Interesting Skylab restoration find

wrote:

See this link:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/winemini.htm

Then go to the Photo Gallery, (Then scan down).




Stall speed looks a bit high.
"Those aren't wings... those are running boards! I forbid you to fly it
again!"
(Response of the Luftwaffe examiner Ernst Udet on getting his first look
at the HE-176 rocket fighter after its demonstration flight).

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
The guys restoring the Skylab replica came across two trailers of gear
that were used by Space Camp; besides lots of instrument panels that will
be reinstalled in the Skylab replica, they've found an adapter section
used to attach a Blue Gemini to the MOL. Here's a photo of one of these
from 1968, showing the six retro motors and the crew access tunnel that
would attach to the hatch in the heat shield:
http://www.usspacenews.com/sitebuild...33-366x336.png
The story is over on U.S. Space News: http://www.usspacenews.com/

I saw this story and became very excited. I hope this ends up at the USAF
Museum in Dayton, Ohio, where it can be displayed with the unflown Gemini
B/MOL that's currently missing its adapter section.

This picture is of a Gemini B (not sure which one)

http://www.usspacenews.com/sitebuild...44-530x400.png

The arrow points to the adapter section which was recently found, while the
portion that's in Dayton is the front, darker section that's the actual
re-entry capsule. It's currently displayed in the cold war missile gallery
such that you can see inside the cabin and you can clearly see the (closed)
hatches in the heat shield and the pressure vessel. You see the inside of
the pressure vessel hatch and the outside of the heat shield hatch.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

wrote in message
ups.com...
I just I.D.'d the MOL Hardware.

It was the prop. Mod. for winged Gemini config..

I knew I had seen it before somewhere.

So this was an adapter section for a winged Gemini, with five retro motors?
If so, it wouldn't match the pictures posted to US Space News, which had six
retro motors and the tunnel for MOL.

I'm confused now. Where are pictures of the actual hardware you found? ;-)

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

"Rusty" wrote in message
oups.com...

Into The Unknown Together,
The DOD, NASA and Early Spaceflight
(Mercury, Dyna Soar, Gemini, MOL, Apollo, AAP)

by Mark Erickson LT. Colonel UsAF
Air University Press
Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

Sept 2005 - 668 pages

http://aupress.au.af.mil/Books/Erickson/erickson.pdf

Curse you Rusty, these PDF's are eating up all of my reading time. ;-)

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

Pat Flannery wrote:

Stall speed looks a bit high.
"Those aren't wings... those are running boards! I forbid you to fly
it again!"
(Response of the Luftwaffe examiner Ernst Udet on getting his first
look at the HE-176 rocket fighter after its demonstration flight).


Actually it was more of a test aircraft than a fighter prototype, but
I'm fairly sure they would have gotten around to sticking a machine gun
or two on it sooner or later in the improved version.
BTW- just recently a photo of the aircraft has surfaced, which shows
that it was quite different from the artists conceptions of it that you
may have seen: http://www.luft46.com/prototyp/he176.html
It was more sophisticated in design than once thought.

Pat