New Glider Popularizes Sport

A DAY of gliders for every one is heralded in the introduction of a new low cost glider by Hans Richter, famous German air man. The new model which he has just designed and tested can be sold for less than fifty dollars and is light enough to be carried easily. No fuselage is used; instead the flier is merely strapped into the framework as shown in the photo below. Unfortunately, this type is barred in this country by the Dept. of Commerce at the present time.

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He Made Sky Mapping a Big Business

High above the broken floor of the Rio Grande River basin, an airplane growls monotonously over 32,000 square miles, each click of its Cyclopean camera bringing nearer to completion the largest photographic mapping project ever undertaken in the United States.

EXACTING and tedious is the scientific job of gathering up 32,000 square miles and literally pasting them in your hat. Only one man is utterly capable and he is the fellow who supervises the shooting and assembling of this vast mosaic.

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Thrills With New Type Balloon

BALLOON jumping, that spectacular and thrilling but highly dangerous sport, may receive new impetus from the successful demonstration of a new type of equipment invented by Jean Cambissa of Korfu, Greece.

The balloon, of 100 cubic meters capacity, lifts a light metal frame upon which the pilot sits while he flaps a pair of wings with his arms. These wings, together with a rudder operated by the feet, give the pilot a certain amount of control—something which was entirely lacking with the old balloon jumpers.

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Atomic Planes

Are Closer Than You Think High-payload atom-powered jet flying-boats within the next five to ten years: that’s MPs prediction, based on a study of design trends and necessities.

By Frank Tinsley

THE buckaroos of science are breaking the atom to harness at a fantastic rate. In just 15 short years, fission has grown from a super-secret equation whispered in a President’s ear to a solidly established 14-billion dollar industry. The hectic stage of A-and H-bomb monopoly is fast giving way to a happier and less explosive phase of atomic development. Late last year Congress enacted the Atomic Energy Act of 1954; directing that the atom’s neglected humanitarian potential be put to work “to promote world peace, promote the general welfare and increase the standard of living.” Along with this, President Eisenhower launched his World Atoms-For-Peace Program to spur the exchange of knowledge and the rapid development of international atomic power projects of all kinds.

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Inside the Flying Wing

COMPLETELY enclosed within the outer skin of the XB-35 there is a many-sided room that houses the 15-man crew. Pressurized for high altitudes and large enough to provide sleeping accommodations for six, it is the heart of the Flying Wing.

Around this center of operations is a mass of trusswork resembling a bridge-a simpler structure than that of a conventional airplane because the craft’s weight is distributed throughout the wing and needs no “beefing up” around a fuselage.

The pictures on this and the following page, taken at the Northrop Aircraft plant in California, show details of the crew nacelle and the massive 172-foot framework in which it nestles.

The FREAK of the Month - No. 2
THE most unusual design brought to our attention this month is the air liner invented by Mr. R. Knott of Lewisham, England, who hopes to cross the Atlantic with a ship of this type carrying 600 passengers in from 12 to 15 hours.

Plywood Helicopter

THERE’S an Easter egg in the sky! But it’s the “Flying Easter Egg”—a new single-place helicopter called by that name because of the oval shape of its plywood fuselage.

Designed by Fred Landgraf, the H-2 can make 100 mph on its 85 hp Pobjoy engine. The center of gravity of the 850-pound craft lies ahead of the rotor axis, insuring greater stability.

Landgraf has stressed simplicity in his controls in order to appear to a wider public—only stick and throttle action are necessary for flight.

I’m not that great at physics, but this seems to violate the conservation of momentum…

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Strange Lifting Force Used in Novel Airship

How does this airship keep aloft with neither propellers nor lifting gas? It’s the strangest craft yet designed to cruise the skies and represents as far a departure from conventional types of aircraft as can be imagined. You’ll find this description of the ship fascinating.

WHAT is certainly the most unique airship in the world is now under construction in the form of an experimental model in the factory of its inventor in Denver, Colorado. As depicted on these pages, the extraordinary ship will use neither propellers nor gas to keep it in the air, but will depend on a mechanism which its inventor, Edgar R. Holmes, calls the “gyradoscope”.

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Our New B-1 Bomber-High, Low, Fast, and Slow

This big swing-wing bird is designed with a unique combination of talents

By BEN KOCIVAR

PS Consulting Editor, Flying To swing or not to swing, that was the question. In the competition for the new B-1 manned bomber, the answers were the same. All three giant aerospace companies presented swing-wing designs.

The winner? North American Rockwell, voted by the Air Force best and cheapest over entries by Boeing and General Dynamics. (The latter two also hedged their bets with fixed-wing designs, which are cheaper.) General Electric will make the engines for the B-1.

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Week-End Camping Trips by Plane Becoming Popular

WITH the great open spaces steadily becoming farther and farther from the cities, swifter modes of transportation have become necessary for weekend campers. The light plane, which may be safely landed on any reasonably level field or beach, has done much to solve this problem.

Sportsmen may now take off from New York and spend the week-end in the New England hills with a loss of only an hour or two going and coming. Collapsible fishing rods, pots, pans, and a few provisions are easily stored in the plane.

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CAN WE CRASH THE DEADLY FLAME BARRIER?

Fly a plane fast enough and friction will melt it. Can we “put out the fire?”

By David W. Barclay

ENGINEERS, who sometimes get pretty irritated when writers dream up catch phrases for their scientific findings, are not exactly happy with the term Flame Barrier or Heat Barrier which has been applied to hypersonic flight. (A barrier, say the engineers, is something you can climb over, sneak around or bull your way through. None of these work when an air-breathing, wing-lifted vehicle is trying to go faster and faster in the envelope of air which surrounds the earth.) But regardless of what you call it, the obstacle—air friction—is there and gets worse with each extra mile per hour of speed. Eventually you wind up as a glowing ember, blob of molten metal, or a cloud of superheated dust.

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Spinning Wing Airliner

More wing lift and less drag are the major aims of aviation’s researchers. Maybe the Magnus Wing will supply the answers.

ENGLAND’S aeronautical scientists may have a surprise in store for the rest of the flying world. Some years ago a prominent investigator, Anton Flettner, formulated the Magnus Effect—the strange behavior of a drum spinning in an airflow. Today with modern materials, equipment and wind tunnels, interest is once more directed toward this strange phenomenon.

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