Early in the LHX program (gave birth to the late lamented RAH-66 Comanche) the Army’s requirements were sufficiently aggressive and vague that Bell Aerospace held out hope that a tiltrotor might be chosen. So Bell designed a few single-seat “scout” tiltrotors under the BAT (Bell Advanced Tiltrotor) moniker. Most were more or less similar in…
Oddly, the PBS special “In The Event of Catastrophe” from 1978 is age restricted. Click on it, it’ll take you to YouTube directly. Shrug. “First Strike” from the RAND Corporation. A docu-drama depicting a Soviet first strike that effectively wipes out America’s nuclear retaliatory capability and leads to the capitulation of the USA. Bits…
A less than one minute video describing the dropoff in quality in art in the Roman Empire. Some of it was due to cultural changes, but there was also a distinct drop in quality during times of crisis. It was especially bad during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. If you want to draw…
The Vertol Model 107 became the Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight. It has been a fabulously successful helicopter; development began almost *70* years ago, and some are still in service. One suggested modification from 1961 would have seen the helicopter (designated HC-1A at the time) modified into an anti-tank variant using wire-guided anti-tank missiles. The…
I post this every few years because people have a short memory and generally refuse to learn from history. The Plymouth colony was originally set up to be a Christian commune. This was not some random weird choice on their part, but was based on their reading of the Bible and Plato, both of which…
The Grumman Advanced Stealthy Penetrator (GASP) received a fair amount of exposure in the mid 1980’s by way of artists concepts published in aviation magazines and the like. Actual technical information has remained elusive; the total pile of artwork and photos of a display model would permit the creation of reasonably good layout diagrams, but…
The original “Scooby Doo” show was important and useful because while every episode had some supernatural badguy – ghosts and monsters and such – at the end it always turned out that the actual badguy was just some actual human, no supernatural elements required. Just villainy and petty evil. it taught kids – maybe, if…
A bit short of a week ago I posted artwork of a “Boeing Advanced Fighter.” This led to the re-discovery of the actual model number 987-350 (I knew it some time back, but my brain is full I guess). And that led to the below CAD diagram, coming in just under the wire for a…
The National Reconnaissance Office is starting a series on the history of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, a small space lab that was designed in the early/mid 1960s for the Air Force. Officially just a basic space lab, in reality it was an advanced (for the time) spy satellite. So far there is only Part One…
