The gallery above reproduces “Flash Performance of the P-51D Airplane Equipped with Acid Aniline Rocket Motor,” a test report of The Air Proving Ground Command at Eglin Field, Florida dated October 3, 1946. The object of the tests was to determine the operational suitability of the P-51D airplane equipped with an acid-aniline rocket motor. Two P-51D-25 [...]
The Lockheed XF-90 was built in response to a 1945 Air Force requirement for a long range penetration fighter and bomber escort. It was an attractive aircraft heavily influenced by the company’s experience with the P-80, sharing a similar intake and low wing configuration. However, it was designed to operate at higher speeds, with a [...]
Previously, we featured an article here at RetroMechanix.com on a Cornell study for a long range ram jet bombardment missile dating from March 1946. During this period, the Air Force appears to have been especially interested in this type of weapon, as it also issued a contract for a similar study by the Applied Physics [...]
The document presented above is a progress report dating from September 15, 1946 for the Martin Orbit Project, an ambitious single-stage-to-orbit satellite launch vehicle designed for the U.S. Navy. The design appears to be a refinement of Martin’s earlier proposal for the High Altitude Test Vehicle (HATV) program, which had its origins in a May [...]
The gallery above reproduces a letter from Republic Aviation Corporation to the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics dated September 16, 1948 enclosing revised drawings of the Republic AP-47 mixed-power ground support airplane proposal. The letter was found in USAF files (which may have been those of the Colonel J.S. Holtoner also referenced in the [...]
The above gallery reproduces the main body of “Influence of Certain Parameters on Long Range Ram Jet Bombardment Missiles Including the Effect of Highly Swept Wings,” a Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory report dating from March 29, 1949. In the report, Cornell investigated the horizontal, self-powered flight path of a given ram jet missile configuration to determine [...]
The gallery above reproduces an October 1949 report outlining the uses and requirements for the Supersonic Naval Ordnance Research Track (Project SNORT), a facility proposed for the Naval Ordnance Test Station located at Inyokern, California. This would be a straight railway 11 miles long, on which rocket-propelled vehicles would carry various kinds of test items at speeds reaching into [...]
In our twelfth article in a series on the Bell D188A/Model 2000 (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter of the late 1950s, we present a pair of Bell reports from early 1959—a Progress Report from January and a report on Experimental Model Programs dating from February 6. In the abstract to the Progress Report, Bell notes that [...]
The gallery above reproduces an Intelligence Report from the U.S. Military Attache, London dated December 12, 1947 which was found in the files of the U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff, Development, Director of Research and Development, Aircraft Division, Airplane Branch, RG 341 at National Archives II in College Park, Maryland. The report describes the [...]
The gallery above reproduces the “Lockheed Constitution Development Story,” a publication from December 1950 summarizing the design and development of the Lockheed XR6O-1 Constitution, a huge aircraft initiated in 1942 by Lockheed as a long-range, high capacity transport and airliner for Pan American Airways and the U.S. Navy. Only two Constitutions were ultimately built, both serving [...]
In the third installment of an unplanned series on the navalized Lockheed P-80A, Serial No. 1028/Navy Serial 29668, we present a U.S. Naval Air Test Center (NATC) report dating from June 23, 1947 on flight tests of the Shooting Star as an overload fighter with wing tip auxiliary fuel tanks installed—project TED No. PTR 1116. I [...]
The Lockheed V-156 was a study for a jet patrol airplane prepared for the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics on November 1, 1944. Resembling an enlarged Fouga Magister (though bearing no relation to that design), the V-156 was a shoulder wing monoplane with a V-tail powered by a pair of unspecified jet engines, possibly the [...]
