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RUMPLER Designs Largest Plane

Herr Rumpler, famous designer of Germany’s war time fighting planes, is turning his peace time activities to good account in developing the world’s largest airplanes. Rumpler, shown above in a characteristic pose at his drafting board, is now building an enormous monoplane which will have wings large enough to place staterooms in. A new blunt-nosed wing section is used to effect this design. Huge wheels, 10 feet in diameter, will be used on the landing gear. All motors will be easily accessible in flight. Navigating quarters will be in a cabin atop the wing.

The new Rumpler monoplane, now nearing completion in Germany, will have a span of 300 feet and a chord of 50 feet. It will be so large that space between the sides of each wing spar will be used for hallways, staterooms and motor compartments. A specially designed, power operated air field railway track will be constructed for housing the new giant. The cross section drawing shows the disposition of the arrangement. The plane will cruise at 82 m.p.h. A gigantic hangar is shown in the photo below with the big ship on the track. Note room for two of these monsters.

Plastic Oven is the latest use of the wonder synthetic. It offers considerable advantages for the housewife, chiefly in reducing possibility of burnt steaks, roasts, cakes, etc. Model shown is British.

Hedge Cutter Operated by Crank
TIME and effort required to trim hedges is reduced to an absolute minimum by the use of a new hedge trimming device now available. The clipper is operated by turning a crank with the hands, as demonstrated in the photo above.

Page Mr. Chamberlain!
BRITAIN’S prime minister would undoubtedly be fascinated by this latest rainy-day gadget, which is called the “Umbrubber.” Made to protect the user against sudden showers that might spring up, the device has a special handle of plastic which contains a pair of light-weight rubbers. In the event that the user is one ‘of those people who won’t wear rubbers, no matter what the weather, the handle can be used as a container for cigars, cigarettes, candy, or cough medicine.

Balloons on Helmet Make Targets for Cavalry Combat

PUNCTURING a balloon on the head of an opponent with the skillful thrust of a rapier is the unique means employed by cavalry students to score points when engaging in “armed combat” at Urban Military Academy at Beverly Hills, California. The balloons are tied to the helmets of the combatants, and the first fighter to burst the balloon of an “enemy” wins the encounter.

Although swordsmanship is a thing of the past, as far as modern warfare is concerned, this kind of practice is of service in teaching agility, alertness and horsemanship. The contest is a part of the training for the annual spring maneuvers of the academy.

Machine Reads Your Head Bumps
YOUR character read while you wait is the amazing feat performed by a new machine called the “Robot Phrenologist.” A cap equipped with a battery of fingers fits over the head and sends electrical impulses to a recording device, shown below.

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.

Newspaper editors failed to note several important angles that would have revealed the hoax. No cable story had appeared previously describing what would have been one of the greatest achievements of science. The pilot’s name Kocher was from the German “Keucher,” meaning “hot air merchant.” Carbon dioxide is not a combustible gas.

The great hoax originated in the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, editors of which faked the pictures for the magazine’s April Fool edition.

Scientist’s New Theories May Aid in Forecasting Weather Conditions

THEORIES which may explain the formation of the earth’s surface features, and eventually make it easy to predict both storms and earthquakes, have been evolved after years of research by Halbert P. Gillette, retired engineer and former instructor in science at Columbia University.

Mr. Gillette’s hopes for developing the accurate forecasting of weather and earthquakes are based on his new electron-magnetic theory. He believes that since the earth is a huge magnet it must cause the free electrons in the air to revolve in orbits, and that when thus revolving the electrons carry the air along with them.

The magnetic forces of the earth and the other planets, particularly Jupiter, which cause these air whirls, also cause a similar whirl in the molten material in the earth, and similarly cause sun spots, Mr. Gillette reasons.

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PLAYGROUNDS IN THE SKY

Here is MI’s hold plan to fight juvenile delinquency and get kids off the street.

THE scene is your city on a sticky, sweltering twilight in midsummer. Lights are beginning to wink on and kids are starting to gather in the streets after the evening meal.

A few years ago this was the danger hour in your city. You remember it well—the nightly muggings would begin about now and young girls would be afraid to venture out alone. Beatings were commonplace and gang wars, fiercely fought with knives and zip-guns, were a frequent occurrence. But things are different now.

Look at the kids emerging from their homes. Instead of congregating at the candy store and pool parlor hatching * up new forms of violence out of boredom, they are now heading for the center of the block. They funnel into a large entrance and are swallowed up inside.

Follow them. They tile into elevators and are whisked upstairs. The doors open and they step into a fantasy land.

