transports – Page 5 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

Short PD.16

hypersonic, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, transports No Responses »

Jun 112021

The Short PD.16 was a circa 1957 design for a twin engined turboprop cargo/passenger plane. The configuration was similar to the Fairchild C-119, and would have been, by modern standards, an unusual passenger aircraft. Slow, voluminous, with (in one configuration) a cargo hold stuffed with cars and an upper deck filled with people in *luxurious* seating by modern standards, probably deafened and rattled. Half a dozen of one…

This was procured from eBay thanks to the contributions of Patrons and subscribers. The complete article has been sent to all patrons/subscribers at the more than $10/month level. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

Rocket Cargo

future projects, hypersonic, launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, transports No Responses »

Jun 012021

Hmmmmm…..

Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Budget Estimates

Page 215

Title: Rocket Cargo

Description: The Department of the Air Force seeks to leverage the current multi-billion dollar commercial investment to developthe largest rockets ever, and with full reusability to develop and test the capability to leverage a commercial rocket to deliver AFcargo anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity. The Air Force is not investing in the commercialrocket development, but rather investing in the Science & Technology needed to interface the capability with DoD logistics needs, and extend the commercial capability to DoD-unique missions. Provides a new, faster and cheaper solution to the existing TRANSCOM Strategic Airlift mission. Enables AFSOC to perform current Rapid-Response Missions at lower cost, and meet a one-hour response requirement. Rocket Cargo uses modeling, simulation, and analysis to conduct operational analysis, verify military utility, performance, and operational cost. S&T will include novel “loadmaster” designs to quickly load/unload a rocket,rapid launch capabilities from unusual sites, characterization of potential landing surfaces and approaches to rapidly improve those surfaces, adversary detectability, new novel trajectories, and an S&T investigation of the potential ability to air drop a payload after reentry. This is not a rocket engine or launch vehicle development program. It is an S&T effort to leverage the commercial development into a novel new DoD capability.FY 2021 Plans:Utilize modeling, simulation, and analysis to conduct operational analysis of Rocket Cargo concepts, trajectories, and design considerations and verify military utility, performance, and operational cost. Gather operational data from on-going commercial large-scale, instrumented, reusable launch events.FY 2022 Plans:Mature effort in leveraging commercial space launch to create military capability in Rocket-based Cargo delivery. Complete S&T testing leveraging the current commercial prototype testing. Perform site measurements needed to integrate the capability onto DoD missions including plume-surface physics and toxicity, loads, detectability, and acoustics. Also, complete initial AFRL wind tunnel testing to assess novel trajectories needed for air-drop capability, and high-speed separation physics. Under contract and CRADA, partner with Commercial to test and demonstrate an initial one-way transport capability to an austere site. Seek to perform an early end-to-end test to fully identify the technical challenges. In addition, complete Industry outreach for load master concepts including novel container designs, load/unload concepts, and testing the compatibility of AF cargo with rocket launch and space environments. Issue solicitation and award contracts.FY 2021 to FY 2022 Increase/Decrease Statement:FY 2022 increased compared to FY 2021 by $38.169 million. Funding increased due to planned program requirements and the development and maturation activities described above.

HMMMMM….

Sounds vaguely familiar. I wonder where I’ve seen ideas kinda like that before.

“Intercity Transport” art

hi-rez, jetliner, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, transports, VTOL No Responses »

May 142021

Another strange piece of 1970’s/early 1980’s Boeing art, this time depicting an “Intercity Transport.” What’s going on with that circular “inlet” on the rear upper fuselage? Damnfino. Just visible under the wing root is a low-set inlet, so that would seem to provide what’s needed for the propulsion system. If there was a vertical thrust system in the nose, and good low-speed control systems on the outer wings, then that circular inlet would be fore a VTOL system. But on its own? Hmmm.

The full rez scan of the artwork has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-05 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

“Electric Commuter Jet” concept art

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May 082021

The art below is a Boeing concept from the late 70s or early 80’s depicting an almost certainly wholly conceptual “electric commuter jet” based on a rather dubious propulsion system: the ring-shaped aircraft would be equipped with massive counter-rotating flywheels which would be spun up to high speed on the ground (presumably with fixed electric motors). To fly, the flywheels would engage a compressor which would provide the jet thrust to fly. I haven’t done the math on this, but unless those flywheels are made of an adamantium-vibranium-uru alloy spun up to a few hundred thousand RPM, it seems unlikely to me that the wheels would store enough energy to provide for a meaningful flight. I doubt that this existed beyond the artists imagination… but if anyone has evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.

