post-cold war

Hi, the Japanese Hope-X is unmanned spaceplane. http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/2003/2003%20-%201081.html

Of mild interest to those of us in the UK is that Space Cargo modified C-5C 80216 arrived at Mildenhall yesterday. The aircraft (along with 80213) has been subject to a degree of interest over the years in connection with various projects, alleged Boscombe Down debris retrieval etc and rarely...

I will start to report news on Italian prototypes, that although numerous, appear to be little known We start from the family of vehicles OF-40 The OF40 is a tank that was produced in small quantities for export markets, from its platform, however, were derived means very interesting: OF-40...

...how about some Kaman prototypes and projects? Here are a few, probably nothing new, mostly from the Kaman pages at www.aviastar.org. All have photos or sketches there as well. --Kaman K-125 (1947) - Experimental prototype that proved the intermeshing twin-rotor design (one built) --Kaman...

G'day gents I have been reading a book 'On Weapons Decisions: How Australia Chooses to Arm Itself (1963-1996)' by John Bruni (again!) Under Part 2, Chapter 5 Patterms of Procurement 1983-1992, it talks about the early 1980's plans to replace the Australian Army's M113A1 APC fleet with an...

:o :o :o

Two artist's impressions of the Royal Navy's proposed future aircraft carrier (CVF) from 1999. These both show examples designed to operate STOVL aircraft. Source: http://navy-matters.beedall.com/cvf2.htm

Three-view drawing of Tupolev Tu-304. Source: http://www.sergib.agava.ru/russia/tupolev/304/304.htm

There are always tons of spacecraft in the world of science fiction but I am always especially looking out for ones that look plausible and could be built today or in the near future. First are some sketches and designs for various vehicles shown in the Japanese animated series "Gundam" (Set in...

Fun. I liek the C-5A for scale. Clearly we need a folding wing C-5C to fit below decks. ;D

Hi, http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1964/1964%20-%203116.html http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1964/1964%20-%203117.html http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1964/1964%20-%203118.html http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1964/1964%20-%203119.html...

I figured people would enjoy these pictures, since it was mentioned in another thread that the USN never really released anything on nuclear surface ship machinery. You can clearly see a Nimitz with both reactors and a number of turbines installed. I’m pretty certain its CVN-77 based on all the...

The Su-37 multirole, all-weather fighter aircraft demonstrator is derived from the family of aircraft based on the Su-27, which was developed in 1977 by the Sukhoi Experimental Design Bureau in Moscow and is in service with the Russian Air Force and a number of other countries. This family also...

Interesting. A little technical correction here: this was S-80 — not Su- for Sukhoi but S- for Simonov. Sukhoi model numbers are not allocated to all the designs, only those that get to the production stage.

I thought it might be interesting to start a thread on various South African prototypes, once-off's, concepts and modifications etc. I was thinking more in terms of the unusual, including modifications, as opposed to the usual Ratel, Rooikat, Olifant and the like. I have a few pictures of...

Due to the interest in the Ratel thread, I thought perhaps a similar thread detailing what is known concerning the Rooikat programme might be of interest. Once again, like many South African projects at the time, a lot of the information is hard won, due to tight security, sanctions, and secrecy...

I have been thinking about the South African Navy and it occurs to me that most of the ships in service (both Frigates and Submarines) at the end of the 1980s were approaching the end of their service lives. The country managed to construct the combat support ship SAS Drakensburg and I have...

Model of Tupolev Tu-330 on display at MAKS 2003. Source: http://www.avia-n-aero.ru/photo.php?category_id=360&parent_id=360

It would drive the cost sky high and ensure it never got built. And 90% of the targets wouldn't require it anyway. The US is even retiring it's best cruise missiles (the stealthy AGM-129) rather than convert them to conventional. Not sure why. Only thing I can come up with is the idea of...

Evening all As of today I am on leave for 3-weeks My greatest desire has been to unpack some of the many books I have had in storage, whilst being posted here and there. Whilst I was flicking through a mag I came across a past project that always impressed me as a kid. Its the Oerlikon GDF-DO3...