Now available: two Rockwell International diagrams dated 1977 showing markings for the Space Shuttle Orbiter, including markings for the hatch on the left side, national insignia, rescue markings, ejection labels, etc.
Set includes V070-000008 sheet 1 of 2 ( 13296X3660 pixels, B&W) and sheet 2 of 2 (13234X3600 pixels, B&W). Also includes grayscale halfsize and quartersize versions of each for easier viewing and printing.
Space drawing 27 can be downloaded for $4.50.
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Two more Grumman paintings depicting the 698 VTOL design.
The Grumman 698 as a rescue aircraft, snagging a pilot in mid parachute descent. How the rescue plane just happened to be where it would be needed is unknown
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A Grumman 698 landing on an oil rig. This is the sort of role that only helicopters can currently fulfill.
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Three-view of the full scale model tested at NASA-Ames.
I have a Nikon D5000 camera. I also have a 2006-vintage cell phone with a built in camera. Oddly, the cell phone camera doesn’t get much use. Still, on the recent B-17 flight I took some cell phone photos, just to send them to someone while flying around (and, yes, the cell phone worked while in flight).
The cell phone camera is a cheap piece of crap compared to the Nikon, or even a simple point-n-click. As a result, the images are both small in size, and low in quality. But they provide an interesting view of the propellers. Due to the “rolling shutter” effect, the propeller moves a fair amount during the exposure. But rather than being simply blurred, it gets… mutated.
Interestingly, while the digital photos taken with the Nikon do not exhibit these motion artifacts, a brief bit of video taken with the same camera does exhibit this in spades.
A bit less than a year and a half ago, I stumbled across the B-17 Aluminum Overcast purely by chance: I was in Logan, Utah, and saw a B-17 fly over. As anyone would, I drove to the nearest airport, and there it was. I took some photos, and that was about it.
Last Saturday, a visitor pointed out a newspaper article mentioning that Aluminum Overcast was in West Jordan, Utah, and was available to take paying passengers up for a flight the next day. A decision was made (in about a tenth of a second) that we’d reserve a few seats.
On Sunday morning we arrived bright and early… about an hour early. Better early than late, anyway. We were the first ones there, and were alone for a good long while… a bit disconcerting. The B-17 requires a certain number of passengers, or otherwise it doesn’t fly. Not surprising, of course… a four engine bomber pushing 70 years in age is an expensive thing to operate. Fortunately, by the time things started to happen, it was clear that the flight would be full up.
The B-17 is a small plane. While it might’ve been Big And Bad in the early days of WWII, these days it’s really quite dainty. Aluminum Overcast carries 10 passengers, plus three crewmen (pilot, copilot, engineer), and a surprisingly small load of bombs… presumably fake ones.
Looking forward from the entry hatch, showing the at compartment where six passengers would sit.
Looking aft from the entry hatch, showing the closed-off entry to the tailgunner position. Sadly, not available for sitting-in.
The first passenger to board the plane gets to sit in the flight compartment, at the engineers station. The next three, including myself, sit in the radio operators compartment. There is a largish window directly overhead… back in the day, the radio operator was sometimes given a single machine gun with which to help swat Messerschmitts out of his sky, but on my flight the window was removed. This left a sizable hole in the roof.
View up through the overhead hatch.
Looking forward from the radio operators hatch. This would be approximately the last time I’d be able to get this angle.
Once everyone was on board and seated, the engines fired up one at a time. The engines sound just like they do in the movies… except they sound real. While I’ve always liked the sound of the Merlin engine in the Mustang best, the sound of a B-17 engine from within the fuselage is not to be sneezed at.
The B-17 is not exactly the cleanest burning of beasts. As soon as the first engine fired up (outboard engine on the right wing), blue oily smoke filled the air. Neat. Authentic !
Looking aft from the radio operators position right after engine ignition, showing the smoke-filled fuselage.
Following that came the cliched taxiing out to the runway followed by the takeoff run. If you’re familiar with jetliner takeoffs… this ain’t it. Instead of a “whoosh” sound coupled with a smooth acceleration shoving you back into your seat, the B-17’s engines rumble to a clanking roar, and the B-17 just sorta throws itself down the runway. Compared to jet transport, it’s about as smooth as throwing a coffeecan full of bolts down a flight of stairs.
