I’ve cut the prices on all my cyanotypes by at least 25%, up to 40%. I’ve also gotten rid of the watercolor versions; it’s all vellum paper now (not only is it more historically accurate, it’s also a lot easier to process and ship).
So… take a look.
Found on ebay a while back, an artists concept (almost certainly an AP artist, using imagination more than primary documentation) showing an odd little submarine carrying four Polaris missiles while would launch through the sail. Such concepts *were* studied early on in the process, but I think this one is pure artistic license.
For $10 patrons on my Patreon campaign, a new message should appear there asking you to vote on what I’ll release in August (two documents and one large format diagram). For those who are $10 patrons, here’s a partial list anyway… if you see something there and you really want to make sure it becomes available, well, the obvious thing to do is sign on and vote!
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Drawing: fairly detailed 3-view of Lunar Roving Vehicle (as actually flown to the moon)
Drawing: “Plans for Scale Model Construction of the Honest John Surface-to-Surface Missile” by McDonnell-Douglas, 1971 (does anyone know of more of these???)
Document: “Douglas Aircraft Company: An Overview,” 60+ page brochure showing existing and proposed jetliners, by McDonnell-Douglas, ca. 1980
Art: a vintage lithograph of the Lockheed L-2000 SST in flight, w/3 view on the back.
Document: “CT-39 International Sabreliner,” a Rockwell International booklet/brochure describing the multipurpose utility jet
Document: “Air Force Expeditionary Catapult,” a truly massive billet of paper serving as a proposal from the All American Engineering Company for the System 300 Catapult, 1955. This was to be a turbojet-powered cable launching system for jet fighters which could be easily transported and set up in the field. (NOTE: this one counts as two reports, as it’s fairly gigantic)
Document: Aeroassisted Flight Experiment Nonadvocate Review, 1989, NASA
Document: Pocket Data for Rocket Engines, 1953, Bell
Document: SAM-D Air Defense Weapon System, 1973, US Army
Document: Pilots Handbook of Operation XLR11-RM-3 & XLR11-RM-5, liquid Rocket Engines, 1950, Reaction Motors
Art: X-15 lithograph (date unknown)
Document: The Centaur Program, 1961, Convair
Document: Orbiter Vehicle Structures, Rockwell
Document: An integrated Moonmobile-Spacesuit Concept, 1961, Aerojet
Document: The Intercontinental Stratoliner 707-320, 1955, Boeing
Document: Douglas DC-8 Design Study, 1953, Douglas
Document: Transport Weight Comparison Based on Lockheed 49-10, 1943, Lockheed
Document: ETR Launch Operations Plan for Cenaur on Shuttle, 1979, General Dynamics
Diagram: MD-11 wing diagram, six-feet long: McDonnel-Douglas, 1995
Document: A Lockheed presentation on the GL-224 Turbo-Jet VTOL Aircraft, 1958
Document: A Project RAND report on the GG-2 all-wing bomber, 1949
Document: A small Rockwell brochure on the “common core” concept for a fixed-wing subsonic B-1 variant, 1979 4) A presentation on the Douglas “Skybus,” 1944
Document: A NAA report on a turboprop-powered F-82E for ground attack, 1949
Document: A Curtis report on the twin engined F-87C, 1948
Document: A Vertol report on VTOL transport aircraft, showing several very different configurations, 1956
Document: A Lockheed presentation to the AIAA on the history of the Fleet Ballistic Missile, 1978
Document: A collection of Manned Spacecraft Center Space Shuttle orbiter concepts, 1972
Document: A Convair collection of design drawings of an Assault Seaplane, 1948 (NOTE: this one counts as two reports, as it’s fairly gigantic)
Document: A Vought report on the Regulus II missile with detailed diagrams, 1955
I’m about $21 short of the next milestone, which will result in two “PDF reviews” per month of little-known online aerospace history resources. So if that idea appeals… consider signing up (and telling all your friends who have a few dimes to rub together).
Also: in August there will be three documents/large format diagrams released, along with three CAD diagrams. The documents/LFD’s are yet to be chosen (the $10 patron will get to vote on this in the next week or so), but the CAD diagrams are underway. One is already basically complete: the first accurate and clean, large 3-view diagram of the Northrop Tacit Blue demonstrator. The second will be of a proposed launch vehicle. The third is still up in the air.
A while back I took a stab at printing cyanotype blueprints on canvas (the kind used by artists for painting on). After a rough start, I managed to get the process to work pretty well. It’s more complex and substantially more expensive than cyanotype printing on vellum paper, so I don’t know if I’ll make canvas blueprints available for regular sale like the paper versions. Still, I’ve put the first three successes on ebay if anyone is interested:
From the early 1960’s. Very likely *not* representative of an actual design, rather just artistic license.
