PDF Review: Airbus Almost-Hypersonic Transport Patent

 aircraft, drawings, Hmm..., Patreon, projects, rockets, youtube  5 Responses »
Nov 132015
 

A few months ago, Airbus Defence and Space Sas received a US patent for a nearly hypersonic passenger transport. The vehicle has a number of different engines… rocket engines for vertical boost and acceleration, ramjets for hypersonic cruise, turbojets for subsonic flight including takeoff and landing. It would take off conventionally with turbojets, fire the rocket to shoot almost vertically to about 35 kilometers altitude (going supersonic in the process), then level off and cruise under ramjet power at Mach 4.5. The extreme altitude, about 3 times higher than normal jetliner traffic, would mean that the sonic boom should be greatly attenuated by the time it got to the surface.

The wingtip fins would rotate through 90 degrees to maintain center of pressure from subsonic through supersonic.

Unusually for a patent, this one provides dimensions. Fuselage length (dimension 11 in Figure 1) is 52.995 meters; overall length (dimension 110, Figure 3) is 57.63 meters; maximum span (dimension 126, Figure 5) is 27.188 meters.

Interestingly, the design looks like a mishmash of WWII-era designs… the “gothic wing” designed by Michael Gluhareff of Sikorsky merged with the wingtips of the Blohm & Voss P.208-2 or Skoda-Kauba SL-6.

This is US Patent 907661B2. At the moment the Google page for this patent seems a little non-functional; the PDF of the patent won’t download for me. Fortunately, the page for the patent application is functioning just fine. You can download the PDF file of the patent application directly from THIS LINK RIGHT HERE.

Some pages of diagrams:

Pages from US20120325957_Page_1Pages from US20120325957_Page_2 Pages from US20120325957_Page_3

Here is a video description of the design.

The interior views of the vehicle show one of the problems with rocket-boosted transport aircraft: The majority of the interior volume isn’t people and cargo, but propellant.

Much more aerospace stuff is available via the APR Patreon. If this sort of thing interests you, please consider signing up… not only will you help fund the search for obscure aerospace history, you’ll gain access to a lot of interesting stuff, not available elsewhere.

patreon-200

 Posted by at 11:53 am

Logistics Capsules in Color

 art, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Nov 072015
 

Color artwork from NASA circa 1964 depicting Apollo-derived logistics spacecraft. The BALLOS (BALlistic LOgistic Spacecraft) was studied by several corporations such as Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas as well as NASA; the artwork was done *for* NASA, but it’s unclear if it was done *by* NASA.

The full resolution versions of these artworks have been posted into the 2015-11 folder in the APR Extras Dropbox. Please check out the APR Patreon!

S64-06336 S64-01800

 Posted by at 1:09 am

Russian mobile nuclear powerplant

 Hmm..., news, nukes, projects, science  12 Responses »
Nov 042015
 

Russian Army to Build Mobile Nuclear Stations

Seems that the whole “Pamir” setup will require four sizable truck-pulled trailers:

  1. Reactor
  2. Turbine
  3. Control room
  4. housing for crew

No info on the power output, but it’s claimed that it’ll be up and running around 2020.

pamir

Sure, kinda hard to really necessarily trust Russian (or, let’s face it, pretty much anybodies) claims about developing anything interesting and nuclear anytime soon. But if they were able to pull it off, and go from “hey, I’ve got an idea” to “hey, look, an operational nuclear power station on wheels” inside half a decade, then the US will have no excuses from not being able to crank out it’s own even better nukes. The only possible excuse will be politics and bureaucrats.

 Posted by at 5:14 pm

US Bomber Projects #17 now available

 aircraft, drawings, history, new products, nukes, projects, rockets, US Bomber Projects  2 Responses »
Nov 032015
 

Now available… a new additions to the US Aerospace Projects series.

US Bomber Projects #17

USBP #17 includes:

M.C.D. 392: A wartime design for a global-range bomber
Martin Model 194: A strategic bomber somewhat larger than the B-29
Lockheed CL-285-815: A supersonic nuclear powered concept with five engines
Consolidated Model 36: An early design for the B-36 with twin tails
Boeing Model 701-290: A supersonic bomber on the road to the B-59
Thiokol 260-inch ICBM: An unreasonably large ICBM concept
AFRL ESAV: A recent concept for a stealthy supersonic bomber
Convair GEBO II: An ancestor of the B-58, carried aloft under a B-60

USBP#17 can be purchased for downloading for the low, low price of $4.