The passengers of course had to stay seated and belted in until after the plane was in the air, after which we could get up and wander around. While it was certainly LOUD, the open hatch overhead was not the screaming maelstrom of nightmarish winds I might’ve thought. In fact, there was no real wind at all so long as you stayed inside the contours of the aircraft; and even a few inches outside, the environment was pretty smooth. But it went from “no wind” to “oh, crap, the wind just ripped my camera out of my hands, bashed it against the rudder and showered shattered bits of camera and control surface over Utah Lake” within a distance of no more than two inches. As a result, I could get good shots aft, okay shots to the side, and no shots forward. To do forward shots, I would’ve needed to stick the camera well above the upper surface… and with a wind speed of maybe 140 miles per hour, the drag on a good sized camera amounts to a “metric shit-ton,” and I was simply unable to hold the camera in position to get a forward shot. Oh, well.
One of the neat bits was the ability to go forward to the glazed nose. To get there you have to pass through the bomb bay, crossing a narrow catwalk. At the forward end of the bomb bay is a narrow V-shaped passageway.
Manifestly NOT “fat-guy friendly.”
Forward of the bomb bay is the cockpit. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to pester these fellers while they’re on the job.
If you duck down below the cockpit, you can get into the bombardiers position. Given the small size of the B-17, the nose is surprisingly spacious.
The glazed nose was liberally bugsplattered, making forward photography problematic. Can’t blame the B-17 or its crew for that… try driving a car around here sometime. Clouds of bugs spring up out of nowhere, especially near the lakes. Oh well…
The total flight time was half an hour, with about 20 minutes for wandering around. With ten passengers, this meant only a few minutes per passenger up in the nose.
After an entirely too short a length of time in the air, the plane came back down to the runway, taxied back to its spot and the passengers left the plane. Oddly, I was the last one off… sticking around a bit to take a few more photos.
On the whole, the impression the plane gives is that of “power.” As there is absolutely no effort given to mute the engines or insulate the airframe, every last bit of noise or vibration comes through loud and clear. And while that would be damned annoying in a means of transportation, it’s nothing but pure awesomeness in a ride like this.
A nearly forgotten mid-1970s test vehicle built and flown at NASA-Dryden. NASA description:
The Oblique Wing Research Aircraft was a small, remotely piloted, research craft designed and flight tested to look at the aerodynamic characteristics of an oblique wing and the control laws necessary to achieve acceptable handling qualities. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and the NASA Ames Research Center conducted research with this aircraft in the mid-1970s to investigate the feasibility of flying an oblique wing aircraft. The oblique wing rotates about a pivot to allow the wing to be set at its most efficient angle for the speed it is flying. At higher speeds the wing takes advantage of the gains achieved by a swept wing while offsetting some of the drag producing disturbances. The oblique wing concept could result in transonic drag reduction and have the added benefit of producing corresponding fuel savings.
The aircraft’s wing was capable of being skewed up to 45 degrees left wing forward. The aircraft was flown in two configurations, the short and long tail version. To aid in the remote piloting task, a television camera was mounted in the nose of the vehicle to provide forward looking views. Power was provided by a 90-horsepower, four cylinder, air-cooled, reciprocating engine.
The flight program was limited to three flights flown over Rosamond dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base, of approximately 1 hour each. After the first flight, longitudinal stability problems required a configuration change. The tail was moved back three feet and this configuration was used for the last two flights. Maneuvers were performed at wing skew angles of 0 to 45 degrees. This program provided information which led to flight testing a piloted aircraft with an oblique wing, called the AD-1.
Minimal data available on this. Vintage late 1960’s, two seat, with apparently only two Sparrows, two Sidewinders and a 30-mm gun.
A ramjet intended for such aircraft as the Convair Super Hustle and Fish. MA24 was the Marquardt designation; the official USAF designation was RJ-59.
The fleabaggers in D.C. have taken their misdirected little hippie rant in yet another completely irrelevant direction: storming the National Air & Space Museum and forcing it to close its doors.
Washington’s Air & Space museum shut after protesters storm in
Gah.
Oh, goody. It turns out the US drone fleet has been hit with a keylogging virus that the DoD has so far failed to eliminate.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/
“It’s getting a lot of attention,” the source says. “But no one’s panicking. Yet.”
It was bound to happen. Someday someone will manage to successfully hack a drone in flight, and either crash it or turn it against its owners. Won’t that be a fun day.
