Almost there…

 hypersonic, jetliner, nukes, Recon, research, rockets, space shuttle, spaceplane, stealth, transports, US Recon & Research Projects, US Transport Projects  No Responses »
Apr 122017
 

So very, very close on the next two US Aerospace Projects issues. I’m only lacking cover “art”and have to deal with a bit of “dead air” in the middle of US Transport Projects #7. Usually I can shuffle things around well enough to not have this sort of thing, but this time it just hasn’t worked out. I suppose it doesn’t really matter all that much, but it does look kinda lazy like that.

It’s been about a year since I released the last USxP issue. That last issue was the first time where I used vector diagrams embedded within the issue, rather than raster images; getting the diagrams from AutoCAD into Word was a bit of a chore back then. And in the intervening months… I forgot how I did it. So I had to figure it out again, and the process is different. I have to walk the AutoCAD diagram through Rhino 3D and save as a WMF and blah, blah, blah; end result is it works just fine. I’ve done some further refinement… the main outlines are set at 0.25 mm width and the ends of the lines have been reset to rounded and mitered, so sharp corners now look more like sharp corners.

Hoping to have these two out in a day or two. The other three will be rather longer.

 

 Posted by at 6:57 pm

Forthcoming: Closer

 bomber, Dyna Soar, fighter, future projects, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, Recon, research, rockets, space shuttle, spaceplane, stealth, transports, US Bomber Projects, US Fighter Projects, US Launcher Projects, US Recon & Research Projects, US Transport Projects  2 Responses »
Apr 022017
 

I’m essentially done with the drafting portion of the exercise. Now to finish the writing. I had planned on releasing ll five at once, but due to external factors I’ll almost certainly have to split this up. So… which ones do people want more? The publications forthcoming are Fighters, Bombers, Transports, Launchers and Recon & Research. Comment below…

 Posted by at 11:05 pm

Lockheed L-2000 mockup photos

 jetliner, transports  No Responses »
Mar 282017
 

Google has a collection of thousands of photos from Life magazine, including some relatively rare color photos of the Lockheed L-2000 supersonic transport full scale mockup. Sadly the website is set up for lookin’ at, not for easy linking or downloading of the photos. You can zoom in on the images, but good luck on copying the full-rez images.

Lockheed Supersonic Airplane

Lockheed Supersonic Airplane

Lockheed Supersonic Airplane

 

 

There are a bunch more if you go searching (search for “supersonic” brings up quite a few), but most are in B&W.

 Posted by at 12:19 pm

Boeing C-5 Proposal display model

 transports  No Responses »
Mar 172017
 

Recently sold on eBay (for $500) was a display model of the Boeing proposal for the C-5 program, which of course lost out to Lockheed. The Boeing design (circa 1965) was vaguely like a Lockheed C-5 merged with a Boeing 747… roughly the configuration and fuselage size of the C-5, but with the raised upper deck and the standard “jetliner” lower tail surface of the 747. I have surprisingly little on the Boeing C-5, but I do have some fairly detailed diagrams of a civilian passenger version, and a few derivatives. Interestingly, while this was clearly part of the genesis of the 747 – which by every metric was a far greater success for Boeing than the C-5 was for Lockheed – it was actually a model 757. As the design effort continued the 747 designation would become the jumbo jet, while the 757 designation would be applied to a much smaller jet.

 Posted by at 1:44 am

Forthcoming

 bomber, Dyna Soar, fighter, future projects, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, Recon, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane, stealth, transports, US Bomber Projects, US Fighter Projects, US Launcher Projects, US Recon & Research Projects, US Transport Projects  16 Responses »
Mar 102017
 

Coming soonish: the return of USXP publications. Five are under current development and are mostly done. There is a new title in the bunch… USRP. Strictly speaking it should probably be USR&RP… United States Research and Recon Projects. Perhaps Recon and Research aren’t necessarily the most obvious categories to link together into a single title, but apart from the vitally important alliteration, there is this important fact: compared to, say, Bombers, there aren’t that many Recon and Research projects out there.

If there are specific proposals, or general categories you’d like to see in future publications, feel free to comment below.

 Posted by at 10:41 am

Bell Helicopter FCX-001

 future projects, transports, VTOL  No Responses »
Mar 072017
 

Bell has unveiled a very sci-fi mockup of a “concept helicopter.” It features some unusual things:

A hybrid propulsion system

Variable geometry rotor tips

Lots and lots of glass

Only a single pilots seat

No physical control.