There, a few yards from the tenements where they live, on their very roofs, in fact, is a regulation-size baseball diamond with real springy turf! But the kids aren’t interested just now—they played ball all afternoon. Instead, they enter the locker room and in a few minutes are cavorting noisily in a big, broad and very cool swimming pool. Afterwards, they troop onto the ball field, where chairs have been set up, and watch a movie under the stars.

What’s it all about? “This magic land for kids doesn’t exist in my city,” you say. No, it doesn’t—yet!

But it darn well could! It could exist in your town and in hundreds of other communities throughout the nation. Every city could construct huge, all-encompassing playgrounds and recreation centers, using the enormous, readily available space now going completely to waste on the rooftops of their congested areas!

The erection of these play centers on the nation’s rooftops is Mi’s plan to counterattack juvenile delinquency. Granted, it’s a bold, dramatic proposition. It might also, at first glance, border on the impossible. Immense and breath-taking, yes—but impossible? We don’t think so at all.

Does the idea intrigue you? It should because teen-age terrorism is costing you many hundreds of additional tax dollars every year, not to mention the hours of worry for the safety of self, family and property.

Already a million youngsters get into trouble with the police every year. The Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee has just made the startling prediction in a report that by 1960 the figure will skyrocket to 2,250,000!

Listen again to the authorities: “If communities throughout the nation provided more wholesome recreational facilities for their young people, delinquency could be curtailed.” This comes from FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and his conviction that recreation is a big answer is echoed by judges, child guidance experts and police officials from coast to coast.

MI believes the obvious solution is in rooftop playgrounds. No miracles of engineering are needed. Technically, with the know-how we possess right now, no insurmountable problem exists. Declares Henry Kohler, a prominent New York architect who is editor of the Bulletin of the Brooklyn chapter of the American Institute of Architects: “Certainly it can be done. Even though roofs are of different heights, even though some buildings are narrower than others, there is no limit to the size of the playground which can be built. You can build a gym up there or you can construct a center big enough for a baseball field, grandstand included!”

Mr. Kohler, who spent four years with the Seabees designing athletic areas of all types for military personnel in the South Pacific, points out that a 200×250-foot center would be ample to contain all the necessary facilities.

The floor would be a reinforced concrete slab built up from the highest level. Let’s explain: Suppose the site selected consists of five apartment houses—three of them five stories high, two only four stories high. From the top height of five stories, steel supports could be spanned horizontally, meeting similar supports which come up vertically from the lower height of four stories. The reinforced concrete floor is then constructed upon these supports.

The concrete slab would contain radiant heating units for two major reasons: this is the best way of heating a large area and no other plumbing for heating purposes would be necessary. And there is a third reason which the teen-agers would say leads all the rest: In the winter a refrigerant such as freon could be put into the tubing. This would freeze water and the kids would have themselves a fine skating rink.

Now suppose the roof area of the five apartment houses is too small—suppose the entire area just doesn’t add up to a 200×250 playground. Have we met an impasse? Not at all, says Mr. Kohler. The answer: Cantilever out. This means that horizontal supports are extended outward from the edge of the roof and cantilever supports are introduced from the sides of the building.

When the dust of construction work clears away, what will the finished product be like?

There would be a baseball field for the playing area. Wooden flooring could be applied in sections over the turf and in a short time the baseball diamond could be transformed into a basketball court, a floor for a track meet or a dance floor. Along the sides removable stands could accommodate hundreds of spectators for neighborhood tournament games.

There would be a swimming pool, showers, locker rooms and even a solarium. There could easily be an ice skating rink in winter, as previously explained, tennis and handball courts, a raised stage for amateur theatricals, ping-pong, shuffleboard and gymnasium equipment.

Off to the sides, behind huge folding doors, there could be separate, smaller rooms. These would be studios for arts and crafts, painting, sculpture, photography, music and rehearsals. There could be a wood and metal working shop, a library and study rooms.

The total cost for a playground like this? An estimated $1,000,000, and a bargain at the price.

There would be some problems to surmount, of course. Legal questions, such as liability in case of accidental injury, would have to be straightened out in advance. Zoning problems would have to be handled. Code requirements of the local departments of housing and buildings would have to be met. Money must be raised.

Recently, four reform school teeners appeared before a youth forum in New York and, sitting behind a screen to protect their identities, advised their elders on how to deal with kids. Their unanimous conclusion: More young people would stay out of trouble if they were loved by their parents and “had decent l and interesting places to play after school.”

Anyone who has ever had a taste of the misery, degradation and boredom of an alley adolescence can testify that this is a realistic suggestion. The clincher came when the New York State Attorney General told the youths that their suggestion was the same as that offered by a panel of social workers and public officials not long before at a hearing on the problems of juvenile delinquency.

