A rare piece of color art of an early Dyna Soar being lofted atop an Atlas/Centaur. Color artwork of the Dyna Soar was created in some considerable abundance, but it was mostly reproduced in B&W, and its sadly rare for even those B&W reports to have been printed well, rarer still for them to have been scanned or copied well.
Seems I’ve been a wee bit lax on the PDF Reviews. I will attempt to rectify that in the future.
Here is a Air Force conference paper from May, 1964, describing the X-20 Dyna Soar program and vehicle. At this point the program had been cancelled for some months; the configuration shown in the paper was essentially the final design. It’s a decent overall view of the Dyna Soar.
Here’s the link to the abstract:
The X-20 (Dyna-Soar) Progress Report
Here’s a link directly to the PDF.
Support the APR Patreon to help bring more of this sort of thing to light!
I’ve babbled about this a time or two in the past, but the specifics keep changing. But I think I’m zeroing in on the final form. The diagram below is meant for 24 X 36; the diagrams are at 1/72 scale. The final print will be black ink on white translucent mylar.
As shown here, it’s still a ways away from being complete; much more data to add, some refinements and additions to the diagrams, perhaps some artistic flourishes (though since I’m apparently devoid of any actual artistic talent, that sort of thing will be kept to an engineering minimum).
There will be only a limited number of these printed up, based on interest expressed in advance. The price is yet to be determined, but $50 is a very high upper limit. That comes from the price of something vaguely similar… the 24X36-on-white-mylar blueprints of the Nostromo from “Alien” and the Sulaco from “Aliens” that used to be available here:
Those two I got a few years ago, but only recently got around to framing (cheapo poster frames, but frames nonetheless). They look *spectacular.* And as they are substantially more spectacular than the X-20/Titan IIIc, my diagrams shouldn’t be priced at the same level.
If anyone has suggestions, I’d be interested.
In 1963 the Curtiss Wright Corporation ran an ad in Missiles & Rockets magazine illustrating their participation in the Titan III/Dyna Soar program. The main illustration in the ad depicts the launch vehicle in flight; it is not, sadly, a wholly accurate depiction. The N2O4 thrust vector fluid tanks for the SRBs aren’t included, nor are the separation motors; the two engine bells on the Titan core are shown clocked out of alignment. Still, a reasonably nice illustration.
While the overall configuration of the Dyna Soar was set (and is well known) well before the program ended, the pilots instrument panel seemed to be in a constant state of flux. A number of mockup photos and diagrams of generally low resolution and/or poor reproduction quality. But a decade ago what appears to have been a decent-quality instrument panel layout was auctioned off:
858: DynaSoar Blueprints Diagrams Photos
So… is there any chance that anyone reading along knows the buyer, or has access to this or a similar instrument panel layout diagram?
PS: if you are interested in the final Model 2050E Dyna Soar design, you could not do much better than to check this out.
I’ve written a short and illustrated piece on how the Dyna Soar can illustrate the possible capabilities of the X-37B over at War Is Boring:
I am contemplating expanding this considerably for a separate release. It’d be a little different from the usual sort of thing I do, since the X-37B is a real flying vehicle, not just an unbuilt project.
Artwork showing the major Dyna Soar/Titan III contractors. The Titan IIIc show here includes the large pitch stabilization fins (and small yaw fins) attached to the solid rocket boosters. Not depicted are the thrust vector control fluid tanks. At the time, the fins were thought needed to counteract the pitch moment that would be produced by the wings of the spaceplane way up front. In the end, it was concluded that thrust vector control would be more than adequate for the task; and while the Titan IIIC never launched a Dyan Soar, it retained the TVC capabilities that were produced to deal with the Dyna Soar.
Much, much more on the Dyna Soar, including the final few Titan III variants, can be found in Aerospace Projects Review issue V3N4.
Slowing plugging away on the greatly revised X-20 Dyna Soar article. Shown below is what it currently looks like… something of a mess. There are still a great many more illustrations I want to add, including a bucket of my own CAD diagrams, but how many will end up here is uncertain. It’s already pushing 100 pages when you include the CAD diagrams; probably too big. Perhaps a later stand-alone version will have everything plus the kitchen sink…
And the CAD diagrams:
Selling this on eBay:
Here is a collection of 11X17 CAD diagrams of the X-20 Dyna Soar, specifically the final design, Model 2050E from 1963. These diagrams were created for issue V3N4 of Aerospace Projects Review; since this issue has not yet been published (and won’t be for a while yet), these will be the only copies of these diagrams out-and-about for some time. And if I get mashed by a Mack truck before V3N4… well, these will be the only copies out there, period.
These are bound in a 12X18 pressboard report cover with prong fasteners… outdated today, but appropriate for early 1960’s aerospace history. The collection currently has 25 pages, though this may change. Any additional diagrams that are finished prior to the end of the auction (I’d estimate one or two) will be added. The collection includes, but is not limited to: 1/48 scale 5-view diagram of the X-20 Dyna Soar, accurately showing the configuration of the metallic heat shields; several 1/72 layout diagrams of the X-20 with adapter and transstage; several 1/125 scale diagrams of the X-20/Titan IIIc launch vehicle, in different configurations; 1/175 X-20/Saturn C-1; 1/48 3-view of the “synergetic” configuration; numerous diagrams of various small space stations designed with operational Dyna Soar shuttle vehicles in mind; a scale comparison of the Dyna Soar with the ASSET test vehicle, the X-37B spaceplane and the HTV-2 test vehicle; separate 3-views of those other vehicles; and as a bonus, diagrams from issues V2N5 and V3N3 showing earlier versions of the Dyna Soar used as components of advanced launch systems such as the Aerospace Plane and the B-70 based Reusable Booster System.
A 1959 Boeing concept for an airbreathing HTOL booster for Dyna Soar. Compared to the other pure-rocket VTO boosters, this would have been a monster… far bigger, far heavier, far, far more expensive. Which almost certainly explains why not only did such a booster not get serious study further down the line for Dyna Soar, it didn’t even rate detailed diagrams in the reports.
Staging would have been an interesting show.
NOTE: The isometric artwork for baseline concepts 4-7? Not available, sadly.