Mar 062024
 

But not on ebay yet. If any of these are of interest, let me know.

 

 

 Posted by at 12:26 pm
Feb 182024
 

NASA artwork (probably 1970s/early 80’s) of a dual-fuselage DC-9. This would double the capacity while not doubling the weight; drag would go up, but so would aerodynamic efficiency due to increased effective aspect ratio of the wing, as well as being more structurally sound for the weight. The need for a pretty wide runway is something of a concept-killer, though.

 

 Posted by at 10:01 pm
Feb 172024
 

I’ve posted some stuff on ebay… an Atlantis 1/72 AH-56 Cheyenne model kit; E-Wing and TIE Defender “Action Fleet” ships; Diamond Select/Art Asylum Classic Tricorder, Classic Science Tricorder and Classic Medical Tricorder.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256415910192

    

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256415908169

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256415908230

 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256415908285

 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256415908336

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256415908399

 Posted by at 1:51 pm
Dec 032023
 

Black and white concept art, Rockwell illustration from the early 70’s represents the almost-final B-1A configuration, from back when being very supersonic was the goal rather than being stealthy at low altitude. Most obvious differences between this and the as-built B-1A are the ride control vanes (the small canards) and the discontinuity in sweepback angle between fixed and movable portions.

 

 

The full image  has been made available as a thank-you to APR Patreon and Historical Documents Program patrons at the $4 and above level, placed in the 2023-12 APR Extras . If interested in this piece or if you are interested in helping to fund the preservation of this sort of thing, please consider becoming a patron, either through the APR Patreon or the Monthly Historical Document Program.

 Posted by at 8:54 am
Nov 252023
 

A late 1950’s project from Fairchild Aircraft for a STOL aircraft, the M-232. The propulsion system was fixed, but the wings were given large flaps that would direct the bulk of the propwash more or less downwards. Coupled with the extreme nose-up attitude on the landing gear, this would almost be enough for vertical takeoff and landing. An aircraft like this would be used in a role much like that of the OV-10 Bronco.

This came from a series of articles that have been scanned and made available as “Extras” to APR Patrons and subscribers at the $11 and up level. 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 11:50 pm
Oct 102023
 

Sadly not a lot of info on this. The Vulcan Aircraft (Houston, TX) “Starfire” concept from the mid/late 1980s used lift vans and vectored thrust for VTOL. Both military and civilian uses planned. Seems kinda reasonable, if perhaps a bit light on power. The basic design seems like it might be more practical today, though of course someone would try to make it all-electric.

If anybody has anything more on this, let me know!

 Posted by at 11:01 pm
Oct 042023
 

Grumman won the contract to build the forward-swept-wing X-29. But Grumman was not the only company to go for the contract; Rockwell devoted a fair amount of effort – both engineering and PR – to win the prize. Their concept was similar, though intended to be a wholly new aircraft, and with a notably different planform.  Below is a magazine ad from 1980 showing a model of the Rockwell “Sabrebat” concept.

 

The full-rez scan has been uploaded to the 2023-10 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for $4 and up Patreons/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 10:50 pm
Sep 172023
 

Normally people are impressed with aircraft going higher, faster. And that’s certainly worth getting impressed about. But prepare to be impressed with aircraft going *incredibly* slow…

Someday it will be practical to 3D print structures of incredibly lightness using carbon fiber, with structures decimeters long and hair-thin, while still rigid. With skins of graphene and “rubber bands” made out of… well, I don’t know what, imagine the wondrously impractical ghostlike aircraft that will be built. With equally advanced optics and electronics, such aircraft could have cameras and transmitters. carried aloft by high altitude balloons, they could be released at the edge of space to fly for potentially days, covering hundreds or thousands of miles, their weak signals picked up by ground or space based receivers. I don’t know if cameras and transmitters will be good enough to make them useful intelligence gathering systems,  but they are very unlikely to be detected by IR or radar. With their carbon constructions and extreme surface area to volume rations, when they are done they will likely degrade away to almost nothing very quickly.

 Posted by at 11:47 pm
Sep 072023
 

Russia’s war in Ukraine has driven home the usefulness of dropping things from quadcopters. They can carry surprising payloads a good distance and place them with some fair accuracy; in war, payloads such as grenade, mortar shells, RPG warheads are obvious and useful choices.

But then there’s this:

It’s not immediately obvious why the owner of a heating & cooling company would use a drone to drop dye packs into private and motel swimming pools. This makes the pools undesirable for swimming and costs the owners large sums to not only flush the pools but clean them. And it does not seem like his business benefits from that; if his company specialized in pool maintenance, it’d make sense. Maybe he just doesn’t like swimming pools.

The dye packs seem unlikely to be much of a health hazard… even if they are somewhat toxic, the sickly green color would dissuade people from getting in the water. But there are other things that could be easily dropped that would be much less obvious and far more dangerous. If the drone operators goal was terrorism or simple mayhem, I can think of a *lot* of things that could be dropped in a pool (or elsewhere) that would be nightmarish.

The goal of *most* crimes is not terrorism. Most criminals, I suspect, would be just as happy if their crimes went un-noticed. In those cases, drones are somewhat limited. They are useful for smuggling… crossing borders with drugs, say, or dropping drugs, phones, weapons, cash into prison yards. Most crime would seem to involve some sort of theft, and, so far, quadcopters seem of limited utility there. Given that shoplifting is not only a largely unopposed crime, in many of the worst districts it’s not even a *crime* anymore, you hardly need to make much effort to technologically innovate in the field.

Maybe there’ll be a bank robbery (or a heist movie) where the thieves get out of the bank and, instead of trying to escape with large sacks of cash, they hook them to waiting drones. The cash flies off, and now the thieves are unburdened as they attempt to make their escape.

And then there’ll be the *darker* bank heist movie: drones are used to make off with the sacks of cash. But that’s not the end: on some sort of predictable basis, subsets of that cash are released by drone over a public area. So people begin to gather in their masses to snag the bills. And then once a big enough crowd is gathered, another set of bills is dumped on them. This time, though, the bills have been soaked in smallpox or some such…

 Posted by at 8:14 pm
Sep 012023
 

A sad percentage of my cyanotypes fail… faded, blurry or spotty. Sometimes these failure are due to bad craftsmanship; sometimes to material deficiencies, and surprisingly often, environmental factors (humidity has wreaked havoc, see the “spots”). Mostly these get simply tossed, meaning a lot of material, time and effort are wasted.

But it occurred to me that while they’d stink as proper blueprints, they might make dandy giftwrapping paper. So I’ll try that. I’m thinking of ebaying this lot of A-12 diagrams. These are all about 24X36 inches. Five sheets; if these were all successful, that’d be more than three hundred dollars worth of blueprints. Obviously not worth that, some fraction. And instead of being mailed rolled, they’ll be simply folded and sent in a padded envelope. If interested, send an email. If I get an offer that overcomes my depression at the failure these otherwise represent, that’d be great. Otherwise, ebay.

 

 Posted by at 8:19 pm