How about it? Had a bellyful of terror in your city’s streets? Then why not give rooftop playgrounds some long and serious thought? •

Cut Hair with Your Electric Shaver

With the Electric Shaver Haircutting Guide anyone owning a Remington, Schick or Norelco shaver can give a good haircut. Made of metal, the wire guide has an overall length of eight inches and a width of three inches.

In use, the shaver is inserted in the adaptor which holds it in position and the entire unit is placed against the head. One hand holds the guide while the other hand moves the shaver up and down as illustrated. Included in the $2.98 guide price are complete instructions. If you do not have a shaver, a $30.50 price includes your choice of Remington Deluxe or Schick, while a $25.95 price brings a Norelco with the guide.

Spuriscope tells the difference between a counterfeit bill and a genuine piece of money. The user dials the serial number which is on the currency and there appears on the machine an alphabetical series designation. If the bill in question does not bear the same letters, it’s counterfeit. Accurate Molding Corp., Long Island City, N. Y. makes it.

You Can Swat That Fly in Mid-Air
ONE of the many unique contraptions shown at the International Patent Exhibition in Philadelphia recently is the novel fly-swatter shown below.
This method of trapping the unwary fly is guaranteed to be much easier than putting salt on its tail. With this device flies can be killed on the wing.

Postpone Irrigation of Sahara
PLANS for turning the Sahara desert into a rich agricultural territory by means of diverting waters of the Mediterranean sea into depressions of the wasteland have been postponed for some time due to the death of the man whose idea and capital furnished the incentive. Dwight Braman, prominent American financier, was recently stricken with heart attack and died. It was his intention to begin the work of letting the sea into the desert this fall. American engineers and machinery were to be used, and following his return from Algeria before his death, Mr. Braman was highly enthusiastic of the possibility of making the “Sahara blossom like a rose.” Some of Mr. Braman’s friends are considering taking over the plans for the project.

Vision Perpetual Motion In This Rubber Band Engine

AN ENGINE run only by a single rubber band—does it have possibilities of perpetual motion?

Many who saw it on exhibit at the Hall of Science in Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition believe it has. The engine, shown on the left, obtains its energy from heat directed on the rubber band. Many persons visioned the probability of substituting solar heat for the electrical heaters used in the exhibit. However, perpetual motion is an impossibility as the machine would run only during life of band.

The apparatus consists of an electrical heater on each side of a vertical support on which swings an ordinary pendulum. One end of the rubber band is attached near the top of the support and the other to the lower end of the pendulum.

The engine is started by turning on the current and giving the pendulum a starting swing. As the pendulum reaches the end of its swing, the rubber band is stretched about 300 per cent and is directly in front of one of the heaters. The heat causes the rubber to contract, forcing the pendulum back on another swing. As the rubber band passes through the shadow of the shield, it is cooled off and allows the pendulum to swing out to the other heater.

New Burglar Alarm Set Off by Vibrations of Heartbeat

THERE have been numerous inventions to foil bank bandits in their hold-up attempts but the latest one is the most original. The vibrations of the human heart-heat set off an alarm bell.

The device, shown in photo at the left, incorporates principles of electricity and accoustics to do its detecting job. It is the result of three years of work by the inventors.

In appearance, the burglar alarm resembles a miniature radio. If any would-be bandit approaches close to the cage, his heartbeat, working faster than usual because he is under a high nervous tension, will set off the boisterous alarm bell that can be heard a block away.

PILLS TO KEEP YOU WARM

A pill that may increase resistance to cold is being tested at the Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory near Fairbanks, Alaska.

The pill contains glycine, an amino-acid that causes the body to generate more heat than it can otherwise produce. It is hoped the pill might enable men to stay alive longer in icy water, and hasten the warming of a man who has been chilled to a critical point of exposure.

At the laboratory, operated by the Air Force at Ladd Air Force Base, volunteers are taking the pills with no evidence of ill effect. If the tests are successful the pills could be included in survival kits.

Glycine also may make possible a technique of heart surgery in which the heart can be chilled to the point where it stops for an hour or more without suffering damage. According to scientists working at the Air Force laboratory, the heart suffers “ventricular fibrillation” when its temperature is lowered to about 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

This is a loss of rhythmic beat, which causes death. Hence, in heart surgery, the organ can be chilled only enough to stop its beating for six or eight minutes. Glycine in the bloodstream may enable the heart to be chilled past this critical temperature.

