New Helicopter Proves Its Lifting Power

Designed to raise itself vertically and hover or fly forward at will, a new kind of helicopter showed promise in recent preliminary weight-lifting trials at Heston Aerodrome, England. When tethered by slack lines to stakes in the ground, it lifted front and rear wheels alternately under its own power. The lift is obtained from a three-bladed, horizontal propeller. Two long vanes or sweeps, resembling the tail feathers of a bird, are mounted at the rear to stabilize the odd craft. Full flight tests will be made soon and the designer is confident of success.

Perfecting Tomorrow’s Turbines

Many complex and intricate computations are required to evaluate test cell runs … to design turbines with ever-increasing efficiency of performance. Univac Scientific is the ideal electronic computing system for the task. It can easily accomplish these feats of mathematics — and solve the many problems encountered in data reduction, compressor off-design, turbine off-design, wheel design and analysis, and engine performance.

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This is GENIUS. I’m going to buy an old Gravitron and charge an arm and a leg for centrifugalization treatment.

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Old Age Rejuvenator Centrifuge

PERHAPS Ponce de Leon kept too far south in his search for the Fountain of Youth. He might have headed to Coney Island and there made himself young riding on a carousel, or a roller coaster, if a medical theory recently advanced is true—that, since old age is our final yielding to the inevitable, resistless pull of gravity, it is necessary only to overcome gravity and you overcome all that brings you down to earth. In describing trips to other planets, writers of science fiction have pictured the space travelers first crushed under intolerable weight during a few moments of ascent from the earth; then overwhelmed by a feeling of lightness, when all weight disappears. Indeed, there has been fear that too little gravity might have injurious effects on our bodies, unaccustomed to such a weightless condition; and that it would be as necessary to supply artificial gravity in a space ship as it would be to supply artificial air. However, no one seems to doubt that on the moon, or on Mars, freedom from the weariness of earthly weight would be pleasant.

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Floating garage
When the USS Essex moved its base from Mayport, Fla., to Quonset Point, R.I., officers and men who owned cars received permission to transport them on the carrier’s flight deck. One catch—a warning: If war broke out while they were at sea, the cars would be dumped. The ship carried no planes, as a new flying group will be attached in Rhode Island.

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Why 2,000,000 Americans Are Dope Fiends

DR. WM. I. SIROVICH, a leading authority, tells here the amazing facts about the illegal dope traffic, which in recent years has assumed the proportions of a national peril. He is a member of Congress and a physician, and is leading the fight for an international agreement to stem the blighting tide of habit-forming narcotics that pours into this country from abroad.

By JOHN E. LODGE

IN THE United States, one out of every sixty persons is a drug addict. During the decade from 1920 to 1930, the number of narcotic victims in America has doubled, tripled, quadrupled. One ton a year of crude opium and its derivatives would meet the legitimate medicinal and scientific needs of the nation. Yet, last year, approximately 200 tons were smuggled into America. The amount of morphine consumed is thirty-five times that required; and, with a smaller population than that of Germany, France, and Italy combined, we import ten times as much crude opium as these three nations together.

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Now TV Has a Memory

THIS multiple exposure photo shows how a new television camera tube “memorizes” what it sees.

To demonstrate it, the young woman stood before the TV camera for a split second, then walked around immediately to see her image frozen on the receiver screen.

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EXPECT HIGH SPEED OF ROCKET-DRIVEN PLANE

If their calculations are correct, a barrage of rockets will soon send a ten-foot model plane whizzing through the air. Maurice Poirier and Franklin L. Wallace, of Los Angeles, Calif., built the model and if it flies they will attempt to build a full-sized craft on the same plan. They predict that the rockets will give the model a speed approaching ten miles a minute.

Plane Detector Like Giant Spoon

WHEN Stockholm, Sweden, was recently “bombarded” from the air in a sham attack, a new and strange type of sound detector was used to pick up the planes. Three giant spoon-like ears caught the sounds in their concave surfaces, rendering the device sensitive to motor hums at a surprising distance.

What Big Arms You Have . . . and So Many
It’s in Disneyland, of course. Being prepared for underwater duty is the giant squid that “terrorizes” passengers of the huge park’s submarine ride.

Composed of rubber, the lengthy tentacles are operated by a system of compressed air and interior wires. They reach out at the excited kiddies as they ride by.

This is a contemporary account of the discovery of Pluto. At the time it had not yet been named. The article lists Atlas, Prometheus, and Pluto as suggested possibilities.

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How They Trailed a New Planet

Study of many photos of stars disclosed to a farm boy what may prove a new world where a famous astronomer said it would be. Old theories are upset by find.

By

ALDEN P. ARMAGNAC

A NEW planet has been announced. Out in space, four billion miles beyond the globe we live on, a yellowish object, a little larger than the earth, swings in a vast circle about the sun; a frigid little world, bathed in the dim light of perpetual dusk. Its discovery is called the most important event in astronomy in nearly a hundred years.

A new planet is not found every day. As many of us learned in school, a planet is one of the exclusive company of heavenly bodies that get their light and heat from the sun. They swing about it, as the earth does, in great circular paths, or orbits. These earthlike worlds are so few in number that they may be counted on the fingers.

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Tiny “Tellies” were the centers of attraction at recent television shows on both sides of the Atlantic. The table model at right, below, was displayed at an exhibition in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The set is encased in Lucite to permit an interior view. The receiver below was featured at a British show in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Intoximeter tests drivers for drunkenness. Below, Trooper Sam Maclntire of the East Lansing, Mich., post gives the test to a fellow officer who simulates a drunken driver.