Skybolt

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I have no photos or drafts, but a snippet of information:
in the RAND study "Bonber R&D since 1945. The Role of Experience" I found this:
The
Mach 2+ strategic bomber program elicited far more contractor interest,
with numerous firms entering the fray. In July 1955, six companies
were selected as finalists and received study contracts: North
American, Convair, Boeing, Martin, Douglas, and Lockheed. Late in
the year, the Air Force eliminated four of the contenders, leaving
North American and Boeing alone to fight it out with follow-on study
contracts.14
and note 14
14 It is surprising that Convair was eliminated, although the company was clearly fully
occupied with the F-102, F-106, B-58, and nuclear-powered bomber programs. Little
information is available in published sources on the criteria used for selection of the
winners.
.

Now, it seems that Dennis Jenkins has a lot of matter for a second edition of his worderful Valkyrie book.... (not to mention expanding the LRI-X chapter to include the Northrop designs and so on...)
 
Martin Ws-110 ---> Model 286 (?) (SAC Bomber)
 
Dear Orionblamblam,

please tell us about the Convair model number for WS-110.
 
I know, that only two firms (Boeing and North-American) have offered the projects.
 
Scott, the design you posted are seaplanes?
 
Devi, I know that Dennis jenkins in his "Valkyrie" says that Convair, Martin and Dougals declined to compete because thay were developing ballistic missiles and they didn't wanted to dilute their efforts (and that Convair and Lockeed received the WS-125 contract and they regarded WS-110 "easy"!!!). Is's always seemed to me that there was something strange in those reasons. In the '50s (as always) aerospace companies tryed to grab every bit of budget share they could. It was the customers who sometimes decided against one's participation. And, moreover, take Martin: the Titan was made from an entirely different division (Denver) than the airplanes one (Baltimore)! And Convair? It was doing Atlas, why accept the "diluting" WS-125? I think all this is just company PRs ("yes, they invited me but I declined; you know, I was sooooo busy those times..."). I'm a professional PR, I know the beasts very well...
 
For a prequel look here http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,543.0.html :D 8)
Received this from Stan Piet a couple of days ago, now I have permission to post (I wrote on the image a clear indication of its owner... ): unfortunately no model number or specs (only this apparently survived in the Martin archives), apart that it IS a bomber according to Stan. From the model list, this could be number 286 (I prefer this) or number 350 (too late, circa 1958). If anyone has some suggestions, comments, more info, he/she is welcome... :D
And, no, the "117" on the tail is purely decorative, WS-117 was the early recon satellite.. Must start a search in the National Archives, probably I'll have more info in six months :'(
 

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This is absolutely great, Skybolt! Thank you and Stan for sharing it - it's not one's ordinary Saturday today)
 
Thanks Gregory, now let see what our friends beyond the ocean and the Great Plains say... ;)
 
Hi,

I think it was Martin Model-350 and not Model-286,because
the Martin Model-365 rotor aircraft was submitted to convertiplane
competition of 1954/55,and logically the nearest design was
Model-350.



And what was that aircraft project for WS-110 ?.
 

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Could be, although the 350 SAC Bomber is followed by a 351 TAC bomber that seem a couple, same design with different performance. The image was a media reconstruction of what might have been the WS-110A, it was published in Flight, if I remember well.
 
Personal , I think Skybolt is very close with the Martin Model 286.

It fits perfect in the same time frame (1959) as the North American NA-259
project , phase I development of WS 110.

The illustration shown us by Hesham was one of very early artistst impressions
of this weapons system."Flying Review" of the late fifties called it the "Boron Bomber"
on account of the chemical fuel for the power plants.
 
Do this one fit in this topic?

Low-speed investigation of effects of vertical tails on the static stability characteristics of a canard-bomber configuration having a very thin wing and a slender elliptical fuselage

http://hdl.handle.net/2060/19660024046
 

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if I understand it right, this is very early 60s studies of using parawing for lowering WS-110 take-off *and landing* (wonder how that stuff would work in transition) speeds
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20040006446_2004003461.pdf
 

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...Scott, is the trifuselage one on the bottom left the "Dash-To-Target" proposal where the two outer fuselages dropped off just before target arrival?
 
