And as a followup to the post on the Horten Ho-18A, here’s the equivalent image of the B model. This design moved the engines to the underside, alongside some very quaint-looking “spats” for the fixed landing gear.
Same source… Jay Miller’s vast collection.
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Justo Miranda’s “Unknown!” volume 4 is now available for download. This issue includes 60 pages of technical illustrations with 1/72, 1/24 and 1/5 scale drawings and English text. The Unknown! series is at the bottom of this page:
http://www.up-ship.com/blog/drawndoc/rd/rd.htm
*Horten Ho XIII B German supersonic delta fighter
*Henschel P.75 German canard-pusher heavy fighter, *”Einpersonenfluggerät” German flying belt
*”Panzerblitz I” German antitank airborne rocket series
*Curtiss-Wright P-248-01 (CW-21B “Demon” + Allison engine)
*Twin-engined variant of Curtiss P.40, Davis “Manta fighter” (twin boom airframe)
*Davis “Manta fighter” (conventional airframe)
*Kawanishi “Baika” model 1 (detachable undercarriage)
*Kawanishi “Baika” model 2 (submarine launched variant)
*Kawanishi “Baika” model 3 (air launched variant)
*Blackburn B-37 “Firebrand” Mk I & Mk II British naval fighter
*Fiat G.50V, G.52 & G.53 in line engined variants
*French flying guns in WWII : MAC 34, Oerlikon FFS, HS.7, HS.9 & HS.404
*French baby fighters Potez 230, Roussel R.30 & Bloch 700/720
Unknown #4 can be purchased for download for $16.
It’s a cheap piece of crap, I admit, but it’s substantially more structurally sound than the original. It does need to be draped in blankets to seal up the obvious leak paths. Still, the cats have taken to it.
Rumors are reports are that the State of the Union speech, along with the forthcoming budget, will cut all funding not only for the Ares I launcher, but also the Ares V and the whole Constellation/Orion CEV program. With the end of the Shuttle program this year, that leaves the US with no way to send humans into space… likely for a decade or longer (Ares I began half a decade ago, and was about half a decade from first manend flight). With luck, the commercial sector (SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Xcor, etc.) will be able to take over. But the commerical human-launch sector is based pretty much wholly on the hope of space tourism. And space tourism is probably a pretty flighty sort of industry. And what will happen to space tourism if the US government withdraws entirely from space? Will the interest among America’s investors to go to space increase, or decrease? Damned if I know.
Read the whole thing. It’s worth it, and worth thinking about.
If You Rebuild It, They Will Come, by Paul Shirley
I haven’t donated a cent to the Haitian relief effort. And I probably will not.
I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads “Need You’re Help” is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don’t think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.
In this belief I am, evidently, alone. It seems that everyone has jumped on the “Save Haiti” bandwagon. To question the impulse to donate, then, will probably be viewed as analogous with rooting for Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, or the Spice Girls.
My wariness has much to do with the fact that the sympathy deployed to Haiti has been done so unconditionally. Very few have said, written, or even intimated the slightest admonishment of Haiti, the country, for putting itself into a position where so many would be killed by an earthquake.
He’ll get himself hated for this. But he’s largely right. Just as rebuilding New Orleans right where it was was monumentally stupid, rebuilding Haiti just as it was would be equally stupid.
This could always be blown-out-of-proportion-reporting, but if not, the message this sends sucks.
Children from better-off families have been banned from school trips with their less privileged classmates.
Only pupils eligible for free school meals because their parents are on benefits are able to take part in the holiday activities.
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Parents of pupils unable to take part are furious after being told their children cannot take part, even if they offer to pay.
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Rumney, 29, a self-employed cleaner from Partington, added she would be willing to pay for her son to take part but has been told she was not allowed to do so due to restricted places.She said: ‘It’s a nightmare. What sort of incentive does it give to these kids to want to go out and work if all their friends are allowed to go on fantastic trips but they aren’t?
The message to the kids here: work hard, save, be frugal and wise, and you too can get screwed over. This is exactly the sort of message that the British government (in this case, a school council) would be wise to not send. A long-term better approach woudl be for the school to offer to pay for *half* of each students expenses for these trips, and leave it to the parents to pay the rest. Thus, the kids who don’t get to go will be those whose parents either don’t want them to for whatever reason, or those who cannot afford it. And so, this way you’ll still get crying children… but in this case, crying because their parents haven’t worked hard enough, not because they worked too hard.
Alternatively, have two separate school outings: those who can pay get to go to zoos and football games and the like. Those who cannot, get free trips to job centers of some sort, where they learn basic skills for the job market. Perhaos even put them to work, let ’em earn some money doign some agricultural or light factory work. Sound mean? Bullcrap. What do schoolchildren need more… entertainment, or education? And what education could they need more than how to be productive members of society… or at least not parasitic ones?
The predecessor design to the Saturn I launch vehicle was the US Army’s Juno V, a follow-up to the Super Jupiter. The Juno V used more or less the same first stage as the Saturn I… a cluster of Redstone and Jupiter IRBM tanks, with eight H-1 rocket engines. The upper stages, however, were many, varied, never settled upon, and quite different to the S-IV second stage the Saturn I wound up with. The most common upper stage set for the Juno V was a modification of the Titan II ICBM with storable propellants, or modified for LOX/Kerosene… very different from the hydrogen/oxygen S-IV stage.
