Patreon: November rewards

 aircraft, art, drawings, history, models, new products, Patreon, projects, rockets  No Responses »
Nov 162014
 

The November rewards for the APR patrons have been released. They include:

PDF document: “The Air Turborocket Powerplant,” an Aerojet brochure from October 1955 describing an advanced airbreathing propulsion system for missiles, bombers, intercepts, etc.

PDF document: “VTOL Transport Aircraft Comparative Study,” a report from Vertol, 1956. Describes, with data, sketches and three-view diagrams, a range of different types of VTOL transports, including tilt-wings, lift jets, aerodyne, etc.

DIAGRAMS: two parter this month. First: layout, inboard and sectional views of the Lockheed L-2000 SST. Second: Douglas diagrams… “Plans for Scale Model Construction of the Long-Tank Thor Agena.” Good diagrams of the launch vehicle.

CAD diagram: NASA-Langley hypersonic transport.

2014-11 patreon ad

If you would like to access these items and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

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 Posted by at 7:50 pm

Patreon update

 aircraft, APR, drawings, history, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Nov 052014
 

I’ve just uploaded the Documents and Diagrams catalogs to the APR Patreon site for the $10-level patrons to peruse and vote on. Only one new large format diagram, but a number of new documents to choose from.

 

If you would like to access these items and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

patreon-200

 Posted by at 8:41 am

X-37B and the Dyna Soar

 aircraft, drawings, history, news, projects, spacecraft, weapons  12 Responses »
Oct 312014
 

I’ve written a short and illustrated piece on how the Dyna Soar can illustrate the possible capabilities of the X-37B over at War Is Boring:

Wondering What the U.S. Air Force’s Secretive Spaceplane Can Do? History Offers Clues

I am contemplating expanding this considerably for a separate release. It’d be a little different from the usual sort of thing I do, since the X-37B is a real flying vehicle, not just an unbuilt project.

 Posted by at 7:17 pm

Flying Panzer

 aircraft, art, Crazy, Hmm..., projects  3 Responses »
Oct 312014
 

All I have on this: a 1970 design by the German aircraft firm HFB (Hamburger Flugzeugbau) for a “flying panzer.” Clearly it’s an armored car with jet propulsion and vertical lift capability; I would assume that this is only capable of extremely limited flight for such things as hopping rivers, trenches, minefields, battlefield debris and other such tasks. Basically, the vehicular equivalent of the Bell “flying belts” or “jetpacks” which were popularized in the 1960;s, but which were too cumbersome, expensive and far too short-duration to be of any real practical value.

Still: “Flying Panzer.”

1970 HFB flying panzer

The vehicle is depicted in the foreground hopping over anti-tank obstacles and in the background crossing a river. Note that it appears to have a rudimentary skirt system; if those wheels could be drawn up above the skirt, this would make it capable of operating as a hovercraft. This would allow it to “fly” over the surface of a river much more economically than on pure jet lift. I have no idea if this was a serious design effort or just artistic doodling.

 Posted by at 3:45 am

US Bomber Projects 1-5 now at Amazon

 aircraft, art, books, drawings, history, new products, projects, rockets, secrets, spacecraft, US Bomber Projects, weapons  3 Responses »
Oct 292014
 

The first five issues of US Bomber Projects are now available as ebooks at Amazon. The links below not only take you to the Amazon listings, if you then buy something (*anything*, so fee free to splurge on laptops and cars and jewelry and such), I get a small commission.

I would appreciate feedback… everything from constructive criticism to reviews posted over at Amazon.

 

UPDATE: It seems at least some people can’t see the Amazon link-box thingies posted below. So… two alternatives.

1) Type “US Bomber Projects” in the Amazon search box you should see at the upper right, just above the “Tip Jar.”

2) TRY THIS

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If you dowloaded an early version of USBO01, it seems that you *can* download the latest version without re-buying it.

 Posted by at 7:22 am

USBP on Amazon updated update

 APR, books, history, new products, news, projects, spacecraft, US Bomber Projects  4 Responses »
Oct 252014
 

Based on some feedback, I have re-uploaded both USBP01 and USBP02 to further tweak the formatting and the images. It’ll probably be a few hours before the updates are available. But once available, I’d be interested in hearing from prior purchasers whether or not you can successfully download the new versions without having to re-pay for them (I’d hope so, but I don’t know for sure). And of course, any comments regarding how they look on what device.

I expect that there’ll be no Perfect Solution for every possible device, but I’m sure there’s a Best possible. Hopefully these are just about there…

 

 Posted by at 9:56 am

USBP on Amazon update

 aircraft, blather, books, drawings, history, new products, nukes, projects, spacecraft, US Bomber Projects  No Responses »
Oct 242014
 

I have – I *think* – just corrected an error in the listing that should open sales up worldwide. If some of all y’all furriners would like to take a look and see if it’s still unavailable, that’d be helpful. Note, though, that USBP#02 has been uploaded and is going through review… and – again I *think* – should be far better in terms of image resolution. If I get confirmation from a customer or three that #2 is better than #1, I will re-upload #1. I don’t know if previous purchasers can download the new, better version or not…

#2 took freakin’ *forever* to get properly formatted. I couldn’t find a way to get the “Caliber” converter on my computer to *not* reduce the image resolution, so I had to use the Amazon system directly, which meant uploading the thing and waiting for it to process, then looking through the annoyingly slow previewer for the innumerable and mysterious formatting issues. After around 20 cycles of this, I *think* I’ve got it hammered into shape with full-rez images. So while this is formatted and laid out differently from the standard PDF version, the image quality should be as good.

Unless something screwy happens (and, gosh, when has *that* ever happened), USBP#2 should be available on Amazon in the next some hours. I have high hopes of being asleep at the time.  So if you’d like to be the first kid on your block with a copy, or want to help out be getting a copy early and providing feedback (if so, thanks), just search for “US Bomber Projects” on Amazon.

 

My plan at this time is to keep publications at Amazon about five or six issues behind those on my website.

 Posted by at 10:06 pm
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