Art!

 aircraft, APR, art, awesomeness, blather, eBay, history, Hmm..., Monthly Historical Documents Program, new products, news, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Apr 262022
 

The third of three pieces of vintage aerospace concept art – the actual paintings, not reproductions – that I recently procured from ebay has arrived. This is a 1960’s Hughes concept for a “Hot Cycle” Rotor Wing VTOL aircraft. The prior two – a 1970’s Bell AMST concept for a four-turbojet C-130 test aircraft and a 1980 Bell concept for a hovercraft to allow fighters to launch from bombed-out runways – were just able to be scanned on my flatbed scanner. But the Hughes painting was much larger, so I digitized it via photography, resulting in a 10,878X7500 pixel (about 36X25 at 300 dpi) image. Several iterations of the image – the stitched-together final image, and a version that was fade-corrected to make it look more like the actual painting – have been uploaded to a Dropbox folder with the Bell art.

These paintings are currently framed and will be hung on my wall… for a time. At some point my plan is to donate them to a good museum. The Smithsonian NASM is the obvious default, but I’m interested in alternatives. A museum that would *want* these and would protect yet display them would be ideal.

If you happen to see other aerospace concept art on ebay that’s not going for *insane* amounts and you’d like to see it preserved… let me know. I now have four pieces (not counting things like blueprints); not a great collection by any measure, but it’s something.

I am going to continue to work on digitizing this painting. I’ve been trying to find a local flatbed scanner big enough to scan the whole thing all at once; if I can get that done, the results will also be uploaded to the Dropbox folder.

If you’d like access to the folder – and thus the high-rez images, as well as some PDF documentation I’ll be adding – here’s an opportunity to do so. These paintings were not cheap to secure, so there’s a bit of a charge ($25):

 

Procuring these was not cheap, but now they are saved for posterity.

 

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with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.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 4:42 pm

Art!

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, news, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Apr 212022
 

Two of the three pieces of vintage original aerospace concept art I recently bought on ebay have arrived, and they’re spectacular. They are from Bell Aerospace, one from the 70’s (depicting a four-turbojet C-130 demonstrator for the AMST program), one from the 80’s (depicting a hovercraft takeoff sled for an F-15 to allow liftoff from damaged runways), both actual paint on an actual board, no computer graphics. I managed to scan both of them on my flatbed scanner at 600 dpi; even at that high resolution, at full magnification they look awesome. Neither, however, is signed. If anyone knows who the artists were, drop a comment.

One more art to come, hopefully early-ish next week.

I have framed these two and will hang them on my wall… but they will eventually be donated somewhere relevant and appropriate, *probably* the Smithsonian (if nothing else, that’ll be in my will), but I’m open to suggestions. The NMUSAF is another option.

If’n you want max-rez scans of these two (and the forthcoming third, plus some backup PDF documentation on the programs these illustrate)… $25.

Procuring these was not cheap, but now they are saved for posterity.

 

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 3:27 pm

Boeing 2707 in copper

 aircraft, art, eBay, history, Hmm..., projects  No Responses »
Apr 192022
 

Here’s an odd thing currently on ebay:

Vintage Boeing SST Presentation Wall Art, Copper Sheet formed for 3D perspective

It’s a piece of Boeing 2707-100 supersonic transport concept art, a painting I’ve seen before. But the difference is that it’s painted on an embossed sheet of copper. I recall this sort of thing being popular-ish back in the 70’s, having done myself as a child back then. I don’t know if this is in any way an official Boeing rendering, or some unofficial piece of “folk art,” but it looks reasonably good.

Note: I looked up the artist, “C.E. Pearson.” Turns out this person seemed to do a *lot* of “copper art,” including a bunch of – wait for it – clowns (this was from before Pennywise and John Wayne Gacy nuked the idea of clowns as being anything but creepy). Gah. My guess is it’s not official.

It’s not something I’m going after. Have at it.

 Posted by at 12:23 am

“Dipper”

 AARRRGH, aircraft, Crazy, history, Hmm..., projects, ships  No Responses »
Apr 172022
 

I was asked about a poorly-documented idea for an aircraft to be carried in and launched from a Polaris missile tube in a submarine. The aircraft was dubbed “Dipper,” and from the extremely lean description I have seems to have been dreamed up by drunks. But while I have no further data, it *seems* irritatingly familiar. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

 Posted by at 6:20 pm

One art, please

 AARRRGH, aircraft, APR, art, awesomeness, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., history, Hmm..., Monthly Historical Documents Program, news, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Apr 162022
 

D’oh. My “gotta save money” goal just took some substantial hits… I bought some vintage *original* art, the *actual* paintings, on ebay.