Here’s an overall view of the Juno V launch vehicle, dated 13 November, 1958:
And here’s a cutaway of the first stage booster, dated 8 December 1958:
Note that there were some design changes in that 3 or so weeks… the tail of the booster changed, including the addition of a number of hold-down posts (to lock the vehicle to the launch pad so that wind wouldn’t blow it over).
Next up: manned options for the Juno V.
I keep getting asked the same questions, so I guess I should have a Frequently Asked Questions page for my downloads. Well, here it is.
Q01: How does this work?
A: It’s not an automated system. The way it works is that when you place an order through Paypal, Paypal sends me an email notifying me of the order. I then reply to the email address listed in the order, providing you with the web address where you can find your document, plus the username and password you’ll need in order to access it.
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Q02: “I just ordered a document. It’s been a whole 2 seconds, and I don’t have it yet. Where is it?”
A: I’m asleep/out buying groceries/fighting off hordes of zombies. I’ll respond to your email just as soon as I can.
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Q03: “I just ordered a document. It’s been a whole 24 hours, and I don’t have it yet. Where is it?”
A1: Check your “spam bucket.” Some spam filters see response messages such as you’ll get from me as spam, since there is a web address listed in it.
A2: Are you using the email address attached to the Paypal account? The response email with all your download info will be sent to the Paypal-listed email address. If you are using someone else’s Paypal address, or something like that, then *they* will receive the reply.
A3: On rare occasion, the automated Paypal system that sends me order notifications fails to do so. Thus I don’t know you’ve ordered something. Feel free to send a “where’s my stuff” email to: 
A4: Search your inbox. You might have gotten the message, but not noticed or recognized it. The header will be something like “Re: Notification of payment received” or “Re: Payment received from YourEmail@YourEmailDomain.com.”
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Q04: “I ordered a document for downloading, but the username and password aren’t working.”
A: By far the most common reason for this is either you’re typing the password wrong… or if you are using cut-and-paste, you are grabbing a spurious blank space. Try again, making sure to cut *just* the password.
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Q05: “I tried that, but it’s still not letting me in.”
A: The second biggest offender is your web browser. Something or other to do with cookies, or something. If you have another web browser (Netscape, Explorer, Firefox, whatever), try that.
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Q06: “I’ve downloaded a PDF file. What do I need to open it?”
A: Adobe Reader. It’s a free program.
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Q07: “I’ve downloaded a ZIP file. What do I need to open it?”
A: Any modern computer should have come with an unzipping program built in. If not, do a search for “unzip,” and download a program to your liking.
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Q08: “I ordered a drawing set, and can see the files named ‘XYZ halfsize.gif’ and ‘XYZ quartersize.gif,” but not the full size image. Why?”
A: Some of the full size images are quite large. Sometimes they are so large that operating systems and/or image viewing and processing programs simply refuse to show them. All of the full-size images I sell are viewable on *my* system, which is a bit antiquated… but that doesn’t mean that they will be viewable on *all* systems. This is why I include the “halfsize” and “quartersize” versions, so that everybody should be able to see the images. You do still have the full-rez image… try looking at it on another computer.
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Q09: “Ooops, I ordered the wrong thing. I wanted A, but I seem to have actually ordered B. Can I have A?”
A1: If the error is due to something screwy in the webpage – rare, but it has happened that a typo in the HTML coding can lead to this sort of thing – then I’ll fix you right up with a proper download of A. Keep the other item, free of charge.
A2: A slightly more common error is on my part… you order SDOC4, say, and I mistakenly send you the link to SDWG4. In that case, let me know, and I’ll fix you right up with what you actually ordered. Keep the other item, free of charge.
A3: If the error is due to you simply ordering the wrong thing… well… the problem with digital files is that you can easily make copies of them, and thus cannot really be returned. So if my policy was to automatically “correct” “mistakes,” then it’d be the easiest thing in the world to scam me right out of half my catalog.
So… no. If you wanted A but mistakenly ordered B, I’ll be happy to fill your *next* order for A.
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Q10: “I bought one of your documents, and want to extract the images from it for my own devious purposes. However, it’s password protected. Gimme the password. Gimme.”
A: The documents (air docs, space docs and APr’s, but not DCD’s) are password protected *solely* to try to minimise piracy of ’em. The documents will open just fine and will print just fine at high rez, but image and text extraction will present a challenge. I’ve had issues with people taking the data I’ve worked hard to find and prepare and then turning it around and reselling it (grrr). However, if you have a valid use for extracted images, let me know, and I’ll almost certainly fork over the relevant password.
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Q11: “I want you to add me to your mailing list.”
A: No can do. The system I use now requires that the person who wants on the mailing list add themselves (I can add you, or the system will think I’m a spammer). So, simply go HERE and add your email address.
I’ll update this FAQ as questions come in. Feel free to comment
Filmmaker Who Outed ACORN in Prostitution Sting Arrested
Conservative activist James O’Keefe has been arrested by the U.S. Marshal’s Service for allegedly attempting to bug the offices of U..S. Senator Mary Landrieu. Also arrested were Robert Flanagan, the son of a federal prosecutor, and two others.
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O’Keefe is said to have been recording his alleged accomplices’ actions on a cell phone after they entered Landrieu’s offices dressed as telephone repairmen.
Went too far, I think.
After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday‘s Web Site
In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect?
So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com?
The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.
Ouch! Even APR did better than that. Not much better than that, but still. Maybe I can sell APR for $650 million?