Patreon: December rewards

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, drawings, history, new products, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft, weapons  No Responses »
Dec 262014
 

There was a delay getting the December rewards out, and a further delay in putting this notification together that the rewards are available… so it might be only a short-ish time before these are gone, replaced by the *January* rewards. So if these look of interest… act fast!

PDF Document: “Design Study for an Air Force Model F-82E Airplane Modified to a Ground Attack Aircraft with Allison XT-38 Turbo Prop Engine,” a North American Aviation report from 1948. This was not for a simple engine swap-out… the cockpits were moved forward and the engines located behind them, driving the props with long shafts.

PDF Document: “SAM-D Air Defense Weapon System,” a 1973 US Army description document of what would become the Patriot missile system.

Large Format Diagram: a large-format full-color (w/bonus grayscale versions) diagram of the X-20 Dyna Soar. Very detailed and clear. Looks great on a wall (believe me on that!)

CAD Diagram: Boeing Model 853-21 “Quiet Bird” a 1961 design study for a low radar cross section (i.e. stealthy) research aircraft.

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If you would like to access these items and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

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 Posted by at 2:30 pm

Klagenfurt Klf 255

 aircraft, art, blather, Gah., history, Hmm..., Patreon, projects, rockets  11 Responses »
Dec 092014
 

Ever since I started working on Aerospace Projects Review in the late 1990’s, people have asked from time to time if I planned on putting out an April Fools edition,or covering fictional designs, something along those lines. And I have always shot that concept down, because one thing I don’t want to do is contribute to confusion of mythology. Because even the most transparent fakery can be believed by far too many people (witness the patently absurd modern fiction called “Die Glocke”).

One of the better known “fakes” that has sometimes been understood to be real is the “Klagenfurt Klf 255.” This was originally published in the French aviation magazine “Fana de l’Aviation” as an April Fools gag in 1973. Supposedly a wartime German design for a rocket powered interceptor, the diagrams are actually reasonably convincing, as are the pre-Photoshop fake photos… but it was nevertheless pure fiction.

klf 255

Some years back someone sent me a photocopy of the original article. I’ve scanned it in PDF format and posted it to the APR Patreon for all patrons (this means as cheap as $0.75/month). Enjoy. And remember… It’s A Faaaaaaaaaake.

fake

If you would like to access these items and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

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 Posted by at 12:10 am

Cape Kennedy: 1969

 art, drawings, history, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Nov 302014
 

One of the items that has fallen into my hands is a pretty good map of cape Kennedy as of 1969, showing USAF and NASA facilities:

KSC map 1a

I have posted the full-rez version over at the APR Patreon, available to all $1.50/month and greater patrons.

If you would like to access this item and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

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 Posted by at 1:09 am

Patreon: November rewards

 aircraft, art, drawings, history, models, new products, Patreon, projects, rockets  No Responses »
Nov 162014
 

The November rewards for the APR patrons have been released. They include:

PDF document: “The Air Turborocket Powerplant,” an Aerojet brochure from October 1955 describing an advanced airbreathing propulsion system for missiles, bombers, intercepts, etc.

PDF document: “VTOL Transport Aircraft Comparative Study,” a report from Vertol, 1956. Describes, with data, sketches and three-view diagrams, a range of different types of VTOL transports, including tilt-wings, lift jets, aerodyne, etc.

DIAGRAMS: two parter this month. First: layout, inboard and sectional views of the Lockheed L-2000 SST. Second: Douglas diagrams… “Plans for Scale Model Construction of the Long-Tank Thor Agena.” Good diagrams of the launch vehicle.

CAD diagram: NASA-Langley hypersonic transport.

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If you would like to access these items and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

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 Posted by at 7:50 pm

Patreon update

 aircraft, APR, drawings, history, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Nov 052014
 

I’ve just uploaded the Documents and Diagrams catalogs to the APR Patreon site for the $10-level patrons to peruse and vote on. Only one new large format diagram, but a number of new documents to choose from.

 

If you would like to access these items and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

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 Posted by at 8:41 am

PDF Bonus: Docking an XF-85 Goblin

 aircraft, history, models, Patreon  No Responses »
Oct 232014
 

The third October PDF Review has been posted over at the Aerospace Projects Review Blog. This describes wind tunnel testing of the XP-85 “Goblin”, specifically with the trapeze recovery system.

Pages from Stability and Control Characteristics of a 1 10-Scale Model of the McDonnell XP-85 Airplane While Attached to the Trapeze_Page_03

 

These PDF Reviews are brought to you by the APR Patreon. For as little as 75 cents per month, you can help me dig into the forgotten corners of aerospace history… and get yourself some goodies in the process. Head on over!

 Posted by at 5:11 pm

Patreon Bonus: Soviet Sanger

 aircraft, history, Patreon, projects, rockets  1 Response »
Oct 232014
 

Many years back I was given a photocopy of a Soviet journal article describing a Soviet version of the WWII-era “Silverbird.” The Silverbird was the brainchild of Austrian rocket engineer Eugen Sanger and was a concept for a hypersonic rocket powered “spaceplane” capable of dropping bombs halfway around the world. In the years immediately after the war, the report Sanger wrote proved to be influential on policymakers and engineers, especially in the USSR.

This article describes a Silverbird modified with sizable ramjet engines mounted to the wingtips. Sadly, I can’t read a single word of Russian, so I can’t make heads or tails of it apart from the illustrations. One notation indicates that this may date from 1947. The vehicle described would seem to be the “Keldysh Bomber.”

I have scanned the article and posted it as a PDF on my Patreon for patrons at the $1.50 level (c’mon… that’s $1.50 a month! Mere pennies a day!).

keldysh

 Posted by at 10:34 am

PDF Review: STS tiles. Every. Single. Vertex.

 aircraft, history, Hmm..., models, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  23 Responses »
Oct 162014
 

This is the second of four “PDF Reviews” I plan to have in October, to make up for the lack of any in September. The idea is to present interesting online resources for those interested in the sort of aerospace oddities that you can find in the pages of Aerospace Projects Review. This little project is supported through my Patreon campaign; at current levels, I’ll post two such reviews per month. If you’d like to see more, or just want to contribute to help me along, please consider becoming a patron.

This one is a bit different from usual. Instead of a report full of art and diagrams and charts and, well, sentences, this one has none of those. Instead, what it does have is 5,271 pages of data. Data, specifically, on the X-Y-Z positions of every single vertex of every single tile on the Shuttle. Of what value is that? Well, someone with a whole lot of patience could, I presume, feed this data into a 3D modeling program and produce a *really* accurate model of at least part of the Space Shuttle. So… knock yourself out.

Orbiter Coordinates of All the Vertices on the Outer Mold Line (OML) of Each of the OV-ID5 Tiles

The abstract page is HERE.

The direct download link for the PDF file is HERE.

 Posted by at 12:49 am
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