Weapons Systems 118P: the North American Aviation proposals

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Weapons Systems 118P called for high altitude reconnaissance aircraft proposals and was the forerunner of aircraft such as the B-70 Valkyrie and SR-71 Blackbird. Scott Lowther, a.k.a. Orionblamblam, had done a great deal of work to make the WS-118P proposals available on his blog and in his publication APR. Bell's proposals, for instance, are fairly well-known (and the subject of various posts on this very forum), but the North American designs for the same high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft program have not yet been covered here, so here goes.

Known design variants:

  • A « Phase II 1/2 » design was submitted on May 25, 1956 with delta canards, clipped delta wings, slanted lateral air intakes and rectangular fuselage section.
  • Under NAA designation S.O.2432, the company submitted on June 1, 1956 a « Phase III » design with oval fuselage section, ventral air intakes, full delta wing configuration and full delta canards.
NOTE: There doesn't seem to be a trace (yet) of what the « Phase I » and « Phase II » designs looked like.


Sources online:


Other topics on Secret Projects dealing with WS-118P proposals:

Attachments:

  • First two plans have been reworked by me from the PDF files for easy presentation.
  • Third and fourth image reproduce original artwork from NAA depicting both proposals.
  • Fifth image is my own attempt at offering a two-view plan of the « Phase III » proposal using the above plans as a basis.
 

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  • NAA WS-118P reconstruction.jpg
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Great job on the drawing restoration and collecting links to this material all in one place! A very interesting project indeed. :)
 
Thank you for rounding up the references into one place - this has helped with a (semi) related research project! The drawing are good as well.
 
Factory proposal model of North American Aviation WS-118:
 

Attachments

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WOW! Thank you, circle-5!
 
Hi,


here is a more drawings to North American D265 aircraft.


http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/158502.pdf
 

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Resurrecting an old thread for a few questions:
1) Is this the same requirement that resulted in the SR-71? I wonder about the proposed 4 J-79s of the NAA design as opposed to the 2 J-58s of Lockheed's airplane.
2) AFD-080409-006aerojet ATR-2010pdf noted above lists one of the engine choices a J85 burning hydrogen. This obviously isn't the J85 engine we've come to know. Any information on the larger engine?
3) Also, an Aerojet engine is mentioned an air-turbo-rocket ATR 2010. Any info?
 
No, it was an Air Force program from 1955.

In January 1955 the USAF issued Systems Requirement SR-12 for the Weapons System WS-118P high-speed reconnaissance vehicle.
Click to expand...

The A-12 was a CIA program from 1957 with first flight in 1962. USAF ordered the SR-71 derivative on 28 December 1962.
 

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