Announcing RetroMechanix.com - devoted to yesterday's vehicles of tomorrow!

[jzichek]

​Greetings Fellow Aviation/Transport Enthusiast:

I've recently set up a new website called RetroMechanix.com, an online magazine devoted to futuristic and/or unusual vehicles from earlier decades, with special emphasis on prototype and unrealized U.S. aerospace projects. The name is a take on Hugo Gernsback's Modern Mechanix magazine of the 1930's, the spirit of which I hope to carry on into the 21st century (minus its more sensationalistic qualities).

In its current state, RetroMechanix.com is essentially a digital version of The American Aerospace Archive magazine, though I eventually hope to start covering other forms of transport, such as unusual autos, ships, tanks, trains etc. I'm also aiming to eventually present book and model reviews, original videos and animations, etc. Having witnessed the arrival of the iPad and the demise of many traditional newsstand magazines, it's clear that the future is digital and online. Retromechanix.com articles will present previously unpublished material and/or endeavor to build upon that which has already been published. The best news is that the majority of the content is now free! At the end of most articles, you have the option of purchasing high resolution jpegs of the images featured therein as a downloadable .zip file. These are scanned at 300 dpi, watermarked with an unobtrusive semi-transparent "RetroMechanix.com" logo in the corners, and are often much larger than images previously published in either the printed or digital versions of The American Aerospace Archive, with some blueprints measuring over 2.5ft in length. These are ideal for the modeler, illustrator or general enthusiast who wants a highly detailed look at a particular vehicle; a free sample download is available here.

Currently featured on the site are summaries of the known proposals to the US Navy OS-130 Day Fighter competition of February 1953 which ultimately yielded both the legendary Vought F8U Crusader and the less successful Douglas F5D Skylancer:



Subjects covered include the Convair Carrier Based F2Y, Douglas Model 652, Grumman Design 97, Lockheed L-242 Navalized Starfighter, McDonnell Model 90/91, North American OS-130 Class VF Day Fighter, Northrop Model N-94, TEMCO Model 31, and Vought V-383/V-384. Also featured is an article on the September 1953 inspection of the Vought XF8U-1 mock-up with 91 highly detailed photos. Most of the material is original and previously unpublished.

I hope to add a couple articles per week to the site, so please bookmark it and visit frequently, add it to your RSS feed, etc. You are welcome to write comments at the end of the articles, though please keep them relevant, constructive and free of offensive language. If you enjoy RetroMechanix.com, please spread the word among your friends; we need the site traffic in order to make it an ongoing success. The American Aerospace Archive magazine will be going on hiatus, though printed versions of issues 1-5 will remain available through MagCloud and PDF versions through AeroArchivePress.com. If you have any questions, please email me at my new email address, editor@retromechanix.com.

Best Regards,

Jared Zichek
Editor, RetroMechanix.com/The American Aerospace Archive magazine​

[GTX]

Is good - had a look after receiving the email on it today.

Regards,

Greg

[Supertom]

Looks great - good luck with the site!

[jzichek]

After reviewing the initial numbers for the site premiere, I have decided to offer free access to the high resolution drawings, photos and artwork of the aircraft proposals featured therein. If you have not visited RetroMechanix.com for a while, please come by and check out the new image galleries for each article; there are now approximately 500 high resolution images available to freely view and download of the Convair Carrier Based F2Y, Douglas Model 652, Grumman Design 97, Lockheed L-242 Navalized Starfighter, McDonnell Model 90/91, North American OS-130 Class VF Day Fighter, Northrop Model N-94, TEMCO Model 31, Vought V-383/V-384, and Vought XF8U-1 Mock-up Inspection. All of it is based on primary documents and the majority is previously unpublished.



I've also added a new article on a proposal known as the "Sapphire powered Grumman Cougar" dating from the early 1950's:



This was an intermediate study between the F9F-6 and the Design 97, a stage in an evolution that eventually culminated in the F11F Tiger. The article features 12 never before published images and a short summary of the design. All articles and images are published under a Creative Commons License and subject to the terms laid out therein.

Going forward, we will be regularly updating the site several times per week with new articles on various aerospace studies, prototypes, modifications, etc. Please check back frequently, add us to your RSS feed, etc. We've decided to focus solely on aerospace subjects for the time being, but may expand to cover other vehicle types as we acquire more material.

As we now rely solely on advertising dollars for support, we ask that our readers help us by doing the following:

1. Help promote the site — post links to articles you particularly like on relevant sites and forums, your own blog, etc. This especially goes for our international fans, as we want to reach as wide an audience as possible.
2. If you utilize an ad-blocking plugin on your browser, please disable it for RetroMechanix.com.
3. Please support our sponsors.

Feel free to comment on the articles; registration is now open for those who want to participate. You can read our commenting policy here. The site is best viewed with the latest versions of Google Chrome and Safari; Explorer, FireFox, and Opera also work, but display inferior anti-aliasing of the low resolution versions of the images. (The images look fine once you zoom in to the high resolution versions, however). Depending on your connection speed, some of the pages may load slowly due to the high resolution of the images being displayed.

Thank you for your consideration; I hope you enjoy the site and visit frequently.

Best Regards,

Jared Zichek
Editor, RetroMechanix.com

[reddfoxx]

Awesome.  Awesomeawsomeawsome.  The navalised 104 particularly intrigues me.

I have some of your previous monographs, print and PDF, and they are great too.  Keep it up!

[rallymodeller]

Just spent the last little while going through the McDonnell 90/91 section.

AMAZING.

I shall be following this site closely.

[jzichek]

Greetings,

Based on reader feedback, I've revised the way images are presented in the articles; before I had multiple, different image galleries spread across several pages—now these have been collapsed into a single image gallery that appears at the top of page 1 of each article. The major articles affected by this change are the Grumman Design 97 Day Fighter, Lockheed L-242 Navalized Starfighter, McDonnell Model 90/91 Carrier Day Fighters, North American OS-130 Class VF Day Fighter, Northrop Model N-94 Class VF Day Fighter, TEMCO Model 31 VF Day Fighter, Vought V-383 / V-384 Day Fighter (Original F8U Crusader Proposal), North American All-Weather Super Fury, and the Vought V-358 Attack — Fighter Design Study. Check these out again in case you missed out on some cool content; the Northrop N-94 article has 102 images alone.

Also, author Tony Buttler has been kind enough to donate some color photos of desktop display models to supplement the articles. I've added one to the image gallery of the Grumman Sapphire Powered Cougar here and one to the Vought V-383/V-384 gallery here.

-Jared