Fit to Fly a Jet?
OUR jets are the hottest things in the air and it takes hot pilots to fly them. Even the fighters cost a few hundred thousand dollars each and Uncle Sam makes certain he doesn’t put a muttonhead behind the stick whenever there’s flying to be done. It’s easy for him to select good pilot material, however. Read the rest of this entry »

Future Dirigible Without Hangar
A GIGANTIC dirigible which would have an all metal body made of corrugated sheet steel, and which would be so durable as to eliminate the need of the customary hangar, is the novel craft recently designed by an eminent Russian inventor, Konstantin Ziolkowski. This craft will expand or contract according to the interior gas pressure.

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AIR WAR OVER THE ARCTIC

Our planes are waging a relentless battle to conquer polar cold and guard America against sneak attacks across the world’s roof.

By Major General K. P. McNaughton, U. S. Air Force

FOR nearly four centuries the Arctic defied the hardiest explorers from the temperate zones. This vast ice-locked world with its midnight sun, Aurora Borealis and paralyzing cold has been an impregnable barrier across the shortest route between the East and West.
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WORLD’S LARGEST WHIRLYBIRD

THE world’s largest transport helicopter and America’s first twin-engined tandem whirlybird transport is the Piasecki YH-16. An important feature of its tandem design is that cargo can be loaded quickly without too much regard for weight balance. The craft’s rotors are connected by a shaft to permit single engine operation and its all-metal blades, 82 feet in diameter, are the biggest shaft-driven rotors in existence at the present time.

Air Buoy Marks Location of Field

Suggested as a means of enabling fog-bound pilots to locate the position of landing fields, the floating air buoy above has won the approval of veteran airmen. A plane flying above the cloud or fog strata sights the captive balloon bearing the name of the airport, learns of conditions by reading large-dialed instruments suspended from the balloon, and is enabled to make a safe landing in spite of the fog.

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Crashing PLANES for the Movie

by DICK GRACE – the world’s most famous movie stunt man

FOREWORD
Dick Grace is by long odds the world’s most famous movie plane crasher. He has cracked-up 34 planes intentionally, and lived to spend the money. The reasons why he has been able to climb alive out of these wrecks he tells in this thrill-packed article. Crashing planes for movie shots, such as Grace did in “Wings,” “Lilac Time,” “The Flying Circus,” and many other films, is done scientifically, by physics and mathematics. How he does it Grace explains in this personal story written expressly for Modern Mechanics’ readers, and his thrilling narrative is told with the same gusto and cool assurance that makes him the most famous stunt flyer in the world. Dick Grace is also author of the book “Squadron of Death,” an amazing autobiography telling his own story and that of countless other stunt men.
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This was the cutting edge in aviation technology until the introduction of the minutemeter in WWII.

Invents Hourmeter to Time Hops

THROUGH an electrical contact attached to the landing gear, the recently invented hourmeter timing device records trip and total flying time the moment the plane leaves the ground. The same contact stops the clock when the landing is made. Spreading and contracting of the landing gear actuates the electrical circuit. Current is supplied by two dry cells, or from the ship’s battery.

Aeronautical experts declare that this instrument will fill in one of the gaps of aviation.

“PLAYER PIANO” ROLL Controls Sky Sign

USING a musical siren to gain attention, a new sky sign, designed by Edward Link, Cortland, New York, aeronautical engineer, after five years of experimental work, took to the air for the first time over Miami this winter.

The sign, constructed as a lower wing to a high wing monoplane, is operated from an automatic “feeler” roll. It can display ten letters at one time, using as many as 75 words per message.
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Manpower Flight Greatest April Fool Joke

PHOTOGRAPHS of a man flying through the air by his own power, the dream of scientists for centuries, completely fooled outstanding U. S. newspapers recently.

Captions on the photographs, coming from Germany, explained that Pilot Erich Kocher took off with a pair of rotor wings strapped to his chest. Kocher supposedly blew into a box which converted the carbon dioxide of his breath into fuel to operate the rotors. The turning rotors developed a vacuum ahead pulling the man through the air.
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NOVEL IDEAS Keep Pace with AVIATION’S ADVANCE

THERE is no industry — American or foreign—that is receiving as much attention from creative minds today as aviation. That is amply demonstrated by the remarkable number of new ideas that daily find their way into the patent or copyright divisions at Washington.

And the list of the things that inventors feel the industry requires is almost unending. From new-fangled ways of bolting a spar to complete designs and models of planes, everything is included. Read the rest of this entry »

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Supersonic +

GERMAN aeronautical engineering was much further advanced than our own at the end of the war in spite of that country’s defeat. The Me-163 was the world’s first successful rocket plane and it saw service against our bombers over Europe. Recently it has been revealed that to Germany, also, must go credit for developing the world’s first supersonic fighter, the Jaeger P-13, which was under hurried construction before VE day. Had this plane been used early enough, the war may have continued many months longer, and might even have meant Nazi mastery of the skies over the Continent. Read the rest of this entry »

AIR-SEA JETLINER

AFTER months of top-secret tests, the Navy has partially lifted the wraps on its XF2Y-1 Sea-Dart, world’s first delta-wing seaplane, which uses retractable hydro-skis for take-off and landing.

MI’s cover and the Convair drawing above show what this sensational development may mean to commercial air travel of the future. Imagine a supersonic jetliner, too large to be handled efficiently at even our largest airports but perfectly capable of squatting at any of our innumerable seaports and being nuzzled to its dock by tugs! In addition to passenger convenience and greater capacity is the extra safety factor in trans-oceanic hops.