It’s that last one that’ll probably cause the most consternation. The pilot is meant to wear augmented reality goggles/visor/glasses/whatever; this will place data screens in front of him in an arrangement the pilot prefers. Control will still be manual, but the choppers onboard AI will presumably be able to track the pilots hands as he manipulates phantom controls.

Sure, it sounds cool, but two issues immediately present themselves:

1: Computer goes goofy. Malware, hacking, power surge, EMP, whatever… this thing seems like a deathtrap if the computer goes down.

2: Phantom controls that exist solely in the computers imagination and the pilots visor… sure, that sounds cool, and is certainly a common enough trope in sci-fi. Witness anytime Tony Stark wants to design anything, for instance. But in reality, your hands and arms get tired. You actually rest on the steering wheel or the yoke or the collective. Additionally, pilots really like to get direct feedback, which seems as yet beyond the ability to reproduce virtually. More, with every bump or jolt, the pilots hands will flail around. In a conventional helicopter, the pilots hands will be constrained by the controls they are gripping. In this one… nothing.

I would suggest a compromise: a set of *basic* physical instruments. Just what the pilot needs to safely fly the chopper. And I’d damn sure stick with physical controls. But… keep the augmented reality for the *secondary* instruments. Navigation, radio, air conditioning, whisper mode, thermal vision, fire rearward missiles… that can be via virtual reality. Instrument panels that are called up with a voice command, and recede when not in use.

Bell Helicopter unveils futuristic FCX-001 concept aircraft

 

 

Not at all related:

 

 Posted by at 2:14 pm

Commercial C-141

 jetliner, transports  No Responses »
Jan 182017
 

Currently for sale on EBay is a presumably-vintage model of a Lockheed C-141 in civilian livery. While the C-141 wound up solely a military transport, it would not be surprising that Lockheed would try to sell it on the civilian market. The model doesn’t depict passenger windows, so this was, presumably, still a cargo carrier.

commercial C-141 model 1 commercial C-141 model 2 commercial C-141 model 3 commercial C-141 model 4 commercial C-141 model 5

 Posted by at 8:51 pm

Early Orbital Space Station/2707-300 SST

 hi-rez, jetliner, Patreon, space station, spacecraft, transports  No Responses »
Jan 122017
 

The Aerospace Projects Review Patreon rewards for January will include a reasonably massive Douglas report on the Saturn V-launched pre-Skylab “Early Orbital Space Station” and a scan of a reasonably gigantic diagram of the Boeing 2707-300 SST. These will be released before the end of January and will be available to all then-current Patrons. So if these items interest you, and/or if you are interested in helping the effort to find and preserve this sort of aerospace history, be sure to check out the APR Patreon.

EOSS_0053 EOSS_0027 EOSS_0014

And…

65A12841 general Arrangement 2707-300 websize

 Posted by at 10:24 pm

XB-70 meets the YF-12A (and the C-141)

 bomber, fighter, hi-rez, Patreon, transports  2 Responses »
Jan 022017
 

A meeting of giants at Edwards Air Force Base in the late 1960’s. It’s interesting to compare the size of the “fighter” with the “bomber…” the bomber, as anyone who has ever stood underneath the sole example in Dayton, is Really Big, but the YF-12 is just not that much smaller. Sustained Mach 3 flight is not for the faint hearted… or the small-engined or those with dainty fuel tanks.

b-70_yf-12_c-141

I have made the full-rez version of this photo available for APR Patrons at the $4 level and up in the 2017-01 folder of the APR Extras Dropbox site. If interested in getting this and the previous years worth of Extras, consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

 Posted by at 10:51 am

Unducted Fan Airliner Concept

 jetliner, transports  No Responses »
Dec 212016
 

A recently sold item on EBay was this piece of artwork depicting a Boeing concept for an airliner powered by two propfans. These engines, popular items of study in the late 70s and into the 80s, were somewhere between turbofans and turboprops, with contra-rotating unducted fans using blades of complex design and contours. The advantage was, of course, fuel efficiency; the shape of the blades meant that they could spin with tip speeds closer to the speed of sound compared to turboprop blades, and could push the plane faster than normally practical for a turboprop.

Given the NASA logo on the tail, this piece of art undoubtedly depicts a proposal for an unducted fan test vehicle. The gray areas on the wing upper surfaces may indicate laminar flow control via suction, as with the Northrop X-21; this would all conspire to make this a very fuel efficient, if also very complex, jetliner.

boeing-turboprop-pusher-airliner-art

 Posted by at 11:33 am
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