A little Preview of “B-47/B-52”

B-47 and B-52 Origins and Evolution, bomber, Dyna Soar, jetliner, launch vehicles, nukes, Recon, research, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports, VTOL No Responses »

Apr 302021

Here is an incomplete look at the diagrams created for my first book, “Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress; Origins & Evolution.” It can be pre-ordered either directly from the publisher (with publication expected in late September) or through Amazon (looks like they’ll have it two months later). It is also expected to be on certain store shelves… more on that when it’s confirmed.

A few of these diagrams will be compressed to several-per-page; a few of them here are already shown in multiple optional layouts. But there are also a dozen-ish diagrams *not* shown because they are incomplete as yet. This gives an indication of the size and scope of the project…

Sukhoi/Gulfstream supersonic business jet

jetliner, transports No Responses »

Apr 132021

A while beck someone sold a brochure about the Sukhoi-Gulfstrem supersonic business jet, the S-21. This concept, dating from the early 90’s, was a failed attempt to build a corporate-jet sized SST. While Gulfstream eventually dropped out, Sukhoi kept going until around 2012. The design changed substantially as time went by, but the realities of the economics of supersonic small aircraft around the turn of the century doomed the idea.

March 2021 rewards

bomber, hi-rez, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, Recon, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports, VTOL No Responses »

Mar 312021

Just released, the March 2021 rewards for APR Patrons and Subscribers. Included this month:

Diagram/art: a large format scan of an artists concept of the XC-14. This was printed with a large number of signatures; they seem to be Boeing engineers.

Document 1: “Project Hummingbird.” An FAA document summarizing the characteristics of STOL and VTOL aircraft circa 1961, including bogh built and proposed types. This was scanned from a clean original!

Document 2: “The Thor Missile Story.” Old, old, incredibly old school media… a film strip propaganda piece about the statues of the Thor IRBM.

CAD diagram: the WWII era German DFS 228 rocket powered high altitude recon plane, proposed operational version.

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

Because I forgot to mention the January and February rewards… subscribers/patrons got these (new subscribers can order them as back issues):

January 2021: Titan IIIC/IIIM booster rockets; CAD diagram of Post-Saturn concepts; a Convair Heavy Bombardment Airplane brochure; a fractional XF-103 mockup review and technical description; a fractional Westland paper on VTOL; a General Dynamics report on a proposed turboprop transport for Saturn stages.

February, 2021: An Aerion SST brochure; a Lockheed SST diagram; Dornbergers report on a commercial rocket powered airliner (scanned from a clean vintage copy); an early Convair jet flying boat bomber brochure; a CAD diagram comparing General Atomics’ ten-meter Orions for the USAF and NASA.

Can anyone shed any light on this “tanker airplane?”

hi-rez, transports No Responses »

Mar 302021

From the National Archives, a few photos dated 1979 of a Lewis Research Center model of a “Tanker Airplane.” *FAR* higher resolution versions of the photos are available at the links.

TANKER AIRPLANE MODEL

And…

TANKER AIRPLANE MODEL

That’s certainly an unusual configuration. If it hadn’t originated at NASA, I’d think it was a college students design project. But then… there’s one more photo which might shed a little bit of light onto the subject:

TANKER AIRPLANE MODEL

Huh.

The text on the wing reads:

To
LRC from LeRC
November 8(?) 1979

This would seem to be some sort of a gag gift from Lewis Research Center to Langley Research Center, but the details of what, who, and why are not available to me. If anyone can shed light, please do so.

Douglas ICARUS

hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, transports, VTOL No Responses »

Mar 192021

A video on the Douglas ICARUS/Ithacus, a 1960’s concept for a rocket vehicle to lob 1200 Marines anywhere on the planet in 45 minutes:

This video is based in large part on the article I wrote and illustrated in Aerospace projects Review issue V2N6, AVAILABLE HERE.

Why not sign on for the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon, why not? You’ll not only help make sure that this sort of research is done, you’ll get a fat stack of monthly rewards int he form of aerospace documentation.

CL-1201: it happened again

nukes, transports, US Transport Projects, VTOL No Responses »

Mar 172021

Somehow or other, yet another YouTube video has been produced on the giant nuclear powered Lockheed CL-1201. Seems strange that after all this time this rather obscure design is suddenly getting traction… it’s almost as if YouTubers watch and copy each other. Wheird.

Anyway, *imagine* my surprise to find that the video has one of my copyrighted diagrams in it, without attribution, lightly modified and dumbified. Huh.

Video diagram:

My diagram, taken from Aerospace Projects Review issue V1N3 and US Transport Projects #4:

Yay, I guess? Would be nice if people made some effort to acknowledge where their stuff comes from.

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