“Mighty Mouse” in full rez

 aircraft, art, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Jun 102019
 

I made the full rez scan of this artwork available in 2015 to APR Monthly Historical Document Program subscribers as an “extra.” Subscribers get lots of stuff like this.

This late 1980’s art depicts the Bell “Mighty Mouse” tiltrotor, a contender for the FAAV (Future Attack Air Vehicle) concept. While details on this specific design have remained irritatingly hard to come by for the last thirty years, the design looks like functionally a VTOL OV-10 Bronco. Capable of carrying several Marines as well as a useful load of anti-tank weaponry, the Mighty Mouse would be able to fold up for storage on board a ship. The full rez version of the scan is on Dropbox HERE.

 Posted by at 2:27 pm

Forthcoming updated

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, blather, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Launch Vehicle Projects  No Responses »
Jun 082019
 

Some further tinkering to the USLP06 diagrams. There will be further revisions (especially with Star Raker), but I believe this will be the complete set of vehicles shown. I had to split the set up into two separate files; the unified diagram set was causing my computer headaches. You might not think that 2D diagrams can overload computers that can render things in 3D, but you’d be wrong.

This latest effort has taken a *really* long time. Lots of work involved with this. As a result, it has been a long time since I’ve published anything else, and since my income is based on getting stuff published… yay, welcome to poverty. If you want to help out, consider Buying Stuff or subscribing to the Monthly Historical Documents Program. Even a buck fifty a month helps out.

 Posted by at 10:43 pm

Space Station concept art

 art, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 072019
 

Two pieces of Boeing concept art for mid-1960’s zero-gravity, single-Saturn V launched spacecraft. The first one looks like an interplanetary spacecraft, complete with drop-probes in the aft skirt.

I have uploaded the full resolution scan of the illustrations to the 2019-06 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to $4 and up subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 

 

 Posted by at 3:57 pm

May 2019 Monthly Historical Documents

 aircraft, APR, art, awesomeness, drawings, drawings&documents, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, new products, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 022019
 

On May 31st, APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents program subscribers were sent emails containing links to the May, 2019, rewards. This months set of documents and diagrams included high-rez copies of:

Document: “Manned Lunar Vehicle Design,” a General Electric paper from 1962 describing a direct-landing Apollo concept

Document: “AP-76 Project 1226,” a highly illustrated Republic Aviation report from May 1955 describing their design for the X-15

Diagram: “DNI-27C, VFX Design Study Fixed Wing/Buried Engine,” September 1968 North American Aviation fighter design

CAD Diagram: three-view of the Dandridge Cole/Martin Aircraft “Aldebaran” giant nuclear powered launch vehicle notional concept

 

If this sort of thing is of interest and you’d like to get in on it and make sure you don’t miss any of the forthcoming releases, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 

 



All prior “back issues” are available for purchase by subscribers. Recent months rewards have included:

 Posted by at 11:49 pm

Guns, guns, guns: Rock Island Arsenal Museum

 art, awesomeness, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, photography, weapons  No Responses »
May 212019
 

I’ve recently returned from several weeks of travels. In the process I stopped at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum and took a lot of photos (something like 200) of their large display of firearms. Because why not, I’ve uploaded all of them to Dropbox for APR monthly funders; guns aren’t aerospace, of course, but there tends to be some overlap in interest. One wrinkle: these were taken with my best camera, which means each photo is about 13 megabytes; 200 of which adds up to a lot.  It took a ridiculous length of time to upload them all.

 

I have uploaded the full set of ~200 photos to Dropbox available to $4 and up subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

If you’ve been wondering why blogging has been a bit reduced and why emails might not have been answered… well, there ya go.

 

 Posted by at 2:59 am

B-58 weapons possibilities

 aircraft, art, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets  No Responses »
Apr 172019
 

An early-ish Convair illustration of the potential weapons and other payloads to be carried by the B-58 bomber, both in the centerline pod and under the wing roots. Note not only ballistic missiles but also several recon options, and a “bomb bay pod” giving the aircraft a payload of several gravity bombs, presumably nuclear.

I have uploaded the full resolution scan of the illustrations to the 2019-04 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to $4 and up subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 6:29 pm

Boeing Model 767-85M

 aircraft, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Apr 122019
 

A Boeing diagram of the Model 767-85M, a pre-767 jetliner concept from 1971 designed to cruise at Mach 0.98. In order to achieve that, the design was massively aerodynamically optimized for transonic efficiency… with “wasp-waiting” taken to something of an extreme. The aircraft would have been fuel efficient at high (but still subsonic) speed, but would have been a nightmare to manufacture.

I’ve made the full-rez scan of this large format diagram available to above-$10-subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program/Patreon.

If this sort of thing is of interest, consider subscribing. Even a buck a month will help out; but the more you subscribe for, the more you get… and the more you help me get from eBay and save for the ages.

 

 Posted by at 7:52 pm

Lockheed L-2000 SST mockup photos

 aircraft, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Mar 222019
 

Last year a number of photos of the Lockheed L-2000 SST concept were sold on eBay. I didn’t get them, but the auctions came complete with some decent (not great) resolution scans of the photos. I have uploaded seven photos to the 2019-03 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to $4 and up subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 6:47 pm

Boeing IMIS, 1968

 art, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Spacecraft Projects  No Responses »
Mar 192019
 

Artwork of the Boeing Integrated Manned Interplanetary Spacecraft, circa 1968. This is the best known of the numerous manned Mars spacecraft designed over the last half century, and is often directly associated with Werner von Braun as he would go on to try to get congress and NASA to forge ahead with the program. Obviously he was not successful. Aspects of this spacecraft design were illustrated in great detail in US Spacecraft Projects #03 and USSP #04

I’ve seen this piece of art many times over the years, always in pretty poor resolution; I finally found a good-rez version on eBay a while back. I’ve made the full-rez scan available to above-$10-subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program/Patreon. Clearly the original painting must have been done in color, but I do not think I’ve ever seen this image reproduced in color. I suspect that about ten seconds after I keel over someone will put on eBay a 24X26 full-color pristine lithograph with a buy-it-now price of five bucks. So keep an eye out for that: you see it, I’m like as not deadern’ disco.

If this sort of thing is of interest, consider subscribing. Even a buck a month will help out; but the more you subscribe for, the more you get… and the more you help me get from eBay and save for the ages.

 

 

 Posted by at 10:05 pm
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