“APR Corner”

 aircraft, APR, drawings, projects, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Feb 182009
 

<>I’ve gotten a few one-page aerospace history articles published in the AIAA-Houston sections “Horizon” online magazine:

http://www.aiaa-houston.org/horizons“Horizons”is, like APR, a downloadable PDF-file magazine. Unlike APR, though, it’s free. So go forth and download!
June 2008: A review of APR

Oct 2008: Saturn S-ID stage

Dec 2008: X-38 predecessor designs

Next up (Feb 2009 issue, article turned in a few days back): General Dynamics NEXUS

The “APR Corner” is a one-page format, so the articles are necessarily brief.

It also looks like I may write a few articles for the British publication “Aviation News” in the near future.

Below are some teasers to show what the articles look like. Snazzier layout than APR, I suppose…

aprcornerjun08.jpg

aprcorneroct08.jpg aprcornerdec08.jpg

 Posted by at 12:53 am

V2N2 NOW AVAILABLE

 APR, awesomeness, drawings, news, nukes, projects, spacecraft, weapons  No Responses »
Feb 042009
 

You can see it (and order it) here:

http://www.up-ship.com/eAPR/ev2n2.htm

I also have five new space documents for sale here:

Space Doc 60: NASA/Grumman LEM artwork package (scanned & cleaned from a package of transparencies; as you go through the pages, you “peel off” layers from the LEM. If you print these off on transparencies, you can do the same!)
Space Doc 61: Briefing charts for NASA-MOL. Diagrams showing numerous configurations of the MOL space station for NASA.
Space Doc 62: S-IVb-N Briefing: a Douglas concept for a NERVA (nuclear) engine for the second stage of the Saturn Ib
Space Doc 63: Saturn Mission Payload Versatiliy… advanced versions of the Saturn V, including SSTO and solid-boosted concepts
Space Doc 64: Extended Mission Apollo Study – North American briefing on a space lab to replace the LEM adapter. Detailed drawings!

 Posted by at 8:31 pm

Finished!

 APR  1 Response »
Feb 022009
 

Issue V2N2 is now essentially done. I need to spend a day or two going through it to make sure I haven’t forgotten something or made too many slepping erorrs, but it is for all intents and purposes complete. The original Word document was split in two parts due to the sheer filesize… about 200 meg. But when converted to PDF, it turned out to be a remarkably economical 22 meg. Tops out at 153 pages, by far the longest APR to date.

I expect it to be up and running before the weekend, perhaps as early as Wednesday evening.

v2n2.jpg

 Posted by at 8:19 pm

Oh, of *course*

 APR, blather, drawings, nukes, projects, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Feb 012009
 

Thinking that I was done with the Orion article, I went to bed. Whereupon I suddenly realized that I had left the inboard profile view of the battleship unfinished… the propulsion module was a blank space in the drawing. So I stayed up past 4 AM finishing this up. Feh.

orionbattleship-layout2.gif

I had planned on getting up relatively early to go for a drive and take some photos. instead, I think I might as well stay up till the sun comes up, then crash.

 Posted by at 7:11 am

Wow… I think I’m almost done!

 APR  7 Responses »
Feb 012009
 

I put the last bit of text into the Orion article tonight, adjusted the last images. I need to add a few things to the References section at the end, and add Figure #s, but other than that… it appears that the Orion article is done. And beyond that, all that’s left to do is a half page or so on the “North American Aviation atomic rockets and ramjets from ’47” article, and I think that’ll be that. Currently looking at 152 pages in length, twice what I was shooting for. And this was after yanking a fair amount out. Hopefully V2N3 will go quicker.

Here’s a screenshot of one of the 11X17 pages featuring all of the Orions from this article.

orion.jpg

 Posted by at 2:40 am

Another new “Download Contest”

 APR, contest  No Responses »
Jan 302009
 

OK, the last two contests were entirely too easy. So, here’s a bit of a challenge: one year’s download subscription to APR for every (random number generator says) eight new subscribers that you bring in. If you bring in 80 new subscribers, that’s ten years free for you. If you bring in 8,000 new subscribers that’s a thousand years of APR for you, for free! (Note: offer only good as long as APR lasts. Consequently, if you want a millenium’s worth of APR, you better make sure that APR has enough subscribers to stick around that long. Offer non-transferrable.) Enter as many times as you like. I don’t care how you do it. Post handbills. Cajole co-workers. Bribery. Blackmail. Mob connections. Go door-to-door. I Don’t Care. Nothing I’ve done has worked worth a crap, so maybe someone out there can show me a better way.

I guess the easiest way to confirm your 8-or-more would be to either ask the new subscribers to pass a note along saying that you are responsible, or just email me a note with a list of people you have convinced to sign on.

 Posted by at 2:11 am

X-wings

 aircraft, APR, drawings, projects  No Responses »
Jan 292009
 

I had call to make some snapshots of a few pages from issue V5N6 of APR (which is available for download or on CD-ROM). These show drawings and art of several Sikorsky “X-Wing” designs from the ’80’s. The X-Wing was a helicopter with rigid rotors… so rigid that in principle that rotation could be stopped and the rotors would serve as wings. It was a supremely nifty idea that was burdened by the problem of not working very well…  the transition from one state to the other would basically leave the vehicle falling out of the sky.

If you want to read/see more on the X-Wing program, pick up a copy of V5N6.

pv5n6a.jpg

pv5n6b.jpg

pv5n6c.jpg

 Posted by at 9:06 pm

Cover art options

 APR, blather  7 Responses »
Jan 282009
 

Three variations on a theme for the cover of the next issue4 of APR. Who likes which?

covertest1.jpg covertest2.jpg covertest3.jpg

The first two use the same photo taken from the ISS. The difference is that the lightest possible amount of “fade reduction” was done to the photo, producing the much clearer “covertest1.” “Covertest2” is the original photo. “Covertest3” is a false-color Landsat shot…more colorful, less realistic. But for cover art, I’m looking for “looks best” not necessarily “looks most realistic.”

I know the engineering of art, just not the art of art.

UPDATE: Due to seemingly everyone preferring #2, that’s what I’ll probably go with. Here’s a snippet of the full-rez version, with some additional tinkering… I’ve added some noise to take the edge off of the unrealistic sharpness of the image.

covertest2a.jpg

 Posted by at 9:42 pm

Orion Modeling Done!

 APR, models, projects, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Jan 282009
 

orioncollect10.jpgHuzzah. All the modeling is done. Now to finish the writing, and create a few new illustrations from the models. Most of the writing is complete, but there’s still some to do, and a fair bit of editing. And I’m only at 148 pages!

 Posted by at 9:37 pm
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