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SPECTACULARS

The Southerner who made good by making New Yorkers look up expects the whole postwar world to go sign-happy in the Times Square manner

The sky’s no limit to Douglas Leigh, today’s Lamplighter of Broadway and King of the Spectaculars, those illuminated, animated supersigns that are catching on across the country. Boy Wonder of the illuminated sign business in the early 1930′s (he’s only 36 now), Alabama-born Leigh has built several striking spectaculars since the war and plans many more, but even he will have to go some if he ever surpasses the imagination and daring that produced his new flying spectaculars..

Inspiration for the skyriding spectaculars, 265-foot dirigibles that flash sales messages in the night to millions of people, came to Leigh while he still was in the Navy. After the war, he took the idea to the Navy and surplus-property authorities. Both were pleased, since an airship is a trifle harder to dispose of than a parka and it had begun to appear likely that surplus dirigibles might be dismantled and their rubber turned into raincoats. Leigh bought seven of the ships, to the Navy’s delight, since he keeps them in fine flying fettle and ready on call for the Navy.

Electric lights on each side of the Leigh dirigibles carry a continuous message, or running sign. The signs are transmitted the same way as are running signs and electric news strips on the ground. Letters of a message are perforated on a tape before a flight. In making the display, the tape is drawn over a drum containing circuit breakers keyed to each cluster of lights (see pages 36, 37) in the sign. Each perforation closes a circuit and causes the lights, in reading sequence, to spell out the words of the message.

Ordinary light bulbs and sockets would mean a lot of weight, however, so Fred Kerwer, Leigh’s chief engineer, prescribed 10 Christmas-tree bulbs of 2.8 volts each in clusters 18 inches in diameter, each cluster having a single tubular socket into which the lamps were fitted and connections soldered. Each cluster appears as one light at 1.000 feet. Some engineers doubted that running signs would be clearly visible from high in the air, but Leigh’s messages are readable easily at 2% miles, and the sign is visible at five miles. Each side of the 170-foot sign contains 5,000 of the small bulbs, arranged to carry letters 27 feet tall. Only 15 out of 10,000 lamps in the flying spectacular went bad in the course of two weeks’ service.

Leigh’s latest land spectacular for Times Square contains 15,000 bulbs and 1,000 feet of neon. It shows Mr. Peanut as a magician. But the ground can’t hold Leigh any more: recently he has been seen casting covetous glances at the fair white surface of the moon.

An RCA Solid State Laser that fits through the eye of a needle can transmit 500 million bits of information per second through a thread of glass.

The entire contents of a 24-volume encyclopedia in 3 minutes. 2500 phone conversations or 20 TV programs at the same time. Staggering amounts of information – all made to pass through a tiny thread of glass by a solid state laser that radiates light from an area one-hundredth the size of the period at the end of this sentence. The laser, developed by RCA scientists, emits a narrow, intense beam of light that can be efficiently coupled into the microscopic fibers that carry the information. Because of its incredible stability and small size, RCA’s solid state “double dovetail” laser represents a significant step toward faster, smaller, more efficient fiber optic communications systems.

This Solid State Laser is a product of RCA research – the kind of dedicated research that has been a tradition at RCA ever since Nipper started listening to His Masters Voice. Today, research and development of electronic products are funded at the highest level in our company’s history. Our commitment is, as it has always been, to the advancement of technology-to the creation of products that expand the human horizon, whether through a wave of sound or a thread of light.

c 1980 RCA Corporation – A tradition on the move

Safety Tail Light Shows Direction Motorist Intends to Turn
THE frequency of motor accidents may be lessened considerably when a new automatic tail light exhibited recently at the International Patent exhibition comes into widespread use. The turning of the steering wheel of the device, shown at the right, flashes on a light in the rear that indicates to following motorists which way the driver will turn, thus preventing confusion and delay.

Ants as Household Pets

ANT houses for children to build and watch at school and at home, as many schools and homes now keep bowls of goldfish or other kinds of aquaria, have been introduced at Hanover, New Hampshire, by Prof. Frank E. Austin of Dartmouth College. An ant house consists of two sheets of glass held in a wooden frame, like the two panes of a double window. The space between the glass sheets is filled with layers of sand or soil like that in which the ants ordinarily live. An ant colony is started in this glass house by introducing either a part of an existing colony or a fertilized ant queen who can start a new one. The ants proceed to build typical underground tunnels and chambers in which the life of the insects goes on just as in a normal ant-hill, apparently indifferent to the exposure of insect secrets to human gaze.

