New Air and Space Documents & Diagrams coming soon

 aircraft, APR, Book 3, drawings, drawings&documents, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, news, politics, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 312022
 

It has been a number of years since I’ve added much to the Air & Space Documents & Diagrams catalog (https://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/catalog/drawndoc.htm). On the other hand, ever since 2014 I have been sending about three documents and one large format diagram per month to Patrons and subscribers… so that’s a *lot* of stuff! But sometime in the near future I will finally add new items to the Catalog: Air *and* Space, Drawings *and* Documents. Included will be a wide variety of things… but for those interested in space, there will be two sets of SSTO design documents.

I have of late been dealing with a number of things… most relevant of which is finishing up the text of my third book. I hope to have it done in a matter of days. That will be when I’ll really get going on releasing the new Drawings & Documents. Patrons and Subscribers will be notified first… and will have the opportunity to get them at a discount. So if this is of interest, keep an eye on the APR blog, the catalog page linked above, or sign up for the APR Patreon/Monthly Historical Documents Program (https://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/monthly.htm). Patrons/subscribers can also get any or all of the “back issues” of monthly collections back to 2014.

Thanks!

PS: Covid does not help the writing process. Just a little heads up for those curious.

 Posted by at 11:36 pm

General Dynamics Small ICBM art

 art, eBay, history, nukes, projects, rockets, weapons  No Responses »
Jul 312022
 

Someone has been trying to sell a lithograph on ebay for a *long* time without apparent success… probably because they want $650 for it. Move that decimal place to the left, and I would stand a decent chance of buying it… but for $650, it has to be the *original* art. No way for a *small* lithograph.

The listing is:

1960s GENERAL DYNAMICS “Small ICBM” Concept Art Lithograph Print 8.5×11 RARE

It’s not from the 1960’s, but the 1980’s. It depicts a General Dynamics “Midgetman” Small ICBM concept launching from a mobile launcher; a concept the Soviets (and Chinese, and Norks) ran with, but the US never really got behind. The launcher seems very likely to be the artists fantasy; these vehicles were designed to withstand a reasonably nearby nuclear strike, and one of the ways they did that was by not having a huge single piece canopy.

 

 Posted by at 11:30 pm

Why isn’t this a bigger news story?

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Hmm..., news, weapons, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 312022
 

I’m sure we *all* can think of a lot of incidents that sure seem like they’d get more media traction. But here’s one that seems like it aught to be like catnip for the press… on July 29th, more than fifty shots were fired at a party in Albuquerque, New Mexico. With today’s media freakouts over Evil Guns, this should be a no-brainer. So… why the radio silence?

Possibilities:

1) It sounds like there are multiple guns going off. Possibly a substantial number of people blazing away. This of course means it’s far more likely “gang related” than “lone mass shooter.”

2) Reportedly, with all those bullets flying, only one person killed and two injured (if THIS is the same incident… one dead, four injured). That’s *terrible* marksmanship. Again indicating more like gangs than a lone shooter.

3) Fully automatic weapons are fired. Legally owned Class Three automatic weapons are vanishingly rarely used in crimes. Far more likely, this was an illegally modified Glock. Hard to argue that you need more gun laws to ban something that’s already banned (but they’ll try, of course).

Can’t see diddly on the videos below, other than people panicking in the dark. Can’t see any of the shooters. So it might well be that the shooters are, somehow, in some way, inconvenient to report on.

If this is gang related, then the viewer at home will wonder something like “gosh, why don’t they do something about the gangs.” And we can’t have that.

 

 

 Posted by at 9:18 pm

It CAN happen here

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 312022
 

It’s common enough to point and laugh at crazy furriners carrying out government sponsored acts of terrorism against their own people based on arbitrary and generally insane rules and “laws.” Recently a lot of this laughter has been direction Britainland way, and rightly so. But we should remain vigilant lest the more fascistic of Americans, such as the Democrats, get it into their heads to do the same sort of nonsense here. Because, as we’ve seen from the House recently voting to pass a blatantly and admittedly unConstitutional bill banning the transfer of items in common use, they are more than happy to abuse power.

Moment army veteran is arrested ‘for causing anxiety’ after retweeting meme of swastika made out of Pride flags as force is condemned by its own crime commissioner for the ‘proportionality and necessity’ of its response

I do wonder how many of those police officers actually believe they’re doing the right thing, how many don’t care, and how many are actively opposed to this nonsense. This situation is, of course, monumentally stupid. The dude posted this image:

 

Which somehow caused someone “anxiety.” Why the police should give a rat’s ass that someone has anxiety, I’ve no idea. How they determine that the anxiety caused by a meme is worse/more legally actionable than the anxiety caused by, say, foreign rape gangs or BLM riots or historic statues being torn down or lockdowns or unsolved burglaries, assaults and murders while the police chase down people who post memes, I’ve no idea.

 Posted by at 6:44 pm

Now this story is just *weird*

 AARRRGH, aircraft, Crazy, Hmm..., news, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 312022
 

I *really* hope the pilot can shed some light on this:

Co-pilot falls from plane, dies before emergency landing in North Carolina

A small cargo plane lost a wheel during a hard landing, then continued on to fly for a while before finally doing an emergency landing that seemed to go about as well as you might hope for a cargo plane with a third of its landing gear gone. But the co-pilot *seems* to have decided to chuck himself out of the plane well before then, crashing in a yard some thirty miles from the final airport. Friggen’ *WHY*?

Was he stressed out? Was he on something? Was the initial hard landing his fault, and he knew that it would go bad for his career?

 Posted by at 2:15 pm

Woke Trek at high speed

 AARRRGH, blather, history, Hmm..., science fiction, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 302022
 

So some friends and I are watching through “Star Trek Discovery.” We’re Trek fans from *decades* back, so it might surprise some that it’s taken us this long to get around to wading through all of STD. We’re well into season three… and we’ve made an important decision.

Star Trek, whether the episode was good or bad, was always pretty much *fun.* But STD is *not* fun. A lot of it is downright painful. So while we’re generally interested to see where the plot goes, the characters themselves are often just nightmarish. So the decision was made to stand by on the Fast Forward button. Someone starts crying? Fast forward. Someone starts a monologue about how awesome someone else is, or any form of emotional validation? Fast forward. That cringy Trill/human “couple?” They show up… fast forward.

We’re getting through episodes *really* fast now. More than anything, this cringe-edited version of STD reminds me of those Super 8 versions of sci-fi movies that were available in the late 1970s.

I remember seeing, circa 1979-1981 or so, a desktop “unit” that had a film cartridge that showed Star Wars boiled down to maybe five minute on a display just a few inches across. Until VHS, that sort of thing was the only way to watch Star Wars on demand. And fast forwarding is the only way to watch STD *at* *all.*

 Posted by at 8:16 pm
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