists concept

bomber, fighter 2 Responses »

Aug 022021

A Grumman design from the 80’s (looks like 1980) for an advanced fighter. This was clearly from the era where fighters did not need to prioritize stealth over all else, though also clearly stealth aspects are included. The aircraft had missiles integrated onto the back surface, an unusual location; it appears that these are unpowered bombs, using wings to generate lift to fling themselves upwards. It’s not immediately clear what the purpose here is; chances are that these might be nukes, so flinging the bombs upwards would give the jet a few moments to gain some distance before the bombs glide down to the ground. Or it might be a low-observability feature… launching from the top would allow the aircraft to fly at a stupid-low altitude to avoid anti-aircraft systems.

Northrop-Grumman Propulsion Products Catalog

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft No Responses »

Jul 272021

A PDF catalog of the various rocket motors produced by Northrop-Grumman. This includes the Orion, castor, GEM, STAR, ASAS, RSRM and others.

https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/NG-Propulsion-Products-Catalog.pdf

Includes basic data (including thrust/time curves) and illustrations. Curiously absent are prices and whether or not they take PayPal or Bitcoin. And what’s the shipping cost of, say, a dozen SLS boosters to my island volcano lair?

XB-70 videos

bomber, hi-rez 1 Response »

Jul 142021

The National Museum of the USAF has recently posted some interesting videos of their XB-70. Something the museum seems to be doing is filming their exhibits using drones; the angles aren’t always the best, but they do provide angles rarely seen before.

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