Update

 blather, Book X, books, drawings, news  No Responses »
Feb 292020
 

As of today I have 100 diagrams completed for the book project. Not cruising along quite as quickly as I’d hoped… in mid January I had a few short of 70 and had hoped to do at least one per day. But there has been about two weeks worth of work time lost of various and sundry issues, and a few of the diagrams turned out to be more of a headache than expected. Things are nonetheless progressing. The spreadsheet of planned diagrams is now just a bit short of 210 total, though I expect some of those might not come to pass… better to plan to throw in *every* damn thing than plan to run lean. If nothing else, I want this book to be the sort of thing that anyone else who might have ideas about doing the same thing would take one look at and give up in despair, knowing that there is nothing more to say on the topic.

 Posted by at 5:08 pm

Anybody know this bomb?

 aircraft, drawings, history, Hmm..., weapons  No Responses »
Feb 252020
 

Old ordnance is not a specialty of mine, so I’m having trouble identifying a rather large aircraft-deliverable bomb. It appears in a number of late 1940’s aircraft diagrams, but none that I’ve seen have defined it. As you can see it bears considerable similarity in dimensions and tailfins to the M109 “Tallboy” bomb, but is notably thinner. At first I thought it might be simply a theoretical placeholder, but it appears in diagrams from at least two different aircraft manufacturers. Thoughts?

 Posted by at 3:03 am

Early North American Rockwell Shuttle

 aircraft, drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 232020
 

The North American Rockwell proposal for the Space Shuttle Orbiter. It is clearly *close* to what actually got built, but there are important differences. The airlock is in the nose and the OMS pods are lower on the sides of the rear fuselage and the rear portion of the cargo bay could be fitted with a pod that includes flip-out turbofan engines for range extension and landing assistance.

The full-rez scan of this diagram has been made available to all $4 and up APR Patreons and Monthly Historical Document Program subscribers. It has been uploaded to the 2020-02 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for Patreons and subscribers. If interested in this piece or if you are interested in helping to fund the preservation of this sort of thing, please consider becoming a patron, either through the APR Patreon or the Monthly Historical Document Program.

 Posted by at 6:21 pm

“Identification with Evil”

 AARRRGH, art, blather, Crazy, drawings, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., humor, news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 042020
 

This is an interesting video:

This first meme of 2020 is here, and it’s “New Guy.” The short form: an SJW “cartoonist” has a strip with a self-insert of the author portraying the petty evil that SJWs so often display, and completely failed to understand that she was indeed showing herself, her self-insert character and their joint worldview as mean spirited. And as a result, the rest of the internet has glommed onto the character she was trying to make fun of and have turned him into a symbol of what’s good and just.

The video goes into this and the resulting online kerfuffle, including how the cartoonist has wholly and utterly failed to take this as an opportunity for self reflection. Additionally the video describes how SJWs so often identify with evil and villains, including, and rather startlingly, Pennywise the Demonic Homicidal Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror Clown. This is not a new thing, of course… SJWs have been wearing Che shirts and celebrating Antifa and the Soviet Union and Mao and Jihadis for *years.* That they would also identify with the likes of Vice Admiral Holdo and other fictional villains is hardly surprising, never mind Bernie and Bubbles and Swalwell and all the others who would bring gulags, pogroms, death camps, food riots, famine and civil war to the United States.

New Guy, created specifically to be a stupid, mockable strawman, is the wholesome and sincere meme we need in these dark times. See more at Know Your Meme.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 7:19 pm

Large format scanning in progress

 aircraft, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 062019
 

As hinted at here and there, I’ve recently moved from rural Utah to non-rural elsewhere. One of the benefits of the move was that it put me a LOT closer to large format scanning services. Previously getting a large blueprint scanned meant several hours on the road and then a return several days later to pick it up; now the drive is a matter of a few minutes. Consequently, my rather extensive backlog of large format aerospace art and diagrams is finally getting scanned in bulk.

Behold some recent results, mostly involving early Titan III, Saturn and Dyna Soar studies:

Some of these will end up in the monthly “catalogs” for the APR patrons to vote on… and some will end up as “extras” for patrons, particularly for above $10-level patrons. If these sort of images are of interest, or if you are interested in helping to fund the preservation of this sort of thing, please consider becoming a patron, either through the APR Patreon or the Monthly Historical Document Program.

Additionally: if you have large format diagrams that you feel are of aerospace historical interest, let me know. I’m always in the market to buy, rent, borrow such things.

 Posted by at 2:46 pm

“Passenger Carrying Space Shuttle”

 art, drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Launch Vehicle Projects  No Responses »
Nov 262019
 

Here’s an article from “Future Life” magazine, May 1979, describing a Rockwell concept for a passenger module for the Shuttle. This could carry 74 passengers, a loadout that seems perhaps excessive until you realize that it was meant to transport the crews who would build the miles-long solar power satellites. If this concept is of interest, be sure to check out US Bomber Projects #06, the Solar Power Satellite Launch Special. There, another concept for a Shuttle “bus” was described and illustrated.

 Posted by at 3:40 pm

October 2019 Rewards

 aircraft, APR, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, new products, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 312019
 

It was in some doubt on my end, but I managed to get the October rewards issued in the nick of time. I have been uprooted and moved well over a thousand miles into smaller digs; much of my stuff was abandoned or outright tossed but my files seem, so far, to have survived the journey intact and hopefully complete. I’m in the process of straightening that all out now, and with luck November will be more orderly.

The October rewards included:

Diagram: A very large format scan of the McDonnell Douglas Model D-3235 Supersonic Transport from 1988

Documents: The Boeing “Airborne Alert Aircraft”

A new scan of the Goodyear “METEOR Junior” report, this time scanned from a pristine original

A scan of a collection of JPL CAD diagrams of a Pluto flyby spacecraft circa 1994… sent to me during my college days with the hopes that I could make a display model of it (beyond my capabilities at the time)

In lieu of the CAD diagram usually created for $5 and up Patrons, which I had nowhere near the time to create, a scan of some North American Rockwell brochures on the HOBOS homing bomb system.

If this sort of thing is of interest – either in receiving these sort of rewards or in helping to preserve this sort of aerospace history – consider signing up for the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 3:47 pm
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