Shipbucket

Reusable orbital launch system



The concept is based on a shuttle without pilot and launched by a carrier plane. Once in the air, the shuttle continues the ascent till it reaches its orbit and then launches its satellite. Then, it comes down in automatic pilot up to a landing ground to be recovered with the aim of a new launching. This technique allows to avoid any rejection of waste (tank, boosters) and to lower strongly the costs of launching.

(For more infos look :http://www.s-3.ch/)

Does the shuttle enter orbit itself, or does it simply release a third stage with a satelite at the top of a sub orbital arc?

It's an attractive drawing, although if you're interested in realism then your cargo bay is way oversized for what is nearly a SSTO. You would need to devote much, much more internal volume to tankage than you've currently got.

erik_t wrote:It's an attractive drawing, although if you're interested in realism then your cargo bay is way oversized for what is nearly a SSTO. You would need to devote much, much more internal volume to tankage than you've currently got.

It's not unreasonable if the shuttle part only makes sub-orbital hops to release a third stage into orbit. Much like the new Indian space plane, except using an airplane as a first stage instead of solid boosters.

There would really not be much point. Your second stage is going to be way downrange at that point, badly limiting the freedom of launch location and insertion inclination that is much of the attraction of an air-launched vehicle in the first place.

Something I've had brewing in the back of my mind since I first saw Hood's original work. It's intended to be a contemporary of the Sabre, though I'm betting probably isn't going to be quite as nimble, falling somewhere between the F-84 and F-86 in performance.

Nice mods, looks good.

Thanks! All I did was add a bit of streamlining, and the tails from the Mystere II and IV. My main concern about it as a fighter is the wing shape being probably not optimized for it, as the original design was more intended for ground attack. Still, many nations struggled with their early jets, and I can picture this one as able to at least hold its own with a Saber, while having its way with less refined jets like the Vampire or F-84.

Aerodynamically, It can't be much worse than the Tunnan, and that thing was by all repute rather effective.

This is a refined adaptation of the C version that I did up in the Nationstates version of Pallamara's colors. What looks like a star on the roundel is actually a star fort:

My first step into FD scale. Just a small kitbashing and recoloring of the existing Leopard 1.


KPz 4A7 Leopard (Imperial German Army Marine Command)

Introduced in 1965 the Krauss-Maffei Leopard was the fourth main battle tank and the first indigenious one to be fielded by the Imperial German Army after the M4 Sherman, M47 Patton, and M48 Patton.
After several upgrades the currently deployed KPz 4A7 is the most advanced version of this successfull tank.
Allthough superseded by its younger brother, the KPz 5 Panther and his legged cousin, the KpfLf 3 Löwe, 15 of the 70 active armor battalions, and all ten National guard armor battalions are still equipped with the Leopard.

The unit shown here belongs to the 474th Armor Battalion of the 47th Naval infantry Brigade. Like alle other battalions and companies of the Brigade, the Four-Fourtyseven is based at the Adolf Heusinger Barracks outside of the small village Fasana in southern Carniola.