A note on the June rewards

fighter, hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, Patreon catalog, stealth, VTOL 1 Response »

Jun 302025

Once again there will be no voting on APR rewards this month. This is down to a few things:

1) Voting in general has been *way* down. I suspect a revamp of the catalog is needed.

2) Items I tried to procure this month proved unprocurable. Partly due to them being insanely expensive; partly due to someone else out there being fabulously wealthy and snapping them up anyway.

3) Things came up. I’m finding, with some concern, that the end of the month seems to be a magnet for Things Coming Up.

So, subscribers and Patrons, there was no catalog release this month. Rest assured, though, that within the next day or two rewards *will* go out, chosen by yours truly, Benevolent Dictator.

And while the things I really wanted proved unobtainable, I did get a few things off ebay. Sadly these are too late for this month, but should, postal system willing, be available next. All of them, gratingly, were more expensive than they should’ve been, but that’s the trend with this stuff anymore. Included:

Six-foot-long blueprint of the USS Akron “flying aircraft carrier:”

Four Sikorsky brochures:

Artwork of a Lockheed ASTOVL (I could have used this when creating a diagram of the craft in the recently released US Stealth Fighter Projects):

Artwork of a 1960’s Ryan VTOL COIN concept. I’ve been after this art, and more information on the design, for about 35 years now after first seeing bad B&W versions of this in Av Week. I’d pay real money for a design report/proposal/brochure. Anyone?

April 2025 APR rewards

fighter, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, rockets No Responses »

May 022025

Rewards for April, 2025 have been released. These include:

Document: “Performance Data Report for Class VF Convoy Fighter Airplane,” Convair report from 1950. 100 pages of data (no diagrams) on what would become the XFY-1 “Pogo.”

Document: “Hard Mobile Launcher” Martin Marietta brochure on the Midgetman launcher, with some bonus Martin Marietta HML info and art

Diagram: “Parallel Tanks Missile,” Convair diagram 7-26-54, apparently an alternate design for Atlas, much more like Soviet R-7 family. Reduced to 75% of original scanned size, which is immense and system-crashing.

CAD diagram: Lockheed B-2, a stealthier proposed follow-on to the U-2.

Subscribers/Patrons for the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program not only receive a monthly collection of aerospace goodies such as these, but can also pick up back issues all the way to 2014.

aerospaceprojectsreview.com/monthly.htm

US Stealth Fighter Projects

fighter, stealth 2 Responses »

Mar 122025

Now in the page-layout stage is my fifth book, “US Stealth Fighter Projects.” This covers a wide range of fighter aircraft designed from the early sixties to early 2000’s, including ATF and JSF programs. It should be available in a few months from Mortons.

If it does well, a Volume 2 is being considered…

3D Printer “Crowdfund”

American Nuclear Explosive Devices, Dyna Soar, fighter, future projects, hi-rez, launch vehicles, nukes, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane, US Bomber Projects, US Fighter Projects, US Launcher Projects, US Recon & Research Projects, US Spacecraft Projects 3 Responses »

May 232024

So after having the 3D printer for a while and running a *lot* of resin through it, I have achieved some good things. I’ve learned enough to know that there are some things that I plan on producing as full 3D-printed kits, some to be converted into metal castings. I have a few product lines that I want to do:

1: 1/285 (wargaming scale) “minis” of a range of appropriately sized unusual, rare, interesting and projected aircraft/spacecraft

2: “Mini”-sized, but of various scale, aircraft and spacecraft to go with each issue of US Aerospace Projects

3: 1/18 scale models of each American nuclear bomb/warhead/re-entry vehicle. This will range from the downright dinky to the “I’m not sure how to squeeze this out of the printer,” like the Mk 17 and the Flashback. I’ve successfully printed prototypes of the Fat Man and Little Boy A-bombs in 1/18, but they need to be revised.

4: Just whatever strikes my fancy by way of interesting aerospace/sci-fi concepts.

The eventual 3D printed kits will be pricier than if they were cast resin “garage” kits, but this will allow me to make them on demand. I hope there is interest in this sort of thing. To that end, and to help refill my depleted coffers, I’m making available a “crowdfunding” project with three levels. What you will receive are the actual 3D printed components. Each level builds on the prior… Level 2 gets you the Level 1 stuff, Level 3 gets you 1 and 2. No additional postage is required for continental US address… Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, the rest of the world, contact me and I’ll work out the additional postage cost.

Note: many of these are “prototype” kits, with revisions and improvements possible or even probable. And some of these are not planned to be released further. This will be your only chance to get them, at least in this format.

