Jul 232009
Just about there for the main design elements. Lots of detailing to do, and of course there are the fighters….
12 Responses to “XAB model progress”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Just about there for the main design elements. Lots of detailing to do, and of course there are the fighters….
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
This seems very close to the Hawk Atomic Aircraft model.
Are both based on some actual design concept from the late 50’s-early 60’s time period?
Looking good, is that ACAD or Rhino?
> This seems very close to the Hawk Atomic Aircraft model.
It better… because that’s what I’ve been contracted to replicate.
> Are both based on some actual design concept
*Reportedly* the Hawk model was based on some Convair study… but it’s not somethign I’ve ever seen backed up.
> is that ACAD or Rhino?
This one is Rhino. Autocad would simply refuse to do most of the contouring that Rhino spits out fairly easily. Of course, Rhino’s still giving me troubles… it does some damned odd things from time to time, but I’m forging ahead.
Scott,
You gonna dupe the kit or are you gonna make the “real” version with the kit as its basis? There were a bunch of “features” in that old Hawk kit which would’ve been downright absurd on a real aircraft.
Madoc
It’s going to be a faithful reproduction of the original design, but with some minor tweaks. Recessed rather than raised panel lines, actual airfoil cross section wings. If it were my design, I’d put the nuclear engines in the fuselage, not the wingtip pods (that’s kinda… silly), but that wouldn’t really change the design any from the modelers standpoint.
I’m going to take a whack at seeing if I can recreate the “flame” parts in Rhino. Not sure if I can do it justice… at this time, the inclusion of those parts are kinda up in the air.
>If it were my design, I’d put the nuclear engines in the fuselage, not the wingtip pods (that’s kinda… silly)
I disagree. While they’re undoubtedly heavy, which means structural problems, by putting them on the wingtips, it moves the radiation sources farther away from the aircraft’s vital systems and crew, which means less shielding required, and, they can be easily jettisoned in an emergency.
It’s the parasite fighters that bother me, that cockpit’s gotta get pretty uncomfortable very quickly, in my opinion….
> by putting them on the wingtips, it moves the radiation sources farther away from the aircraft’s vital systems and crew, which means less shielding required,
Actually… you got it backwards. As the XAB is currently designed there’s nothing between the reactors and the cockpit except air and whatever shielding is wrapped around the cockpit. But if they (more likely “it”) were in the tail, then you’d have the entire structure of the aircraft – bolts, beams, bulkheads, bombs, everything – serving as shielding. Additionally, the reactor would actually be further from the crew if it was between the two fuselage engines than in the wingtip pods (in the arbitrary units of the as-yet unscaled model, the span over the pods is 20.45; the distance from wingtip reactors to cockpit is about 16.6; the distance from a tail reactor location to cockpit is about 20).
When it comes to nuclear aircraft, you want as much distance *and* as much stuff between you and the reactor as possible.
It’s a shame that men can design such beautiful machines for such horrible purposes.
> It’s a shame that men can design such beautiful machines for such horrible purposes.
Defending the world from Communism? Or making a buck at the hobby shop? I see neither as being particualrly horrible.
>Actually… you got it backwards. As the XAB is currently designed there’s nothing between the reactors and the cockpit except air and whatever shielding is wrapped around the cockpit.
Point taken. But I still think my jettison proposition is valid.
I’ve also had a further thought, you could have a non-nuclear version, by replacing the nuclear engines on the wingtips with giant fuel tanks…
Also, if you move the nukes to the fuselage, you can’t dock the parasite fighters to the tail fin, as you said, to much radiation, so they’d have to go to the wingtips instead, like that Lockheed thingy with the modified starfighters under the wings…
Should have said, I’m assuming the nuclear engines are ‘Tory’ type ramjets…
The fighters are problematic. The purpose behind having atomic engines is not increased speed, but increased duration. Having a fighter pilot trapped in the cockpit of his plane for *days* is going to present a serious combat readiness issue. So the only practical way to deal with this it to have a system where the fighter pilot can spend the bulk of his time in the mothership… sleeping vaguely comfortably, moving around, excercising, etc. But the XAB layout does not seem to permit that.
On the Hawk model, the wingtip engines could be removed. I assume that was to either show an emergency jettison, or whey were supposed to be stored separately from the rest of the aircraft and only attached prior to flight, like how the NB-36 Crusader had its reactor stored in a pit between test flights.