Patreon: another milestone added

 aircraft, drawings, drawings&documents, history, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, science, spacecraft, wisdom  1 Response »
Jul 042014
 

I have added another milestone to my Patreon campaign. If I get to $500 of patronage…

There are a lot of PDF (and Powerpoint) references available online that would be of interest to aerospace aficionados. But that’s kinda the problem: there are a *lot* of them. NASA alone has had millions of reports online. There are far too many for any one person to even try to get a handle on. However… I’ve got a handle on a great many of them. While they are – or in some cases were – freely available online, you’d have to know they existed first. Well… for many thousands of such reports… I know they exist. So at this milestone, I’ll post reviews, including illustrations, of two such reports or presentations per month. Additionally, I’ll post links to the reports or, in some cases, the reports themselves.

So rather than just some snipped images, you’ll get the images, a description of the report *and* the report itself, posted to the APR Blog. This is in addition to the reports, brochures, documents and diagrams that get sent to  patrons, stuff that *isn’t* otherwise available.

patreon

 Posted by at 8:11 pm

Rocketships

 aircraft, art, history, Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Jul 042014
 

The photo archives of the Baltimore Sun newspaper is being sold off on eBay. A whole lot of really old glossies of every vaguely newsworthy subject… including rockets and spacecraft. Two which caught my eye are listed as “Dyna Soar” designs, but clearly aren’t. What they are is hard to discern. They have the look of late 50’s, early 60’s aerospace concept art, but the ships shown look a little too sci-fi to necessarily be products of the aerospace industry. Instead, they might be products of the *news* industry… someone wrote an article about the Dyna Soar, and someone at the Baltimore Sun – or perhaps the AP, the LA Times or some other newscorp – painted these images, dreaming them up out of whole cloth. The certainly look “cool,” but I’m much less convinced that they look “practical.”

This one depicts what appears to be a glideback first stage, designed around the F-117’s stealth facetting principles. Those wingtips look like they aren’t long for this world, as they will almost certainly be banged into the runway. Actually, it looks like they project substantially lower than the aft landing skids, meaning that the wingtips will *necessarily* dig into the ground. No date given; however, it appears to have been associated with the following image, which dates from June, 1959.

ebay 2014-06-29 1

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This image shows a USAF vehicle of some type. Again it is described as “Dyna Soar,” but it clearly isn’t. It appears to be a four-jet-engine aircraft, probably a bomber; the wide, flat forward fuselage is a bit of a stumper.

baltimore sun photo 1

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This one at least comes with good captioning, and is clearly an LA Times artist impression of a Dyna Soar vehicle based on a wind tunnel model.

ebay 2014-07-04 a

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They, especially the first two, are certainly interesting. But at $17 each, they’re a bit too rich for my blood. So if any of y’all pull the trigger and buy them, please keep me in mind if you take them near a scanner…

 

 Posted by at 8:58 am

Drawings and documents: looking to acquire…

 aircraft, drawings, drawings&documents, history, new products, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  5 Responses »
Jun 302014
 

I have a pretty fair supply of interesting documents and large format drawings… but not an infinite supply. Consequently, I’m in the market. Do you have interesting aerospace (aircraft, missiles, spacecraft or even perhaps unusual naval or terrestrial projects) documents, large format diagrams or actual blueprints? If so, let’s talk. I’d like to borrow, rent or buy such things. My preference is of course for unbuilt projects, but basically *anything* interesting would be… interesting.

If you have something you’d be willing to share, but not give away, I’d be happy to scan it and send it back ASAP. Alternatively, I’d be happy with good scans.

Additionally: a lot of interesting stuff pops up on eBay. I am actively trolling eBay for such things; just bought two documents tonight. But there’s so much stuff on eBay, with such weird and divergent descriptions, that I can’t possibly hope to catch everything. So if you see something on eBay that looks interesting, by all means let me know.

 Posted by at 10:19 pm

Some documents for Patreon

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, drawings, drawings&documents, history, new products, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 302014
 

Here are photos of portions of a few documents I’m considering as Patreon rewards. These have not yet been scanned in; some will require a bit of effort to make them presentable, but all are pretty interesting in my view. If I understand the Patreon system correctly, the system debits the credit cards or PayPal accounts of those who have pledged at the “end of the month ” (any day now, I expect), and the rewards will be distributed a few days later – when I have them ready – to those who have been successfully charged. The upshot is that if you buy in the day *after* billing, you don’t get the rewards for this month, but only *next* month. So you miss out on the first batch. The $100 benchmark is safely in the past, and there seems to be a slow creep towards the $200 benchmark, which will mean two uploads as rewards for the first month is feasible. In the event that the contribution level gets there, I’ll try to have one large format drawing and one document per month, so long as that’s practical.