Extensive research has been carried out at the laboratory with Negroes, Eskimos, and whites to find out why some ethnic groups seem more resistant to cold than others. Among Negroes who agreed to act as subjects in the experiments, basal metabolism—that is, their rate of energy production—fell more rapidly than it did in white men. Similar studies of Eskimos produced no evidence that their bodies were better equipped for the cold than those of white men. The Eskimos’ ability to endure extremely low temperatures seems based on acquired skills and excellently adapted clothing and diet.

—Walter Sullivan in The New York Times

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Science Still Seeks a Rain-Making Machine

by RAYMOND HULBERT
A fortune awaits the inventor of a rain-making machine which really works. Science says there’s nothing impossible about such a machine. Last summer’s drouth emphasizes the economic value of a mechanism which would produce water for growing crops when needed.

SCIENCE does not proscribe rain-makers. It does not commit itself on the subject of artificial rain. Science does not say anything is impossible. But during the past century, science has shot dark clouds through the lives of men who professed to possess the talents and the instruments to cause rain to fall from the heavens.

There are incidents noted where some scientists, or perhaps a pseudo-scientist, actually succeeded in making rain fall while the skies were under the spell and influence of his apparatus. The slightest atom of a doubt persisted, however, on these occasions and therefore these inventors have never been honored with bona-fide glory. Their feats have been ascribed to the quirks of chance and coincidence.

On the other hand, engineers and scientists have not utterly abandoned their efforts to produce a machine which will manufacture rain. The drought of last summer, which was grimly devastating in the Corn Belt and other agricultural regions, revealed the golden prospects awaiting the inventor of a practical machine for rain-storms.

The latest episode where a scientist tried to bring rain out of a clear sky occurred at the famous Belmont Race Track during the middle of last September. Dr. G. A. I. M. Sykes installed a shed and his bizarre electrical apparatus in the vicinity of the eighth pole at the track and told the world that he would turn on the rain whenever it pleased his whims.

But before Dr. Sykes announced there was going to be rain, he came out and told Joseph E. Widener, head of the race-track association, that he would have fair weather every day of a certain week. That Dr. Sykes’ weather control apparatus would keep the sun shined up like a new penny, as he put it.

When the skeptics hissed and hooted, Dr. Sykes drew forth a roll of thousand-dollar bills and asserted that he would pay a penalty of $2,000 for each day it rained against his will. Joe Widener, owner of a fine stable of horses and a sportsman to the core, offered the artificial weatherman $1,000 for each day of fine weather and $2,500 each for two perfect Saturdays.

In making this bargain, Widener recalled the lamentable circumstances of June 8 at the Belmont track when 25,000 spectators were uncomfortably and dangerously huddled in the grandstand while the rain poured down during the Belmont Stakes event. Dr. Sykes took the order and went out to work for sunshine.

Dr. Sykes gave them sunshine for every day except one of that week, tucking away $8,000 in his jeans on Saturday. That’s the fair side of the story, but it so happened that a sprinkle sneaked through the ozone on the final Saturday, which was the Futurity Day and one which the Widener coterie particularly wanted resplendent with sunshine. Anyway, Dr. Sykes had the consummate satisfaction of saying he found a way to beat the horses. But, as has already been indicated, there were squawkers and doubting Thomases who sent up a yelp that statistics for five years showed that the month of September had an average of nine days of rain over that period, that Dr. Sykes was no scientist or magician. He was just a lucky devil, as they expressed it.

Dr. Sykes graciously accepted the challenge of these scoffers and announced that it would rain at Belmont Park between the hours of two and four on Monday, September 15. His solemn pronouncement struck a weird feeling into his listeners, not unlike the sensation that Indian tribesmen must have felt when the Medicine Man, pointing an ominous finger skyward, mumbled that rain would fall at his command.

At any rate, Dr. Sykes got out to Belmont Park bright and early that morning with his corps of assistants. He set up his apparatus which he explained worked through thermomagnetic field impulses.

“I merely assemble rain-bearing clouds over a specified area,” said Dr. Sykes, explaining his intricate rain machine, “and then I turn my engines on them. The earth’s magnetic field fairly eats out of my hand.”

Dr. Sykes soared into a profound discussion on dynurgy, xurgy, psychurgy, freenurgy, chemurgy, themurgy and several other “urgies” not in the dictionary, but since these “urgies” do not promise to become an integral part of science, they might be discarded without injury to either Dr. Sykes or science.

Dr. Sykes’ central apparatus consisted of four dry batteries, an electric heater that had seen better days but which served its purpose still, two old-fashioned radio sets, coils and coils of wire and an abused loop aerial.

Added to this grotesque composition was a vase, which might have been used in the old days as a container for flowers in a steam – driven automobile. Dr. Sykes explained that this was his sun accumulator. Then there was a small airplane propeller attached to some mechanism which he said serves as wind distributor. Homely, improvised apparatus, but Dr. Sykes had an explanation for every molecule of metal there.