The first photo of the parawing concept could well be not WS-110-related but Super Hustler-related (expendable stage).
 
Orionblamblam said:
OM said:
...Scott, is the trifuselage one on the bottom left the "Dash-To-Target" proposal where the two outer fuselages dropped off just before target arrival?

Yes. Though takeoff from rough seas would have been entertaining.

...Hell, the idea of the engines being below the wings *and* the fuselage with no visible skis is what surprises me.
 
FlatEric,

Do this one fit in this topic?

Low-speed investigation of effects of vertical tails on the static stability characteristics of a canard-bomber configuration having a very thin wing and a slender elliptical fuselage

http://hdl.handle.net/2060/19660024046


Nice looking design. It also looks like it would have been an excellent wave-riding platform if you look at that wedge structure in front of the inlets...

KJ
 
Scott,

A few questions.

Re: the 3-view at the top of your "Some of the Convair designs" drawing.

Looks somewhat different from the WS-110A drawings in USBP_Preview
pgs: 23, 24, 28.

I assume the underwing engine pylons rotated upward here as well.

Anyone ever found out more about the Mach 4 Convair seaplane concept?

Thanks
 
shockonlip said:
Looks somewhat different from the WS-110A drawings in USBP_Preview
pgs: 23, 24, 28.

Yes. Convair designed quite a large number of planes along these lines.

I assume the underwing engine pylons rotated upward here as well.

Yes.

Anyone ever found out more about the Mach 4 Convair seaplane concept?

Yes. I've a whole lot that'll be added to the relevant APR issue on this topic.
 
lark said:
Personal , I think Skybolt is very close with the Martin Model 286.

It fits perfect in the same time frame (1959) as the North American NA-259
project , phase I development of WS 110.

My original post was moved by accident to the 'Martin MX-2092 GEBO aircraft' thread, so I'll repost it.

Re. the illustration that Skybolt got from Stan Piet and that hesham has tentatively identified as the Martin Model-350. Are we looking at another turbojet (Wright J67?)/ramjet design here? Or (less likely IMHO) one with a turbojet/rocket combined cycle?
 
Grey, as they said, "that's a good question"... my own very personal opinion is that the Martin design Stan gave me entered in the WS-110 circus rather late, after NAA and Boeing were already working on it for some time. There is too much in the SR-type of studies done for the Air Force that we don't know, to be sure that the SAC bomber designs in the Martin design list are indeed related to known competition of the GOR, WS, or somethingX type (and we don't even know ALL the GOR, WS and somethingX competitions...).
 
Reading Aerospace Projects Review V5N6 Nov-Dec 2003 page 60, I've found a reference about MX-1847 (nuclear powered) and MX-2145 studies related to the very origins of WS-110. Any idea of dates for this studies?
 
Antonio said:
Reading Aerospace Projects Review V5N6 Nov-Dec 2003 page 60, I've found a reference about MX-1847 (nuclear powered) and MX-2145 studies related to the very origins of WS-110. Any idea of dates for this studies?

My dear Antonio,

as I know,MX-1847 was in 1952,and MX-2145 was in 1954.
 
According to Dennis R. Jenkins in 'Valkyrie , America's Mach 3 super bomber'
MX 1847 and MX 2145 were leading to the Boeing 713 series of designs.
713-1 etc group: chemical configuration
713-2 etc group: nuclear configuration

pages 17 and 21 .illustrations pages 24 on.

Dennis R.Jenskins & Tony R.Landis. Valkyrie..
Specialty Press ,2004
 
I'm doing some looking into this, but some information is suggesting that Boeing's MX-2145 were boost-glide concepts. I'm not sure if that's something like Dyna-Soar, or something else...
 