HERE’S “VELCRO”

VELCRO may put the zipper out of business. This new fastening material is made of two nylon strips. One contains oodles of microscopic hooks; the other oodles of microscopic loops. Pressed together they form an amazingly strong union, yet peel open easily.

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NEW ELASTIC TOPS LESSEN HUGE STOCKING CASUALTIES

The sheerer the stocking, the longer a masculine eye will linger on even the least well-turned calf and ankle. Because of this fact, the mortality rate of women’s silk hose is 500,000,000 pairs annually. If women were willing to wear medium-sheer stockings of eight or more threads twisted in one yarn, their stocking problem would he minimized. But most women wear three or four-thread stockings for daytime and two-thread for evening, with little thought to the fact that these cobwebby threads must at times resist a pull of several pounds.

The greatest strain on a stocking comes at the knee and garter top when the leg is bent. Most runs start when the tops are too taut. To absorb this strain and cut down stocking casualties, some manufacturers are now using two-way stretch elastic fabrics in the tops of their stockings. The photographs on this page illustrate how the new tops work.

Schoolgirls have this year consolidated their stand against the high upkeep of silk stockings. In many girls’ colleges and high schools, socks over bare legs are now being worn during winter and summer. Silk stockings are strictly for parties and off-campus frolics. College girls are having much fun with their socks. They buy them ankle length, of cashmere or Angora, many of them decorated with embroidered flowers or initials. Although these fancy socks cost $1.26 a pair, the girls consider them a good investment because one pair outwears a dozen sheer stockings.

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Making Your Money Last Longer

By Will Bradford

USING newly perfected methods of paper manufacture, Uncle Sam has increased the life-span of the average dollar bill fully three times! This article takes you behind the scenes of the world’s greatest money factory.

INCREASING the life of the dollar bill is the latest achievement of the U. S. Treasury, a feat which has involved several years of research and which has resulted in the perfection of grease-proof, oil-resistant, wear-worthy currency which will last longer than any ever previously produced.

The advent and popularization of the automobile, strange to say, increased the wear and tear to which dollar bills were exposed so that their life was shortened one-half. The remarkable prosperity of these United States has also increased the ordinary use of paper currency. Before the automobile, our one dollar greenbacks and silver currency were serviceable for 12 months’ use. The full moon of the motor age cut this life cycle in half.

Motorists carry much more cash than our former buggy and coach-users. Their wallets are filled with emergency paper money for paying for gas, oil, auto repairs and traffic fines. The money used by the motorists and service stations is exposed to grease, grime, oily hands and dirty pockets. Grease is one of the particular foes of paper currency.

New Money for Old Matters went from bad to worse. The point was reached where Uncle Sam had to replace 1,200 tons of old money with new annually, a total of about $4,000,000,000. The facilities of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing were taxed to capacity. National money makers worked night and day striving to keep ahead of paper currency needs.

Uncle Sam assigned to his reliable research scientists the task of determining how best to armor and reinforce paper money so that its period in circulation might be increased one or two months or more. The paper experts began at the very beginning by checking up on the methods of manufacture employed in making the safety paper used in currency production. They devised machines to test the wearing qualities of currency. A dollar bill folding device was invented, which subjected dollar bills to foldings and creasings such as they would suffer in your pocketbook, or mine. The average dollar bill wore through when subjected to 2,000 such foldings.

The paper used for currency is made of a mixture of three parts cotton and one part linen rags of the best quality. Thorough tests brought to light the fact that this paper was exposed to too much “beating” in the production process so that its fibers were weakened. By decreasing this “beating,” a better paper was produced which would withstand 6,000 test foldings. This scientific investigation resulted in the output of a safety paper three times as strong as that used originally.

Protected From Grease A great variety of chemicals were then tested for the treatment of the safety paper so that it would be better qualified to withstand the damaging effects of greasy hands and oily pockets, wallets and cash registers. A certain formaldehyde solution was finally developed which when sprayed over the paper currency protected it against grease and grime.

Tests were also made of the tensile strength, bursting strength, tear-ability, thickness, opacity and inking qualities of the new safety paper to see that it was satisfactory. A number of test batches of the paper were made in the miniature Government paper mill. Eventually, paper currency of the smaller denominations was made and circulated in test amounts. It demonstrated conclusively that it was 50 per cent stronger and longer-wearing than the paper money formerly used. Its current use has decreased the strain on Uncle Sam’s paper money plant at Washington.

