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
I’ve launched the Patreon funding campaign:
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You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi plus a bonus CAD diagram at 300 dpi, sized for 8.5X11
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Here’s another one of those “I was sure I’d posted it before, but now can’t seem to find it” items…
A 1948 promo video by Northrop showing a mockup of a passenger compartment to be built into a B-49-style flying wing. Very spacious, and with one heck of a view to the front and rear, but of course none to the side. The idea of flying wing airliners keeps popping up, but also keeps never happening. There are several decent reasons for this:
1) It’s more difficult to pressurize the non-cylindrical passenger compartment, meaning that it’ll weigh more (and thus negate some of the weight savings of using a flying wing)
2) Configurations like this won’t fit quite so conveniently at most airports. The jetways will have a hard time mating up.
3) Most of the passengers won’t have any sort of view at all, it’d be like flying in a cargo container.
4) The further a passenger is left or right from the centerline, the more disconcerting and uncomfortable rolling maneuvers will be for them.
5) It’s different. The Dash-80 (the prototype for what became the KC-135 and 707) set the basic configuration for the modern jetliner in 1954… 60 years ago. The most modern jetliners don’t really look any different. And like it or not, “convention” matters.
Northrop drawings of this jetliner are HERE.
[youtube JMTwQ9b5hvk]
An educational/promotional film from NASA describes the Supersonic Transport program as of 1966. Of interest are the wind tunnel models: they’re are the size of jet fighters. They don’t make ’em like that anymore…
[youtube u9BjJaDlOaQ]
The innards of the initial Model 2707 SST from Boeing. Image originally from an ebay listing.
Boeing artwork from December 1963 depicting the Model 733-197 swing-wing SST. Noteworthy is the resemblance to the later Rockwell B-1 bomber, except with less blending and separately podded engines.
A cutaway of an early Model 733 supersonic transport with swing-wings. From the Jay Miller archive.
Spike Aerospace, about which I know approximately nothing, wants to build a Mach 1.6 SSBJ known as the S-512. For a SSBJ, it’s a fairly conventional design. However, what’s getting it some press is the idea that it won’t have any passenger compartment windows; instead, it will have a long window-like high-def display strip which will show an external view.
While it looks spiffy in the PR art… unless this display is some sort of sci-fi holographic display, it will looks distinctly “off” compared to a real window. If you are up front, for example, and you look out the “window” well aft, rather than showing you a view looking aft, it will show you a view looking off to the side.
Someday I imagine materials tech will be such that an actual window strip can be made for pressurized aircraft. And that… will be odd.
If the computer generated artwork on their site is anything to go by (and it may not be), the design does not seem to be very far advanced. The landing gear, for example… yeesh. Span is 60 feet, length 131 feet; 12 to 18 passengers; cruises at Mach 1.6, dash at Mach 1.8; MTOW = 84,000 lbs; engines, 2 P&W JT8D; range 4000 nautical miles. There are a few sonic boom-fighting elements… long nose, engines hidden above the fuselage, reduced number of surfaces. But it remains to be seen if the FAA would allow supersonic overflight of land areas in the US.
From the Jay Miller archive, a 1964 cutaway illustration of the Boeing 733-197 supersonic transport. This was relatively low capacity compared to the later 2707 designs, being somewhat more like Concorde. I’ve seen and scanned several different versions of this, but each has been substantially flawed (this one is gray and the wingtips are out of focus… another is color, but was chopped in half to fit in a proposal, etc.). If anyone might happen to have a high-rez, clear color version, I’d love to see it.
See HERE for more on the 733-197.
A bit of Boeing art showing trip times around the US for their 2707 SST. This was obviously before the panic over sonic booms destroyed hopes for overland supersonic travel.