Most of the original WS-110 (Chemical Powered Bomber and related i.e. reconnaissance) proposals, such as the North American NA-239 were based around the use of Zip fuels.

Here's an August 1956 NACA research memorandum that mentions Zip fuels (although not specifically Monoethyl Dekaborane) in relation to chemical powered bombers and hybrid concepts, i.e. the nuclear cruise-chemical dash bomber and the nuclear subsonic tug/supersonic CPB tow.

Fuel heat of combustion. - A convenient means of presenting the
fuel picture in relation to heat of combustion is to plot the heat of
combustion of the elements as a function of their atomic numbers (fig.
6). Heats of combustion in excess of the current value of JP-4, 2400
nautical-mile pounds per pound (approximately 18,500 Btu/lb), can be obtained
by substituting lithium, beryllium, or boron for the carbon of
hydrocarbons, or by eliminating these elements entirely and using
hydrogen.

Lithium is not enough better than carbon to be of much interest.
Beryllium is much rarer, and is more toxic than boron, which leaves the
boron-hydrides of major interest. Pentaborane (B5H9) has a heat of combustion
of 29,000 Btu per pound. The development of the boron fuels
under the code name of Zip is being actively sponsored by the Department
of Defense. A fuel consisting of a combination of boron-hydride and
hydrocarbon with an estimated heat of combustion of 25,000 to 26,000 Btu
is being produced in laboratory quantities. If this fuel can be used in
place of JP-4, a range increase of 40 percent (26,000/18,500 = 1.40)
will be realized. However, the combustion products, boron oxide, tend
to deposit as a solid in the combustor and on the turbine stator blades;
intensive research is needed on this problem. Without going into details,
current research indicates that combustion of Zip fuel in the
afterburner causes less trouble than combustion in the primary combustor.
Use of Zip fuel in the afterburner only will increase range about 25 percent,
for that portion of the flight in which the afterburner is used.

Research and development on Zip fuel is currently limited in scope
because of the small quantities of the fuel that have been available.
Based on present recommedndations of the Department of the Navy and Department
of the Air Force, sufficient fuel should be available in about
2 years to permit an adequate attack on the problem of exhaust product
deposits. In the mean time, interesting laboratory results on full scale
engines are being obtained with the limited fuel quantities now available.

Hydrogen as a fuel would give a heat of combustion 2.75 times that
of JP-4, and would present no major engine operation problems,, In fact,
because of its combustibility, hydrogen has good combustion efficiency
at altitudes much in excess of those currently being used. The principal
disadvantage of hydrogen is its low density; in liquid form hydrogen
is only one-tenth as dense as JP-4, and extremely low temperatures are
required to maintain the liquid form. In comparison with a quantity
of JP-4 of given energy content, an equivalent amount of hydrogen would
weigh 0.4 as much, but would occupy four times the volume. This
lower density, with consequent larger fuel tanks, has led to consideration
of hydrogen primarily for altitudes above 70,000 feet and generaly
for radii of action less than that required for the strategic bomber
mission. Current interest in this fuel is for flights at considerably
higher altitudes, with particular emphasis on the reconnaissance
mission. The Department of the Air Force, in conjunction with the NYACA,
is conducttig an accelerated program on the use of hydrogen. Use of
hydrogen is discussed more fully in references 2 and 3.

Summarizing the chemical fuel picture: zip fuels may well increase
potential range of the strategic bomber by 25 percent of the portion of
the flight in which an afterburner is used. A potential range increase
of 40 percent will be realized if the boron oxide deposit problem is
solved, permitting full use of Zip fuel. The low density of hydrogen
makes it of current interest as a fuel to be used at quite high alti-,
tudes; decision on its use as a long-range fuel must await additional
research.

If the strategic bomber is powered with nuclear fuel instead of
chemical fuel, the value of h becomes many orders of magnitude greater
than that for chemical fuels. In this case, because range is sufficiently
greater than that required by the bomber mission, other factors,
notably nuclear radiation effects on the crew, determine the time the
airplane can stay in the air and so determine the radius.
 

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