The scientists delegated to experiment with the unsatisfactory paper money also discovered more profitable uses for redeemed currency. Some 40 carloads, equivalent to 1,450 tons of worn out paper money, are returned to the Treasury annually from all parts of the United States. Uncle Sam exchanges new money for old, replacing each dilapitated, ragged dollar bill with a crackling, spotless greenback of similar denomination.

Greenbacks for Souvenirs!

Redeemed currency is dumped into a battery of 10 macerators which chew it into mincemeat form. The macerated money is then converted into paper pulp and sold commercially for the manufacture of coarse cardboard, fibre board, shoe counters and similar materials. Souvenirs such as statuettes of the Washington Monument are also made from money mincemeat and sold to tourists. The money is de-inked and mutilated so completely that it cannot be used for illegal purposes. For many years the Government has lost money on its paper currency redemption.

The investigators found that by dusting and cleaning the macerated money more carefully, they could produce a paper pulp of better quality suitable for the manufacture of fine grade writing and printing paper. Milady now uses monogrammed stationery made from worn out greenbacks and yellowbacks. The paper money which you spend thus may come home again in a new and revised form so that you don’t recognize it. The U. S. Government will henceforth realize a good net profit from paper currency redemption.

The last and most important step in the improvement of our paper money results from the Treasury Department’s decision to reduce the size of our dollar bills to smaller dimensions. Our present paper currency is of standard 7-7/16 by 3-1/8 inches dimensions. The new dollar bills, to be circulated first in 1929, will be one-third smaller, with dimenions of 6-1/8 by 2-5/8 inches.

Cutting the size of our most popular denominations of paper money will result in enormous savings in ink and paper, and will increase the storage space in the U. S. treasury and federal reserve banks one-third. The new bills will be easier to handle, much more durable and more difficult to counterfeit successfully. The same cash registers and money counting machines now in use can be employed efficiently in handling the new size silver certificates. Later, greenbacks of the other popular denominations will also be made in reduced dimensions. It will take five years to replace the old paper currency with new.

Money Factory Remodeled The jump from the manufacture of one size of money to another has necessitated vital equipment changes at the Government’s paper money factory. Old presses have required complete remodelling and new presses have been built on special contracts. Copper plates of the new silver certificates have been made by the national engravers, the most skilled craftsmen of their trade in the world. This task in itself is colossal, for it takes seven engravers 4-1/2 months to produce one of these valuable money plates. Many different engravers work on each plate to contribute individual touches and to increase the difficulties of counterfeiting such plates.

The new pesos size one dollar bills will bear the likeness of George Washington on their faces. This picture is one of the finest pieces of plate printing ever performed. It is wholly impossible to counterfeit! this silver certificate so that Government specialists cannot detect the fraud. If you will examine one of these new dollar bills carefully, you will notice how the picture of Washington stands out and looks as though that distinguished soldier and statesman was going to step from the paper to greet you. All photographic attempts to counterfeit that picture have failed because the reproductions invariably appear flat and are easy to detect. The future small size two dollar bills will bear the photograph of Thomas Jefferson, the fives will carry the likeness of Abraham Lincoln, while the tens will reproduce the features of Theodore Roosevelt.

Uncle Sam’s present paper currency system is the most complicated in the world for it consists of five national currencies and 39 different types of paper money. Only financial experts, bankers and money specialists can readily identify all varieties on sight. The average layman knows the bills only by the figures indicating their purchasing power. To unscramble this paper money puzzle is another purpose of Uncle Sam in the reforms which he will institute. Originally we had available five different varieties of one dollar bills. Under the new plan, we will have available for spending purposes only one style of one dollar bill, the silver certificate. The $2 and $5 bills will be similarly standardized when produced in reduced sizes. Our 39 money varieties will be reduced ultimately to 11.

Astronomers Discover New Planet Out Beyond Neptune

The recently discovered planet, already named Pluto, is judged to be the same size as the earth.

The late Percival Lowell, shown above, predicted the planet’s discovery 25 years ago. The picture of the planet was obtained with a 24-inch reflector and is from a 30-times enlargement of the plate. It was taken by Prof. George Van Biesbroeck of Yerkes Observatory at Williams Bay, Wisc. The bright glow on the plate is the near-by star, Delta Geminorum.

