<>A minor design. What is it, designed by whom, when. I’ll keep it going till mid next week or so.
The winnings: $15 worth of APR and/or Drawings & Documents downloads.
Jul 102009
Jul 062009
Described in a 1963 presentation is the Convair PD-104 (PD=”Preliminary Design”) Ground Effect Take Off and Landing (GETOL) assault transport. This was one of a myriad of 1960’s concepts for VTOL or STOL aircraft. This time, the jet engines were used to create a ground effect lift, similar to a hovercraft. The idea was that by generating a low-velocity vertical jet close to the ground, a “cushion” of tapped air would be formed and the effective lift at extremely low altitudes – a few feet – would be very high. To do this, Convair had anumber of designs, most of which featured fat, low aspect ratio wings with turbofans, turboprops, turbojets, whatever, ducted into a plenum; there were also designs featuring fans embedded in the wing similar to the fans in the Ryan XV-5A wings. The design shown here was one of the baseline concepts, and if there is out there a real-world assault transport design that looks more like it belongs next to a squadron of United States Colonial Marine UD-4L dropships on their way down to unload some nuclear-tipped infantry whoopass on some backwoods aliens, I’ve yet to see it.
As with essentially all other 1960’s American VTOL concepts, the GETOL vanished like a fart in the wind. The GETOL designs seem to have been reasonable, but suffered from the fact that the lift the aircraft could generate varied substantially over a very small range of altitudes. If you are dropping like a stone at 40 feet altitude, it’s small comfort if you will double or triple your lift at 10 feet altitude. Even if your clear-air thrust to weight ratio is comfortably higher than one, meaning your hover abilities are good, those last few feet are going to be rough as your effective lift force wanders all over the dial.
Another version:
Jul 022009
OK, this contest is a bit different. For starters, the winnings: $150 worth of APR and/or Drawings & Documents downloads. Rather higher than usual. Secondly: no time limit. Thirdly: I have no friggen’ clue what the hell this is.
So the rules are simple: tell me what the hell this is. It was a display model that was auctioned off online some years back, with, IIRC, some reference to it being an X-15 related design. In order to win, you have to not only tell me what it is… you have to back it up. Scans or photocopies of official reports, diagrams, artwork, whatever, that spell it out. The first person to do so wins.
A secondary prize of $75 worth of APR/D&D downloads for the first person who can provide multiple good, clear photos of this model.
Feel free to spread this one around, folks. I doubt I’m the only one who has been wondering over this thing for years.
If you have info, either comment or send an email here:
Jul 022009
At first I thought that this would be another one that should be fairly easy for someone to at least get in the general vicinity, but when I looked it up, I didn’t find what I thought I would… so this might be a tricky one. $35 worth of downloads from either APR or Drawings & Docs to whoever can *accurately* ID this vehicle. I’ll leave it up until Sunday or so, or until someone nails it.
PS: if you have trouble commenting, either send me an email or TRY HARDER. Whichever one works…
Jun 302009
For issue V2N5 of Aerospace Projects Review, I am going to run a companion article to Dennis Jenkins’ piece on the Convair Aerospaceplane design. The new article will describe a number of the competing designs, including but not limited to:
Lockheed CL-510
Boeing Model 832/879
Douglas Model 2235
Martin Astroplane
Republic Mach 25
I have drawings galore to illustrate this article, and I will be creating new line drawings as well. But I have nothing really “eye catching.” I haven’t the skills to create good color art, but a lot of other people do… so I’m looking for help here. The best I can do is offer a year’s subscription to APR, along with the eternal glory and possible job offers that may come from having your art published in APR. So if you think you’d like to create artwork (at a minimum, same-scale side views of the above-mentioned six concepts; possibly also isometrics, perspective views, beauty passes, etc.), please send a sample of your previous work to this email address:
Assuming a number of prospective artists sign up (and hey, who wouldn’t?), in a week or so I’ll pick a few of the most promising, and send one the ASP concepts along to see what you can do. And some time after that I’ll boil it down to one or two winners. The winners will have seveal months to complete the art.
Jun 292009
An originally classified report produced at NASA-Ames described in general terms the sort of research vehicle that would be needed in support of the then-current ASP (AeroSpacePlane) program. ASP was a forward thinking but unfortunately far too technically difficult program to develop airbreathing single- or two-stage-to-orbit operational spaceplanes, or “orbital aircraft,” for military purposes. The same basic idea would arise again in the 1980s with the X-30 NASP. Much more on the ASP program and its competitors will be shown in APR issue V2N5 (still working on V2N4).
NASA-Ames envisioned a research aircraft using ACE (Air Cycle Engine) propulsion systems… basically rockets that use air compressed and ducted from an inlet. While initial testing would use turbojets and normal rockets for lower speed flight, by the end of the testing program it was planned to have a fully integrated ACE system. Coupled with external drop-tanks, it was expected that the performance capability of the research plane would be expanded to include orbital flight.
More on this design will be provided in APR V2N5.
Jun 242009
This one might be a bit of a challenge. List the country of origin, date, company/design bureau that produced this and just what it is. $35 worth of downloads (from Aerospace Projects Review or Aircraft & Spacecraft Drawings & Documents)this time. And this time… I’ll leave the contest up and running until the weekend (probably Sunday), but not say “yes” or “no” until then. Yer on yer own…
Jun 192009
SLOMAR = Space Logistics, Maintenance and Repair, a study program begun by the USAF in 1959. Funds were not actually made available until June of 1960, with the bulk of the work carried out over the following year. The basic objectives of the SLOMAR study were to estimate future military space needs in terms of support for manned space stations and produce preliminary designs of vehicles to fulfill that mission. Nearly 50 years later, SLOMAR remains shrouded in vaguery, since it was classified at the time and little has been declassified since.
One item that has been declassified is a brief memo describing and illustrating the main competing contractors various designs. Included within is the General Dynamics concept, a manned lifting body spaceplane with a payload of 6,000 pounds. Being a lifting body gave it cross range potential; the landing footprint was expected to be 1750 by 5200 nautical miles. Little other data was presented in the available documentation, unfortunately. The launch vehicle is unknown; it looks of the right sort of size to be launched by a Titan III, but the 12 foot diameter propulsion module is larger than the 10 foot diameter Titan III core. It may have been designed to launch atop a Saturn 1, or perhaps a launch vehicle of General Dynamics’ own design.
So, that’s another contest with no winner.
Jun 162009
Here’s a concurrent contest. Since this one will be a bit trickier, I think, the prize is $30 worth of downloadables.
Name the country of origin, company/design bureau responsible, timeframe and program. I’ll leave this up till Friday or so.
Jun 162009
Another one that *should* be easy. I’ll leave this up till Friday or so, though I suspect someone’ll get it. First respondant to correctly ID this gets $15 off of any of my downloadables.
