Fingers:
Jul 152011
Jul 152011
In late 2009 and early 2010, one of my little projects was re-drawing many of the layout drawings contained in Paul Suhler’s excellent “From RAINBOW to GUSTO,” a history of the development of the SR-71. The book has many diagrams of previously unseen designs, but due to printing restrictions, the diagrams were a lot smaller than I would have liked. I got in touch with the author, and gained permission to redraw and post a number of them. The project was well underway when disaster struck. My computer crashed and took out a whole lot of data with it… including all the CAD drawings. It took a while to get back up and running, and when I finally did, the loss of all that data and hard work was disheartening, and I let the project slip away.
Recently I had cause to re-visit the effort. Much to my amazement I found buried in a mis-labeled file an early backup of the project… it was incomplete, lacking three of the most recent CAD drawings, but enough of it was there to allow me to pick it up again. This morning (around 2AM) I finished the last of them. Now that they are all complete (and backed up!), I will start posting them again, starting where I left off. The format of the diagrams will be a little bit different, but the basic presentation process will be the same. I’ll post a low-rez image, and a link to a password-protected high-resolution version. In order to access the high-rez version, you’ll need to have a copy of “RAINBOW To GUSTO,” as the passwords will be words on specific pages of the book. It seemed to work well enough a year and a half ago…
Anyway, here is the complete “RAINBOW to GUSTO” drawing collection to whet your appetite. Starting Real Soon Now I’ll begin posting the individual high-rez drawings. This collection drawing shows them all to scale (1/550 scale when printed out D-size… it has been reduced to 1/4 of the original image size, BTW).
Next up: the A-6-5. So, make sure to have your copies of “RAINBOW” handy…
Jul 152011
First poster to correctly ID (with appropriate level of specificity) this gets $20 in downloadables. I’ll leave this here through the weekend or so.
UPDATE: This was clearly *entirely* too easy: the cockpit mockup of the Super Hustler.
Jul 152011
Jul 142011
This looks like the feel-good movie of the autumn:
[youtube 4sYSyuuLk5g]
Jul 142011
I recently saw some photos of the S-67 Blackhawk (a prototype attack helicopter from 1970-74) online. The photos were really badly faded, for no recognizably good reason I did some tinkering. Couldn’t improve the resolution or the focus, but the fading vanished nicely and the colors came back out. So, enjoy.
Jul 142011
Look out, Buttons.
Jul 142011
Obama warns Cantor: ‘Don’t call my bluff’
Republicans said tense negotiations over raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit at the White House ended when President Obama stormed out of the meeting with a stern warning to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.): “Don’t call my bluff.”
Hmmm. OK, I’m not a poker player. But, correct me if’n I’m wrong, but isn’t a bluff the sort of thing you’re *not* supposed to let the other guy know is, in fact, a bluff? Wouldn’t letting the other guy know that you’re bluffing be a *dumb* thing to do?
Jul 132011
I saw Mothra here just relaxing on a sidewalk right outside a store. Not sure what kind it is (I didn’t take mothematics in college), but it was fairly sizable. After pestering it for a few minutes for photographic purposes, it finally up and flew away. Which was probably for the best… hanging out on a sidewalk in front of a store is not a good strategy for long-term survival for a large conspicuous insect.
Jul 132011
Here’s a contest: tell me just what the hell this is. Because I honestly don’t know. All I know is that it *appears* to be a turboprop design, and clearly it’s a biplane. The photos are dated August 1944 1949 and are purported to have been taken at the David Taylor Model Basin near D.C.
At a guess it’s a design for carrier-based plane; the biplane arrangement allows for shorter wings that don’t need to be folded. The pilots visibility kinda sucks, though, so I’m guessing it’s a strike plane, not a dogfighter. It definitely has a real Skyshark vibe about it.
What do you win if you correctly identify this? Respect.
