Advertising update

 AARRRGH, APR, blather, models, new products, news  9 Responses »
May 122011
 

Preliminary results are in for the performance of the ads. In order to generate something resembling a living income, I’d need to bump up page views slightly. Just a little bit. A minor amount. A factor of only 50 or so.

Gah.

Any suggestions?

Since I started the blog, there’s been a grand total of *one* day when viewership was that high. And that was based on THIS blog posting. The reason why it generated so many views was because it got picked up by FARK.com. Sadly, I post news scoops about internet memes only once a decade or so.

Sales of the drawings & documents have been falling for a few years now; I made a major strategic error with the Dirt Cheap Documents. As soon as I offered those, sales of the other documents essentially ceased. It makes sense… why spend five bucks for a document when you could spend 50 cents for another. Sigh. And Aerospace Projects Review has similarly crashed… the last issue only sold about 40 copies. Bleah. This is why I’ve been more focussed on getting the display model biz up and running again, and working on books for actual publication. But if I could get the blog viewership numbers up, I’d start offering up new high-rez drawings and docs *here* for free, converting from a “selling” business to an “advertising” business. But after three years of the blog, I’m still two orders of magnitude low. Once again… suggestions welcomed.

 Posted by at 9:01 am

“What the hell am I looking at??” Part Deux

 aircraft, awesomeness, blather, drawings, dumbassery, Gah., humor, models, projects  26 Responses »
Apr 102011
 

Kinda unavailable just now, so here’s a quick blog post with a  couple of images sent by a blog reader wanting to know more about this. I’ve not seen this before. To me it screams of Colani-esque levels of engineering FAIL.

Clearly, *somebody* devoted some amount of effort to this. A college project? The data indicates a “Professor” was involved. But a professor of what?

 Posted by at 9:19 pm

Last day of D188A sale

 aircraft, books, drawings, models, new products, projects, sales & specials  No Responses »
Mar 172011
 

Today is the last day of MagCloud’s sale on the products they print, including my “Bell D188A” book:

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/157099

Currently on sale for $15.55.

MagCloud holds sales whenever they want to, and don’t seem to hand out too much advance notice, so who knows when it’ll come again. Your best option is to order a few hundred copies… for surely these will one day be every bit the collectors item as Action Comics #1.

 Posted by at 11:10 am

You want these. Don’t deny it.

 awesomeness, blather, models, new products, photography, projects, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Mar 162011
 

The X-42 (1/48 scale) and X-15A-3 (1/40 scale) display models, nearing completion. They have been decaled and glosscoated; a little bit more surface work and some matte coating (Lesson Learned: matte coatings have added solventy goodness in them that can *eat* decals, so gloss coat ’em first) , and they’ll be good to go. The stands shown are also not the final stands, but are, err, stand-ins. Still, I thought they looked sufficiently neato that I wanted to gloat a little bit.

When these are done and out the door, I can take orders for more of the X-15A-3’s. Be advised, they are hand made in the USA by yours truly, not stamped out by Asian slave labor, so they’re a bit costy compared to those “genuine Philipine mahogany” wonders you see on ebay. Also unlike those craptacular Asian models, these will be made in *very* low numbers. I’d be astonished if I got to a dozen of any particular model.

Also: here they are next to a 1/24 X-20 Dyna Soar model I started quite some time back and set aside. YOU WANT THIS TOO.

 Posted by at 11:36 am

Test Stand

 awesomeness, blather, models, science fiction  7 Responses »
Mar 022011
 

The trio of X-42’s require a trio of stands. I had some ideas  on the design and materials; but rather than charge ahead with all three and potentially do something stupid, I’ve been taking it a step at a time. And the first finished stand is not actually for the X-42s, but was a slightly smaller test article to make sure it all works right. Instead of a painted ID plate, a decal or “trophy shop” plate, I made one using very clear resin and text cut on a digital vinyl cutter. The letters are actually suspened about midway through the plate, which gives it a different look.

Overall I think it came out well. Only two real issues I have with it are the surface finish (I’ll have to do something different for the X-42 stands) and the rubber “feet” are overly thick for this stand.

What do y’all think?

So, what’s this stand for? Well… this:

Yes, yes, I know…

 Posted by at 6:17 pm

Current Model Projects

 aircraft, models, new products, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Jan 292011
 

Three concurrent efforts:

1) 1/40 scale X-15A-3 display model, based on detailed NAA diagrams, in the same scale and style as the Topping X-15 display model. Not shown: X-15A-2 and X-15A-2/SERJ in same scale and style. Being made for a private collector.

2) 1/48 scale OSC X-42 reusable launch vehicle demonstrator. Also being made for a private collector.

3) 1/72 XSL-01 master being made for production as a kit.

Additional copies of the X-15’s and X-42 may be made available to other interested parties. These are not “hand made by Asian slave labor using Phillipine mahogany,” but are in fact made by hand by *me* largely from urethane resin. Consequently, they are more accurate and more expensive than the cheap crap out of Asia. If you might be interested, let me know.

 Posted by at 9:03 pm

MagCloud Bell D-188A available for a limited time

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, books, drawings, history, models, new products, nukes, photography, projects, weapons  2 Responses »
Jan 292011
 

Yesterday I uploaded the first cut of the “Bell D-188A” booklet to MagCloud and ordered the proof. It should get here within a week. When it arrives, I will make some adjustments to the issue, up to and including passing it along to a graphic artist who may greatly change it to make it less dull-looking. In any event, I’ve decided to make this first draft available… until the proof arrives. When the proof arrives, the draft will be permanently withdrawn from availability. So think of this as an opportunity to buy a collectible.

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/157099

 Posted by at 9:03 am

Found on eBay: Rocketdyne NASP

 aircraft, eBay, history, models, projects, rockets, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Jan 262011
 

Someone is selling a display model of Rocketdyne’s NASP concept:

http://cgi.ebay.com/FACTORY-MODEL-ROCKETDYNE-X-30-NASP-PENWAL-TOPPING-EXC-/200568653586?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eb2d2c712

This is obviously not the final X-30 NASP design, but an earlier concept when the engine manufacturers and airframe builders were still doing their own separate designs. This dates it to about the 1985-1987 timeframe.

The design itself, while representing the mid-1980’s state of the art, was by no means new. The basic shape of the vehicle was already well established by 1966 or so as one of the Lockheed CL-655 variants; that would be used as either a hypersonic single-stage long range vehicle, or a hypersonic first stage for a rocket powered (and Convair designed) second stage. The engines for the CL-655 were to be advanced air-breathers developed by Marquardt… but the exact engine layout, and even engine *type,* do not seem to have been finalized.

This is the same designl that I built a display model of for the Marquardt program manager. The model is now on display (well, as of 2004 or so) somewhere at NASA-MSFC.

By 1967 Lockheed had released more artwork of geometrically similar hypersonic manned vehicles, one a research vehicle, the other apparently a passenger transport.

Note the rocket engine at the tail for boost (probably a toroidal aerospike).

The same basic geometry was used at McDonnell-Douglas in 1973 for a hypersonic test vehicle:

And was used again by McDonnell-Douglas in their early NASP/hypersonic transport efforts:

And which was shamelessly stolen by me to help me flesh out the “Aurora” concept model that I mastered for Fantastic Plastic:

And finally, some Rocketdyne artwork of their NASP concept. Note that the leading edges of the wings are curved rather than straight:

The repetition of this same basic shape does not mean that aircraft designers are just lazy. It just means that this is a good shape for this sort of vehicle.

 Posted by at 1:36 pm
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