Nuclear powered recon drone (GE 1954)

 aircraft, drawings, nukes, projects  5 Responses »
Dec 152012
 

In 1954 General Electric studied a nuclear powered unmanned aircraft for a photo recon role. One design considered was the ACA-8, a fairly conventionally configured airbreathing supersonic configuration with small canards and unswept wings mounted well aft. For propulsion the ACA-8 was equipped with a single ACM-1C-Mk II nuclear turbojet with a chemical afterburner. With 9,000 pounds of chemical fuel, 3000 pounds of guidance and control equipment and 3000 pounds of photographic equipment, the gross weight was 50,000 pounds. While the design seems to have some similarity with the Pluto nuclear ramjet, it was a nuclear turbojet, and thus restricted to slower speeds. Maximum nuclear-powered speed at 35,000 feet was Mach 1.57; at design cruise altitude of 40,000 feet, speed was only Mach 1.40. By using the afterburner, at 45,000 fee the max speed was Mach 3.6; at 57,000 feet, Mach 2.5. This could only be maintained for a relatively brief period, however. Note that the design is equipped with landing gear, indicating that it was to be recovered and presumably reused.

At nuclear cruise speed, it was quite interceptable, but the opposing country would have to think long and hard about just how much they wanted to shoot a nuclear reactor out of the sky over their own territory. The best option would be to follow it out and down it over the ocean.

 

“Wings of SAC”

 aircraft, art, awesomeness  9 Responses »
Dec 142012
 

A painting by Mike Hagel on display at the Strategic Air & Space Museum in Ashland, Nebraska. This would have been one hell of a scene in real life, though almost certainly impossible to actually pull off. The multiple simultaneous ICBM launches, for example, would have required a *lot* of paperwork.

 Posted by at 8:06 am

WTF are these?

 aircraft, art, history, Hmm..., projects, rockets, spacecraft, weapons  13 Responses »
Nov 272012
 

Some images posted on the San Diego Air & Space Museum Flickr account are a bit of a mystery. They are *probably* all General Dynamics/Convair images, though that ‘s not certain.

First: Some sort of bus-borne interceptors? Space-based anti-satellite systems?

Second: Some sorta…. somethings. Space based weapons seems likely, but which is the business end? Are these nuclear-pumped X-Ray lasers in that picosecond before they’re blown to bits, shooting at something off to the lower left, with the upper-right satellite being the radar guidance system for the squadron? Are they more conventional interceptors with a single small and rather unusual thruster in a mysteriously long tail, aimed at the upper-right satellite? Phased plasma rifles in the 40-watt range?

Third: Probably a supersonic bomber (perhaps a B-70 competitor). But maybe an aerospaceplane.

 Posted by at 6:32 pm

Well, THAT didn’t happen

 aircraft, blather, Crazy, history, projects, science fiction, youtube  2 Responses »
Nov 262012
 

A 1968 PR video of what flight in 1975 would look like. In virtually every aspect, Braniff got it wrong. *Real* wrong. In fact, most of what they promised 44 years ago is still futuristic today… or, more probably, ain’t-never-gonna-happen. For instance: the fashions. Helmets? Where did that get that dress, it’s awful, and those shoes and that coat, jeeeeez!

[youtube KZcCpH-G3os]

Much of it looks like bad sci-fi from the 1930’s through the 1950’s, with robotic everythings, space-consuming extendable and self-moving furniture and pedestals, lots of plexiglass and yards of legroom. And while a few minor details have come about, they have done so in ways far less cheesy that shown here. The video phone, the option to watch one of *three* movies, etc.

This film displays one of my pet peeves with much of sci-fi these days: set a very few years in the future, displaying *massive* cultural, social and technological change. Movies like “Demolition Man” and “Strange Days” were explicitly set just a few years down the line, but showed technologies that were decades away.

 Posted by at 9:48 pm

Bell D190B rescue VTOL

 aircraft, APR, projects  2 Responses »
Nov 192012
 

The D190 designation was the catch-all for a wide range of tilt-duct vehicles Bell designed in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The D190B was a rescue version, intended to go after downed pilots and the like. Other versions were similar, but designed to mate up with a C-130 in flight; the C-130 would transport the D190 to the vicinity of a rescue and would transport it home again, greatly increasing range and lift capability of the D-190. Another version was designed to similarly mate up with flying command posts and Air Force One, to transfer supplies and personnel.

 Posted by at 1:00 am

Boeing Model 473-12 layout diagram

 aircraft, drawings, projects  12 Responses »
Nov 172012
 

The Boeing 473-12, from July 1948. An early concept for a passenger jetliner, this would have been powered by two Rolls Royce “Nene” engines and could carry a crew of three and 27 passengers a range of 550 miles. This was an early step on the path to the 707, the worlds first successful jetliner.

A three-view of the early jetliner design, showing the clean lines and basic geometry that would become virtually standard for the next seventy years or more.

 Posted by at 1:00 am

Convair HST, 1966

 aircraft, blather, drawings, Gah., history, projects  1 Response »
Nov 132012
 

In the mid 1960s, supersonic transports were just around the corner. And the trends in aviation development showed the aircraft designers and air travel planners that hypersonic transports were less than two decades away. Consequently, all the major aircraft designers in the US devoted effort to designing passenger transports that could carry paying customers at Mach 5 or greater. But a combination of politics (the OPEC oil embargo as well as a wider economic downturn, as well as largely trumped-up ecological concerns) and technological issues managed to assure that SSTs were never developed beyond the Concord stunt. And if a jetliner couldn’t get to Mach 1, it surely couldn’t get to Mach 5.

But in 1966, these issues were not yet seen, so Convair was busy designing a whole range of hypersonic transports. They might have missed out on the first generation of SSTs, but they were not going to miss out on the HSTs.

 Posted by at 1:11 am
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