Mortons has posted a preview “sampler” of my “Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird” bookazine. You can take a look and see if it’s for you.
It is available directly through the publisher for £8.99 (Approx $12.41 or €10.34). It is also available through Amazon for pre-order for $12.99. Direct from the publisher should be available sooner; from Amazon, lower mailing cost if you’re in the US.
Mortons has announced my “bookazine” Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird – Origins & Evolution, now available for pre-order. This is my first published book. Woo! It covers the development of the SR-71 from well before the program started , including the “Suntan” concepts and several Convair high speed reconnaissance platforms, up through the development of the “Archangel” series that led to the CIA’s A-12, through the Mach 3 interceptor designs and the SR-71 itself. From there it also includes a number of proposed derivatives and unbuilt concepts… an A-12 used to launch satellites, the SR-71 as a carrier for a manned hypersonic scramjet vehicle, the use of the “SR-71C” as a flying wind tunnel, etc.
It is available directly through the publisher for £8.99 (Approx $12.41 or €10.34). It is also available through Amazon for pre-order for $12.99. Direct from the publisher should be available sooner; from Amazon, lower mailing cost if you’re in the US.
Here are some shots of a few pages to give you an idea of what’s in it. I created all the diagrams within, based on official sources and as accurate as I could make them. There are many, MANY diagrams here describing designs mundane and downright wacky, from tiny unmanned drones to truly gigantic hydrogen-fueled monsters.
Tell your friends!
Another strange piece of 1970’s/early 1980’s Boeing art, this time depicting an “Intercity Transport.” What’s going on with that circular “inlet” on the rear upper fuselage? Damnfino. Just visible under the wing root is a low-set inlet, so that would seem to provide what’s needed for the propulsion system. If there was a vertical thrust system in the nose, and good low-speed control systems on the outer wings, then that circular inlet would be fore a VTOL system. But on its own? Hmmm.
The full rez scan of the artwork has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-05 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. 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.
The observant observer will note that something seems to be missing from the front view here. However… it’s accurate as depicted.
Might have noticed that blogging has been reduced mostly to posting YouTube vids and very brief grumbles of late. It’ll probably be much the same or even less for the next month or two… I’m hard at work on “B-47/B-52” and that takes precedence. Just passed 200 pages of diagrams; a few more left to do, but text is the current priority and I’m a slower writer than draftsman (and I don’t draft that fast).
Side note: Amazon has decided that I might be interested in these. Amazing! How do it know?
The art below is a Boeing concept from the late 70s or early 80’s depicting an almost certainly wholly conceptual “electric commuter jet” based on a rather dubious propulsion system: the ring-shaped aircraft would be equipped with massive counter-rotating flywheels which would be spun up to high speed on the ground (presumably with fixed electric motors). To fly, the flywheels would engage a compressor which would provide the jet thrust to fly. I haven’t done the math on this, but unless those flywheels are made of an adamantium-vibranium-uru alloy spun up to a few hundred thousand RPM, it seems unlikely to me that the wheels would store enough energy to provide for a meaningful flight. I doubt that this existed beyond the artists imagination… but if anyone has evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.
The full rez scan of the artwork has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-05 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. 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.
A piece of artwork (almost certainly a negative, based on the shading and the national insignia) depicting the Kaman K-16 deflected slipstream tiltwing VTOL flying boat project. The K-16 was actually built in 1959, but never flew and was cancelled in 1962.
The airframe somehow managed to survive and is on display at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. I visited there a couple times years ago and took a number of photos, posted HERE (2001 visit) and HERE (2007 visit). The full rez scan of the artwork has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-05 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. 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.
Here is an incomplete look at the diagrams created for my first book, “Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress; Origins & Evolution.” It can be pre-ordered either directly from the publisher (with publication expected in late September) or through Amazon (looks like they’ll have it two months later). It is also expected to be on certain store shelves… more on that when it’s confirmed.
A few of these diagrams will be compressed to several-per-page; a few of them here are already shown in multiple optional layouts. But there are also a dozen-ish diagrams *not* shown because they are incomplete as yet. This gives an indication of the size and scope of the project…
My publisher has gone public with Book One, entitled
Woo!
It is being published by Mortons out of Britain, is scheduled for release at the end of September, and is going to be around 250 to 280 pages (I’m still furiously working away at it). As those who have seen my work may assume, it will be loaded to the gills with diagrams, in this case covering the competitors to the B-47 and B-52, the original concepts, how the designs evolved and many of the proposed and built derivatives. You can pre-order at the link above. I’m getting confirmation on availability in the States… Amazon and Barnes & Noble and other sources. Will report back on that, but it does look like both outlets will carry it.
I will post more details – including glimpses of diagrams and some of the color art created for the book by Rob Parthoens – in the coming days. Feel free to ask questions.
Note: Book Two has not yet gone public. But Book Two should be published *first* since it is finished and edited; I’ve seen and approved the layout. All it’s missing right now is cover art, which is in process.
And…behold! An Amazon link, listing it as available in late November/early December. Just in time for Chrisnukkwanzayulmass! Note though that the “150 page” length listed there is incorrect… came from the original placeholder text.
Another Boeing concept for the recovery of an S-IC stage. This used large fins with deployable drag brakes to stabilize the stage nose-down, parachutes to slow descent and sizable rocket motors for terminal braking just before splashdown. Additional rockets arrest the stages “collapse” to the side.
Would a Falcon 9-style landing have been better? Sure. But that wasn’t going to happen with 1960’s technology. A splashdown, recovery and refurbishment would have been expensive, but likely not as expensive as a brand new stage, and as has been the case with Falcon 9, as time goes by and experience grows, everything would get better and cheaper.
