HOTOL: Britain's Spaceplane by Dan Sharp

newsdeskdan said:
Update: The book is complete and ready for page design.

However, it is currently undergoing a BAE Systems vetting process which could take some time. As such, I can't now say exactly when the book will actually be physically available.

Now moving on to the next thing...
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Out of curiosity, why does the vetting have to occur? Is it in exchange for information from their archives?
 
scautomoton said:
Out of curiosity, why does the vetting have to occur? Is it in exchange for information from their archives?
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I'm not entirely sure. However, the book was made in large part using BAE Systems material so if they want to vet it then I'm happy for that to happen.
 
Does that mean that it may be available by Christmas? That is if all goes well with the vetting process.
 
FighterJock said:
Does that mean that it may be available by Christmas? That is if all goes well with the vetting process.
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If I was told tomorrow that the book was fine and to go ahead with the page design, I suppose physical copies could be available by... mid-October. And it sort of rolls from there. So this time next week... late October. Two weeks from now, end of October. Three weeks, early November and so on.

If things go badly, I suppose the book might never come out. Sad, but these things happen.
 
FighterJock said:
Don't say that Dan, about the book never coming out. I know that could be a possibility, but as for someone who is looking forward to it I do not want it to end up like that.
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Ha - well - I have a full-time job and the book was written in my own time, outside working hours. So I spent every spare second for six months doing nothing but writing it. It's ~160,000w so that's about 880w of print-ready copy per day every single day during that time, not to mention preparing the full set of 500 or so scanned images for publication (rotating, removing blemishes etc. Some were in a fairly poor state).

I had faithfully promised Alan Bond and Gerald Wilson (Hotol deputy project leader) five years ago that I would do the book. Indeed, the cover is done, the book is written, the publisher is ready to go. Certainly, Gerald has read it, Dr Bob Parkinson has read it, other team members have read it. All seem to concur that it is a fair and accurate account (not to mention being extremely detailed).

The story of Hotol is ready to be told and obviously I'd like to get it out there - and it very nearly got over the line without any problems. I've kept my promise and if the book falls at this last, unforeseen, hurdle then so be it.

That said, perhaps the vetting will conclude with a positive decision. I certainly hope it does.
 
Zoo Tycoon said:
Ah ,I worked with Gerald on Nimrod MRA4. The last time I saw him he said the book about MRA4 would follow the one he wanted to do on Hotol.
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Along with Alan Bond, Gerald provided most of the material that the book is based on - a vast quantity of it - and has been immensely helpful in going through completed chapters and offering additional insights, as well as spotting the occasional typo.

I believe a number of other people have been interested in writing the Hotol story but it is a somewhat daunting prospect and, once under way, a difficult task - given the length of the project, the number of people who worked on it (literally dozens of highly skilled engineers and scientists, many of whom are still alive and who have their own views on what happened and why), the complexities and ever evolving nature of the vehicle itself etc.

I did basically all the research I needed for the book five years ago and it took until about February of this year, on and off, to get through the material I had and get it into a structure around which I could write a viable book manuscript.
 
TBH, the when is incidental, the quality is what brings me back and makes me doubt my sanity by going back for more. Rather like a great chocolate beetroot cake, I can never stick to one slice........

Thanks Dan, as long as you rite 'em............
 
I take it we find out if this was another UK "On the verge of success" screwups somewhere in there.

I know we all have our own opinions but an unbiassed clinical viewpoint always helps see the wood from the papier mache.
 
Foo Fighter said:
I take it we find out if this was another UK "On the verge of success" screwups somewhere in there.

I know we all have our own opinions but an unbiassed clinical viewpoint always helps see the wood from the papier mache.
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Well, it's been 30 years and the engine concept still hasn't taken flight yet as SABRE. So I don't think it was on the verge of anything other than cancellation.
 
FighterJock said:
Does that mean that it may be available by Christmas? That is if all goes well with the vetting process.
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Oh, I'm absolutely dead certain it most definitely will! Bureaucracies being what they are however, the one and only thing that is still up for debate though is which year...
 
newsdeskdan said:
Ha - well - I have a full-time job and the book was written in my own time, outside working hours. So I spent every spare second for six months doing nothing but writing it. It's ~160,000w so that's about 880w of print-ready copy per day every single day during that time, not to mention preparing the full set of 500 or so scanned images for publication (rotating, removing blemishes etc. Some were in a fairly poor state).

I had faithfully promised Alan Bond and Gerald Wilson (Hotol deputy project leader) five years ago that I would do the book. Indeed, the cover is done, the book is written, the publisher is ready to go. Certainly, Gerald has read it, Dr Bob Parkinson has read it, other team members have read it. All seem to concur that it is a fair and accurate account (not to mention being extremely detailed).

The story of Hotol is ready to be told and obviously I'd like to get it out there - and it very nearly got over the line without any problems. I've kept my promise and if the book falls at this last, unforeseen, hurdle then so be it.

That said, perhaps the vetting will conclude with a positive decision. I certainly hope it does.
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Dan, Thank You for doing an absolutely outstanding job as always. You are one of the bright shining lights in the darkness of ignorance.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Well, it's been 30 years and the engine concept still hasn't taken flight yet as SABRE. So I don't think it was on the verge of anything other than cancellation.
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Its not even that positive, as both the engine and airframe concept from HOTOL morphed significantly into SABRE/Skylon in order to try and make them work. For the SSTO application then both engine and airframe are so interlinked that you need technically viable solutions for both. From the engineering leadership then you need to ruthlessly eliminate any optimistic estimates otherwise your payload fraction disappears.

newsdeskdan said:
The story of Hotol is ready to be told and obviously I'd like to get it out there -
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Does the story include the Government side as well? Or is this book more of a technical development history than your others?
 
