May 012023
 

The rewards for April, 2023, have been released. They include:

Document: *Partial* Martin report on the M329 Mach 2 jet seaplane bomber

Document: “Flexible Wing Manned Test Vehicle, Final Program Report,” Ryan, December 1961. report on the development of the “Rogallo Wing” test vehicle.

Document: “10 Jahre TKF/J-90 Vorentwicklung,” conference paper from 1983 from Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm Gmbh describing (in German) the development of advanced fighter jets

Large Format: “NASA’s Space Launch System,” poster with detailed diagrams of the Block 1 and Block 1B SLS

CAD Diagram: B-1B weapons loads. This diagram was created and intended for my “US Supersonic Bomber Projects Volume 1” but had to be cut for space reasons. This includes gravity bombers, cruise missile sand the Vought T-22 “Assault Breaker.”

 

 

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with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.




 

 Posted by at 2:13 pm
Jan 022023
 

The December 2022 rewards are available for APR Patrons and Subscribers. This latest package includes:

Large Format Diagram: AWACS model diagram

Document: “Preliminary Design of a Mars Excursion Module,” 1964 conference paper, Philco

Document: “Astronauts Memorial” 2 diagrams

Document: “Patrol Reconnaissance Airplane Twin Float,”  Convair brochure (via photos), 1944. Two piston engines, two turbojets

Document: “Hard Mobile Launcher,” Martin Marietta PR, two images. One photo, one artists impression

Document: “JVX Space Proposal” apparently a fragment, 1984 Bell maps of manufacturing facilities for what would become the V-22

Document: “Minimum Man In Space,” 1958 NACA memo describing proposals made to Wright Air Development Center for what would become the Mercury program

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with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.




 

And because I forgot to post about it at the time, the November 2022 rewards were made available a month ago:

Large Format Diagram: B-50A Superfortress Model Diagram

Document: “Design Study of a One Man Lunar Transportation device,” 1964 North American Aviation conference paper on a rocket “hopper”

Document: “Project EGRESS (Emergency Global Rescue, Escape and Survival System),” 1964 Martin conference paper on ejection capsule for aerospacecraft

Document: “The Hydrogen Fueled Hypersonic Transport,” 1968 Convair conference paper

CAD Diagram: Mach 3 turbojets: Allison 700 B-2 (J89), GE YJ-93-GE-3 (cutaway), P&W J58

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. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.




 Posted by at 10:54 am
Dec 012022
 

The Bell 214ST (“Super Transport”) first flew in 1977. Derived from the Bell 214, itself derived from the UH-1 “Huey,” the 214ST was substantially bigger and more powerful than the original design. Bell had great hopes for the type, but in the end less than one hundred were produced. A not-inconsiderable part of the problem was that the 214ST was designed to be produced in Iran which, at the time, was an American ally;  of course, Iran soon fall to forces of the Stupid Age, and that put an end to notions of Bell designs being manufactured in Iran. It was roughly similar to the Sikorsky UH-60 in size and performance. Bell continued to push for customers into the 1990’s (the art below was published in 1982), but production ended in 1992 without any big contracts.

The full rez scans have been uploaded to the 2022-11 APR Extras Dropbox folder for $4 and up Patrons/Subscribers.

 Posted by at 7:37 am
Nov 142022
 

A Boeing rendering of an advanced fighter from the late 70’s/early 80’s. This design features variable sweep wings and inlets mounted over the shoulders, reminiscent of the Boeing Model 818 design proposed in the early 1960s for the TFX program (won by General Dynamics, resulting in the F-111… check out “US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1” for more on that). There are four weapons mounted conformally to the underside. All in all it looks like an early attempt at a *somewhat* stealthy aircraft… not true stealth, but a substantial reduction in radar return, specifically from ground-based radar. This would seem to indicate that the aircraft was intended to generally fly low and to serve in a strike capacity.

The configuration is broadly conventional, apart from the inlets. The twin exhaust nozzles are 2D vectorable, reducing IR signature and increasing agility and short field takeoff performance. The twin tails are canted outboard, probably to knock out the “corner reflector” problem for radar returns. This was likely intended to be something of a replacement for the F-111 rather than the next air dominance fighter like the F-15.

