Three versions of the same “epilogue:”
Version 1: Ignores events of “2010”
Version 2: Incorporates events of “2010:”
Version 3: Slightly modified by another YouTuber. Much less professionally done, but… a little amusing:
Oct 222022
Oct 212022
Three magazine advertisements from 1960, depicting the East German Type 152 jetliner (which would have been a *fantastic* jetliner in the late 1940’s), the Convair F-106 and the Fiat G91 T jet trainer.
The full-rez scans of these ads have been uploaded into the 2022-10 APR Extras folder on Dropbox, available to all $4 and up APR 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acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
Oct 192022
Ronald Reagan chats with a Nazi in “Desperate Journey:”
The dialog from IMDB:
-
[Major Otto Baumeister has told the captured crew that, since they know the location of an underground Messerschmitt underground factory, they will feel his iron fist. Now he separates Flying Officer Johnny Hammond from the rest, questioning him for intelligence]
Maj. Otto Baumeister : That plane you were flying, American-built, wasn’t it? One of the new ones. We have heard a good deal about them. We know that they are capable of operating at amazing altitudes. How do you manage to supercharge the engines at the extreme cold of those high altitudes?
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : If I told you, the others wouldn’t find out?
Maj. Otto Baumeister : Certainly not.
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : They can’t hear us out there?
Maj. Otto Baumeister : Quite sure. Now, about the supercharger.
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : It’s done with a thermotrockle.
Maj. Otto Baumeister : A what?
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : Thermotrockle amfilated through a daligonitor. Of course, this is made possible because the dernadyne has a franicoupling.
Maj. Otto Baumeister : I do not understand you.
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : I knew you wouldn’t. The amsometer on the side prenulates the kinutaspel hepulace. That’s the entire secret. There you have it.
Maj. Otto Baumeister : I do not follow you.
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : Well, maybe I could make it more clear if I drew a diagram.
Maj. Otto Baumeister : Certainly.
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : [Bending over as though to draw] There’s three things you gotta understand. As I said before, the daligonitor is amfilated by the thermotrockle. It’s made by its connection with the franicoupling of dernadyne. Even at cruising speed the kinutaspel hepulace is prenulated by the amsometer. Makes no difference. Could be taking off. Snowing or raining, any pilot will tell you that the altitude, 10, 20, 30, 40,000 feet…
[flexing his arm to strike]
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : [appearing casually in Baumeister’s doorway] Oh, Terry. He wants to talk to you.
Flight Lieutenant Terrence Forbes : Oh. The major wants to see me.
[Forbes enters Baumeister’s office and sees him under the desk, unconscious. he looks incredulously at Hammond]
Flying Officer Johnny Hammond : The iron fist has a glass jaw.
Oct 182022
A rotary cell phone where a lot of the functionality is mechanical. It’s a real device that is available for pre-order as a kit, for a price that seems remarkably reasonable ($390). Since it is not manufactured by a major phone or electronics company, I imagine that you’ll be SOL if anything goes wrong with it, especially electronically or with the software… customer support and repair seem like they’d be a challenge. But as a neato knickknack, it seems… neato.
Rotary Un-Smartphone Kit
Oct 162022
Art from 1966 showing the S-IVB stage as launched on the SA-203 flight of the Saturn Ib, launched July 5, 1966. This flight put an S-IVb stage into orbit and demonstrated engine restart in microgravity, needed on the upcoming Apollo moon missions.
Oct 162022
So “Halloween Ends” opened this weekend. On a budget of $20 million, it has made an estimated $41.25 million domestically in the opening weekend, pushing itself to profitability in a handful of days.
The low budget – $17 million – horror movie “Smile” has, in just a bit over two weeks, made $71.2 million, making it a rampaging success.
That’s nice. How is this newsworthy? Compare that performance to “The Woman King.” On a budget of $50 million, after a month it has made $59.7 million domestically. D’oh.
It seems the strategies of glorifying the actual villains while accusing the potential customers of being bad people didn’t work so great.
Snerk.
One of these days Hollywood types *might* figure out that hating the audience is not a good plan. In the mean time… keep hemorrhaging dollars, dorks.
Oct 152022
Photos of a physical copy, fresh from the printer, somewhere in the wilds of Britain. UK/EU buyers should start receiving them shortly, I’d imagine.
The ordering link straight from the publisher:
US Supersonic Bomber Projects
And the updated Amazon link:
US Supersonic Bomber Projects Paperback – December 23, 2022
As previously mentioned, if you are interested in a signed, dated and bonus-print copy, let me know so I know how many to order.
Oct 142022
A circa 1983 illustration of the Bell JVX tiltrotor concept, folded for storage aboard an aircraft carrier. The JVX would be developed into the V-22 Osprey. The differences between this concept and the final vehicle are relatively minor, with the sponsons on the side, shape of the nose and apparently less-lifted tail being the most obvious.
Oct 132022
Someone messed up the NASA logo on the recent SpaceX launch. The derpified logo “Nick B” created in response fills me with joy:
https://t.co/ZriD22ndBh pic.twitter.com/XfZoCatumQ
— Nick B 📸 (@_AstroGuy_) October 2, 2022
Oct 122022
I’m at work on a new series of CAD diagrams (see HERE for the first run) to be released as PDFs formatted for printing at 18X24. For example, here are first drafts of a few:
- Boeing Space Sortie (3 sheets)
- Saturn C-8/Nova
- Jules Verne’s “Columbiad”
- A-12 Avenger II (2 sheets)
- Lockheed CL-400 “Suntan”
All of these require a bit more dressing-up, as well as explanatory text. But I think they’re starting to look pretty good.
I’ve selected a fair number more to work on. If any of these are of particular interest, or if any of the many, many diagrams I’ve made over the years would be of interest, let me know.
- BIS “Daedalus” straship
- Rockwell MRCC
- Northrop Tacit Blue
- Space Shuttle Main Engine
- Boeing Bird of Prey
- General Atomic 86-foot Orion
- General Atomic Orion battleship
- General Atomic 10-meter Orion
- Martin SeaMistress
- Space Launch System
- Have Sting orbital railgun
- Casaba Howitzer
- X-20 Dyna Soar
- B-47E
- DB-47E/Bold Orion
- DB-47E/RASCAL
- B-52G
- B-52H
- B-52H/Skybolt
- Boeing Space Freighter
- Boeing Big Onion
- Shuttle C
- Rockwell Star Raker
- Lockheed STAR Clipper
- Lockheed SR-71
- Lockheed A-12 (early canards)
- Lockheed A-12
- Lockheed A-12 (honeycomb panels)
- Lockheed A-12 “Titanium Goose”
- Lockheed YF-12A
- Lockheed M-21/D-21
- Lockheed AP-12
- Republic YF-103
- North American XF-108
- Bell MX-2147
- Convair Kingfish