Aerospace Projects Review Blog – Page 24 – Unbuilt aircraft and Spacecraft Projects

B-60 photos

Apr 062021

The B-60 was Convairs failed effort to compete against the Boeing B-52. It began as a modification of the B-36; the wings were snapped off and swept back, the piston engines were removed and replaced with four turboprops and was originally dubbed the B-36G. When the turboprops were replaced with eight dual-podded turbojets, it was designated the B-60. Compared to the B-52 it was woefully obsolete, with World War II aerodynamics married to Korean War engines; it was incredibly fat and draggy and could not hope to compete with the advanced B-52. Still: it’s a B-36 with jet engines.

A while back someone on eBay sold a few vintage photos. I thought they might be of interest.

Trident vs Trident

nukes, rockets, US Launcher Projects No Responses »

Apr 042021

The Trident I and Trident II were fundamentally different missiles, despite the name.

Somewhere around here I have a technical paper on turning the Trident II into a satellite launcher. Been meaning to work that into an issue of US Launch Vehicle Projects one of these years.

March 2021 rewards

bomber, hi-rez, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, Recon, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports, VTOL No Responses »

Mar 312021

Just released, the March 2021 rewards for APR Patrons and Subscribers. Included this month:

Diagram/art: a large format scan of an artists concept of the XC-14. This was printed with a large number of signatures; they seem to be Boeing engineers.

Document 1: “Project Hummingbird.” An FAA document summarizing the characteristics of STOL and VTOL aircraft circa 1961, including bogh built and proposed types. This was scanned from a clean original!

Document 2: “The Thor Missile Story.” Old, old, incredibly old school media… a film strip propaganda piece about the statues of the Thor IRBM.

CAD diagram: the WWII era German DFS 228 rocket powered high altitude recon plane, proposed operational version.

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

Because I forgot to mention the January and February rewards… subscribers/patrons got these (new subscribers can order them as back issues):

January 2021: Titan IIIC/IIIM booster rockets; CAD diagram of Post-Saturn concepts; a Convair Heavy Bombardment Airplane brochure; a fractional XF-103 mockup review and technical description; a fractional Westland paper on VTOL; a General Dynamics report on a proposed turboprop transport for Saturn stages.

February, 2021: An Aerion SST brochure; a Lockheed SST diagram; Dornbergers report on a commercial rocket powered airliner (scanned from a clean vintage copy); an early Convair jet flying boat bomber brochure; a CAD diagram comparing General Atomics’ ten-meter Orions for the USAF and NASA.

Can anyone shed any light on this “tanker airplane?”

hi-rez, transports No Responses »

Mar 302021

From the National Archives, a few photos dated 1979 of a Lewis Research Center model of a “Tanker Airplane.” *FAR* higher resolution versions of the photos are available at the links.

TANKER AIRPLANE MODEL

And…

TANKER AIRPLANE MODEL

That’s certainly an unusual configuration. If it hadn’t originated at NASA, I’d think it was a college students design project. But then… there’s one more photo which might shed a little bit of light onto the subject:

TANKER AIRPLANE MODEL

Huh.

The text on the wing reads:

To
LRC from LeRC
November 8(?) 1979

This would seem to be some sort of a gag gift from Lewis Research Center to Langley Research Center, but the details of what, who, and why are not available to me. If anyone can shed light, please do so.

Protected: March 2021 Rewards Catalogs

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

Mar 282021

Lockheed NATF

fighter, hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, stealth No Responses »

Mar 262021

In the long, long ago, Lockheed tried to sell the F-22 to the US Navy. In order to accommodate the needs of Naval aviation, the aircraft would have had to have been massively modified… most obviously by giving the aircraft variable geometry wings like the F-14’s. Clearly the Navy didn’t go for it: the cost of the program would have been immense, as would have been the risks. The F-22 ended up being troubled enough with materials and maintenance nightmares; add to that the rigors of slamming into carrier decks, constant humidity and salt air, all the other bothersome details of operating from ships at sea; and add to THAT the fact that while the NATF (Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter)*looked* like the F-22, it would have shared very few structures in common with its Air Force cousin and would have been basically a new aircraft… it would undoubtedly have been massively expensive to a degree that even the F-35 would have been hard pressed to match.

The fullrez scan of the artwork has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-03 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.

Kinetic Kill Vehicle

hypersonic, rockets No Responses »

Mar 242021

An Aerojet illustration of an interceptor designed to take out targets such as incoming nuclear warheads by the simple expedient of ramming into them at several kilometers per second, the old “hitting a bullet with a bullet” cliche.

Douglas ICARUS

hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, transports, VTOL No Responses »

Mar 192021

A video on the Douglas ICARUS/Ithacus, a 1960’s concept for a rocket vehicle to lob 1200 Marines anywhere on the planet in 45 minutes:

This video is based in large part on the article I wrote and illustrated in Aerospace projects Review issue V2N6, AVAILABLE HERE.

Why not sign on for the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon, why not? You’ll not only help make sure that this sort of research is done, you’ll get a fat stack of monthly rewards int he form of aerospace documentation.

CL-1201: it happened again

nukes, transports, US Transport Projects, VTOL No Responses »

Mar 172021

Somehow or other, yet another YouTube video has been produced on the giant nuclear powered Lockheed CL-1201. Seems strange that after all this time this rather obscure design is suddenly getting traction… it’s almost as if YouTubers watch and copy each other. Wheird.

Anyway, *imagine* my surprise to find that the video has one of my copyrighted diagrams in it, without attribution, lightly modified and dumbified. Huh.

Video diagram:

My diagram, taken from Aerospace Projects Review issue V1N3 and US Transport Projects #4:

Yay, I guess? Would be nice if people made some effort to acknowledge where their stuff comes from.

NACA SST

jetliner, transports, US Transport Projects No Responses »

Mar 102021

This design has appeared here before… once as a piece of art from Life magazine, and once as an issue of US Transport Projects. This was a very early, very preliminary notional concept for a passenger carrying supersonic aircraft; whether it would have technically worked is debatable, but almost assuredly it would have been a financial disaster. It would have consumed large quantities of fuel and dropped sizable rocket units to fly a small number of passengers a relatively limited distance at a relatively low supersonic speed. Still: everything has to start from somewhere.

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