A fire truck got int he way of a jetliner in Lima, Peru: nobody won.
Yow.
Nov 222022
Nov 182022
Another early 80s advanced fighter concept from Boeing. This one used Viggen-like close coupled canards and vectorable 2D exhaust nozzles for aerial agility. Stealth seems to have been a minimal concern, with performance being more important. The inlets and overall aerodynamcis suggest supersonic cruise. Four sizable missiles – possible SRAM nuclear-tipped surface attack missiles – are semi-submerged in the belly for reduced drag. No further data.
Fell rez scan is in the 2022-11 APR Extras Dropbox folder.
Nov 142022
A Boeing rendering of an advanced fighter from the late 70’s/early 80’s. This design features variable sweep wings and inlets mounted over the shoulders, reminiscent of the Boeing Model 818 design proposed in the early 1960s for the TFX program (won by General Dynamics, resulting in the F-111… check out “US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1” for more on that). There are four weapons mounted conformally to the underside. All in all it looks like an early attempt at a *somewhat* stealthy aircraft… not true stealth, but a substantial reduction in radar return, specifically from ground-based radar. This would seem to indicate that the aircraft was intended to generally fly low and to serve in a strike capacity.
The configuration is broadly conventional, apart from the inlets. The twin exhaust nozzles are 2D vectorable, reducing IR signature and increasing agility and short field takeoff performance. The twin tails are canted outboard, probably to knock out the “corner reflector” problem for radar returns. This was likely intended to be something of a replacement for the F-111 rather than the next air dominance fighter like the F-15.
The full rez scan has been uploaded into the 2022-11 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for $4 and up Patrons/Subscribers.
Nov 122022
The B-17 “Texas Raider” was hit by a bell P-63 Kingcobra today at the Wings Over Dallas airshow. Both planes broke apart in midair and crashed.Hard to imagine that anyone on either plane survived. It *almost* looked as if the P-63 aimed at the B-17 (I doubt it could have hit the bomber any worse if the goal was destruction), but that seems really unlikely.
Nov 102022
A video tour of the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the “Spruce Goose.” This would have been a hell of a plane had it been made available several years earlier, but by the time it flew it was not only no longer needed, it was obsolete. being made largely of wood, its durability out in the world would be questionable. During wartime this might have been a small issue; they probably couldn’t be expected to have a long lifespan. They’d get taken out by enemy action, by crashes and by wear and tear long before weather and aging would do them in. But in civilian service, the aircraft seems unlikely to have stood up well for long periods.
An all-metal version with turboprops? that might’ve been a hell of a sight to see all through the 1950’s.
Nov 072022
The model AGM-86 Air Launch Cruise Missile began life as a decoy missile, sort of an updated “Quail.” it was decided that the decoy could carry a nuclear warhead, and thus provide a lot more service; this began its development as a cruise missile. As originally envisaged, it had to fit in the some bays that could hold the AGM-69 SRAM missile; this made sense in a lot of ways but strictly limited its capabilities due to the short length. Efforts to increase the range of the missile included adding a droppable belly tank and stretching the fuselage for more internal fuel volume. The latter route was chose, along with making the nose much blunter and more voluminous.Both the external tank and the fuselage stretch meant that it could not long fit in internal SRAM bays, a tradeoff that was deemed worthwhile.
The illustration below dates from mid 1976 at the latest.
The full rez scan has been uploaded to the 2022-11 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for $4 and up APR Patrons/subscribers.
Nov 052022
An artists rendering of the Republic A-10 circa 1971. This is very nearly the final design, but it differs in details; the cockpit canopy is a little off, for instance.
Nov 052022
The US Naval Institute press is having a 50% off sale on their in-print, in-stock books. Sale runs through December 31.
https://www.usni.org/press/books
If someone wanted to take this opportunity to buy me half-price copies of Friedman’s revised editions of U.S. Submarines Since 1945 and U.S. Aircraft Carriers, I would not object.
P.S. What with Annual Mandatory Soulless Consumer Spending Holiday coming up in less that two months, there’s lots of stuff, useful and otherwise, available on Amazon that you can get without having to mingle with the degenerate weirdos who increasingly make up the public. If you start your search for stuff by going through THIS LINK TO AMAZON, a tiny smidgen of whatever you end up spending will get passed on to me, and by extension will be used to feed my cats. You don’t want to disappoint my cats, do you?
Nov 012022
A Mil-8 got thwacked by a MANPAD and set alight. It flew in a controlled and sensible manner for a lot longer than I would have expected given that it seemed to be a raging inferno, but the end was kind of a bummer for the crew. I suspect the passengers were already out of the picture by that point. Gotta wonder why the pilot kept it in the air that long. I would have thought “Ground. Now.” would have been the overriding priority.
Nov 012022
The October 2022 rewards are available for APR Patrons and Subscribers. This latest package includes:
Large format art: A Bell Aerospace painting of the D188A VTOL fighter/bomber
Document: “Standard Aircraft Characteristics – Convair Class VF Seaplane Night Fighter (SKATE)” diagrams and data for seaplane jet fighter
Document: “21St Century Aerospace – The 20th Century Challenge,” General Dynamics presentation, late 80’s about hypersonics/NASP. From photographs.
Document: “Prototype X-14 VTOL Aircraft,” Bell Aerospace presentation, 1971, on the “SeaKat” operational naval VTOL. From photos, but art and diagrams were also scanned for clarity.
CAD Diagram ($5 and up): XB-70 Valkyrie forward fuselage configuration
If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.
