Beech VTOL: 1971

 aircraft, art, history, Hmm..., projects  No Responses »
Dec 042022
 

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.

 

 Posted by at 8:26 am

Weser Flugzeugbau WFG-P 23 Tiltrotor

 aircraft, drawings, history, projects  No Responses »
Dec 032022
 

The West German Weser Flugzeugbau revealed the design of the P 23 tiltrotor in 1963. This was to be a do-everything vehicle… civil passenger transport, cargo transport, troop transport, ground attack, flying crane. It was an attractive design with one turboshaft engine at each wingtip; the rotors tilted, but the engines were fixed. The engines also provided power to two smaller fans mounted in the tail for pitch and yaw control. Sixty years later, it still looks like it would fit well in the skies of today, and look futuristic doing so.

 Posted by at 1:56 am

Modern weapon vs old

 aircraft, awesomeness, Hmm..., russian empire, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 022022
 

I remember reading many years ago someone describing what would happen if a modern anti-ship missile was launched against a World War 2 battleship: after the explosion, a sailor would have to go out on deck and sweep up all the bits of the missile and dump them overboard and probably slap on another coat of paint. The point was that ships used to be massive floating armored installations, and thus required massively powerful incoming weapons to take them out, but more recent ships are lightly built and rely on active defenses (missiles and CIWS along with ECM) to avoid getting hit in the first place.

 

The war in Ukraine from time to time demonstrates this. For example, the Russians recently launched a “Lancet” loitering munition against a piece of Ukrainian artillery, an old Soviet-era D-20 howitzer. The advanced modern weapon made a direct impact… and blew out a tire. There is value in being built like an old cannon, it seems. The Lancet seems to use a warhead wrapped with bits of cut-up rebar; this doubtless does wonders against soft targets such as trucks and troops concentrations and playgrounds and hospitals and the like, but seems to do diddly-squat against actual armor. Other variants apparently include shaped charge warheads for use against armor; perhaps this was a failure of proper weapons selection.

 

 Posted by at 9:40 pm

US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1 has arrived!

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, Book 3, books, news, projects, sales & specials, US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1, weapons  No Responses »
Dec 012022
 

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.

 Posted by at 11:12 pm

Bell Super Transport Artwork

 aircraft, art, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon  No Responses »
Dec 012022
 

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.

 Posted by at 7:37 am

Bell LHX tiltrotor: Stealth edition

 aircraft, art, history, projects  No Responses »
Nov 282022
 

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.

 Posted by at 12:55 pm

Anti-tank Vertol 107

 aircraft, art, history, projects, rockets  No Responses »
Nov 252022
 

The Vertol Model 107 became the Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight. It has been a fabulously successful helicopter; development began almost *70* years ago, and some are still in service.

One suggested modification from 1961 would have seen the helicopter (designated HC-1A at the time) modified into an anti-tank variant using wire-guided anti-tank missiles. The artwork depicts the Model 107 modified with a “trapeze” that would lower from the belly holding one such missile (appears similar to the SS.11 / AGM-22) ; after launching the missile the launcher would retract back into the cargo bay where it would be reloaded and redeployed. At the rear of the bay is a manually loaded rocket launcher (though it looks more like a recoilless rifle to me) that would, after loading, swing down into a forward-firing position. Further rocket launching tubes were built into the extended rear landing gear sponsons; machine guns were fitted ahead of the cockpit.

 Posted by at 12:04 pm

Grumman Advanced Stealthy Penetrator: Early CAD

 aircraft, CAD diagrams, history, projects  No Responses »
Nov 242022
 

The Grumman Advanced Stealthy Penetrator (GASP) received a fair amount of exposure in the mid 1980’s by way of artists concepts published in aviation magazines and the like. Actual technical information has remained elusive; the total pile of artwork and photos of a display model would permit the creation of reasonably good layout diagrams, but dimensions and performance remain wholly unavailable. The GASP would most likely have been intended for strike applications rather than air supremacy.

Shown below is a PR image showing, presumably, a Grumman engineer at work on a 3D CAD diagram of the GASP. This image dates from no later than 1984, so the CAD system was a pretty early one (though by no means the *earliest* CAD system). It would be interesting if the files were still in existence and could be imported into a modern CAD system… but that’s not something I’d hold out a lot of hope for. Artists impressions that show the cockpit seem to indicate that this was a sizable vehicle, though such judgements are difficult to take fully seriously.

 Posted by at 7:07 am

Boeing Model 987-350

 aircraft, CAD diagrams, history, projects, US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 2  No Responses »
Nov 232022
 

A bit short of a week ago I posted artwork of a “Boeing Advanced Fighter.” This led to the re-discovery of the actual model number 987-350 (I knew it some time back, but my brain is full I guess). And that led to the below CAD diagram, coming in just under the wire for a forthcoming book. The 987-350 was a tactical supercruiser; armament is unfortunately left a bit vague in the available documentation. The artwork depicts it with four folding-fin AGM-69 SRAM missiles; another diagram depicts it with two larger-diameter missiles of similar length. All were to be semi-submerged for low drag.

 

 Posted by at 7:02 am
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