The *other* XP-59, the project for a pusher-prop fighter that was cancelled in 1941, not the jet fighter. Most of these photos show a full-scale wooden mockup of the XP-59 as pitched as a US Navy fighter, along witha display model showing the plane in Navy colors.
Photos from Bell archive via Jay Miller.
I spent the day at the National Archive sin College Park, MD. The trip was largely a bust… only came away with a few minor trinkets. One nice little item was a Bell film promoting the BoMi (Bomber Missile) concept, circa 1957, starring Walter Dornberger his own self. I got a copy of it on VHS. This is non-optimal… would have greatly preferred DVD. But you take what you can get. Small problem in that I don’t have a VCR…
Took some photos of the monitor. Again, non-optimal, but until I can get the VHS converted to DVD, it’s what I’ve got.
The BoMi series of articles will begin soon in APR. This video will provide some further insight.
From the Boeing archives. An early Dyna Soar on a Juno V… the predecessor of the Saturn I.
And a Dyna Soar atop an early Saturn I concept.
A photo of a Martin corp. display model and a bit of USAF artwork showing early Dyna Soar/Titan III configurations. The Titan III would lose the fins after testing showed that the thrust vectoring capability of the Titan III’s UA-1205 booster rockets was up to the task of countering pitch moments produced by the Dyna Soar.
I’ve gotten a photo of a print run of the Space Park model in 1/9700. One part was broken off the sprue, so they’re going to run it again. From what I can see, it’s certainly accurate to the CAD model (visible here), and quality looks pretty good… though the photo is blurry. I will report further when I get the final working version, which I will clean up and tinker with slightly.
Another bit of early ’60’s art showing a United Tech concept (though most likely just pure promo art, with no actual design effort behind it) for a lunar lander using hybrid rocket engines. Note the rather nonchalant bystander.
I’ve also found a photo of a demonstration unit that used a hybrid rocket to lift a small model of the lander. In the early ’60’s United Tech built a number of small subscale demo motors; everything from a small “briefcase” test article to a few small “landers” to a fairly large “flying saucer” with multiple independtantly movable motors (photos of that item are coming). When I worked at UTC from 2000-2004, some of these items could still be found…. one of the original briefcase hybrids, using plexiglass as fuel, was still in use for in-room demonstrations. Louder’n hell, but pretty spiffy. But the sort of public demonstrations you see here would almost certainly not be allowed today. Risk, you see, is something that cannot be tolerated.
Not sure when and where this photo was taken… early 60’s, to be sure, and I think in France (due to the “fusees hybrides” label). Possibly the Paris air show?
In UTC’s last days, the contents of the “museum” (a rickety leaking trailer which people had simply dumped boxes of stuff in… really rather tragic) were poured out onto tables in the cafeteria for employees to pick through and take. I got a few good piles of photos. But one photo I know I’ve seen but now cannot find – I might not actually have a copy, perhaps just saw it at UTC somewhere – shows Strategic Air Command head General Curtis E. LeMay using one of the small hybrid rocket demo units to light a cigar.
In 1959 Boeing briefly studied using the Mercury capsule or a derivative as the cockpit of the Dyna Soar. At the time, the cockpit of the Dyna Soar was intended to be ejectable in the event of an emergency, in a manner similar to the cockpit of the F-111. However, unlike the F-111 cockpit capsule, the Dyna Soar ccokpit was meant to be capable of suriving re-entry. The use of a Mercury capsule would give the Dyna Soar a cockpit with verified ability to survive re-entry… with, of course, some major concessions regarding vehicle shape, weight and growth potential.
Drawings soon.
Ha! Not only am I back, but items are available for sale on CD-ROM again. So, spend, spend, SPEND!!!
A photo from the Boeing archives showing a booster for their first Dyna Soar proposal. With a lifting vehicle on the front of the booster, some serious pitch control would be needed (to overcome the lift generated by the spaceplanes wings), but I think this was just a tad excessive…
Now with canopy, inlet and exhaust. The exhaust is a whole lot of guesswork… the available drawings just don’t show it very well. The inlet is seriously flawed…. but it’s the sort of flaw that could be fixed in ten minutes with a file and sandpaper. And yes, the canopy is not symetrical. The window on the starboard side went down further.
