This is not for me. Instead, I was contacted by Someone Some Of You Might Know (and whose work *all* of you should know), who is working on a project and needs a bit of help. Specifically, dimensioned, accurate, detailed diagrams of the Weber ejection seat used on the F-106:
Sadly, this is the best I seem to have on hand:
Anybody have anything they can share or point to?
You’re at 30,000 feet in your C-17 when you have a sudden hankering to be at 5,000 feet. What you *could* do is nose over and power dive. That’s a great way to reach the ground lickety-split; but in all probability you’ll reach it in several parts as you will have ripped the wings off.
Or you could do this: nose over, and throw on your thrust reversers. You’ll still drop like a stone, but a stone with something of a parachute and a fair amount of controlability.
It has been a number of years since I’ve added much to the Air & Space Documents & Diagrams catalog (https://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/catalog/drawndoc.htm). On the other hand, ever since 2014 I have been sending about three documents and one large format diagram per month to Patrons and subscribers… so that’s a *lot* of stuff! But sometime in the near future I will finally add new items to the Catalog: Air *and* Space, Drawings *and* Documents. Included will be a wide variety of things… but for those interested in space, there will be two sets of SSTO design documents.
I have of late been dealing with a number of things… most relevant of which is finishing up the text of my third book. I hope to have it done in a matter of days. That will be when I’ll really get going on releasing the new Drawings & Documents. Patrons and Subscribers will be notified first… and will have the opportunity to get them at a discount. So if this is of interest, keep an eye on the APR blog, the catalog page linked above, or sign up for the APR Patreon/Monthly Historical Documents Program (https://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/monthly.htm). Patrons/subscribers can also get any or all of the “back issues” of monthly collections back to 2014.
Thanks!
PS: Covid does not help the writing process. Just a little heads up for those curious.
Unfortunate demo of some sort of early Photoshop-like software. Late 1980s? Early 1990s?
I *really* hope the pilot can shed some light on this:
A small cargo plane lost a wheel during a hard landing, then continued on to fly for a while before finally doing an emergency landing that seemed to go about as well as you might hope for a cargo plane with a third of its landing gear gone. But the co-pilot *seems* to have decided to chuck himself out of the plane well before then, crashing in a yard some thirty miles from the final airport. Friggen’ *WHY*?
Was he stressed out? Was he on something? Was the initial hard landing his fault, and he knew that it would go bad for his career?
This incident appears to have occurred while the plane was still on the ground (what looks like ground crew dealing with it). Some sources say Spirit Airlines, some Allegiant. It seems to me that this sort of thing used to be a lot rarer.
Crazy Spirit Airlines fight from the air. What has been your worst in flight experience and what carrier were you traveling? #spirit #spiritairlines #fight pic.twitter.com/qIj2Qwhgxa
— Belinda Post (@Belinda_Post) July 25, 2022
Never been a fan of those “deformed” or “egg” airplane toys/models. But if it works, it works.
A few weeks ago I posted a link to a video about a “flying Winnebago,” helicopters converted into recreational vehicles. Those were cool. But what I’d *really* want: a PBY Catalina converted into a flying yacht, such as the “Landseaire.” These were glamorous examples of a sadly now bygone era.
The video points out that just because you’ve got buckets of money and a really cool flying yacht, there are some places you just shouldn’t go. There are places on this Earth – Arabia, Detroit, Central America, New York City – where your chances of encountering violent uncivilized barbarians is just too high to risk, and your flying yacht will end up a bullet-riddled wreck slowly corroding away over a span of decades.
It is of course far to much to hope for that production on an aircraft much like the PBY could begin again (as I asked for a short while ago). With modern design and materials, a modern PBY would be lighter and stronger, cheaper to maintain with far better fuel economy and range. But it’s about as likely as restarting the B-17 production line. Eventually 3D metal printing will advance to the point that you can print yourself a PBY kit for little more than the cost of the raw material and the energy needed to melt it all, but even then you’ll still need to assemble it. It’ll be a *long* time before industrial replicators can fab you a complete aircraft in one go.
Shortly after WWII the US Air Force funded studies on long range missiles, wit the intent of incorporating what had been learned from the Germans. One design, the 1947-vintage North American Aviation model 704, was derived (through numerous steps) from the German A-4 (V-2), but made longer range by way of adding wings and two ramjet engines. This would eventually evolve into the “Navaho” intercontinental cruise missile; an impressive but ultimately doomed system that used a large liquid rocket booster to shove a large Mach 3+ ramjet aircraft into the sky. In the end, ICBM were easier and cheaper.
The full rez scan of the diagram has been made available to APR Patrons/Subscribers at above the $10 level.
This may well be pure BS. If it’s not, though… ruh-roh, Russian tankies…
US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall told a journalist who inquired about the possibility of transferring aircraft data.
Thus the US Air Force will be able to write off obsolete military aircraft in order to focus on modern programs. #Ukraine #UkraineRussianWar #Ukrainian
— 🇺🇦Ukraine News Live🇺🇦 (@UkraineNewsLive) July 21, 2022
The A-10 is, let’s face it, obsolete. As absolutely badass as the plane is, drones have kinda taken over the role… sure, they’re far more easily destroyed than the A-10, but who cares? They’re cheap and disposable and ain’t nobody on board. The modern battlefield is an unsafe place for something slow and targetable like the A-10. Buuuuuuuut…. the Russians, rather stupidly, have failed to gain absolute air dominance over all of Ukraine. This is the sort of environment that the A-10, properly employed and properly flown, can shine in. Swamp the Russian air defenses with cheap rocks and cheap drones, and then the A-10 comes striding in ten feet tall and lays waste with precision, determination and brutality. *Imagine* those long trains of resupply trucks, miles long, looking up and seeing a few A-10s drawing down on them. Whoopsie.
Of course, there are lots of problems with this idea. The A-10 is not in production, nor, I expect, are most of the spare parts needed to maintain the fleet. A Ukrainian A-10 gets damaged, repairing it might be quite problematic. Ukrainian pilots have, to my knowledge, zero training time on the A-10. Russian air defense has been kind of a joke; this might spur them to actually get on the job. And every A-10 sent to Ukraine is an A-10 that can’t be sent to the US Army (the Army should have fixed wing ground attack/support aircraft: fight me). The USAF has wanted to rid itself of the A-10 for decades, and, honestly, I guess I’d rather see them lost in combat shooting their way to Valhalla than in a scrap yard getting turned into nails and pop cans. At this point, losing airframes over enemy territory no longer holds the fear of “oh no, they’ll learn our secrets from examining the wreckage” that it might have 40 years ago.
A-10’s appear in the skies of Ukraine, the Russians will make taking them out a priority. That will certainly make for an interesting clash. And if the American plane and Ukrainian pilot put up a good showing of survivability… the Russians will probably bend themselves over backwards to take them out. The A-10s could thus be useful simply as a way to throw the Russian war effort into chaos, devoting effort and funds to some new goal, while now getting stingier on other more practical goals.