Send help.

First: A 1980’s idea for a small unmanned hovercraft to help an F-15 lift off from a damaged runway:

Second: a 1970’s Bell concept for a C-130 with four turbojet engines as a demonstrator for the AMST program:

My credit card just went “WTF are you *doing?*”

Feel free to hit that “tip jar” or subscribe in order to do you part in enabling this sort of financially dubious aerospace history collection and preservation. What I think would be best is to scan the bejeebers out of these then donate them to a good archive or museum.

There’s another much more interesting piece I’m hoping to hear something good on regarding an offer I made.

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 8:03 pm

Large format scans coming in…

 art, awesomeness, drawings, history, new products, news, projects, rockets, ships, spacecraft  No Responses »
Apr 132022
 

The large format rocket & submarine scans I mentioned HERE are starting to come in. The first ~60 scans clock in at a total of about 1 gigabyte… the remaining forty – scanned, but not yet sent to me – total something like 23 gigabytes. Giant full-color blueprints. Woo.

For a limited time, if you would like copies of these scans, the whole batch is $175. If interested, send me an email:

 Posted by at 6:52 pm

Stabbed the “Buy it Now” button

 aircraft, APR, art, eBay, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Apr 122022
 

Just bought on ebay, a print of the Boeing “Space Sortie” vehicle.

So much for my “maybe I should spend less in these difficult times” idea. 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 11:09 am

Early Grumman Lunar Lander

 art, history, models, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Apr 092022
 

Coming soonever from Fantastic Plastic: a 1/48 scale model of an early Grumman lunar lander concept. I’ve recently finished the CAD model for this, based on diagrams, art and display models. As modeled it has a basic interior; your average LEM model doesn’t have an interior, but at this early stage int he design the windows were HUGE, which made the interior kinda mandatory. The windows were gigantic because the crew were seated and thus recessed from the skin of the vehicle; by going to standing crew, they could put their faces right up next to the windows… allowing the windows to be far smaller.

 

 Posted by at 3:49 am

A lot of large format scans

 art, awesomeness, blather, drawings, drawings&documents, history, Hmm..., Monthly Historical Documents Program, new products, Patreon, projects, rockets, ships, spacecraft  No Responses »
Apr 072022
 

I just dropped off at the print shop a little over one hundred large format prints for scanning. I usually do this in small handfuls, so this is a new approach. It’s also an expensive approach. In that pile of prints are just over 50 diagrams of early-ish rockets/space launch vehicles, all from the same source; the other fifty-ish are something new: submarines. American subs from the early days to a few decades ago; some are commercial diagrams, but most are official blueprints depicting a wide range of submarines.

Following receipt of the scans, there will follow a long process of going through them and trying to figure out what to do with them all. Some will go into the monthly rewards catalog; some will perhaps go into the “Drawings and documents” catalog, and some, like the subs, will go into a brand-new catalog. A lot of them will *not* be distributed that way, since they are commercial items. Almost all will require a lot of cleanup, a heart-breakingly time consuming process sometimes. A lot of expense and effort, right when I’m broke and busy. So, always on the lookout for a way to make a nickel, here’s what I can do: if the idea of 50 rocket diagrams and 50 submarine diagrams (some of them will be *very* large) sounds interesting to you, I will make them available as a sight-unseen lot for $175 for anyone who responds via the email address below. I don’t know for sure how long the scanning process will take; probably more than a week. At the end of that time I will have a massive block of data uploaded to Dropbox: I’m handwaving a guess of around ten gigabytes. So if you’re interested in the diagrams, or you just want to help a feller out with this rather niche activity (preserving aerospace and now submarine history), send me an email, and when the scans are available I will send out PayPal requests.

A *few* of the submarine diagrams may be deleted prior to being sent out. The ones with the rather interesting “distribute these further and the FBI will come and say howdy” notifications. I’ve seen one such; it was not included in this batch. I didn’t see that on any in this batch, but I will look closer when I can see them digitally.

 Posted by at 5:41 pm
 Older Entries  Newer Entries