Garage ‘Without WALLS for Car Parking

A TYPE of garage built on entirely new lines has been designed and patented by Samuel Eliot, a real estate operator and building manager of Boston, Mass. Known as a “cage garage,” it is an open-air parking space stepped up three or four stories, with no side-walls or windows, no heat, no elevators or electric lighting. It has a low stud of eight feet, staggered floors and a twenty per cent pitch double ramp that takes up the space of only two cars. The construction is of reinforced concrete, and the inventor says that such buildings can be constructed at the low cost of ten cents a cubic foot, and can accommodate as many as 800 cars easily.

It is estimated that such garages will be able to earn five times the amount earned by the more expensive types of public garages. The cars are run up the ramps under their own power and parked as on an ordinary open lot, with room to run them out when wanted. The buildings are strictly fireproof and are easier of access to fire apparatus than the expensive enclosed public garages.

A company is being formed to build these garages throughout the country. The plan is to lease ground space near the business districts of large cities.

Money Changing Machine Gives Silver for Bills!

MANY times has the cash girl wished that she didn’t have to change paper money and run out of change. Realizing this, an English inventor conceived and produced a changing machine. The bank note is placed within a flap on the top of the machine and the lever pressed downward. The exact change is then delivered to a cup at the bottom. A one pound English note is the only one that can be used in this particular model, but no doubt the inventor will fit the idea to several other types of currency.

The American cigarette vending machine is similar to this device. It has relieved the cash girl greatly, but there is still much congestion along this line. Modern invention is producing labor saving devices so fast that we often wonder just what will be next.

ELECTRIC LAMP NEARLY FIFTY YEARS OLD

A DRAMATIC moment in the history of modern illuminating science is pictured in the photograph below, showing Thomas A. Edison and his assistants testing the first incandescent lamp bulb at Menlo Park, N. J., on October 19, 1879. The lamp burned continuously for 40 hours before the filament parted. Its life was less than one- tenth that of modern bulbs whose filaments of special alloys burn in an atmosphere of inert gases instead of in a vacuum, as in the original lamp.

Edison is shown in the foreground driving the last of the gases from the bulb with with a battery. The picture was taken in Edison’s old laboratory.

An Extra Quart of milk in Pure-Pak… please

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Pure-Pak is safe. It won’t shatter, if dropped. It’s sanitary. It’s formed, sterilized, filled and sealed in the dairy, all in seconds . . . without the touch of human hands! Ask for your milk in Pure-Pak!

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Pure-Pak YOUR PERSONAL MILK CONTAINER is available NOW in hundreds of cities

Scientists Invent Machine To Discover How Brain Works

THE brain, perhaps the most mystifying organ of the human body, can now be scientifically studied by a new apparatus which photographs amplified “action currents.” Invented by Dr. H. H. Jasper and Dr. L. Carmichael of Brown University, the new machine will permit physicians to study the action of the brain just as the electrocardiograph permits a revealing study of heart action.

A headpiece on the head of the patient picks up electric currents of about one ten-millionths of a volt which flow from the brain in waves, at a rate of from eight to fifty per second. The currents are carried to an amplifying box where they are intensified 500,000 times and flashed across a glass disc. The ordinary currents are smooth and wavy; when the mind is disturbed, they are sharp and irregular.

Bullets from Same Gun Linked By Camera

PHOTOGRAPHIC evidence as to whether or not two bullets were fired from same gun is irrefutably supplied by a new comparison camera invented by Dr. J. H. Mathews, University of Wisconsin professor and criminologist.

The camera marks a sensational advance of science in the war against crime. By taking pictures of opposite sections of the two bullets being checked, the camera reconstructs a composite bullet of the two sections. The resulting photographic reproduction is enlarged between 64 and 256 times the size of the bullets, permitting positive identification before a courtroom jury.

The camera is really two cameras merging into one at the single plate holder. The bottom camera takes a photo of the base of one bullet while the upper camera registers the top section of the second bullet, the two halves appearing on the print as one.

Bike Pedal Light Warns Motorists

COLORED reflectors designed for mounting on bicycle pedals were recently introduced in England as part of a “safety first for cyclists” movement.

The colored glass crystals, being continually in motion as the cyclist pedals along, glow brilliantly when in headlight beams of approaching cars.