At a little distance from this machinery was the five-sided shed, decked out with additional aerials. Inside was a French telephone circuit which represented the negative end of the works when the other extreme was positive, and vice versa. On the wall of the shed was a map showing the magnetic inclination or the so-called “dip” for the particular vicinity. This section was in the 72d degree of magnetic powers.

- Came Monday afternoon. Two p. m. A goodly crowd was there. Dr. Sykes appeared in a full bloom of confidence. He held a hand electric generator whose function he refused to explain under these particular circumstances. Three p. m. The sun revelled high and bright in heaven.

Four p. m. Dr. Sykes mounted a platform and looked mournfully though hopefully toward the west. At four-thirty he turned to his assistant and muttered, “Into each life a little rain must fall.” By five o’clock it was plain that Dr. Sykes was facing failure. Not a single drop of rain, though there were stubborn clouds everywhere. By six o’clock, Dr. Sykes had mysteriously vanished. However, not without the high commendation of his admirers. Dr. Sykes had dared to pursue the courage of his convictions.

Perhaps one of the most ambitious attempts to produce rain was that of Prof. Wilber D. Bancroft, professor of physical chemistry at Cornell University, and L. Francis Warren, another scientist. Back in February, 1923, they tried to dispel clouds and fogs with electrically charged sand and at the same time they attempted to precipitate rain from massed vapor.

These two men obtained the co-operation of the Army Air Service and they carried on their experiments from airplanes over McCook Field, near Dayton, Ohio. They were hailed as pioneers and the end was envisioned of the London fog, as well as the fogs which endangered shipping on seaports of America and Europe.

It was their plan to fly 400 to 500 feet over the clouds. The plane would discharge the electrified sand above the tops of the clouds, enlarging the drops, coalescing them or causing uncharged drops to evaporate, thereby compelling the larger drops to descend in rainfall. Mr. Warren maintained at the time that they actually dispelled clouds in ten minutes. However, in cases of drought where there were no clouds, the problem might be beyond their reach or control, they said.

A special apparatus had been attached to the airplane which could discharge 30,000 to 40,000 volts. The plane carried eighty pounds of sand of 150 mesh. It had a wind-driven generator and electric equipment capable of discharging sand charged either positively or negatively, according to the will of the operator. The plane went at 100 miles an hour over the specific cloud region. Little of rain-making value developed out of these experiments.

Still later, aviators tried to break a drought in Hongkong, China, by dropping powdered kaolin in the clouds, thereby hoping to precipitate rain. But their efforts were futile.

During the latter part of the last century it was generally believed that fires might bring down rain. James Espy, a meteorologist of Pennsylvania, was the greatest exponent of this theory. But this idea also went up in thin air.

Other notions were that explosions and concussions could produce showers. But the World war, with all the heavy artillery explosions, and a couple of volcano eruptions have discredited the concussion theory for making rain-drops.

Back in 1891, a Chicagoan named Gathman shot a stream of carbolic acid 600 feet into the air. He maintained that clouds formed as a result and rain was subsequently produced. But then again, there is no positive record of his accomplishment. Besides, carbolic acid offers no allurements in this field for practical purposes.

In 1893, a Frenchman named Baudouin, was supposed to have caused rain by establishing an electrical contact with clouds through the medium of a kite. He said it worked twice in Algeria. By removing the kite he stopped the rain, he said. But that was so long ago no one remembers whether it did rain in Algeria on that particular day.

But getting down to a constructive viewpoint, C. F. Marvin, chief of the United States Weather Bureau, has manifested a deep interest in all attempts to make rain. There is no disputing the fact that a successful machine would be priceless, that its inventor would go down not only as one of mankind’s greatest benefactors but also one of the most celebrated engineers.

So intrigued was the weather bureau at Washington that two officials were on hand during Dr. Sykes’ demonstration at Belmont Park. The field is open, they said. One of them expressed the opinion that many a cellar may harbor the discarded apparatus which might have served the purpose if only brought out into the open and developed. There is no limit to the possibilities of an apparatus which can do away with drought and the rain-check.

COSMIC RAYS MAY FORECAST WEATHER

Cosmic rays may help to prophesy the weather. This first practical use for the mysterious radiations from outer space was recently announced by Dr. R. A. Millikan, Calif. Institute of Technology physicist.

The “cosmic rays” are more penetrating than radium or X-rays, but it is not known whether they affect human beings.

Dr. Millikan, who discovered the source of the rays (P. S. M., July, ‘28, p. 13), has measured their strength with his new electroscope, and is able to determine high-altitude atmospheric conditions.

