This 1959 Boeing booster concept not only did away with the cockpit, but also the jet engines and the wings. Instead, this was a simpler design intended for ocean splashdown and recovery. Aerodynamic flaps maintained stability.
Oct 022012
Search Results : dyna soar
Sep 302012
Base Point #2 concept from Boeing/North American in 1959, showing a glide-back booster.
Sep 252012
Same basic concept for the booster, but with a cockpit and canards. A manned booster rather than unmanned.
Sep 232012
A variant of the previous design, with the upper stage carried on the back rather than on the nose. Otherwise broadly similar.
Sep 172012
A 1959 design, produced by North American Aviation for Boeing, for a reusable Dyna Soar booster. The launch vehicle, powered by two Rocketdyne E-1 engines, could put this very early Boeing Dyna Soar vehicle into a 300 nautical mile polar orbit.
Sep 122012
For several years I’ve been looking for a cost effective way to “gold plate” display models without actually plating them in gold. I know it’s possible…. cheap plastic toys are often “gold plated” by way of vapor-depositing aluminum on them, then putting a yellow-tinted clearcoat over that. The results can be quite successful. For example:
Aluminum plating these things is cost effective because it’s done on an industrial scale. Getting it done on an individual part scale? Meh.
I’ve tried every “gold paint” that I can find, and not a one of ’em actually looks like gold. The best of them looks like… gold paint. So, yellow-clear-coating “chrome” seems about the only way to go.
The closest you can come to “chrome” without actual metal plating is one of a few specialty paints. I’ve heard good things about “Spaz Stix Ultimate Mirror Chrome,” but have not tried it.
One thing I have used with some notable success is Alclad II Chrome in an airbrush. Applied properly, it’s not quite an actual mirror surface, but it looks pretty damned good. So, I decided to try yellow-clear-coating Alclad Chrome to see what I get.
First up… I took a 1/24 Dyna Soar display model and chromed it. This was a model built from all the parts that stink… the original body mold was seriously flawed (and has been replaced with a mold that’s great, producing awesome castings), and the smaller parts were early castings that were munged up in various and sundry way. It was assembled as a fit check, and to be used in sizing things like the display stand and the packaging. Since it is and always will be a serious mess, I didn’t go overboard in surface prep. When using Alclad Chrome, proper surface prep is vital, but this was just a test… and on the whole the results looked pretty good anyway:
I then oversprayed part of that with Alclad clear yellow. The results:
Well, it’s better than gold paint, but it’s still far from being mistaken for actual gold. The yellow seemed to dull the chrome… I wonder if the yellow ate into the chrome and fuzzed it out some. perhaps yellow dye (food coloring?) in something like nitrocellulose lacquer might do the trick…
In any event, I liked the chrome enough that I think I might make me a chrome Dyna Soar one of these days. I’ll be the only kid on my block with one.
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Sep 052012
Work progresses on the 1/24 scale X-20 Dyna Soar. Shown here are five of them… three under active development, two more on standby. The three are spoken for by clients, the other two are open. If you are interested, send me an email: 
Also visible: an industry standard feline scale reference… and one of the printed “extras” that will come with the model. Note that the re-entry heat shields over the windscreens have embedded rare earth magnets to hold them onto the Dyna Soar. Not shown: the display stand and carrying case that will also be provided.
Aug 252012
A customer contracted me to build him a 1/24 scale X-20 Dyna Soar display model. Photos below of preliminary castings, produced in the last few days using a silicone mold that turned out to be too thin. There are flaws in the too-thin mold that came through on the cast, but which wouldn’t exist on a second mold which I plan to make. And obviously the ginormous hole in the tail end wouldn’t exist on a finalized model.
The entry shield will be held on with neodymium magnets, and there’ll be a few more details along with some printed goodies (at least one of which should be *really* impressive) as well as a new stand. There will be specially printed markings, and a choice of finishes… ultra-glossy nitrocellulose lacquer, or satin nitrocellulose lacquer.
The new mold will require that I buy $500 worth of silicone. Anyone interested in an X-20 of their very own? There won’t be too many of these made. If interested, send me an email:
Again, the model shown here is not a final version, just something of a “prototype.” The actual models will look substantially better.
Aug 022012
A reproduction of admittedly dismal quality of a Martin Co. painting of their December 1958 Dyna Soar configuration at launch. This configuration, the product of a team-up of Martin and Bell, competed against Boeing (and other companies) and lost; what must have been grating for the Martin-Bell folks was that the Boeing design that won looked nothing like the final Dyna Soar design… which actually looked a whole lot like this vehicle.
The Dyna Soar is here being shown launched by a modified Titan I ICBM. This booster would have fallen far short of orbiting the Dyna Soar; instead it would have simply tossed it on a long hypersonic suborbital trajectory. This would have been a purely experimental aircraft, the natural follow-on to the X-15.
Jul 122012
Cyanotype print 17: Dyna Soar/Titan III
A layout diagram showing the Boeing Model 853-1001D Dyna Soar/ Titan IIIC “Air Vehicle,” the complete launch stack.
A hand made cyanotype blueprint on sturdy 12X18 watercolor paper. Each is unique, and likely to feature small imperfections.The blue will fade if left in the sun. If this happens, it can be darkened by placing it somewhere dark with good air flow to re-oxidize the ink. Alternatively. hydrogen peroxide, available from grocery stores, will instantly oxidize the ink and restore it to its full hue.