1960s

The first model I did for Fantastic Plastic back in 2004 was the British Avro 730 bomber in 1/144 scale. Last year I was asked to re-visit the model. I completely rescribed it, added cockpit, landing gear and bomb bay details, and just generally improved the hell out of it. The first time...

A recent book releasing British nuclear discussions by Peter Hennessy throws some clear answers to often asked questions: Why did the RN not get the fifth Polaris boat? After much discussion the new Labour Government in 1964 decided that the Polaris fleet was too worthwhile to cancel. Two...

Sorry if this has been covered before. Were all early VFW-614 concepts swing-nose types? Attached in a manufactures 3-view drawing showing a swing nose. Note: at this stage, the Weser Fluzeugbau WFG-614 was to be powered by twin Lycoming PLF1B-2s.

About 2 weeks ago, I found a thread with this name in the "Space Secret Projects" section. It contained an article from the Flight PDF archive. Now this thread has vanished... :( Anybody got a clue why? If possible, please post it again! many thanks Coach

In Friedman's book on British Destroyers and Frigates there is an interesting account of how the Royal Navy looked at the competing virtues of two ships which are described but never illustrated. The first is a 10,000 ton escort cruiser armed with Seadart launchers front and aft and with a...

According to Paul Czysz, he claimed that McDonnell Aerospace had an aerospace plane that probably first flew in 1963 and entered service in 1964 flying until at least 1979. I was told the plane had a smaller payload than the Space-Shuttle. It to the best of my knowledge was a single-stage to...

I know this one has a lot of questions. If anybody has a good answer, I'd like to hear it. Would the F-12B interceptor have resulted in a significantly different development of Russian/Soviet aircraft? Would it have played a role in the development of our fighter designs? Would it have...

From Journal Of The Royal Aeornautical Society August 1965. Not sure if this is a proper project or not as it says no more than the title in an article about VTOL. Regards, Barry

has this been discussed before? http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/yak_vvp-6.php

In the 1960s the RN considered ordering up to six purpose built Commando/ASW carriers to replace the Albion and Bulwark conversions. It is a pity that the RN's focus on trying to keep its fixed wing aircraft carriers stood in the way of this programme as a decent design emerging in the second...

Lockheed produced several initial designs leading to the Hummingbird. One of them was the GL-224-2 concept. Is there anyone who can help with a decent three view drawing or an other illustration about? The 'X' plane book No.5 -HPM Publications haves an illustration but in my copy the drawing...

In his book on attack aircraft of the West Bill Gunston refers to a British Aircraft Corporation brochure published in the early 60s showing the Mirage III vstol in RAF and RN colours in the process of being delivered to the UK forces, the final page of which is described as being the first...

FIAT G91 was one of the most succesful Italian aeronautical products of '60s. A lot of the were produced and utilized at least by AMI, Luftwaffe and Portoguese Air Force. FIAT G91 was a close support light STOL fighter-bomber, with some recce capabilities despite its not optimal flight...

History of Ramjet and Scramjet Propulsion Development for U.S. Navy Missiles This appears to be the patent for the missile. The attached image is extracted from it. The fuel used is 50% boron. Would this be a significant contributing reason as to why the missile was not funded for further...

Captures from Discovery Channel's The Real Flying Saucers documentary

In Rebuilding the Royal navy, its author D K Brown mentions a fellow naval architect called Eric Tupper being part of a team that was developing a catamaran to launch space vehicles. This appears to have been at the time the Type 82 destroyer was being designed so this makes it the 60’s. Does...

The CL-212s were hovercraft not aircraft. Two were built. The clip below was taken from a Videotron page on Canadair special projects (alas, now 404): http://pages.videotron.com/frfauch/Canadair/Website/specprod.html [Dead link] Air Cushion Vehicles Between 1964 and 1967, the company...

In 1960 Eugen Sänger work for German Aerospace Company Junkers. on basis of his Silbervögel, designing a Sled-Launched two stage space-plane the "RT-8-01 Raumtransporter" later called Sänger I July 1961 beginn of Project by Sänger RT-1 to RT-7 never really existed as completed designs...

And what was that project for Bolkow ? from; http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1964/1964 - 2966.pdf

In the book Project Cancelled there is a whole chapter devoted to the British Army project for a "Jumping Jeep" which could leap across obstacles using jump jets/rotorfans. The winning bid from BAC was under development until the mid 60s when it was cancelled on cost and practicality grounds...