Berlin Installs First Stamp Vending Machine

BERLIN postal authorities have adopted a new invention that promises to be of real help to all. The automatic stamp vending machine which can be attached to trolley wire posts will relieve a long felt need. The photograph shows a customer operating the crank that produces the stamps. How many times have letters been written, only to be carried in the pocket because there was no stamp with which to post it! The Berlin idea is very simple. They plan to place a vending machine near every postal box in the city. The vending machine in itself is not new, but this application is novel. The machine is simple in construction. The stamps are manufactured on rolls by the printing house. These rolls fit into the machine. A magnetic coin tester unlocks the crank when a coin has been placed in the slot. The crank then turns out the number of stamps that the machine is prescribed to deliver.

American drug stores have been the principal users of the stamp vender.

NEW EYE TESTER

THIS remarkable instrument, which is in reality a battery of lenses no bigger than a cigar box, enables the optician to secure over one million combinations of lenses almost instantaneously. The London Refraction Hospital which has recently been rebuilt at a cost of $50,000, contains this machine among many others of the same type. Testing of the human eye is one of the most difficult tasks that the eye specialist encounters. Every person has different eye strengths so this machine was developed to reveal the fact that a patient’s eye deviates by as little as a quarter of a degree from its normal outlook. The patient is fitted to the machine and then the optician adjusts the various lenses until the proper lens fits each eye.

This device is practically “fool proof” and the optician is enabled to measure the eye with extreme accuracy.

NEW TRUNK RACK FOR SEDAN

AMONG the models seen in the great automobile show at Olympia, England, was a Jowett fabric sedan. This car, as seen in the photo below, is completely covered with Jowett fabric.

Instead of equipping the car with a trunk rack and trunk, the luggage space was built within the body. The panel, in the back of the body, lifts out and upward on hinges. The opening thus exposed is large enough to hold a man and not unnecessarily crowd him.

The English motor car indicates the trend of European design.

First Consumer Electronics Show

Plans for new week-long exhibit of home-entertainment equipment

THE WEEK OF JUNE 25 THROUGH 29 will be a busy one for the electronics industry. A week earlier, the annual NEW (National Electronics Week) show in Chicago will keep manufacturers of small electronic parts and components occupied showing their wares to distributors from all over the country.

Fresh (or not so fresh) from that mammoth task, the industry will move to New York into the Americana and New York Hilton hotels for the Consumer Electronics Show—the first national exhibition especially for home-entertainment electronics.

In recent years, home-entertainment manufacturers have shown electronic devices at a show in Chicago sponsored by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), mainly because there was no show specifically for home-entertainment electronics. This year’s new show has been put together by the Consumer Products Division of the Electronic Industries Association (EIA). It runs in New York the same week the NAMM Show runs in Chicago.

Exhibitors had to choose between the two or face the expense of two simultaneous shows. A very few found it necessary to make both; an overwhelming number who had no stake whatever in music as such decided to show only in the Consumer Electronics Show in New York.

We talked to Jack Wayman, staff vice president of the Consumer Products Division of EIA, who is responsible for getting the Show “on the road.” He explained some of the Show plans to us recently.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will be part of Consumer Electronics Week—June 23-28, 1967. The National Appliance and Radio-TV Dealers Association (NARDA) will hold its annual convention the same week. The NARDA convention starts Friday, June 23, and finishes Sunday, June 25, the first day the CES exhibits will be open.

The first day will feature an all-industry reception and banquet in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria. After that, it’s down to business. In addition to the exhibits, which open at noon Sunday, the remaining three days will feature three morning seminars (8:30— 10:30 am) planned to build profits for all the dealers who attend them. They should be full of helpful ideas.

Monday—Government and industry symposium Tuesday—Audio and video tape equipment and merchandising Wednesday—Hi-fi components and merchandising We sent letters to the companies who signed up early for the Show. From those who responded we got a fairly accurate picture of what will occur at the exhibit halls in June.

We asked first their reasons for choosing this Show. Most repeated were: “It’s the only major show devoted to home-entertainment equipment” and “It’s a limited show, not open to the public but to dealers only.” Other reasons given: “Wide acceptance among other manufacturers”; “Because it will attract East Coast buyers for big chains”; “Best way to reach a large number of poten- tial dealers and distributors.”

