Lockheed Flyback Booster: 2011

 aircraft, news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  20 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Lockheed press release:

Lockheed Martin Selected By U.S. Air Force for Reusable Booster System Flight Demonstrator Program

DENVER, December 5th, 2011 — Lockheed Martin [NYSE:LMT] has been selected by the U.S. Air Force for a contract award to support the Reusable Booster System (RBS) Flight and Ground Experiments program. The value of the first task order is $2 million, with a contract ordering value of up to $250 million over the five-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract period. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center are developing the RBS as the next generation launch vehicle that will significantly improve the affordability, operability, and responsiveness of future spacelift capabilities over current expendable launchers.

Initial RBS Flight and Ground Experiments task orders will provide for an RBS flight demonstration vehicle called RBS Pathfinder scheduled to launch in 2015. The RBS Pathfinder is an innovative reusable, winged, rocket-powered flight test vehicle that will demonstrate the Reusable Booster Systems’ “rocketback” maneuver capabilities and validate the system requirements that will drive refinements in the design of the operational RBS.

The booster is pretty conventional, as far as “flyback boosters” go. It has a distinct resemblance to the StarBooster concept from several years back.

 Posted by at 8:20 pm

APR issue V3N2 now available

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, drawings, drawings&documents, history, new products, projects, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Dec 032011
 

At long last, Aerospace Projects Review issue V3N2 is now available.

The main article, about 90 pages worth, covers the Lockheed STAR Clipper concept.This was a one-and-a-half stage space shuttle concept. Starting in 1968 for the USAF, the concept lasted well into Phase B of the Space Shuttle program for NASA, and in altered form into the 1990’s. This article has a very large number of detailed schematics of many different forms, including the original small 1.5 Stage To Orbit design, numerous variations on that concept, fully reusable two stage versions with manned boosters, giant concepts for Solar Power Satellite logistics and miniature versions for the USAF in the 1980s.

Also included is an article covering antecedents and derivatives of the Northrop F-23 stealth fighter. Included are early designs such as the “Christmas fighter” and several “platypus” concepts, the F-23A operational fighter design, the NATF-23 concept for the US Navy with aft mounted wings and canards, the single-engined Multi Role Fighter (from the competition that led to the F-35) and perhaps most interestingly, the F/B-23 regional bomber, of eBay infamy. This article is illustrated with a mix of photos of official Northrop display models, official Northrop diagrams, all-new scale diagrams and color artwork especially commissioned for this article.

Dennis R. Jenkins provides an article on a Convair concept for converting the F-106 interceptor into a small supersonic transport. Compare this to Convair idea of converting the B-58 Hustler into an SST!

And finally, two aerospace history “nuggets,” the Vanguard Model 18 VTOL transport and a Northrop laminar flow control multipurpose long-duration aircraft.

You can see the entire issue here:

It is available in three formats. Firstly, it can be downloaded directly from me for the low, low price of $10. Second, it can be purchased as a professionally printed volume through Magcloud; third, it can be procured in both formats. To get the download, simply pay for it here through paypal.

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To get the printed version (or print + PDF version), visit my MagCloud page:

http://scottlowther.magcloud.com/

 Posted by at 12:50 pm

Swept-Wing P-47

 aircraft, drawings, history, projects  1 Response »
Nov 292011
 

The Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory reported in April 1947 on spin tunnel testing on a swept wing model of a P-47. The modifications were made to an existing Langley spin tunnel model, and it appears that the design was a NACA-Langley design rather than a Republic Aircraft design. By 1947, a swept wing piston engined aircraft was already an anachronism… unless there was some thought of making a research vehicle from a P-47 (as was done with the P-63 to make the L-39), by this time any swept wing fighter design would have had turbojet engines. Most likely the idea was to simply represent a generic swept wing aircraft, using on-hand resources.

The horizontal stabilizer was tested in two positions…. the P-47 original, and moved upwards and slightly forwards.

 Posted by at 7:52 pm

Looking for B-52 Blueprints

 aircraft, drawings, history  7 Responses »
Nov 282011
 

An odd gap in my records is a lack of good diagrams of the B-52. I’m not looking for them for resale, but for modeling and research purposes. I’ve a number of small Boeing diagrams, and some larger non-Boeing diagrams, but no good detailed large-format Boeing layout drawings of any version of the B-52.

If you have or know of a good B-52 (any model) layout drawing, either on paper or digital, please let me know. If the diagram goes into surface panel details, so much the better, but what I really need are reliable lines for the aircraft as a whole.

 Posted by at 12:12 pm

We were supposed to go this fast

 AARRRGH, aircraft, history, projects  5 Responses »
Nov 232011
 

From a 1968 LTV report on a hypersonic test vehicle: a projection of the speeds of aircraft in the future. At the time, it was thought that by the late 1980’s passenger transports would be cruising along at Mach 3 to Mach 4; fighters and bomber would cruise at Mach 5 to Mach 8; and research aircraft would get to Mach 12 to Mach 16.

And it turned out, all three categories of aircraft actually slowed down.

 Posted by at 7:54 pm

An idea whose time has passed?

 aircraft, blather, projects, spacecraft  5 Responses »
Nov 222011
 

Today , before things went to hell when I got home, I was looking around an office supply store for… ummm… office supplies. Specifically, inkjet business cards. I’m making a few desultory attempts to sell a few of my photo prints, and I’ve printed out a number of business cards using some of my photos as backgrounds. Yay.

I noticed that along with 2X3.5 business cards, also available are postcards, 4.25X5.5, and plain cardstock. And for no readily apparent reason I flashed back to when I was a kid, lo these many long years ago. In those days long before the interweb tubes, I had a few collections of  “trading card” type informational… things. Not really sure what to call ’em. One was a box of cards each showing a photo and providing info on one of a vast number of animals (dinosaurs included), and another that had cards on various airplanes, tanks, etc.

It dawned on me that the same desktop publishing that lets me crank out my own business cards would allow me to produce “trading cards” of, say, aerospace projects. Art/photo on one side, a small 3-view & data on the other side.

I have little doubt that such a thing – especially with the data available to me today – would have sold well back when I was a kid. But sadly, I suspect that the market for them *today* would be minimal at best.

Irony. Now that I have the technical capability of doing something, the reason for doing so has evaporated.

 Posted by at 11:48 pm
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