July 2025 APR Rewards

 aircraft, APR, CAD diagrams, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, new products, Patreon, projects, rockets  No Responses »
Aug 012025
 

Rewards for July, 2025 have been released. These include:

Document: “GETOL Technical Merits & Status,” General Dynamics/Convair, AD-VTOL-41, February, 1963. Report on Ground Effect Take off and Landing studies.

Document: “Flying Cranes,” Sikorsky, 1959. Brochure describing and illustrating heavy lift helicopters built and projected.

Document: “Nova and Post-Nova Propulsion Summary,” Rocketdyne presentation, 1962, describing extremely powerful liquid rocket systems for vehicles bigger than Saturn V.

Diagram: SR-71 pilots instrument panels

CAD Diagram: Douglas DC-8-1004, 1945 design for pusher-prop small airliner

Subscribers/Patrons for the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program not only receive a monthly collection of aerospace goodies such as these, but can also pick up back issues all the way to 2014.

aerospaceprojectsreview.com/monthly.htm

 

 Posted by at 2:11 am

January 2025 APR rewards

 aircraft, APR, CAD diagrams, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets  No Responses »
Feb 032025
 

Rewards for January 2025 have just been sent out. They include:

CAD: Lockheed-Martin RATTLRShypersonic missile

ART: Douglas Nike-Zeus advertising artwork

Doc: 1987 Martin-Marietta “Titan II Program Familiarization – Titan II Training & Certification.” Well illustrated guide to the Titan II launch system.

Doc: University of Michigan report: “The Radar Cross Section of B-70 Aircraft,” 1960. originally secret, declassified report prepared for NAA describing the RCS of the B-70, and how to reduce it.

Subscribers/Patrons for the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program not only receive a monthly collection of aerospace goodies such as these, but can also pick up back issues all the way to 2014.

aerospaceprojectsreview.com/monthly.htm

 Posted by at 11:36 pm

“Midgetman” article

 APR, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, rockets, weapons  No Responses »
Mar 052024
 

I’ve just uploaded a 1986 article on the “Midgetman” road-mobile Small ICBM developed but not deployed by the US at the end of the Cold War to Dropbox for above-$10 APR Patrons/Subscribers.

 

 

This is of course on top of the monthly rewards packages and the “Extras” posted rather irregularly. If you’d be interested, consider subscribing:

https://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/monthly.htm

 Posted by at 7:19 am

Orion Space Battleship

 APR, awesomeness, blather, CAD diagrams, history, Hmm..., Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, rockets, weapons  No Responses »
Jan 222024
 

With all the little publications I’ve written and illustrated, and all the years of blogging ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT political opinions and the like, it seems that at least *one* of my efforts will go down through the ages: my design for the Orion Battleship. We know to a fair certainty that such a craft was designed in the early 1960s, and that a mockup the size of a car was built; we know some of the components and features of that design. But other than that… we don’t know much. The overall size and configuration are unknown. So, fifteen years ago when I was working on an article for Aerospace Projects Review about large Orion vehicles, I went ahead and made a speculative reconstruction design. I did my best with what was available… and in the years since, nothing seems to have come out to refute the design. I do not contend that the design is an accurate reconstruction; I was never able to get in touch with anyone who knew the Battleship design first-hand to confirm my reconstruction. I could well be *badly* wrong, especially since the descriptions of the original design tend to be second-hand. One day we might find out for sure.

But in the years since I showed my design to the world, I’ve seen it recreated here and there. It seems to be the accepted Actual Design.

Huh.

Behold:

That second video uses a model based on my design, more renders of which are HERE.

Shipbucket:

A purchasable 3D printed, lower fidelity copy of my design on Etsy:

 

My renders – unimpressive even by 2009 standards – even made it into meme format:

If you want to see the Orion Battleship as I designed it in its original format, check out Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N2.

 Posted by at 12:41 am

Bell D188A Art

 aircraft, APR, art, awesomeness, books, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects, US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 2  No Responses »
Jul 202023
 

A cutaway illustration of the Bell D188A VTOL strike-fighter from the late 50’s/early 60’s. This Mach 2 aircraft would have used 8 small turbojets… two lift/cruise in the tail, two vertically mounted in the forward fuselage for lift and two each in wingtip nacelles that could tilt for VTOL or horizontal thrust. Often referred to as the XF-109, it was only called that in Bell PR material.. it never officially received that designation. The artwork below was scanned years ago at the Jay Miller archives.