Whatever the reasons, the Consumer Electronics Show promises to be a success. About 100 exhibitors attest to the popularity; in fact, the space was sold out long before the deadline. Practically every kind of home-entertainment device will be shown. Considering the name Consumer Electronics Show, we expected a lot of other kinds of equipment: garage-door openers, burglar alarms, and even solid-state appliances. Not so. The CES will be devoted only to home-entertainment electronics.

The list of exhibitors is extensive, but it’s on page 83 so you’ll know who you can visit at the Show.

We asked exhibitors what products they’d be displaying. Here are some they told us will be there for dealers, distributors and buyers to see: Color television sets Portable TV’s (color and b-w) Hi-fi and stereo components Console hi-fi centers Table and portable AM radios Auto radios FM radios of all kinds CB walkie-talkies (Part 15 types) Record players and changers Tape recorders Cartridge-tape machines Video tape recorders Shortwave receivers Electronic organs Many of the items will be new to the lines of the manufacturers. From all appearances, the chief aim of most exhibitors is to find additional outlets. Distributors, dealers and retailers will all be there. Many exhibitors are counting on the attendance of buyers from large department store and discount chains—the door, often, to multiple sales that can spell quick success for a new line.

As mentioned, the public won’t be admitted. One reason was summed up by an exhibitor in this way, “For the first time we have a show of our own, one in which we have time to see the people who really can sell our goods. When we were at the Music Show (NAMM) there was not enough time for the people directly concerned with our segment of the home-entertainment field. Exhibitors will have more time to spend with people who are buyers, not lookers.”

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A Breadbox-Size Navigating System

By R.F.Gallagher

WE’RE all navigators to some degree. Navigating is simply rinding your way from one place to another and knowing where you are along the way. Usually, though, we think of navigating in terms of ships and planes.

Navigating systems have come a long way since Capt. Bligh’s famous 3,600-mi. journey on the South Seas. All he needed was a sextant because all he really wanted to do was get within sight of land. He even might have considered sailing to within miles of a pile of rocks pinpoint navigation.

That kind of accuracy isn’t good enough nowadays, of course. And hasn’t been for a long time. These days navigating means landing a craft on the moon (some 238,000 mi. away) with an accuracy down to 1/2 mi. Or orbiting a craft around the planet Jupiter (almost 400 million mi. distant) with accuracy down to 1 mi.

You may think that that kind of navigating precision has not much to do with workaday types with both feet on the ground. You may be proved wrong some years down the pike. For the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO) is now developing Navstar, a space-based radio navigation system—global in scope—that could provide precise navigation information by the late 1980s for users throughout the world. (A lightweight backpack model— which could be called breadbox size—has been built and is currently being tested for use by ground troops.)

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a Dept. of Defense project, but the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines, plus the Defense Mapping Agency, are involved. SAMSO is head honcho, or program manager.

Right now, there are four satellites orbiting the earth, the last of which was launched last December. All have been put up there by the famous Atlas family of rockets. When the project becomes fully operational, possibly in the late 1980s, the Navstar system will include 24 satellites, eight in each of three orbits. This truly artificial galaxy will circle the globe every 24 hrs., all the while beaming continuous navigation signals to earth.

SAMSO is currently working with the Federal Aviation Agency to determine the practicality and long-range use of the Navstar system in aircraft crash avoidance. Present aircraft applications are in strategic defense, with Navstar affording an all-weather, day or night global strike capability.

Another function of the system is to provide navigational fixes for missile and attack submarines which must broach the surface for as short a time as possible to avoid detection. The data received permits the craft to navigate through minefields and to pinpoint location relative to charted buoys, shoals and reefs.

The fully operational Navstar system works like this: All 24 satellites transmit individually coded, 30-sec. navigation messages simultaneously, beginning at the same time and in the same format.

The first 18 sec. contain celestial and clock data. The next segment of 6 sec. is reserved for additional messages. The final 6-sec. portion contains a course almanac for all satellites in the network.

Here on earth, the signals are received by user sets, which can be integrated with aircraft and ships or hand-held by land-based personnel.

The receiver locks onto signals from four favorably located satellites. It then processes the signals and, depending on the information sought, the user can determine his position to within tens of feet, velocity to within a fraction of a mile per hour and the time to within a millionth of a second. This information becomes available quickly with the push of a few buttons—no more difficult than punching numbers on a calculator.

The system consists of three major interlocking segments. The space segment (the orbiting satellites) broadcasts superaccurate position coordinates and timing information. The user segment (receivers) processes this information from the four best-located satellites to obtain accurate position and velocity components. The control segment (base stations on earth) tracks the satellites and continually updates their position coordinates.

