Martin COIN Proposal for LARA Requirement

[Orionblamblam]

I just found an Ebay listing for the Martin COIN proposal. Looks to be 257 pages of proposal goodness... but the starting price is $100. I'm interested, but the price is certainly steep.

Tell y'all what: if I can find at least 10 people who'll speak up and say that they'd be willing to part with $7 US for a copy of this as one of my downloadable documents, I'll bid on it and see if I can get it...

The listing:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230274556220

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I'll do it, Scott. Might get away anyway though if a deep pocketed collector turns up.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

That’s the Martin proposal for the light armed recce aircraft (LARA) project won by NAA and the OV-10. I’m sure I could waste $7 on a lot less than a share in that. So count me in.

 

[flateric]

Count me, too. But, I hope, this puffy document could be *uploadable* for you, Scott.
Seems that you have tiny upload channel so far in Utah - improving that could solve problem with stuff that only could be offered as CD-R versions.

 

[flateric]

Should we send money in advance?

 

[Antonio]

Scott, please count on me too

Antonio

 

[Artie Bob]

ME TOO!

Artie Bob

 

[Jschmus]

Count me in, as well. LARA's one of my favorite things.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I've gone ahead and bid on it. However... the auction ends in 1 day, 12 hours.... when, according to the current schedule, I'll be on the road.

EDIT: My start date got pushed back a week. So I'll be here when the auction ends. Hopefully without any competing bids....

Yes, this'll be made as a downloadable. If I get it.

 

[AeroFranz]

This was the Martin OV-10 competitor with boundary layer control inverted V-tail, right?

I am definitely interested.

Please count me in, it might help if the price goes up (hope not).

 

[robunos]

I'm in! can go a bit more if the price goes up,

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Orionblamblam]

This was the Martin OV-10 competitor with boundary layer control inverted V-tail, right?

That's the one. Can;t link to the pics, though. They're protected somehow.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

It doesn't protect against good ole fashioned print screen.

12 more pictures are at:

http://www.auctiva.com/hostedimages/showimage.aspx?gid=747551&ppid=1122&image=155365657&images=155365594,155365583,155365587,155365601,155365615,155365625,155365633,155365646,155365657,155365665,155365675,155365687,155365703,155365716,155381854,155383736&formats=0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0&format=0

 

[weirc]

count me in on this please,

Colin

 

[flateric]

It doesn't protect against good ole fashioned print screen.

It doesn't protect at all from Firefox users, BTW...

 

[flateric]

...

 

[Orionblamblam]

Woo. I won the auction... at higher price than I'd hoped. But still. Anyway, I hope that I'll get this report before I take off. If so, I'll take it with me and scan & patch & PDF while I'm away. If it doesn't arrive before I go, I'll have to let it catch up with me as my mail gets bounced around. Could be several weeks in that case.

 

[AeroFranz]

Way to go Scott!
I don't mind paying extra for that little gem you got. The preview pics got me literally salivating.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Good buy, you never know your luck with eBay... Have sent some $$$ by pay pal to your account today for my contribution.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Good buy, you never know your luck with eBay...

The final price being only 50% or so above the opening price is doing pretty good.

Have sent some $$$ by pay pal to your account today for my contribution.

Remind me of that when I have the downloadable version ready.

 

[Sundog]

I'd be more than happy to pitch in on this one, as I just found this thread. Let me know if that's still doable.

 

[Antonio]

Woo. I won the auction...

Waiting for instructions. Please tell us the quantity and place to send the money.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Waiting for instructions. Please tell us the quantity and place to send the money.

It'll be a while... at least a week and a half, two weeks. If I get the report before I leave, I'll get it *right* before I leave, and won't be able to start working on scanning it in until I get to my new "home," which will be a motel room. If it doesn't arrive before I leave... it'll probably be a few weeks more before my mail will catch up with me.

Watch this thread, I'll post updates.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Watch this thread, I'll post updates.

Here's an update: today is the last day of mail delivery prior to me driving across the country. And amazingly... the report was in my mailbox. It was worth the price (though I still would've rather gotten it cheaper...). I'll take it with me and scan it as time permits.

