One of the reasons why issue V2N2 of APR is late in getting out: illustrations for the Large Orions article are taking a while. This is nearing completion, but not quite there yet (obviously).
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Or just plain Give Me Money.
From Fantastic Plastic models…
NOTE: Researching all this wacky stuff takes time and money. You can support the cause by Buying My Stuff, which includes aerospace drawings and documents, as well as the journal of unbuilt aircraft and spacecraft projects, Aerospace Projects Review.
Or just plain Give Me Money.
Anyway…
Tucked away in a National Air and Space Museum storage facility is this very large-scale plexiglas model of the Grumman XF10F. But not only is the model very large and extremely spiffy, it represents an unbuilt variant. The XF10F was an early swing-wing plane; it failed to enter service due to the technology simply not being ready yet. But the display model shows a fixed-wing version, with no ability to sweep the wings in evidence.
Pesonally I’m dubious of the utility of a vehicle that moves at the same order of speed as a vehicle-less human but costs six grand. But hey, what the heck… if people want to buy one, thats what capitalism is for.
But leave it to the Japanese to see if they can train a chimp to adequately pilot one. And damned if they didn’t pull it off:
I’m not sure which way to take this:
1) The Segway is such a simple and intuitive device that chimps can work it out
2) Chimps are smart enough to handle more advanced technologies than we give them credit for.
In any event, the inclusion of an opposable thumb certainly aids the chimp in using human tech. Fortunately, the opposable thumb is not that common of an item in the animal kingdom. A fact which humans should probably be relieved about.
Of course, the Chinese went one better and put SWAT cops on their Segways (which, for all I know, are cheap knockoffs loaded with melamine):
NOTE: Researching all this wacky stuff takes time and money. You can support the cause by Buying My Stuff, which includes aerospace drawings and documents, as well as the journal of unbuilt aircraft and spacecraft projects, Aerospace Projects Review.
Or just plain Give Me Money.
Anyway…
In late 1944, Curtis proposed the XA-43 as a four-turbojet medium bomber. It was similar in configuration to the North American B-45 Tornado, but a little bit smaller. The design progressed as far as a full-scale mockup before the direction of the effort was massively changed… turning the bomber into the XP-87 “Blackhawk,” a night-fighter replacement for the wartime P-61 Black Widow. As it happens, the P-87 did not make it into production, and Curtis went out of business.
I had to wander back up to Logan yesterday to drop off my camera to be repaired… hopefully to fix the problems that were introduced when it was *last* repaired. Grrr. At least they gave me a loaner camera. On the way home, I took some shots.
I’ve only had a few opportunities to use my camera since I got it back from repairs a week or two back. But I’d noticed that apparently I must’ve forgotten how to use it properly… a lot of photos were out of focus. Finally did the proper thing and ran experiments on it today. And the end result: every photo taken with zoom is out of focus. Every single fargin’ one. So I’ve gotta truck it *back* to get even more repairs. Gah.
Here’s me, in all my photogenic gloriousity.
In the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C., there is a model of an early Boeing design for the B-70. The stainless steel model is *small,* less than one quarter of an inch long. It was to go in a small supersonic wind tunnel, with the intent of checking out the sonic boom generated by the configuration.
The Vought XC-142 was a Tri-Service troop-transport VTOL. First flown in the mid-1960’s it, like all non-helicopter VTOLs apart from the Harrier, fell by the wayside. Read more abut it here.
Had the C-142 gone into production, it would have been an entirely new aircraft. The configuration would have been much the same as the XC-142, but it would have been a bit bigger, with a more conventional nose/cockpit section.