There is more available on the D188A in two sources I highly recommend (because I wrote them):

1: Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N4. Jam-packed with info, diagrams, artwork of this and several variants.

2: US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol. 2, which uses the D188A as the cover image.

If you’d like the full resolution version of the cutaway artwork, it has been uploaded to the 2023-07 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to all $4 and up Patrons/Subscribers. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 9:36 pm

Sea Dragon as cyanotype

 APR, art, cyanotype blueprints, history, Hmm..., projects, rockets  No Responses »
Mar 122023
 

My preference with the cyanotype diagrams is to not tinker with the actual image other than the needs of cleaning them up. However, in a few cases the diagrams are such that they make inconvenient fits, or could be made into convenient sizes… or need additional stuff added to them to flesh them out. One such case is the Aerojet Sea Dragon launch vehicle. The diagrams I have come from reports, rather than blueprints; this stripped them of the usual data blocks, and left them with just the diagrams. Putting the external profile next to the internal profile gives an aspect ratio that is *almost* perfect to fit within an off-the-shelf 11/75X36 inch frame. I need to do a bit more to add a bit of something to the blank spaces.

The question here is whether the cyanotype-buying public would rather have this formatted to display horizontally as shown here, or vertically?

 

As an aside, I just noticed that the original GIF that I’d put together (for APR issue V4N6) was dated as March 9, 2003, just over twenty years ago. I posted the full-rez diagram on my website many, many years ago; since then it has filtered out into the wider world, such as HERE, HERE and HERE.

 Posted by at 10:41 am

APR Rewards: October 2022

 aircraft, APR, art, CAD diagrams, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, new products, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Nov 012022
 

The October 2022 rewards are available for APR Patrons and Subscribers. This latest package includes:

Large format art: A Bell Aerospace painting of the D188A VTOL fighter/bomber

Document: “Standard Aircraft Characteristics – Convair Class VF Seaplane Night Fighter (SKATE)” diagrams and data for seaplane jet fighter

Document: “21St Century Aerospace – The 20th Century Challenge,” General Dynamics presentation, late 80’s about hypersonics/NASP. From photographs.

Document: “Prototype X-14 VTOL Aircraft,” Bell Aerospace presentation, 1971, on the “SeaKat” operational naval VTOL. From photos, but art and diagrams were also scanned for clarity.

CAD Diagram ($5 and up): XB-70 Valkyrie forward fuselage configuration

 

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. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.



 Posted by at 1:30 am

Orion Battleship

 APR, awesomeness, history, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Oct 302022
 

The YouTube channel “Found and Explained” just released a video on the 4,000 ton Orion Battleship, with the model used based on my reconstruction from issue V2N2 of “Aerospace Projects Review.” The video was sponsored by a “Star Trek” video game, so there are a *lot* of Star Trek references in the video.

For more information on the project, including blueprints, be sure to check out issue v2N2.

 Posted by at 6:21 pm

US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1: previews and signed copies

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, Book 3, books, drawings, history, news, projects, US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1  No Responses »
Sep 222022
 

It’s my understanding that my next bookazine should be printed within a week or so. So I think I can post a few teaser images (screenshotted from the penultimate digital proof) to get the idea across (if you don’t see images below, it’s probably because either your adblocker is overly enthusiastic or the APR website is blocked for some reason):

If you would like to order a copy, there are three main routes:

1) For those in Europe, by far the best approach will likely be by ordering directly through Mortons, link HERE, or on bookstore shelves.

2) For those in the US, the less expensive approach will *probably* be through Amazon (link HERE, though still preliminary), though probably taking longer than directly from Mortons, and the possibility of finding them on bookstore shelves.

3) For those who want the Extra Special Edition and say “damn the schedule and never mind the cost,” I will *probably* have a few signed copies available. As with my prior two books, these will have an additional pair of 18X24-inch prints of diagrams from the book. These will *probably* run about $25, including shipping to the US (if you want them shipped out of the US, the shipping prices gets ludicrous… don’t blame me). They’ll be signed and dated and numbered in order of receipts. If you would be interested in this version, send me an email so I can make sure I have enough on hand for that. My email:

 

 

 Posted by at 8:32 pm
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