Oct 282022
 

Currently on ebay is an aluminum model of a lifting body. The rear of the vehicle is that of the M1 or M2, but the nose is distinctly conical. The lack of useful volume leads me to think that if this is a legit wind tunnel model (rather than something someone just knocked out at a machine shop for giggles), then it’s not a design for a manned vehicle, either test or operational space logistics. Rather it would be something like:

1) A basic subscale research vehicle like ASSET

2) A concept for a maneuverable entry vehicle for a military system. An ICBM warhead, perhaps designed to glide either for range extension, to avoid incoming ABMs, or to maneuver to avoid tracking systems and come in from unexpected directions.

3) Or it’s just a vague, generic “let’s look at everything” shape.

The nose of the model does not inspire a great deal of confidence… it looks a bit unfinished, with some sharp-ish corners that don’t seem like they should be there.

If anyone knows better, by all means speak up…

 

 Posted by at 1:46 pm
Oct 252022
 

Bell artwork circa 1983 depicting the proposed JVX tiltrotor, which would become the V-22 Osprey. The cockpit and the sponsons display the greatest obvious differences from the aircraft that would eventually be built, but the design seems to be largely just about there.

 

 Posted by at 6:05 pm
Oct 242022
 

Posting delayed due to “issues.”

Bad day for someone… but not as bad as it could  have been. And probably not as bad as he had set out to make it for someone else. Interesting how cleanly the vertical stabilizer came off.

UPDATE: This incident seems to have occurred in June, well inside Russia, after hitting a power line (note that the vertical stabilizer seems to have been cleanly sliced off).

 

 Posted by at 7:52 am
Oct 242022
 

A photo of a wind tunnel model of a Republic Aviation design for a Manned Hypersonic Test Vehicle configuration. The photo was published in 1969, but the program was circa 1965. It used a configuration previously studied as both an Aerospaceplane (airbreathing SSTO) and Mach 10 recon. That latter design was written about and illustrated in US Research & Recon Projects #2. You can tell that this is the subscale demonstrator, rather than one of the full-scale operational vehicles, because of the additional fuel tanks, projection from the lower fuselage. The fuselage was conical and ringed with a scramjet engine; a rocket engine in the tail would, after separation from a B-52 carrier aircraft, accelerate the vehicle past Mach 7 or so to scramjet operational speed.

 Posted by at 7:01 am
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.




 

 

 Posted by at 1:29 pm
Oct 192022
 

Ronald Reagan chats with a Nazi in “Desperate Journey:”

 

The dialog from IMDB:

 

 Posted by at 2:36 pm
Oct 182022
 

Ukrainian police use AK-47s (or maybe AK-74s, I can’t tell) to try to take out Russian anti-civilian buzz bombs. The *claim* is that they shot one down, but that’s hard to determine form the footage… it could well be that the thing just crashed where it did because that’s where it was aimed. They really need to get Tom Selleck on the case.

The Ukrainians, as unlucky as they’ve been, are lucky that they didn’t defund the police and replace them with social workers. I’m not sure that clipboards and unearned moral smugness would de-escalate an incoming raid of kamikaze drones.

 Posted by at 8:39 pm
Oct 182022
 

Here’s a look at Book 4. Some of the diagrams I do are completed in just a few hours. Some take considerably longer… several to many man-days, sometimes spread out over months as I dial in details. This one was sort of mid-range. The most complex and time consuming are typically the diagrams of aircraft that were actually built… those have to be accurate, and more details are available. This one is of an unbuilt aircraft that is reasonably well documented, but was a configuration that was in a constant state of design flux.

 Posted by at 1:52 pm
Oct 182022
 

Russian losses are expanding beyond Ukraine…

13 dead as Russian warplane crashes into apartment building near Ukraine border

Russian news agencies have reported that at least 13 people died when a warplane crashed on Monday into a residential area in the Russian port city of Yeysk after suffering engine failure.

Gotta admit, this is a hell  of a shot (I assume it’s from some sort of security camera):

That pilot who saved himself and doomed an apartment building has some splainin’ to do.

The Russians have received 140 SU-34s, and have apparently lost 14 of them so far in the war. Maybe they shouldn’t go tossing them all willy-nilly into apartment blocks.

 Posted by at 12:08 am