If you want to get your soul crushed, try to display a classical talent before an audience composed of modern high school kids. “Disrespect” won’t begin to cover it.
So prepare to be surprised as this kid manages to get an auditorium of his classmates to fall into utter silence as he plays the theme from “Interstellar” on the piano. It’s not perfect, but damn it’s good.
Some years ago I produced a range of cyanotype blueprints of a number of aerospace subjects. The hardware needed for this was disposed of when I left Utah at the end of 2019, so starting again seemed unlikely. However, someone has expressed interest in a special commission. Rebuilding the hardware needed will be an expensive chore, and sadly getting the large format transparencies printed looks like it will be much more difficult here than it was in Utah. Nevertheless, at this point it looks probable that I will restore that capability sometime in the next few months, assuming one further detail can be ironed out.
You can see my now-defunct catalog here:
https://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/catalog/cyan.htm
When I get back to it I will probably focus on the larger format stuff rather than the smaller prints. I have plans on how to improve upon the prior hardware to make things work better and more efficiently. If there are any of the former large format prints you’d like to see returned to production, or you have any prints you’d like to see, let me know. And once this is up and running I plan on trying to take commissions, working with a local print shop to find customers interested in this somewhat unusual and certainly obsolete form of art.
If you have a diagram you’d like me to turn into a cyanotype, contact me. Commissions aren’t going to be restricted to aerospace subjects; naval, architectural, movie props, whatever you’ve got, so long as it *can* be blueprinted, once things are in place I should be able to do it. 
This “experiment” seems like all kinds of fun. It also seems like the sort of thing that would attract the attention of the ATF. Or the DoD.
I gotta admit I like the method of production of the nozzle. Adopting that process for a more advanced rocket might be a chore… a refractory metal nozzle made this way would be great, but I have doubts that it’d be possible.
A Beech Aircraft Company concept for a civilian VTOL for the 1980s, from circa 1971. This would be a two-seater using tilt-ducts. This appears to be less “engineering” and more “art,” as there are some definite headscratchers about the design. Where are the engines? In designs such as these it/they are typically in the fuselage, driving the ducted fans with shafts. But no provisions for inlets or exhausts are evident. So the engines would probably be in the nacelles themselves but there doesn’t seem to be room for them. The cockpit canopy is expansive and would provide a *fantastic* view, but it seems to be sized only for people who have had their legs amputated. The configuration, unlike your average tiltrotor, seems perfectly capable of horizontal runway takeoffs and landings, but the use of skids rather than wheels would make that problematic. The disk loading would be impressively high, and the resulting blasts of air from the ducts would likely tear anything short of solid concrete to shreds.
That time was before beloved franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were converted into garbage message mechanisms for garbage ideologies. Now… anything that *might* be good is now viewed initially with skepticism, and more often than not finally with contempt.
So will “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” be any good? I have no reason for optimism. There are rumors that the plot involves time travel, and that the end of the movie has Harrison Ford’s Indy being erased from the timeline and replaced with Phoebe Waller Bridge as a female Indy. “The REAL Indy was a woman, all along!” This could be utterly wrong… but things have gotten so predictably bad that I won’t discount the distinct possibility.
Twenty copies of the new book have finally arrived, fortunately entirely intact. They took two days to cross an ocean, one day to cross half a continent… and two weeks to cross the customs office. Shrug.
Anyway, here’s what I’m gonna do: signed, numbered and dated copies will be $20 plus postage (media mail). These will come with two 18X24 prints, also signed and dated. If you would like to be on the list for one of these send me an email: 
But the first five copies will be auctioned off, with the highest bids getting the lowest numbers. Additionally: numbers 3,4 and 5 will receive three 18X24 prints, while numbers 1 and 2 will receive four 18X24 prints, all signed, dated and numbered. If this sounds interesting to you, email me what your bid is. Bidding ends Sunday night, after which I’ll let bidders know. If there are more than five bidders, six and beyond won’t be held to their bids… but they won’t *necessarily* get the next numbers in line. Once the auction winners are processed, I’ll send out PayPal invoices for the regular copies, and they will be sent out based on the order of payment.
I also have ten “SR-71” copies and five “B-47/B-52” copies. The SR-71’s, singed and dated with two 18X24 prints, will go for $20; the B-47/52 signed and dated with three 18X24 prints, will go for $55 plus postage. If you would like one of these, let me know.
Well… can’t say as I saw this one coming:
The trailer, unfortunately, lets you know in advance who’s gonna die. Hint: lotsa folks.
The Bell 214ST (“Super Transport”) first flew in 1977. Derived from the Bell 214, itself derived from the UH-1 “Huey,” the 214ST was substantially bigger and more powerful than the original design. Bell had great hopes for the type, but in the end less than one hundred were produced. A not-inconsiderable part of the problem was that the 214ST was designed to be produced in Iran which, at the time, was an American ally; of course, Iran soon fall to forces of the Stupid Age, and that put an end to notions of Bell designs being manufactured in Iran. It was roughly similar to the Sikorsky UH-60 in size and performance. Bell continued to push for customers into the 1990’s (the art below was published in 1982), but production ended in 1992 without any big contracts.
The full rez scans have been uploaded to the 2022-11 APR Extras Dropbox folder for $4 and up Patrons/Subscribers.
Early in the LHX program (gave birth to the late lamented RAH-66 Comanche) the Army’s requirements were sufficiently aggressive and vague that Bell Aerospace held out hope that a tiltrotor might be chosen. So Bell designed a few single-seat “scout” tiltrotors under the BAT (Bell Advanced Tiltrotor) moniker. Most were more or less similar in configuration to the Bell XV-15, but one design – which I know solely from this one piece of art, published in 1983 – went a little further. The fuselage and tail surfaces were shaped to reduce the radar cross section, making the vehicle hopefully somewhat stealthier. Sadly, no diagrams or technical information for this configuration. If someone knows more, or has a better version of this artwork, by all mean let me know.
A less than one minute video describing the dropoff in quality in art in the Roman Empire. Some of it was due to cultural changes, but there was also a distinct drop in quality during times of crisis. It was especially bad during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
If you want to draw parallels to the situation described HERE, I won’t stop you.