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A week into BAE Systems' vetting of the book and no further updates from them. Looking through the manuscript, relatively little of it looks like it would be contentious. All the key British Aerospace personnel featured have either given their consent or are now sadly deceased. Much of the technical material - configuration, operation, mission etc. - is similarly uncontentious.

I suppose where the axe could conceivably fall is on internal British Aerospace business discussions and on mentions of company personnel who were somewhat less directly involved in Hotol but who still appear, connected with it in various ways, in the story. Then again, where those personnel are no longer with us, which they are not in many cases, it shouldn't be an issue.
 
Mr Sharp, I look forward to purchasing a copy of your HOTOL book when it's published in the United States. Modern computer-generated color illustrations look okay, although to my eye they seem to all blur together in a bland sameness after awhile. Will your forthcoming book also include one or more detailed line drawings, cutaway or exploded views of the machine, like this delightfully informative hand-drawn artwork (see attached) from the 25 March 1989 issue of FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL? Drawings like this just look more—well—human than the computer-generated stuff.

Best wishes for your new book's success worldwide.
 

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Re. NASP. et al, for a similar in depth volume that would probably need to be a US. author having access to the archives and relevant persons within the US. (Scott ? Dennis ?)

Dan is ideally placed to cover HoTOL. as it was a British project with many of the personalities being avaliable for interview. Like many here I'm soo looking forward to this previously unresearched project coming to fruition

With regard further works in similar vein, personally I'd love to see a companion volume on MUSTARD. with possibly a later one on RAL. Skylon completing the set :)
 
TsrJoe said:
Re. NASP. et al, for a similar in depth volume that would probably need to be a US. author having access to the archives and relevant persons within the US. (Scott ? Dennis ?)

Dan is ideally placed to cover HoTOL. as it was a British project with many of the personalities being avaliable for interview. Like many here I'm soo looking forward to this previously unresearched project coming to fruition

With regard further works in similar vein, personally I'd love to see a companion volume on MUSTARD. with possibly a later one on RAL. Skylon completing the set :)
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Skylon gets a bit of coverage in the Hotol book. As mentioned previously, the configuration changes remarkably little over an extended period of time - with all the effort being focused on the engines, particularly the heat exchangers. And I'm not sure how much of that effort RAL would be willing to openly reveal and discuss. What changes there have been to Skylon get a reasonable amount of coverage in the Hotol book.
 
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newsdeskdan said:
Update: The book is complete and ready for page design.

However, it is currently undergoing a BAE Systems vetting process which could take some time. As such, I can't now say exactly when the book will actually be physically available.

Now moving on to the next thing...
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Dan, many people hope that the "next thing" is the long waited "Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe - Vol. 2: Bombers".
 
Wurger said:
Dan, many people hope that the "next thing" is the long waited "Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe - Vol. 2: Bombers".
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The next thing is now finished - writing the words to a JP Vieira profiles bookazine (due for publication shortly). I've also written a 3000w German secret projects-related article for Flypast magazine (due for publication I know not when).
I'm now on with two other things, neither of which is Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe - Vol. 2: Bombers.
I may have to break off from those, however, if I can actually move forward with Hotol.
 
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FighterJock said:
How long would that take Dan? Would it miss Christmas?
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It really depends on how extensive the changes they want are. Without wishing to blow my own trumpet, as it were, I'm pretty... fast when it comes to writing and I'm even faster when it comes to rewriting, adjusting, chopping, changing, amending etc. something I've already written.
Some time ago, when it became clear that this vetting thing was unavoidable, I asked BAE Systems to highlight the 'problem' areas in the manuscript so that they could be worked through methodically, one by one, until a satisfactory version had been reached. They have, I'm told, been doing this. But not everyone works at quite the same pace as me.
Will it be out in time for Christmas? The pages haven't been designed yet - there's no point paying for that if it all has to be torn up or, worse, binned in its entirety. So once the issues, whatever they are, have been resolved, the pages have to be laid out and corrected (errors always arise during the design process - it's just inevitable) to get a full set of print-ready pdfs.
With those in hand, the printer has to be commissioned and they have to have the correct paper available in the correct quantity (not always a given these days). Then the book has to be printed, then it has to be shipped back to the Mortons warehouse, then it has to be unloaded, turned around and sent out to distributors (publishers do not, for example, supply Amazon directly. The books have to go to a middleman, who then sends them on to Amazon) or directly to customers.
If I'd been free to commence this process as soon as the book was fully written (end of August) there would have been no problem having it available before Christmas. Now... getting a copy in hand before Christmas would require a lot of traffic lights to turn green at just the right time. Not impossible, but not necessarily that likely either.
 
Looks like I am now (nearly) free to progress with getting this book to press. There were 11 required changes, mostly deleting certain things but also the addition of a couple of disclaimers. The most significant change, from my perspective, was the deletion of the full list of BAE Systems archival documents I consulted. While the manuscript will cite its sources in prose form, I'm not allowed to provide readers with the full list.

The last block on progress is getting the images I want to use vetted, a process which is hopefully in progress.
 

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