Solar Bath Apparatus Helps Cure Diseases of the Head
NO, THE peculiar looking device in the photo at left is not a camera, nor even a telescope, although partially resembling both. It is a new solar bath apparatus for the head and has made a great hit with the medical fraternity of Germany. The main purpose of the device is to cure sicknesses of the head, like catarrh of the nose and throat or of the ears. It reposes on a stationary upright and has an opening in under side for a patient’s head. Affected person sits in a chair while taking treatments. An ultra-violet ray machine within throws artificial sunlight upon all parts of the head. Eventually, when fully tested and improved, it is expected to cure many of the illnesses of the head.

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.

Related posts

• The FREAK of the Month ~ No. 3 – The Rotor Airship (Jan, 1931)
• The FREAK of the MONTH~No. 1 (Jan, 1931)

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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”.

Each horsepower of gyradoscope is expected to lift 1,000 pounds vertically in midair and sustain the load at any desired elevation by regulating the speed, and the inventor expects a machine weighing 2,000 pounds to lift 500 tons.

Briefly, the gyradoscope combines gyroscopic action with centrifugal force. As described in the prospectus of the company, the gyradoscope consists of two wheels rotating in opposite directions in the same plane. Each wheel has several weights, the arms of which are connected to eccentrics on each wheel, which propel the weights in opposite directions in such a way that a lifting effect is exerted when the weights are at the top point of travel.

The exact mechanism by which this effect is produced is somewhat obscure, but a model of the device already built has been bolted to the floor of a freight elevator, it is claimed, and succeeded in raising and lowering it with ease. In this test a 20-horsepower gasoline engine furnished power.

Lifting force exerted by the gyradoscope is likened to that of a ball thrown on the end of a string. The weight of the ball at the moment it draws the string taut exerts a lifting effect on a pencil or other object to which the bottom of the string may be tied. In the gyradoscope the moving weights on the wheels are analogous to the thrown ball. To a casual scrutiny the whole idea seems very much like lifting one’s self by one’s boot straps, but the success attained with models indicates that the inventor may be successful in developing an entirely new type of aircraft.

Forward motion is to be supplied by a gyradoscope in horizontal plane, and steering will be accomplished by a similar mechanism. In case of accident to the lifting gyros, which would result in the ship’s dropping like a plummet, auxiliary machines are provided which are kept running at idling speed ready to be called upon in an emergency. Four hydraulic landing feet, one on each corner of the ship, absorb the shock of landing, which is expected to be insignificant since rate of descent is controlled by speed of the gyradoscope. Mr. Holmes, inventor of the gyro-ship, also has the invention of a popular front wheel drive for autos to his credit, as well as a four wheel drive and a caloric steam engine.

This latter machine would supply the power for the airship. As developed by Mr Holmes, waste heat from oil combustion is used in the caloric engine to convert water into steam, which drives a turbine, and is then condensed to be used over again.

Ball-Shaped TRAIN Pulled By Magnets

THE “bullet-flash,” most radical idea in railroad design since the recent advent of streamlining, has just been conceived by a Swiss engineer. Based on electro-magnetic principles, the new ball-shaped iron horse is expected to roll on standard-size rails at a speed as high as 300 m.p.h.

The outer rotating ball contains a stationary inner chamber for carrying passengers. Giant magneto arcs, located at 300-yard intervals, are expected to provide the pulling power. After passing under an arc, the ball automatically throws a switch shutting off the electro-magnet and is attracted to the next magnet-arc on the rails.

One of the special features of the unconventional “bullet-flash” is that it can be operated over normal rails and roadbeds without radical changes. The one-wheel system is claimed by its inventor to be especially practical for use in mountainous areas.
The engineer displayed his model to railroad officials. If further tests are satisfactory, a full-size test train may be built in Switzerland.

Man-Made Gales Help Airplanes Land

HUGE fans which can whip up a 65-mile gale that will act as a brake on landing airplanes will be the next piece of equipment installed in the modern airport, according to experimenters.

Aviators have long known that it is easier to land in a stiff breeze than in still air, and it is proposed to take advantage of this fact by arranging twelve to twenty fans on the landing field to supply an artificial gale. The fans would be arranged at the end of the field to cover a section 200 ft. wide and 90 ft. high. The air would be driven through a screen of steel bars one inch wide and two feet apart. This screen would serve to break up the eddies of the air.

Flying into this man-made breeze, the aviator would be able to land in the small space of a city block, or even on top of a moderate sized office building.

The fans would be equally helpful in aiding the plane to take-off, for the angle of the ascent could be increased from 20 degrees to 50 degrees with a 65-mile gale furnishing lifting power for the wings.