 

[Skybolt]

I have my finger on the Paypal "send" button.... And, you intend to DRIVE from Utah to Maryland ??? In a VW Golf ? Well, hurrah for you !

 

[Orionblamblam]

And, you intend to DRIVE from Utah to Maryland ??? In a VW Golf ?

It's not that far, only 2200 miles or so. I usually more than double, nearly triple that when I go on vacation.

The only real difficulty I foresee is keeping the cats from going nuts.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

It's not that far, only 2200 miles or so.

Americans certainly have a different view on "far"

 

[Orionblamblam]

It's not that far, only 2200 miles or so.

Americans certainly have a different view on "far"

Shrug. I put in 662 miles today, ending up in Paxton, Nebraska. Intersection of No and Where. Could've gone further, but there were a number of unnecessary stops. Tomorrow I need to go another 625 miles, then I'll be at my parents house for a day or two. Then it's only another 950 miles or so to the job site.

Total, 2237 miles. According to google, driving from Lisbon to Warsaw is about 2084 miles, so that's roughly analogous. For the historically minded, the distance from Berlin to Paris is about 660 miles...

Now, driving from Anchorage, Alaska to Miami, Florida would be a bit of a haul. Or from Moscow to Vladivostok. Or from new York to London. A bit damp.

 

[flateric]

Or from Moscow to Vladivostok.

It would be little tricky roadmap for Golf. Pictured is federal route 'Lena' (Moscow - Yakutsk). For Humvee too, I think...
http://info.drom.ru/adventures/misc/8060/

 

[Orionblamblam]

Pictured is federal route 'Lena' (Moscow - Yakutsk).

Y'all need to work on that some. Maybe take Yeltsin's monthly vodka budget and apply it to a few miles of modern blacktop.

Note: scanning commences.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Still slowly scanning through the document...

 

[Jemiba]

Just two photos of the mock-up from
Aviation Week 13/64 :

 

[Orionblamblam]

I'm still scanning this thing, though I'm getting close. The total number of scans required is far higher than the page count... there are a *lot* of foldout drawings. Currently at 297 files.... and 333 megabytes. I'm going to have to do a lot to reduce filesize, or there's no chance that this will be downloadable.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I am reducing the pages of pure text to B&W, and to 200 DPI rather than the originally scanned 300 DPI. Not sure yet how I'll handle the drawings... and there are a vast number of 'em. I suspect I'll have to reduce their resolution as well. A test with reduced file sizes on about 10% of the so-far scanned pages came back with a PDF file of about 2.5 meg...m emaning the final thing is lookign to be more than 30 meg, which seriously pushes downloadability. So I might have to make a lot of compromises with the drawings, and then make full-rez versions fo the drawings available separately. Bleah.

 

[Antonio]

and then make full-rez versions fo the drawings available separately

I think that's a preferable idea than reducing the quality of the scans.

Then why not considering a CD edition rather over a high quality reduction to produce a downloadable edition?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

There's no issue in having, say, a 100mb or 200mb downloadable version for people with decent broadband. If the cost of webhosting is an issue, you can host the file on a third party download site.

 

[Antonio]

There's no issue in having, say, a 100mb or 200mb downloadable version for people with decent broadband

I agree. There are many download sites where you can upload a big file at no cost.

 

[Orionblamblam]

There's no issue in having, say, a 100mb or 200mb downloadable version for people with decent broadband.

Small problem: I *don't* have reliable broadband. The crappy WiFi connection I have at this apartment complex craps out far to commonly to upload the thing. My website has, IIRC, several gig of storage space, and hundreds of gig/month of download capacity... it's the getting the file there in the first place that's currently problematic.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Most ftp servers support resuming of uploads with the right client eg Smartftp, Filezilla. Then it doesn't matter if the connection craps out.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Finally finished scanning, image processing and PDF conversion. There were a *lot* of foldouts; they are included scanned in sections (with lots of overlap). At somepoint I will release a drawing set of the best of the folouts, pieced together and cleaned up.

The pages were all scanned at 300dpi. All the text pages were converted to B&W to help save filesize. 336 pages... and 136 megabytes (originally over 400 meg... bleah).

I hope to have this up and running on my Drawings & Documents site within a few days.