This later became LaGuardia Airport
New York Builds Big Airport for Land and Sea Plane Service
REACHED from the heart of the metropolis by a 28-minute drive over a route which crosses the famous Triborough Bridge and leads to the site of the 1939 World’s Fair, North Beach Airport in the Queens section of New York, N. Y., is being enlarged in area from 105 acres to 429 acres and will be provided with every facility for the handling of giant transcontinental and transoceanic air liners. Exclusive of land, the construction cost of the enlarged airport will represent a cost of about 12 million dollars.
The completed airport, as shown in the artist’s sketch at left, will feature four main runways, one of which will be 4,160 feet long, to accommodate land planes while a vast seaplane basin will provide landing and takeoff facilities for flying “clippers.” Plans for the reconstruction of the airport were prepared by engineers of the Works Progress Administration in co-operation with the city’s Department of Docks. The airport’s hangars and administration buildings will represent the latest ideas in airport architecture.
Huge Barrel Plane for Ocean Flights
PIERCED by a battery of tunnels a flying wing airplane is proposed by an engineer at the famous Caproni airplane works in Italy. Streamlined motors and four-bladed propellers will drive air blasts through the tunnels, each of which forms a Venturi tube, expanding toward the rear. Thus, according to the inventor, the air will give a forward push something in the manner of rocket propulsion. Aided by the Italian government, the designer recently completed a single-engined experimental craft incorporating his ideas. This odd flying barrel was put through successful tests near Rome. (P.S.M., Jan. ‘33, p. 18.) Details of the huge machine he proposes to build for transatlantic travel are shown in the pictures above.
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Aviation Novelties
Novices Learn Flying On the Roof
GROUND flying has been practiced for years, it is true, and some old-timer used to try starting from a roof; but the British invention at the left stays right on the roof, to which it is fixed by a pivot. All the controls of the plane can be operated by the student, under instruction.
The new Whitley “Hoverplane”, a device for the instruction of unfledged aviators, being demonstrated on the roof of London’s largest department store.
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WHAT! A girl training men to fly for Uncle Sam?
THE name is Lennox — Peggy Lennox. She may not look the part of a trainer of fighting men, but— She is one of the few women pilots qualified to give instruction in the CAA flight training program. And the records show she’s doing a man-sized job of it. She’s turned out pilots for the Army … for the Navy. Peggy is loyal to both arms of the service. Her only favorite is the favorite in every branch of the service—Camel cigarettes. She says: “It’s always Camels with me—they’re milder in every way.”
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I story about the criminal of using a homing pigeon to get extortion money. The victims were supposed to attach the money to the pigeon and let it fly away. The cops painted it orange and then followed it by plane. Poor little orange pigeon.
Flying Police Outwit Crooks of the Air
HURLED into the pounding surf, a thousand yards from shore, seven members of the crew of the navy blimp, J-3, were righting for their lives. It was the morning after the loss of the U. S. Navy dirigible Akron. This second tragedy had occurred as the blimp returned to Beach Haven, N. J., after an unsuccessful search for survivors. A forty-five-mile an hour gale had caught the lighter-than-air craft, driven it out to sea, and sent it crashing into the water with ripped bag and disabled engine.
Spectators crowded the shore. They knew the men would be smothered by the gale-lashed waters long before a boat could reach them. Suddenly, overhead there was the high whine of an aerial motor. A silver-winged amphibian was scudding under the low, black clouds, heading for the wreck. It swooped, landed like a seagull on the tossing ridges of water, and the two occupants began dragging the floundering men to safety within the craft’s cockpit.
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PILOTS FACE EACH OTHER IN STRATOSPHERE PLANE
What the inside of a stratosphere plane looks like is shown in the picture at the right. It is the first view to reach this country showing the interior of a Farman plane recently tested near Paris, designed to fly at high speed through the rarefied atmosphere nine miles above the earth (P.S.M., Oct., ‘32, p. 13). Two pilots sit facing each other in the barrel-shaped cabin, which is sealed airtight to protect them from the physiological effects of reduced air pressure at great heights. They will fly the machine blind, depending upon instruments alone to guide them except in taking off and landing.
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Roto-Chute for Rocket Pilots
SUICIDE is the word for the pilot who tries to escape from a supersonic plane by parachute. The billowing fabric ‘chute was -a wonderful aerial lifesaver —till Air Force pilots started streaking faster than sound in rocket planes like the Bell XS-1. The impact of the air at such speeds is so terrific that it will not only shred the parachute like a burst of shrapnel but also peel the flesh off the pilot’s bones.
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