Tanker Concept Art

 aircraft, art, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
May 212024
 

Procured from ebay, this piece of concept art sadly comes without context. It shows a tanker aircraft (pretty much a McDonnell-Douglas YC-15, though the engines appear a bit different… perhaps higher bypass turbofans) topping up an F-15.

The full-rez scan of the art has been made available as a thank-you to APR Patreon and Historical Documents Program patrons at the $4 and above level, placed in the 2024-05 APR Extras Dropbox folder. If interested in this or if you are interested in helping to fund the preservation of aerospace history, please consider becoming a patron, either through the APR Patreon or the Monthly Historical Document Program.

 

 Posted by at 9:09 am

More 3D prints

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., models, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons  No Responses »
May 062024
 

1/350 War Rocket, 1/18 Pulse Units, 1/18 Atomic Artillery Shells.

 

 

The War Rocket was modified & printed from a file created for Fantastic Plastic. Their version – currently available – is in much larger 1/144 scale. I was impressed with the tiny details that this smaller print picked up, but the wings are mutated. Two have been printed, both with mucked-up wings. Another round of printing is planned with the models standing straight up to see if that fixes the issue; but since that’ll be a *16* *hour* print job, it’s a low priority.

 

 

Buttons horned in on the photography. He’s allowed. He’s old, he was unwell last night, he wanted attention, he gets it. He’s at this moment making typing a challenge for me.

 

The “pulse units” are actually failed Casaba Howitzers. The telescope components failed rather spectacularly. But with some minimal mods, they’ll make great pulse units for the 10-Meter Orion.

 

 

The 1/18 Atomic Artillery Shells have printed numerous times fantastically. They’re basically in production, but the rather simple stand I created for the set refuses to print right. Weird.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 8:37 pm

3D print results

 art, awesomeness, models, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft, weapons  No Responses »
Apr 272024
 

I’ve been running the 3D printer, with mixed results. Failures and disappointments are the fault of the CAD models; the printer itself (Anycubic Photon Mono X 6Ks) is working as advertised. Printing is not a fast process; some prints took 12 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:32 pm

Minis visualized

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, blather, CAD diagrams, Hmm..., models, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Apr 192024
 

Here are some hypothetical subjects for metal casting as “minis.” I have three pages (standard 8.5X11) of diagrams, all depicting possible subjects at the size they would be at the stated scales. First page shows what I consider a number of interesting designs… not at a constant scale, but size.

 

 

 

Second page depicts a range of Project Orion vehicles again at a roughly constant size. Constant size means, hopefully, a consistent cost.

 

Third page shows two sets of 8. The US Bomber Projects #1 set has 8 bombers at roughly constant size; US Fighter Projects #1 set has the fighters all at the same scale. 1/285 at least used to be a kind of standard for wargaming, though I’m not sure how widespread it truly was.

 

Sets like USBP01 would probably all be at about the same price, but those like USFP01 might vary since some designs at quite a bit bigger. What I’m kinda hoping for is the individual minis being about $25 each, while the 8-sets be about $100 each. Thoughts?

 

These are of course not the full possible catalog, nor would all these here necessarily come to pass. And scales/sizes could vary substantially. A lot of it would depend on actually trying them and see what works, what fails spectacularly.

 Posted by at 7:47 pm

Bell-Boeing LHX Tiltrotor art

 aircraft, art, history, projects  No Responses »
Apr 072024
 

Artwork circa 1983 depicting a one-man combat tiltrotor tearing up a column of Soviet armor. At this time the Light Helicopter – eXperimental program included the possibility of tiltrotors as well as conventional choppers. In the end the RAH-66 won… and was then cancelled before series production. Tiltrotors showed promise, but also promised to be incredibly challenging for a single pilot to manage.

 Posted by at 11:13 pm

Rockwell Space Station: 1982

 art, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 072024
 

Published in a magazine in 1983, this artist depiction shows a concept for a 1982 space station by Rockwell. Clearly of the same *kind* of station as the eventual ISS, this is a simpler, smaller construct. However, it also includes a “cargo bay” modeled aft that of the Space Shuttle, allowing payloads (what appear to be temporary science modules) to be readily transferred back and forth.

 

 Posted by at 4:32 pm

More stuff for ebay…

 aircraft, eBay, models, projects, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons  No Responses »
Mar 062024
 

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

 

 

 Posted by at 12:26 pm

First Lunar Outpost artwork

 art, awesomeness, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 202024
 

In 1992 NASA had a flurry of PR about the “First Lunar Outpost” concept which would see the US return to the moon using large lunar landers launched by a single Saturn V derived heavy lifter. A fair deal of concept art was released; much of it used the relatively new technology of computer generated imagery. Five of these images recently appeared on ebay as 16X20 prints; what the heck, I went ahead and bought them. They arrived today and I was pleasantly surprised at the production quality. They weren’t simply printouts glued to cheap foamcore, but instead are very glossy, hard plastic bonded to higher quality foamcore.

I believe I’ll have these professionally scanned and made available to APR Patrons/subscribers.

 Posted by at 3:46 pm

Dual-fuselage DC-9

 aircraft, art, projects  No Responses »
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

Orion Space Battleship

 APR, awesomeness, blather, CAD diagrams, history, Hmm..., Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, rockets, weapons  No Responses »
Jan 222024
 

With all the little publications I’ve written and illustrated, and all the years of blogging ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT political opinions and the like, it seems that at least *one* of my efforts will go down through the ages: my design for the Orion Battleship. We know to a fair certainty that such a craft was designed in the early 1960s, and that a mockup the size of a car was built; we know some of the components and features of that design. But other than that… we don’t know much. The overall size and configuration are unknown. So, fifteen years ago when I was working on an article for Aerospace Projects Review about large Orion vehicles, I went ahead and made a speculative reconstruction design. I did my best with what was available… and in the years since, nothing seems to have come out to refute the design. I do not contend that the design is an accurate reconstruction; I was never able to get in touch with anyone who knew the Battleship design first-hand to confirm my reconstruction. I could well be *badly* wrong, especially since the descriptions of the original design tend to be second-hand. One day we might find out for sure.

But in the years since I showed my design to the world, I’ve seen it recreated here and there. It seems to be the accepted Actual Design.

Huh.

Behold:

That second video uses a model based on my design, more renders of which are HERE.

Shipbucket:

A purchasable 3D printed, lower fidelity copy of my design on Etsy:

 

My renders – unimpressive even by 2009 standards – even made it into meme format:

If you want to see the Orion Battleship as I designed it in its original format, check out Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N2.

 Posted by at 12:41 am
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