Photos of a physical copy, fresh from the printer, somewhere in the wilds of Britain. UK/EU buyers should start receiving them shortly, I’d imagine.
The ordering link straight from the publisher:
And the updated Amazon link:
As previously mentioned, if you are interested in a signed, dated and bonus-print copy, let me know so I know how many to order.
A circa 1983 illustration of the Bell JVX tiltrotor concept, folded for storage aboard an aircraft carrier. The JVX would be developed into the V-22 Osprey. The differences between this concept and the final vehicle are relatively minor, with the sponsons on the side, shape of the nose and apparently less-lifted tail being the most obvious.
I’m at work on a new series of CAD diagrams (see HERE for the first run) to be released as PDFs formatted for printing at 18X24. For example, here are first drafts of a few:
All of these require a bit more dressing-up, as well as explanatory text. But I think they’re starting to look pretty good.
I’ve selected a fair number more to work on. If any of these are of particular interest, or if any of the many, many diagrams I’ve made over the years would be of interest, let me know.
Assuming the video is accurate (these days, who knows), it appears that a Ukrainian soldier swatted a Russian cruise missile on its way to a war crime using a standard shoulder-launched short range missile.
It’s unclear to me what system was used, as the video is pretty potato in quality. Doesn’t look to me like a Stinger; not enough stuff on the front of the launcher. Maybe a Grail, Gremlin or Piorun.
A MANPAD vs a cruise missile makes sense: cruise missiles fly low, generally subsonic, have no countermeasures such as flares and do not try to maneuver to avoid getting hit. On the other hand their engines are small and do not put out nearly as much thermal energy as the turbojets of a fighter; but on the gripping hand, they are also not as IR shielded as the exhausts of a stealthy airplane or a battlefield helicopter. So the trick with using a MANPAD to take out a cruise missile is to be in the right place at the right time, and to be on the ball. It’s impossible to know what apartment building or orphanarium or kitten hospital the Russian cruise missile was targeted to obliterate, but it’s safe to say that the missileer here just saved a fair number of civilians a lot of grief.
Found in ridiculously low resolution online, this chart purports to provide data on a number of early-2000’s unmanned air vehicles. If it’s accurate, it provides good dimensional data for the Northrop and Lockheed UCAR programs, data I’ve not seen elsewhere. But I can’t confirm the accuracy of this. it appears to have been scanned from a physical original… perhaps a brochure, a meeting paper, a magazine article. Anyone?
The ad below was published in magazines in 1982, showing a cutaway illustration of the then-fancy new B-1B bomber, recently rescued by the Reagan Administration. The background is here depicted as a rather dull gray, but the physical ad has a shiny metallic coating, which must have cost a small fortune at the time.
The full-rez version of this scan has been uploaded into the 2022-10 APR Extras Dropbox folder. It is available to all APR Patrons/Subscribers at the $4/month level and above. 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.
It baffles and distresses me to know that people who were born *after* the religious attacks of 9/11 are old enough to vote and join the military and be screwed over by the tax system. I didn’t see this now nearly year-old remastering of the Jules Naudet video of the first airplane impact until just now. This was one of the most astonishing things ever caught on video, now clearer than ever before.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Those days are gone.
Gotta wonder why some people are like this.
My third book, “US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1” is, as I understand it, somewhere between “being printed” and “being shipped.” I am thus hard at work on Volume 2. I had hoped to also do a Volume 3, but that is unlikely: Volume 3 would be “Space Bombers.” However, apparently the market for “space” is nothing like what it is for “aviation,” so the idea has been nixed. There is official interest in several other works I’ve planned, so properly published books seem likely to continue for some time.
That said: while the market for “space” is less than the market for “aviation,” my own interest in the two is about equal. And I would be happy to sell works at a number substantially lower than a professional, proper publisher would. A publisher would have books on bookstore or grocery store shelves, while I would only sell from my little website. And if I’m not incredibly stupid about it (no guarantee of that, of course), a self-published book would, theoretically, bring in more on a per-book basis than one done through a publisher. So I’m contemplating something like a Kickstarter for “Space Bombers.”
As currently laid out, this book would be almost overwhelmingly “The Book Of Dyna Soar,” as the bulk of (available) American space-based bombardment studies revolved around that program. However, it would extend well beyond Dyna Soar, including Orion and other strategic orbital weapons systems studied back in the sixties, on up through much more recent studies including aerospaceplanes and bombers based on the X-33/Venturestar/RLV studies. Being self published I would not be locked into a set page count and, perhaps, could include foldouts and perhaps more color art (depending on funding). This could be released as both an Ebook and a softcover… and, depending on length, a hardback. Other “extras” could include 18X24 or 24X36 prints of diagrams, perhaps on something like mylar.
I am *far* from setting up a Kickstarter for this. I’ve seen a lot of people get *really* mad about funding this or that project and then watching it slip far behind schedule, so I wouldn’t even start a crowdfunding campaign until it was substantially complete. There are a number of topic areas that I really want to delve into more deeply via FOIA and whatnot, a process that has become far more troublesome in recent years. At this point it’s in the “this is an idea to think about” stage. But I am interested in any input on the subject… thoughts on crowdfunding, ideas about subjects to add and, as always, input of documentation on the topic that you might have that you think I may not.
A few photos showing the innards of an F-22 being repaired:
and some more pic.twitter.com/yZjvk5Fl49
— Fighterman_FFRC (@Fighterman_FFRC) June 12, 2022