The control segment consists of a Master Control Station located at Fortuna Air Force Station in North Dakota (construction is expected to begin in 1980), plus four monitor stations—in Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The monitor stations pick up signals from satellites and transmit them to the Master Control Station. These signals are used to determine and correct the errors of each satellite. The corrections are then relayed to the satellites by the Master Control Station.

The satellite itself weighs 1,673 lbs. and measures just 17-1/2 ft. from tip to tip. And, of course, its more than 33,000 parts are a wonderment of sophisticated engineering. For example, the atomic clocks used are so accurate that they gain or lose only 1 sec. in 30,000 yrs.!

The Navstar Global Positioning System, as we hinted, is a little premature for civilian use. But near-future applications involving air, sea and land vehicles abound. They include aircraft runway approaches, photomapping, geodetic surveys, aerial rendezvous and refueling, air traffic control and search & rescue operations.

Further ahead, perhaps commercial fishermen, private-plane pilots, surveyors and offshore oil-drilling outfits might plug in.

Proposed $60,000,000 Bridge Over Narrows to be Longest in World

A BRIDGE, which is to be the longest in the world, with a central span that will be 1000 feet longer than the Hudson river bridge, and towers that will be higher than the Woolworth building, is soon to be built over the Narrows between Staten Island and Long Island. The complete structure, shown in the architect’s drawing below, will have observation galleries, beacon lights, and a carillon of bells.

James Liddy’s Bedsprings

By Alfred Lief

ONE day in 1853 James E. Liddy, a carriage maker’s blacksmith, drove his wife into Watertown, N. Y., in their buggy. They were newlyweds. Young Liddy was rather irked, waiting in the seat so long. He fidgeted and bounced on the coil-spring cushion seat—then suddenly his expression changed.

He thought how comfortable it would be to sleep on springs. He would get rid of those cross ropes that were tied to his bed frame as a support for the straw and feather ticks and use cushion coil.

Liddy took measurements and sawed six slats the length of his bed. In the carriage shop he fastened six open coils to each slat, spacing them for even distribution of weight. Here it was; the first bedspring. Mr. and Mrs. Liddy—if not George Washington—slept there.

Before James Liddy went to his eternal rest in 1921 at 93, many improvements had been made and a new industry organized. Production had passed from carriage makers to mattress manufacturers. So-called bed-bottoms appeared on the market with resilient lengthwise slats on top of crosswise rows of coils; others with a woven wire net enclosing the coils; still others with double decks of coils.

According to the latest census figures, the annual volume of U. S. sales for bed-springs totals $103,664,000 wholesale. This means in 1951 more than 3,000,000 box springs were sold, more than 2,000,000 coil springs and 500,000 flat springs.

Liddy never patented his idea nor is there any evidence that he undertook manufacturing but the National Association of Bedding Manufacturers is very grateful to him. Its president journeyed to Water-town for a centennial celebration this year and gave the county historical society a miniature model of Liddy’s creation. The brass plate attached to it bespeaks James E. Liddy’s “great contribution to better rest.” His fame is secure because he benefited mankind. He, too, can rest easy. *

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Jap Pilots Ride to DEATH on Flying Bombs

By Ray Holt

The current conflict between Japan and China has brought out an amazing revelation of the methods by which Japanese pilots assure air bombs reaching their target by putting a man inside to steer them. Why? Read the reasons in this article, and you’ll have a better understanding of Japanese psychology toward the machines of war.

IMAGINE yourself strapped within a hollow chamber inside a huge air bomb, surrounded on all sides by high explosives. In front of you is an airplane type rudder which steers the tail unit of the bomb. Windows in the nose enable you to see ahead. You’re loaded into the bomb, which is placed in its nest under the fuselage of a bombing plane. The bomber takes off, soars above a target—say, an ammunition dump of the enemy. Up above you, the pilot of the plane pulls a lever.

Down you go, plunging toward the ground with terrific speed. You see that you aren’t going to strike the ammunition dump, but will land many yards to one side of it. So you twist the control rudder, swerving the bomb’s course. Success! The dump looms up directly below the windows of your bomb. And that is practically the end of things for you.

Sounds like the superheated imagining of a Jules Verne, doesn’t it—the sort of absurdity that a sensible man would laugh off as being unheard of, an astounding, amusing impossibility?

