Tin Fish Is One-Man Submarine

UNDERWATER FLIVVER DIVES THIRTY FEET, MAKES FOURTEEN-MILE RUNS

SHAPED like a fish, a one-man, homemade submarine built by Barney Connett, of Chicago, Ill., is believed to be one of the world’s smallest underwater boats. Shorter than the average canoe, the craft measures twenty-three inches at its widest point and is thirty-seven inches high. Painted gills and eyes heighten the fishy look of the ship, which has a stabilizing tail fin surrounding its propeller. Read the rest of this entry »

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Scientists Raid the Ocean Floor

Explorers now aim at the conquest of the sea floor, a great dim world of incredible riches.

A LOUD blare of confused noises breaks in upon the botanist’s thoughts, distracting his attention from the bizarre plant he has been studying intently in the dimness of the sea bottom.

He sighs, and a thicker-than-usual flock of bubbles burbles up from the artificial “gills” which enable him to breathe his oxygen directly from the water.
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Rescue Boat Travels on Sea or Ice

AN ARCTIC boat designed to run both on ice and water has been invented by Harold E. Bailey of Nashville, Term., for the purpose of rescuing polar parties marooned in the great ice fields. Difficulty in reaching the marooned members of the recent Nobile expedition was experienced because of the shifting ice floes with stretches of open water between them. A ship cannot cross the ice fields and dog sleds are helpless in navigating open water. It is its ability to travel in both mediums which makes Mr. Bailey’s rescue ship so adaptable for use in the far North.
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Watercycle
Like a strange bug, a homemade watercycle crawls across the surface of a lake or river. The weird craft was built by William Dein, an employee of the Republic Aviation Corporation. Dein purchased some surplus wing floats used on amphibious airplanes, fastened them together with a framework
and mounted part of a bicycle atop the structure. The operator pedals, and presto—the craft moves across the water.

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FLOATING AIRPORTS on LINK CONTINENTS

by BEN LINCOLN

FUNDS recently appropriated by the government have put the United States Department of Commerce, Aviation Branch, squarely behind the immediate development of a chain of five floating airports which will span the Atlantic for regular airways service.

This recently announced appropriation, amounting to $1,500,000 was negotiated by Eugene L. Vidal, Director of Aeronautics of the Department of Commerce, in behalf of Edward R. Armstrong, inventor of the seadrome, and completes a 16 year fight to gain recognition for a project which both Mr. Vidal, a competent and experienced airways operator, and Mr. Armstrong solidly believe in. As well, it will provide work for a great number of unemployed, as 80 per cent of the cost of such development projects goes to labor.
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Pontoons Support Odd Fishing Boat

PONTOONS made of welded sections of steel float a unique boat constructed by students in an Oakland, Calif., school of welding for use as a fishing craft for large parties of anglers on San Francisco Bay. Powered by two 110-horsepower gasoline engines, one installed in the stern section of each pontoon, the odd boat will have a speed of about twenty knots. Read the rest of this entry »

Twin Amphibian Cars for Monorail

Swift, Overhead Trams to Be “Equipped with Floats to Cross Water Like Boats AMPHIBIAN trains that can whiz above desert sands on an overhead rail, or plunge into the water to ford a river, are contemplated by the Soviet Government in an amazing plan to tap mineral wealth in Turkestan. They are to travel three projected monorail lines of unprecedented design, totaling 332 miles in length and crossing deserts and rivers.
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Floating Mooring Mast Proposed as Way Station for Airships

CONVINCED that battle fleets of the future will require the aid of rigid airships as long range scouts, aeronautic experts recently have suggested an ingenious method of mooring rigids to the mast of a moving depot ship at sea, as pictured above.

The depot ship, preferably a converted cruiser, has a hangar forward for small fighting planes, with a launching deck from which the planes are seen taking off to protect the rigid as it returns from a trip.
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PASSENGER’S CAR POWERS FERRY

Power for a new motor ferry, recently tried out on the Amersee River in Bavaria, is supplied by the passenger’s car. Driving onto the open deck of the ferry, the motorist stops with the rear wheels of his car resting upon rollers, similar to those used on most brake-testing machines.

Airplane Influence in Speed Boat

SPEEDBOATS have for many years been the subject of attack by inventors. Many of the so-called “solutions” are merely brainwaves such as wheels in water for the boat to run on and so on. The readers of Modern Mechanix and Inventions will immediately recognize something rational in the above solution, which is a development of existing elements, put together in a new way so as to achieve new comforts, new speed and utter dryness.
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Fighting Chinese Pirates with U.S. Marines

by JOHN CLOVELLY

Seven Yankee gunboats, patrolling the Yangtze river in conjunction with those of other nations, wage constant war against the bandits who infest this district which boasts one-third of the world’s population. Little known activities of this romantic branch of the foreign service are described in this article.

WHILE riding through an almost endless succession of dangerous rapids, whirlpools and currents in the Yangtze River, about 160 miles above Hankow, a merchant vessel operated by an American, named Captain Baker, suddenly went aground. It was night-time and a stone’s throw away could be dimly seen the craggy outlines of the shore.
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ICE-ISLAND in Mid-Atlantic Proposed

SEADROMES for ocean landing fields are not a new idea, a steel ‘drome designed by Edward Armstrong, recently described in these pages, being well on the road to practical acceptance. But the proposal to build seadromes of ice, recently advanced from Germany, seems fantastic until one realizes that the idea has already passed the experimental stage with flying colors.
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