The full rez scan has been uploaded into the 2022-11 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for $4 and up Patrons/Subscribers.

 

 

 Posted by at 11:11 pm
Nov 012022
 

The October 2022 rewards are available for APR Patrons and Subscribers. This latest package includes:

Large format art: A Bell Aerospace painting of the D188A VTOL fighter/bomber

Document: “Standard Aircraft Characteristics – Convair Class VF Seaplane Night Fighter (SKATE)” diagrams and data for seaplane jet fighter

Document: “21St Century Aerospace – The 20th Century Challenge,” General Dynamics presentation, late 80’s about hypersonics/NASP. From photographs.

Document: “Prototype X-14 VTOL Aircraft,” Bell Aerospace presentation, 1971, on the “SeaKat” operational naval VTOL. From photos, but art and diagrams were also scanned for clarity.

CAD Diagram ($5 and up): XB-70 Valkyrie forward fuselage configuration

 

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. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.




 Posted by at 1:30 am
Oct 212022
 

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.




 

 

 Posted by at 1:29 pm
Oct 092022
 

The ad below was published in magazines in 1982, showing a cutaway illustration of the then-fancy new B-1B bomber, recently rescued by the Reagan Administration. The background is here depicted as a rather dull gray, but the physical ad has a shiny metallic coating, which must have cost a small fortune at the time.

 

The full-rez version of this scan has been uploaded into the 2022-10 APR Extras Dropbox folder. It is available to all APR Patrons/Subscribers at the $4/month level and above. 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.




 

 Posted by at 1:11 am
Sep 162022
 

An Aerojet diagram comparing the Trident I (C-4) and Trident II (D-5) submarine launched ballistic missiles, showing the significantly larger size of the latter

The full-rez version of this scan has been uploaded into the 2022-09 APR Extras Dropbox folder. It is available to all APR Patrons/Subscribers at the $4/month level and above. 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.




 

 Posted by at 10:49 pm
Jul 232022
 

Shortly after WWII the US Air Force funded studies on long range missiles, wit the intent of incorporating what had been learned from the Germans. One design, the 1947-vintage North American Aviation model 704, was derived (through numerous steps) from the German A-4 (V-2), but made longer range by way of adding wings and two ramjet engines. This would eventually evolve into the “Navaho” intercontinental cruise missile; an impressive but ultimately doomed system that used a large liquid rocket booster to shove a large Mach 3+ ramjet aircraft into the sky. In the end, ICBM were easier and cheaper.

The full rez scan of the diagram has been made available to APR Patrons/Subscribers at above the $10 level.

 

 Posted by at 12:40 am
Jul 032022
 

A 1970’s Boeing concept for a variable geometry supersonic transport. Once the Boeing 2707 was cancelled in the wake of the oil crisis, any further work on supersonic transports focused heavily on “how do we make this more fuel efficient.” One approach was to go back to variable geometry, which had been dropped from the SST program when the 2707-200 was replaced with the 2707-300. The swing-wing of the -200 worked wonders for the low speed performance of the aircraft, but played hell with cost and weight, enough so that the -300 had a fixed modified delta wing.

The solution shown below linked a few technologies. One concept that showed promise was the “oblique wing,” as tested on the AD-1. A single-piece stricture connected to the fuselage at a single pivot point; much lighter and simpler than a traditional two-pivot swing-wing. With sufficiently rigid structures – think “carbon fiber” – the forward-swept portion could remain reasonably flat even at high speed. But this concept went one step further and linked *two* fuselages to not only a single oblique wing, but also an oblique tail. This would put the “aft” fuselage behind the shock wave shed off the nose of the “forward” fuselage, greatly reducing drag. You’d have the capacity of two SSTs for the operating cost of little more than one. Neat idea… very complex. I’m not sure if it made it much further than preliminary wind tunnel testing.

Full-rez scan uploaded to the 2022-07 APR Extras folder.

 Posted by at 4:37 pm