A painting that was up on eBay a while back purported to be a McDonnell-Douglas concept rendering for a transonic jetliner. This aircraft used advanced – and expensive – fuselage shaping to lower transonic drag, much like the NASA/Boeing/Bell design illustrated in US Transport Projects #01.
The image does give me pause. There’s something about the wings that just looks… off. I don’t think they match. And the port engine looks like it’s larger in diameter than the starboard engine.
A tiny, postage-stamp-sized illustration in a double-page advertisement for Lockheed in a July, 1988, issue of Aviation Week shows a CAD diagram of a jet fighter. This appears to be a twin-engined stealthy air superiority fighter. The illustration appears to be a photo taken of an old-school CRT monitor, and mirrored for some reason. Sadly, none of the text is useful or readable, and dimensions are undeterminable.
The latest releases in the “US Projects” line (see the full library HERE):
Issue #02 of US Transport Projects, done in the same format as US Bomber Projects, USTP will cover flying vehicles designed to transport cargo, passengers and troops. Issue 02 includes:
USTP #02 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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Also available: issue #01 of US Spacecraft Projects. This series will present some of the wide range of manned and unmanned probes, stations, landers, spaceplanes and so on that have been designed over the decades. Issue #01 includes:
USSP #01 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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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.
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.
An ad from 1989 showing the Boeing-Sikosky competitor for the LHX program. This was the winning design and was built as the RAH-66 Comanche, though not without some notable design tinkering.
I’ve scanned (at 300 dpi, full color) a brochure from the Aerion Corporation describing their supersonic business jet. It’s several years old… somewhere around 2003-05, I’d guess. I’ve posted the scan in PDF format over at yon Patreon, available to any and all patrons of Aerospace Projects Review.
Two current projects…
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.
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:
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.
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.”
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.