So if you don’t want to miss anything, sign up soon!

A NASA report from 1972 showing a *lot* of designs for Space Shuttle concepts. Includes designs that clearly foreshadowed the Shuttle as actually built, as well as some really wacky ones.

WP_20140630_001 WP_20140630_002 WP_20140630_003 WP_20140630_004

 

Two official aircraft recognition guides from the early 1950s to help ground observers tell friendlies from potential bandits.WP_20140630_005 WP_20140630_006

 

A Convair report from 1948 on an assault seaplane. Includes a *lot* of excessively detailed design diagrams. This one might have to be broken up into several parts due to the size of it.WP_20140630_007 WP_20140630_008 WP_20140630_009 WP_20140630_010 WP_20140630_011 WP_20140630_012

 

A report on the Regulus II missile which includes detailed diagrams of both the tactical missile version and the reusable test flight version. Some really snazzy large foldouts, which will require a bit of work to clean up.WP_20140630_014 WP_20140630_015 WP_20140630_016

 Posted by at 1:01 am

Support The Cause via Patreon

 aircraft, APR, blather, drawings, Hmm..., new products, news, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Bomber Projects, wisdom  1 Response »
Jun 282014
 

EDIT: I should note that Patreon contributions will likely be the sole source for most if not all of the diagrams and documents I release from here on. A few might wind up being sold individually as with prior Air & Space Dwgs & Docs, but most if not all won’t. I will shortly post information on some of what I have coming up. Some of it will, I trust, be of considerable interest to many…

I’ve launched the Patreon funding campaign:

http://www.patreon.com/user?u=197906

If you appreciate the aerospace research I do and the stuff I dig up, please consider contributing. As a bonus, you will get goodies if you do! High rez large format diagram scans, brochures, reports, proposals, etc.

 

Pledge $0.75 or more per month

You get my thanks and a warm fuzzy feeling, knowing that you are contributing to saving the history of aerospace engineering!

 

Pledge $1.50 or more per month

You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 125 dpi

 

Pledge $3.00 or more per month

You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 200 dpi

 

Pledge $4.00 or more per month

You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi

 

Pledge $5.00 or more per month

You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi plus a bonus CAD diagram at 300 dpi, sized for 8.5X11

 

Pledge $6.00 or more per month

You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi plus a bonus CAD diagram at 300 dpi sized for 11X17

 

Pledge $8.00 or more per month

You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi plus a bonus CAD diagram at 300 dpi sized for 18X24 or larger AND the diagram in the native vector format

 

Pledge $10.00 or more per month

You will receive all the prior rewards, plus have the opportunity to vote on what will be released next.

Tell all your friends.

 Posted by at 9:26 am

Manned Atlas V/ Delta IVs

 art, projects, rockets, spacecraft  16 Responses »
Jun 272014
 

Found on eBay, a set of fridge magnets printed with three manned United Launch Alliance launch options: the Boeing CST-100, the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser and the Orion capsule in the Exploration Flight Test 1 (first unmanned flight) configuration. I’ve not found better versions of these illustrations elsewhere, sadly. This image was processed a bit to straighten and brighten the photo posted on eBay.

delta4capsules

 Posted by at 3:10 pm

F-4(FVS)

 aircraft, APR, art, history, projects  6 Responses »
Jun 252014
 

In the mid 1960’s, the McDonnell Aircraft Company devoted some internal funds and effort to the F-4(FVS). This would have removed the wing from the F-4 Phantom II and replaced it with an all-new shoulder-mounted swing wing. The target of this enterprise was primarily the US Navy; MAC assured them that the F-4(FVS) would be a superior carrier plane to the standard F-4 due to better low-speed handling characteristics. However, while the design  seems to have been pretty sound, by this point the Navy wanted a capability the Phantom couldn’t provide: Phoenix missiles. In the end, the Navy largely ignored the F-4(FVS) and went with the F-14. But even then, McDonnell-Douglas proposed a design for the F-14 contest, the Model 225A, that was in part derived from the F-4(FVS) studies.

A whole lot more about the F-4(FVS) and the Model 225 are in Aerospace Projects Review issue V3N4.

F-4X VG

 

 Posted by at 2:59 pm

Extendable Lab

 art, projects, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Jun 242014
 

Saw this on eBay a while back. No further data. I assume it’s from the early/mid 1960’s, early MOL era. I don’t imagine that it was a particularly serious study; I’ve never seen it’s like elsewhere, and it seems like it would be quite heavy and prone to leaks. A reasonable guess would put the diameter at 10 feet, standard for the time (same diameter as the Titan II/TIIIc core vehicle).

extendable lab

I tinkered a bit to fix the warping and clean up the image:

extendable lab a

 Posted by at 4:59 pm
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