embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt
Feb 032012
Feb 022012
Continuing to plink away on this one. The first set of illustrations show the whole setup; the second set shows a further refinement with the ramjet innards in place.
Feb 022012
The last of this set of images, this one showing a twin-engine design with USB jets. Note the rather large “fence” on the inboard side of the exhaust… I would guess that this is a noise-blocker, to help keep the passengers from going stone deaf.
Feb 022012
A rather clever promotional stunt for the forthcoming fantasy movie “Chronicle” (about three guys who wind up with Superman-like superpowers, at least one of whom – according to the commercials I’ve seen – goes bugnuts).
embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt
Of course, these RC airplanes shaped like people are being shown here flying around a rather empty looking region across the river from Manhattan, not in New York City proper. They appear to be very low-mass and low-power vehicles; it would be interesting to see a higher performance version. It’d be more interesting to see a higher performance version actually zipping up and down the streets of Manhattan. But I’d guess that would be *all* kinds of illegal.
Salt Lake Tribune: Fire razes recycling plant in Box Elder County
KSL: Owner vows to stay in business after fire destroys recycling facility
Standard-Examiner: Fire at Hillside Recycling in Deweyville on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012.
I happened to pass near it on my way back from Logan today. The smoke plume was fairly impressive. Sadly, the highway was closed off and I couldn’t get a close look at it.
embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt
Jan 312012
Fluffmodeus generally has the appearance of a dark hole in the universe with a set of eyes.
Jan 312012
The short form: in August of 1865 one Colonel P.H. Anderson of of Big Spring, TN, a former slaver, apparently wrote to one of his former slaves (now living and working – for a paycheck – in Ohio with his family) asking him to come back. The good Col. claimed that he would pay the slave – Jourdan Anderson – a good wage.
That is ballsy. Chutzpah. Audacity. Something along those lines. For a man who *owned* another human being to watch that human being escape to freedom and then ask for that now free man to come *back* is the height of
But perhaps startlingly, Mr. Anderson replied with a dictated letter of surpassing politeness. But as you read along, the “yes massa” tone the letter starts off with gradually grows into a well-crafted FU. Mr Anderson knows what the value of his labor is, now that he’s getting paid for it, so he wants the slaver to provide assurances that he will actually pay off.And what better way to prove his honest intentions than… BACK PAY. Thirty two years at 25 dollars per week – plus twenty years at two dollar per week for his wife, PLUS INTEREST – worked out to $11,680. Which Mr. Anderson could be paid by Adams Express.
Haw!
Somehow I expect that the good Colonel probably did not pay up.
Jan 312012
Most of the 3D solid models I’ve made, I’ve made for clients or employers. Every now and then, though, I’ve made a few on spec or just for giggles. One such is the Convair Super Hustler. It’s nowhere near done, but it at least looks like a Super Hustler. When done, I hope to translate it into physical form, either as a kit or as a finished display model.
The booster stage will of course be modeled as well. The B-58 Hustler carrier aircraft is available in 1/144, 1/72 and 1/48 scales… but damn, the Super Hustler would be impressive at 1/18 scale!
Jan 312012
From Alaska, Great Concern for Central Park
Short form: State legislature of Alaska is debating a resolution to have the FedGuv take over New York’s Central Park as a National park, thus preventing any changes to it without an act of congress. They are doing this to protest the incessant meddling of “east coast environmentalists” in Alaskan affairs.
A suggestion, though: they were thinking too small. The problem that Alaska is having isn’t that the environmentalists are messing with a commonly used recreation park, but that they are messing with Alaskans ability to make an income by shutting down businesses. So, my suggestion wouldn’t be to turn Central Park into a federal National Park… but to turn *Manhattan* into a National Park. Thus if anyone wanted to build a new building, tear down an old one, re-wire a power grid, swap out streetlights, pave over potholes or re-decorate their apartment… they’d need to get specific permission from Congress to do so. *That* would be fair and proper.
Last chance to sign up for the (lottery? raffle?) chance to win a free ride to the edge of space on the XCOR Lynx spaceplane. To win you have to attend the Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference, and you have to have an experiment. The best I can come up with on the spur of the moment would be to use the payload capacity of the Lynx to loft a high-performance upper stage, to launch an inert payload to as close to orbital velocity as possible, and test re-entry capability. My personal choice for re-entry vehicle? Khalid Sheik Mohammad. One thing we *all* want to know is “what happens to a human sans re-entry heat shield when de-orbited over the middle east?” and this seems like a good opportunity to find out.
So if you win the ride, feel free to use my experiment idea. I’d be happy to consult.
XCOR Aerospace and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) announce the final week to register and become eligible to win a suborbital research flight on XCOR’s Lynx I vehicle at the Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC-2012) in Palo Alto, CA on February 27-29. The deadline for early conference registration and for entering the drawing is the 10th of February at nsrc.swri.org.
Donate
Search for stuff at Amazon and support the Unwanted Blog
Aerospace Drawings and Documents
Aerospace Projects Review
My email