I thought these might interest some, even with the heavy-duty watermarks:
This one shows a Max Faget “DC-3”-type orbiter serving as the base of operations for some sort of repair or resupply using teleoperated robots. There was a lot of expectation of such devices being used with Shuttle in the early days, but they (so far) just haven’t proved to be as capable as a guy in a suit.
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This one shows a nuclear rocket-powered manned Mars vehicle. It’s called a “nuclear powered space station” in the caption…
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This image shows two “DC-3” type orbiters (they look like North American Rockwell designs to me) meeting up to build a single interplanetary probe mission. Neither shuttle was capable of lofting both the deep space booster and the payload, so two launches are required. Of course, this sort of thing never happened.
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This one shows another telerobot in action. The caption on the back says that it’s being used to check over the shuttle prior to re-entry, which doesn’t match the image… but might have been of interest for the crew of Columbia.
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This shows a Boeing/Grumman TSTO Shuttle concept. The orbiter uses external propellant tanks; in these sort of designs, the tanks were usually all hydrogen. The much smaller volume of liquid oxygen would be kept in tanks that fit within the orbiter, and would of course come back. The reusable booster was necessarily gigantic.
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This one is kinda different: a plan for how astronaut David Scott was supposed to test the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit on Gemini VIII. This test was not carried out, since the spacecraft suffered a stuck valve on a thruster, went into a rapid tumble, nearly killed the crew and the mission was promptly aborted. The same sort of test was attempted on Gemini IX, and proved nearly as disastrous. Eugene Cernans space suit was specially made for the test, with an outer layer of woven steel “pants.” This was due to the fact that the AMU used hydrogen peroxide for propellant, exhausting superheated steam and oxygen exhaust. But the woven steel made the pressurized pants almost totally rigid, making the spacewalk back to the AMU a serious chore. As a result, his faceplate fogged up and he was nearly blind. He never got into the AMU, and it was never launched again. The Manned Maneuvering Unit tested on the Shuttle used cool pressurized nitrogen, negating the need for steel pants.
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This one is, I believe, from the late 1970s and depicts a jetliner with a multitude of small turbofan engines along the trailing edge of the wing. The engines would deflect with the control surfaces, providing thrust vectoring for STOL flight.
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Finally, everyone’s favorite… a hypersonic transport. Designs like this one from 1968 tended to be powered by scramjets which, forty-plus years later we still haven’t gotten to work in any really meaningful way. Whoopee.
I have added another milestone to my Patreon campaign. If I get to $500 of patronage…
There are a lot of PDF (and Powerpoint) references available online that would be of interest to aerospace aficionados. But that’s kinda the problem: there are a *lot* of them. NASA alone has had millions of reports online. There are far too many for any one person to even try to get a handle on. However… I’ve got a handle on a great many of them. While they are – or in some cases were – freely available online, you’d have to know they existed first. Well… for many thousands of such reports… I know they exist. So at this milestone, I’ll post reviews, including illustrations, of two such reports or presentations per month. Additionally, I’ll post links to the reports or, in some cases, the reports themselves.
So rather than just some snipped images, you’ll get the images, a description of the report *and* the report itself, posted to the APR Blog. This is in addition to the reports, brochures, documents and diagrams that get sent to patrons, stuff that *isn’t* otherwise available.
I have a pretty fair supply of interesting documents and large format drawings… but not an infinite supply. Consequently, I’m in the market. Do you have interesting aerospace (aircraft, missiles, spacecraft or even perhaps unusual naval or terrestrial projects) documents, large format diagrams or actual blueprints? If so, let’s talk. I’d like to borrow, rent or buy such things. My preference is of course for unbuilt projects, but basically *anything* interesting would be… interesting.
If you have something you’d be willing to share, but not give away, I’d be happy to scan it and send it back ASAP. Alternatively, I’d be happy with good scans.
Additionally: a lot of interesting stuff pops up on eBay. I am actively trolling eBay for such things; just bought two documents tonight. But there’s so much stuff on eBay, with such weird and divergent descriptions, that I can’t possibly hope to catch everything. So if you see something on eBay that looks interesting, by all means let me know.
These are vastly-reduced versions of some of the diagrams I may include as rewards for Patreon patronage. Not all are unbuilt aerospace projects, obviously, but all are, I trust, of interest to those interested in aerospace. If interested, please consider joining my Patreon campaign. Also to be provided are PDFs of aerospace documents
