view additional pages

Training Divers to Fight Undersea Perils

USING a special dry-land pressure tank, Navy officials have perfected a method of training deep-sea divers to combat perils hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the sea.

YOUNG men who wish to become deep-sea divers can learn the fine points of the profession without getting any closer to the ocean than Washington, D. C, thanks to scientists who have developed a system of pressure-tank training which enables divers to stand on the bottom of a tank twelve feet deep and experience exactly the same pressure and temperature conditions that obtain in the ocean at depths of 200 to 300 feet. Read the rest of this entry »

Blimp Tows Aquaplane to Give Latest Aquatic Thrill
HITCH hiking behind the Goodyear blimp Volunteer is the latest form of water sport for thrill seekers on the California bathing beaches. One of the most ardent devotees of the sport is Elmer Peck, of Long Beach, holder of the world’s record for endurance on an aquaplane. He is shown in the accompanying photo stunting on an aquaplane in tow of the Volunteer which is flying low over the water at a clip of 60 miles per hour. Stunting like this demands the utmost in nerve and skill.

Plane Carries Tourists on Side Trips

AIR and ocean travel are combined in a Mediterranean steamer which carries a hydroplane on its deck for passengers’ use. When the ship calls at points of historic interest the hydroplane is launched and tourists are given a view of the strange city from the air. Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

SUBMARINE SAFETY – An Insolvable Problem?

Must submarines, by their very nature, always be death traps for the men who operate them? No successful rescue device has yet been developed which can be depended on infallibly in all circumstances, and recent losses of life indicate that the problem of safety is no nearer solution now than it was 20 years ago.
Read the rest of this entry »

NEW PLEASURE CRAFT

A LOS ANGELES man has invented a new type of pleasure boat. The boat has a round, metal air-filled pontoon to keep it afloat. There are twin paddles to control the boat. One of them furnishes the motive power while the other steers the odd craft. The interior of the boat is shown here with three young ladies engaged in giving it a trial spin. The boat is built to carry four persons comfortably but a maximum load of eight people can be safely handled.

view additional pages

Diving Under Ice to Solve Polar Mysteries

by LEW HOLT

Sir Hubert Wilkins’ amazing journey under the North Pole in the submarine Nautilus, now under way, may discover evidence which will solve long-standing polar mysteries. Are there undiscovered islands near the pole—will the expedition discover a fathomless hole at the axis of the earth? Some of the riddles they will answer are described here.
Read the rest of this entry »

Crossing The Atlantic in this overgrown barrel is the intention of Peter Olsen and Mark Charlton. Their $2,500 tub is 10 feet long; 6 feet, 9 inches high at the bilge; weighs more than two tons; and has a four-foot, 700-pound keel and a four-foot rudder. A 22-foot mast fits into the foremost hole of the barrel.

Floating Fuel Station for SEAPLANES

IN THE future, when airplane travel comes to be as commonplace as automobile travel, we may expect to see floating filling stations, such as shown in the drawing above, dotting the airplane travel lanes of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This is by no means a fantastic project of dreamers, for already just such floating service stations are to be seen scattered along the Pacific coast; and a west coast oil company, looking to the future, has announced its intentions of establishing a chain of 99 such stations for the accommodation of planes journeying up and down the seaboard. Read the rest of this entry »

Auto-Boat Speedy on Land or Sea

YOU may take your choice and call it a sea-going auto or a road-boat, but whatever it is, the vehicle shown in the photo below performs nicely on land or water, developing 25 miles an hour in the liquid element and 40 per on terra firma.

The land-boat (or sea-auto) was invented by Peter Prell of Union, New Jersey, presumably for the purpose of beating the jam on both tube and ferry while commuting to New York.

view additional pages

UNDERSEA SPIES

BY JAMES NEVIN MILLER

BACK in December, 1944, Lieut. Earl E. Cook of Seattle, won the Navy Cross for a unique achievement. First, in a successful effort to locate three enemy depth bombs known to be in immediate danger of detonation, he dove deep inside a patrol bomber sunk in a vital channel off Oahu, Hawaii. Then for three never-to-be-forgotten days he directed a six-man team of divers which finally recovered the death-dealing weapons.
Read the rest of this entry »

Auto Fitted With Floats to Navigate Both Land and Water

DESIGNED to ford streams and rivers on a 12,000 mile jaunt of exploration around the world, a new amphibian automobile has been constructed by Capt. Geoffrey Malin, British explorer, which floats by means of huge inflated bags attached to a special electron frame at the side.
Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

“Poor Man’s” Yacht

This floating dream-home will allow you to cruise the river in millionaire style.

By Rudy Arnold

HAVE YOU ever dreamed of cruising down the river in your own private yacht? If you have, now is the time to do it and enjoy the plushness of a modern dream-home complete with front and back yard.

Wesley H. Dyer’s “Dumbo” has made a low-cost family yacht a practical reality for the water-loving landlubber. Dyer, president of the Metal Products Company of Nashville, Tenn., named his original family yacht, shown on these pages, after Walt Disney’s flying elephant because his novel craft was big but surprisingly agile for its size. Read the rest of this entry »