By cutting down the space necessary for a plane to land, department stores will be able to maintain landing facilities on top of their buildings for the convenience of shoppers. This would aid immensely in popularizing the airplane for everyday

uses.—Science Service

Low Grade Coal Deposit Makes Natural “Boiler” to Generate Electricity

VISUALIZE two million straining horses lashed to a load that would be one-eighth the weight of Mount McKinley and you will have some idea of the tremendous power that will be generated in the low-grade coal districts by the super-power stations of the near future.

In the new method devised by engineers to utilize the country’s vast deposits of low-grade coal, unsuitable for factory or home furnaces, Mother Earth is to be used as a boiler and burn this coal without ever bringing it to the surface.

The plan recently proposed calls for a number of pipes to be driven down to the deposits. One series of pipes carries water to the underground cavities, while other pipes carry air under high pressure, so that the coal burning there will develop high heat. Still another series of pipes carries the steam generated to the power station high above on the surface.

At the power station, giant turbines, each producing 150,000 h.p., would permit the steam to expand and turn huge electrical generators. With this scheme, expensive boilers, boiler room attendants, as well as coal will be eliminated. This underground inferno will furnish power for entire state.

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MAIL VIA ROCKET

A missile expert predicts rocket mail by 1965. Here are MI’s ideas on how the system could function.

By Frank Tinsley

IT’S Friday noon. In the home office of a giant New York corporation the final drafts of a secret merger are being signed. If they can be signed by the party of the second part in San Francisco and be back here in the office before the stock market closes—so that “buy” orders can be rushed to dealers throughout the country—a possible Monday financial slump can be averted. The atmosphere is tense. A micro- photo machine has been moved into the president’s office and a trusted operator inserts the sheets, one by one. Two tiny prints of each emerge, one for the files and one for mailing. The latter is sealed in a pencil-thin plastic carrier bearing the written address and the code punch for San Francisco. The carrier is then popped into a pneumatic tube that takes it to a central post office where it emerges into a sorting machine. Automatically identifying the punch mark, this device drops it into the San Francisco container. At scheduled intervals, an attendant seals these containers and inserts them in a large pneumatic tube to the rooftop heliport. Here our letter is picked up by a fast convertaplane that flies hourly between the city and the rocket base.

Arriving at the base, our pilot hovers over the Frisco-bound rocket. Mail containers are lowered to a loading crew perched high on the missile’s open cargo doors. Parcel post packages follow swiftly and the doors are swung upward and locked. The “service stand” retracts its telescoping tower, folds it neatly on its bed and pulls away from the missile pit.

With an ear-splitting roar, the downward rush of incandescent gas is deflected up and out by the cup-shaped walls of the bunker. Slowly, the missile rises, gathering momentum with every foot of altitude. Climbing high into space at 10,000 mph the winged postman is guided on its course by electronic pilot installations spaced across the country. With engines cut, it begins the long, roller-coaster dip to the Pacific. As it nears the coast, controls are actuated and the huge missile turns slowly end-for-end. Tail first, with rocket again soaring, it gradually brakes it descent. Now the landing controls at its destination take over. Lightly, it touches down on its landing pad.

The postman’s engine is cut. A reversal of the New York procedure whisks the merger container into the hands of its addressee by 10 a. m. Pacific Standard Time. Quickly countersigned and witnessed, it begins its return trip. Our New York executives receive the papers at 2:30 p.m.—in plenty of time to close the deal.

When will this closely-coordinated missile mail service be in operation? According to Hall L. Hibbard, head of Lockheed Aircraft’s Missile Division, missile mail and freight will be possible by 1965. MI agrees—and we foresee that the speed of the service will require a smooth-working, speeded-up city-to-rocket base and ground handling system to exploit its fullest potential.

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Patents Nutty or Novel?

Almost all of the 40,000 inventions patented each year by Uncle Sam are workable devices—but as to being practical, that’s something else again. The inventions pictured on these pages, all of them taken from patent office records, are somewhat funnier but no less impractical than a large number of devices which their inventors see fit to protect with a patent. Read ‘em and weep!

Outriggers to Keep Autos on the Road

AUTOMOBILE designers can take a tip from South Sea natives who build outriggers on their war canoes to keep them from tipping over. The drawing above shows an outriggered car equipped with a device patented by a New Jersey inventor back in 1915. When the driver sees that he is about to slide over the edge of a precipice, he pulls a lever and the outriggers shoot out, presumably striking solid ground and supporting the car. Just what happens in case the road bed slants so steeply that there’s nothing under the outrigger but air, the inventor leaves to the imagination. Somehow the device never became popular with motorists, but it might come in handy for bootleggers, who could run alongside a revenue agent’s car, pull a lever, and knock the enemy from the road.