Level 1. You will receive:

1/285 X-20 Dyna Soar spaceplane
1/285 XF-103 Mach 3 interceptor
1/285 Project Pluto nuclear ramjet
1/285 X-15 set (X-15, X-15A2, X-15A3, X-15/SERJ)
1/18 Davy Crockett battlefield atomic warhead w/stand

Crowdfund level 1: $60 in the continental US:

——–

Level 2. You will receive:

1/18 US Atomic Artillery Shells w/stand
1/144 X-20 Dyna Soar
1/18 M61 Vulcan Gatling Gun w/stand
1/18 Mk 72 Nuclear Warhead/Re-Entry Vehicle

Crowdfund level 2: $100 in the continental US:

——–

Level 3. This part will not ship immediately, as some of it remains unfinished. You will receive:

1/285 XF-103 w/missiles
1/350 Orion Nuclear Pulse Vehicle (with stand… not yet finalized)
1/2000 Aldebaran Concept Vehicle
Cast Metal 1/285 X-20 + XF-103 + X-15 + Pluto: Depending on the success of the casting process. Not all are guaranteed.

Crowdfund level 3: $200 in the continental US:

——–

Sabrebat

fighter, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, research No Responses »

Oct 042023

Grumman won the contract to build the forward-swept-wing X-29. But Grumman was not the only company to go for the contract; Rockwell devoted a fair amount of effort – both engineering and PR – to win the prize. Their concept was similar, though intended to be a wholly new aircraft, and with a notably different planform. Below is a magazine ad from 1980 showing a model of the Rockwell “Sabrebat” concept.

The full-rez scan has been uploaded to the 2023-10 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for $4 and up Patreons/Subscribers. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

General Dynamics F-16XL Dual Role Fighter: An Illustrated History

bomber, fighter No Responses »

Aug 262023

Tony Landis has just released – for free – his book on the F-16XL:

https://wss.apan.org/public/AFMC-History-Office/Shared Documents/F-16XL Book_Final-web (1).pdf

It’s a 285-page heavily illustrated PDF; highly recommended. It will soon also be available as a paperback through Amazon:

Neat.

Bell D188A Art

bomber, fighter, hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, VTOL No Responses »

Jul 202023

A cutaway illustration of the Bell D188A VTOL strike-fighter from the late 50’s/early 60’s. This Mach 2 aircraft would have used 8 small turbojets… two lift/cruise in the tail, two vertically mounted in the forward fuselage for lift and two each in wingtip nacelles that could tilt for VTOL or horizontal thrust. Often referred to as the XF-109, it was only called that in Bell PR material.. it never officially received that designation. The artwork below was scanned years ago at the Jay Miller archives.

There is more available on the D188A in two sources I highly recommend (because I wrote them):

1: Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N4. Jam-packed with info, diagrams, artwork of this and several variants.

2: US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol. 2, which uses the D188A as the cover image.

If you’d like the full resolution version of the cutaway artwork, it has been uploaded to the 2023-07 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to all $4 and up Patrons/Subscribers. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

F-111 Cutaway

bomber, fighter, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon No Responses »

Jul 152023

A General Dynamics illustration showing the internal structure of the F-111 fighter-bomber. Originally scanned at the Jay Miller archive; shown here is a much-reduced-rez version.

The full-rez scan has been uploaded to the 2023-07 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for $4 and up Patreons/Subscribers.If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

Ryan X-13-like Tailsitter Interceptor

fighter No Responses »

Jul 032023

Ryan released this piece of art in 1958 depicting a tailsitter fighter somewhat like their X-13. However, this was clearly a much larger vehicle, operational rather than experimental. More than anything it resembles a slimmed-down and stretched-out Avro Arrow. It’s unclear that this was based on an actual engineering study, rather than artistic license.

This would seem to be an interceptor, presumably installed somewhere in Europe within hidden underground bunkers. It’s not at all certain to me that in the event of all out war there’d be any real point in having these aircraft be able to land vertically as their bunkers would probably be radioactive glass by they time they got home… and without the dedicated equipment needed to catch the aircraft, they’d be unable to land.

Jun 062023

I put one copy of each of my current books on ebay. They’re all in brand-new condition, and will be signed/dated when sold. They also come with bonus 18X24-inch prints… the “SR-71” book has two prints of the SR-71, the “B-47/B-52” book has one B-47 diagram and two B-52 diagrams; “US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol. 1” has two B-70 Valkyrie diagrams. Take a look…