Fantastic Plastic has re-released some kits I mastered for ’em:
This is a “missile only” lower-cost version of the earlier kit.
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And FP posted photos of the still-available SPECTRE rocket, assembled and painted (really well) by a customer:
X-20 Dyna Soar. Model being made for the purposes of illustrating the next issue of APR. Dunno if there’s enough interest in a physical model to make a stab at it, though a cutaway model showing the truss-structure innards – a thing only possible via 3D printing – seems appealing. Note that the heat panel lines are being modeled in place, so they should appear on any theoretical 3D print, and definitely appear on rendered illustrations.
Further progress on the Prometheus, mostly tinkering on the engines. You know what? These components are nightmares. But the final model is gonna be *awesome.*
So if you’ve been wondering why my blogging about old aerospace projects has fallen off of late… here ya go.
Status, via photos and screenshots, of various model projects I’m working on.
During Reagan’s “Star Wars” days, concept art of space-based anti-missile systems were cranked out on a fairly regular basis. Much of it was, most likely, pure artistic license with little basis in reality. However, some of the weapon artwork was clearly based on actual engineering, such as the Zenith Star and Brilliant Pebbles programs.
One uncertain design is shown in the painting below. It represents a space-based railgun, apparently capable of firing projectiles at high speed in rapid succession. While attributed to the DoD, the vehicle has “Boeing” painted on it. Unlike a lot of the designs, this one at least has a sufficiency of attitude control thrusters. Power for the system is probably nuclear, with the reactor on the far right, surrounded by conical radiators.
Seems it’d make a nifty display model.
All the major structures have been in place for a while. Detailing is going to be a long progress…
Interesting:
It seems they’re gearing up a manufacturing facility in Mojave to build the large twin-fuselage carrier aircraft, with a planned first test flight in 2016. Photos of display models of the carrier aircraft and the orbital vehicle at the link.
A program that converts a single 2D photo into a 3D model. There are some limitations, but still, pretty impressive. Seems to work best with bodies of rotation. Sadly, I don’t think it’d work well at figuring out, say, an aircraft, but a rocket might be a snap.
[youtube Oie1ZXWceqM]
Two models I mastered for Fantastic Plastic are getting close to being released. First, the 1/48 Soviet LK lunar lander:
Next will probably be the 1/72 “Avengers” Quinjet:
The major structures are all in place; now it’s the details.
DARPA has a VTOL program. Some fellers at Boeing-Philadelphia had an idea for a VTOL aircraft. So… they spent three days designing a subscale prototype, and two weeks building it.
[youtube 8N3RlaVYDdM]
It flies, if rather wobbly. Further tinkerage with the computer control system should clear that right up..
Three days. Think of it… not months and months of committee meetings and never ending analysis paralysis. Just design something that, while not being perfect, is good enough.
Interestingly, the same technologies (computers) that helped them design and fly the “Phantom Swift” this quickly are responsible in no small part for the aerospace industry grinding to a halt in recent decades. In the 1950’s and before, if you wanted to test an idea, you built it. Then stuck it in a wind tunnel, or launched it with a sounding rocket, or dropped it from a plane, or stuck an engine and an adrenaline junkie in it and actually flew it. But once computer aided design and analysis came on the scene, rather than spend lots of money building, flying and crashing, engineers spent lots of money designing and redesigning and reredesigning and rereredesigning until eventually the whole program got cancelled.