Wow that’s a lot of deflection on those rotors in the top picture.
I think this is actually only the first U.S. helicopter.
Helicopter Flown Successfully
WHAT is claimed to be the first successfully controlled vertical flight in a heavier-than-air machine was made recently by Ivor Sikorsky, prominent aeronautical engineer, at Bridgeport, Conn., in his new helicopter. Powered by a seventy-horsepower engine and equipped with variable-pitch rotor blades, the craft moved straight up from the ground for thirty feet, circled the field, and then settled vertically to the ground. Small rotor blades mounted on the bare fuselage of the craft act as elevators and rudder. Sikorsky is shown at the controls of the helicopter in the photographs.
Do you think you could get one of these past security now? I mean a balloon with a a nozzle could make a handy flame thrower.
Balloon Ends Discomfort in High-Altitude Flying
To make things more comfortable for passengers and pilots flying at high altitudes, Dr. Ralph Greene, Miami, Fla., physician and medical consultant to Eastern Airlines, developed the balloon device pictured at the left. Costing only a few cents, the small balloon has a nipple fitted to its neck. When high-altitude pressure becomes annoying, the passenger inserts the nipple in one nostril, closes the other with his finger, and inflates the balloon. He then squeezes the balloon slightly and swallows. In this manner, the pressure of the air within the inner ear is equalized with the outside pressure.
These Are the Planes You’ll Fly After the War
We asked the private flyers of tomorrow to write their own ticket. The analysis of 3,345 contest entries shows what they are looking for.
A DRAFTSMAN in the evergreen section of the Pacific Northwest wrote Popular Science Monthly last fall that of all the things he would like to see incorporated in his postwar private airplane, a foot throttle was on the high-priority list. He wanted other items of comfort, too, did Tom Phelan of Seattle—a cigarette lighter on the instrument panel, and arm rests built into seats for his passengers.
Tom Phelan was one of the many entrants in this magazine’s “The Plane You’d Like to Own” contest, concluded September 30, who displayed a flair for merchandising. The automobile never would have sold in the millions if it had not had, first, utility; and second, comfort.
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I’m going to hazard a guess that this attempt to defeat gravity did not meet with success.
Yet Another Attempt to Defeat the Law of Gravity
THE recent success of the Cierva Autogiro has brought forth a deluge of attempts to defeat the law of gravity. Harry Cordy, a Los Angeles inventor, is about to introduce into a startled aviation world a model of his idea of just what an airplane should be.
This plane of the helicopter type is characterized by a new form of propeller which is said to produce a superior degree of lift and thus effect a true vertical takeoff or landing.
Building Stratosphere Air-Liners
by ALLAN LOCKHEED
Noted Plane Designer
This article on the strato-plane of the future tells how huge double-decked planes will speed through the rarefied air from coast to coast in six hours.
ALLAN LOCKHEED
Supplies the nation’s premier flyers—Lindbergh, Earhart, Hawks, Post, Wilkins—with Lockheed planes for their record feats. This pioneer of early aviation, now active on design work for air transports of the immediate future, contributed many of the ships that today are burning up commercial airline schedules and cutting air mail time in half. Consequently the words of Allan Lockheed, today one of the outstanding individual technicians of aviation, are of more than usual significance when he deals with the problems of flying airplanes in the stratosphere. His story follows:
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It would be so cool if airmail really worked this way.
Chicago’s Airmail Pick-up Catapults Mail Bags To Planes
DRAWINGS revealing the operation of the pick-up device used at the 1934 Century of Progress in delivering and receiving mail from planes in flight have been revealed by the inventor, Dr. Lytle S. Adams of Chicago.
Most ingenious feature of the device is the method by which the incoming bag is released and the outgoing mail tossed into the air. As the plane flies directly over the chute, the comparatively fragile wire dangling from the plane is broken at the mail bag as it reaches the end of a narrowing chute in the pick-up device, releasing the bag. A steel ball on the dangling wire trips a lever which catapults a new sack out of the chute and into the air. Shock absorbers on the plane take up any jars not offset by the catapult when picking up a new bag of mail.
Can We Ever Fly Faster Than Sound?
A seemingly impassable barrier blocks the way to higher plane speeds. Can we hurdle it? Our aviation editor gives his views.
By C. B. COLBY
Drawings by STEWART ROUSE
DESPITE glowing newspaper reports, man cannot now fly at the speed of sound. In fact it is doubtful, according to the best authorities, that man has ever closely approached sonic speed (764 m.p.h, at sea level and 664 m.p.h, at 40,000 feet), let alone attain or exceed it. Speeds of over 500 m.p.h, in level flight are a serious challenge to design and power-plant engineers. Even in a terminal-velocity dive (straight down with all stops open), it is doubtful that any pilot has attained the speed of sound.
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William B. Stout and his Wonderful “SKYCAR”
by J. A. Greenberg
BILL STOUT, the genius of Dearborn, Michigan, has been responsible for more revolutionary innovations in the design and construction of automobiles and airplanes than has any other man, living or dead. Yet he has found time to create such minor novelties as the first gasoline-driven railroad car, the first Diesel-electric streamlined train, a streamlined motorbus lighter and faster than any then manufactured, a brick conveyor which saved thousands of dollars in building construction, an improved theater seat, an air-conditioned bed, and, among other things, a staggering number of mechanical toys. He has been credited with more technical inventions than any man since Edison.
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What Lindbergh Found in His Mail Bag
Offers of Millions, Offers of Marriage and 14,000 Gifts in Packages Sent to Atlantic Flyer
By FITZHUGH GREEN
THROUGH the crowded events that followed the great flight to Paris, the author of this article was one of Col. Lindbergh’s chief aides. And in the swift preparation of Lindbergh’s book “We,” he wrote several chapters describing the welcoming receptions which the modest aviator did not wish to write himself. Commander Green also aided in handling Lindbergh’s huge mail.
“Dear Lindy—”
Those two words, with variations, have been written more than three and a half million times in the last four months by people of all races, colors and climes.
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Beautifully colored article from 1940.
New Boom in Gliders
Thrilling Aerial Sport Gains Wider Popularity Through Knockdown Kits That Enable Anybody To Build His Own Sailplane, Buying All the Materials on a Pay-as-You-Go Plan
By ANDREW R. BOONE
SOARING on wings assembled in back yards and home workshops, hundreds of glider enthusiasts are piloting their own sailplanes. Bought on the installment plan, their ships come in knockdown kits. Piecemeal buying enables boys and men alike to build gliders. As a result, flying without power is sweeping the nation. More than forty meets will be staged this year, from the big national events like the one held annually at Elmira, N. Y., to small sectional competitions on farm lots, desert lakes, and mountain pastures. Two hundred clubs have been formed with 2,000 members. Aside from the kits, would-be soarers need purchase few accessories. Tow rope, a couple of wrenches, air-speed meter, and a sensitive variometer fill the bill. In many towns groups club together, building their own soaring planes and cooperating in flying. At a cost far less than that of a powered plane, their members enjoy the thrills and pleasures of flying. Danger of injury is less, too, for they can land the light craft at comparatively slow speeds.
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meet a “flyer” with over 250,000,000 hours behind him!
“He’s” a new Lycoming air-cooled engine. He’s backed by Lycoming’s experience in creating and producing - 50,000 aircraft power plants . . . each with a flight-proved life expectancy of at least 5,000 hours.
You learn a lot about flying in 25 years . . . and 50,000 engines!
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