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usbp17ad2

usbp17ad1

 Posted by at 7:57 pm

Big Gemini/Apollo

 drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  7 Responses »
Oct 302015
 

Two McDonnell Douglas illustrations showing versions of their “Big Gemini” logistics spacecraft, and a similar concept for an Apollo-derived 9-man logistics spacecraft (not, seemingly, named “Big Apollo,” though that would have been appropriate). Both featured enlarged capsules to transport crew up and down, with an attached propulsion/cargo module which would be jettisoned to burn up.

bigapollo biggemini

 Posted by at 10:49 am

Air Force selects NorGrum to design next new bomber program to be cancelled

 aircraft, Hmm..., news, projects, weapons  5 Responses »
Oct 272015
 

Northrop Grumman Wins Air Force’s Long Range Strike Bomber Contract

Presumably this will be the “B-3,” but who knows. Supposedly they’re shooting for an initial operational capability of 2025, some 70 or so years after the B-52, 39 years after the B-1, 28 years after the B-2. Assuming that it somehow doesn’t suffer delays.

Boeing and Lockheed lost the competition. I would expect them to sue; this seems to be the standard response to a loss. Unless the contract gets yanked from NorGrum, this will leave only them and Lockheed as manufacturers of new manned combat aircraft; Boeing hasn’t built  a new fighter since the unsuccessful X-32 or a bomber since the B-1 (in the form of Rockwell). The F-22, F-35 and the LRSB/”B-3″ are very likely to be the last manned high performance combat aircraft designed in the US for the next… what? Twenty years? By that point there’ll probably be nobody at Boeing left alive who had a hand in designing a combat aircraft that actually entered service. Few enough at Lockheed; the F-35 was designed circa 2001

No data on the configuration or performance.

 

 Posted by at 4:03 pm

Logistics capsules in black and white

 art, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Oct 262015
 

All through the 1960’s – or at least up until the last few years, when “Great Society” spending ate into NASA’s budget – the assumption was that NASA would soon have numerous space stations in orbit and some preliminary lunar bases, with Mars missions soon to follow. In order to support those, NASA would have to have a cost effective means to launch sizable crews into orbit. A number of approaches were proposed, including Big Gemini and, in the end, the Space Shuttle. One approach that probably would have been quite workable was to simply scale up the Apollo capsule into something capable of holding more than three; a slight scaleup seats six, a further scaleup seats twelve. These would have been launched atop the Saturn Ib and/or Saturn V boosters, and would come with their own basic orbital maneuvering systems, and could carry up some amount of cargo in the conical transition/propulsion sections. At the end of the mission, the capsule would return to Earth for recovery, refurbishment and reuse; the propulsion module would be allowed to burn up.

Of course, none of these were ever built.

The full resolution versions of these artworks have been posted into the 2015-10 folder in the APR Extras Dropbox. Please check out the APR Patreon!

Apollo 6 Man Logistics Apollo 12 Man Logistics

 Posted by at 10:18 pm

1963 Lockheed passenger transport… to space

 art, history, projects, spacecraft  7 Responses »
Oct 242015
 

A three stage vehicle to transport 10 passengers to space stations and the like. I’ve recently come into possession of a whole bunch of reports on the Reusable Aerospace Passenger Transport and Reusable Orbital Transport programs; at some point these might make the makings of an APR article.

The third stage bears a vague similarity to the Boeing Dyna Soar in configuration, but is an entirely different vehicle. This concept helped set the course towards the Space Shuttle.

Pages from 1963 Reusable 10-Ton Carrier Lockheed Phase 1 Final Oral Presentation_Page_04 Pages from 1963 Reusable 10-Ton Carrier Lockheed Phase 1 Final Oral Presentation_Page_05Pages from 1963 Reusable 10-Ton Carrier Lockheed Phase 1 Final Oral Presentation_Page_06 Pages from 1963 Reusable 10-Ton Carrier Lockheed Phase 1 Final Oral Presentation_Page_07

 Posted by at 9:39 pm
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