By the time I’d completed and polished up the design for the AARC X-3 Rocketplane, I had fallen in love. I wanted to add just one more illustration to tie a bow on the project: a cutaway drawing!



The diagram is colour-coded by subsystem:

Blue = electrical systems

Purple = engines

Green = fuel tanks

Brown = mscl subsystems

Yellow = structural framework



A detail of the cockpit area. In the event of an emergency, the entire cockpit ‘cigar’ can eject and float back down to earth on parachutes:

At the fuselage midpoint, the twin-engine housings blend into a single sleek javelin-shape.

While the nose landing gear retracts, the main landing struts are fixed in aerodynamic cowlings. More than anything, this was a nod to the legendary aircraft designs of Burt Rutan.

Read more:

The final Rocketplane design



The design process for the Rocketplane



I guess I just like drawing vintage-style rocketships?