Collapsible Steam Whistle Warns Animals Off Railroad Right-of-Way

A PEANUT vendor’s whistle and a folding telephone arm are combined in the novel “cow catcher” of the locomotive shown below sneaking up on an unsuspecting Billy goat. The whistle is connected with the boiler of the locomotive so that the engineer can direct a burst of superheated steam at whatever portion of a trespassing animal’s anatomy is handiest. If the goat or cow or what have you doesn’t take the hint and step to one side, it is impaled on a sharp projection below the whistle, the arm collapses back toward the locomotive, and the animal is deposited on the right of way, sadder but wiser. This apparatus was invented during the Civil War.

Sleeper Roused by Water-Sprinkling Alarm

IF YOU have trouble getting up in the morning to the strains of a tinkling alarm clock, the arouser shown in action at the right will appeal to you. According to the claims of its inventor as set forth in the patent specifications, the alarm “is designed to awaken human beings from slumber in a pleasant fashion, without shock to the nervous system.” A perforated rubber tube is wrapped around the neck when retiring for the night. The other end is attached to a cup of water. At the specified time an alarm clock releases a valve which permits the water to flow through the tube, spraying the neck and shoulders like a lawn sprinkler. This is a sign that it’s time to arise. This is another invention which never succeeded commercially, although as a combination alarm clock and garden sprinkler his device had the field practically to itself. The water spurting from the alarm gives a classy effect, like Walter Raleigh’s collar.

Well Dressed Men to Wear Parachute Suits

NOW that the airplane has proved itself as a means of transportation, an inventor has come forth with a parachute suit which “fills a long felt need.” It fits around the waist and operates something after the fashion of an umbrella, being worn like a corset. Although intended primarily for the safety, if not convenience, of airplane passengers, the suit bids fair to become an essential part of the well-dressed man’s wardrobe. When spending the night in a skyscraping hotel, for instance, the suit is just the thing in case of fire. Such a thrilling use of the suit is pictured by our artist at the left. As an amusement, parachute jumping will come into its own now that it is so convenient to use one. Think of the fun in thrilling your friends by jumping out of a twenty-story window—and imagine your embarrassment if the darn thing failed to work! Like all good suits, the parachute must be tailor-made to suit the individual. A chute intended for a 90-pounder might not work so well for a 300-pound heavyweight!

Vacuum Cleaner Purifies Air
Small enough to rest on a bedside table, a vacuum cleaner now on the market has a special attachment that makes it useful for purifying the air in a sick room. Employing turbine-type blades instead of the conventional revolving fan to create suction, the unit draws room air in through a nozzle and passes it through a “germ trap” said to remove any dust and other impurities it may contain.

Cops’ COLD FEET Heated by electricity

CLOTHED in a new electrically heated uniform, recently developed by the General Electric Company, a policeman can stand at street intersections directing traffic all day long in the coldest weather and keep as warm as if he were inside.

Several thin rubber strips about 1/2 inch wide and very flexible, with a heating element vulcanized inside, are sewed into the uniform, and thin insoles of the same material are fitted in the shoes. These are connected by small insulated wires to metal plates attached to the heels of the shoes, the positive wire leading to one foot and the negative to the other.

If cold, the officer merely steps on two insulated plates set flush with the pavement. One plate is connected to the positive terminal of a 12-volt storage battery placed in a box below the plates, and the other to the negative terminal. The sole plates form the contacts and within 15 seconds the heating units begin to warm up.

Pleasure-Tower Half Mile High

Towering almost half a mile above the ground, dwarfing such gigantic structures as the Empire State Building and the Eiffel tower, a huge concrete tower 2300 feet high, surmounted with a beacon and built with a spiral ramp for autos to climb up its sides, stuns the imagination with its vastness. It is the design of the French engineer, M. Freyssinet, intended for the 1937 Paris Exhibition. He estimates the cost at less than half the Eiffel Tower, or in the neighborhood of $2,500,000. It will be called the “Phare du Monde,” or Lighthouse of the World- The project appears far removed from the visionary and a new all-time “high” in buildings seems in a fair way to being achieved.

Unique Bus of Future to Duplicate Speed of Railroads

RECENT developments in everything that moves has caused many flights of imagination. Thus the fancy conjures up a bus to keep pace with other transportation. The bus between New York and San Francisco will be equipped with airplanes for trips not on the regular schedule. For diversion, billiard rooms, swimming pool, dancing floor and a bridle path would be available. The pilot would be “enthroned” over his engines, with the radio above. Space for autos would be afforded by the deck.