It’s nothing of the sort. It’s an actual fact of warfare, a method used by Japanese pilots who deem it an honor transcending all others to ride to glory for the mother country. They know that their memory and their families will be forever honored in their homeland.

Rumors of the flying bomb death ride have filtered out of the conflict now being waged by the Japanese and Chinese. Necessarily this information has been of a confidential, undercover nature, but not long ago it was given nation-wide publicity by a radio commentator on international affairs.

Japanese and Machines To make the man-steered bomb a credible actuality, an understanding of the peculiarities of the Japanese character is necessary. And some such understanding may sooner or later be forced upon, the great powers of the world who are all too likely to become involved in the aggression of Japanese militarists in China, where the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany do much business.

In the field of machinery the Japanese mind is at a peculiar disadvantage. They 1 are able to turn out an exact copy of any mechanism that comes into their hands, but the type of mechanical imagination which went into its original creation—which, for want of a better term, is sometimes known as Yankee ingenuity—they are at a loss to duplicate.

The simple truth of the matter is that -a man is practically required to steer Japanese bombs to their mark because they haven’t been able to develop the bomb-sighting machinery which makes Uncle Sam’s flyers, for instance, so deadly in their accuracy.

Peculiar Oriental Psychology As to why Japanese soldiers fight among themselves for the honor of being the bomb pilot who can look forward to being blown to certain oblivion, that’s a matter of psychology not so easy to understand. Patriotism rules the Japanese to an almost fanatical degree, and love of country is so bound up with religion—the emperor being regarded as an incarnate god—that to be blown up in a bomb to further the successes of Nippon becomes something to be desired above all things.

When one understands the popularity that hara-kiri, a form of suicide by self-disembowelment, has had among the Japanese for centuries, the national willingness to dive to death in a bomb, or in any other way, becomes credible.

Hara-kiri, as formerly practiced, was compulsory upon a noble of the higher class Who received a courteously phrased message from the mikado intimating that he must die for some offense of lawbreaking or disloyalty. The suicide, using a jeweled dagger customarily sent by the mikado for performing the act, proceeded in a prescribed ritual. Seated on a dais, surrounded by officials and friends, the suicide plunged the dagger into his stomach below the waist on the left side, drew it slowly across to the right, and turning it, gave a slight cut upward.

This compulsory suicide has been abolished, but the idea has such a striking appeal for the Japanese imagination that some 1500 hara-kiris take place annually as a purely voluntary gesture.

In the final analysis, the amazing thing is not that the Japanese should succeed in finding pilots for their man-bombs, for volunteers for such a mission of certain death can be found in any army in the world, but that such a weapon should be necessary. It simmers down to the fact, as hinted at above, that the Nipponese are conscious of their inferiority in developing new and fearful weapons of war, and are forced to rely on man-power.

A country like the United States would approach the problem of directing bomb flight in an entirely different way. Some method of mechanical control of the bomb would be sought—in fact, the idea of controlling a bomb or gun shell by radio is already being worked on, as described in Modern Mechanix and Inventions some months ago. It will be seen that, entirely aside from making the sacrifice of a man’s life unnecessary, radio control of a bomb is much more accurate and less liable to error through the failure of the human machine in a moment of critical nervous tension.

Superiority of American engineering brains over the Oriental variety is well demonstrated in the newest United States army bombing plane, a photograph of which is reproduced in these pages. It is a monoplane of all-metal construction—no wood or fabric to catch fire from incendiary bullets of the enemy—and is so well streamlined, with its landing gear pulled up under its belly, that it can do a top speed of 200 miles an hour, fully loaded with a two ton cargo of bombs. This is 80 miles an hour better than the speed of the Curtiss bomber, a biplane, previously used by the air corps.

Features of U. S. Bomber A revolving turret to protect the gunner in the nose of the ship is another feature. It diverts the rush of air and makes accurate aiming much easier. At high speeds, the windstream is so powerful that, in an ordinary ship, it has a tendency to wrench a swivel mounted gun out of the gunner’s control.

In connection with the possible need of protecting our country from Pacific aggression, the news that a government expedition has just left for an extensive survey of the Aleutian islands (which constitute the tip of the Alaskan peninsula) is important. A map, reproduced herewith, shows the extremely important location of these islands in their relation to Japan and the Orient.

Geologically, these islands are thought to be the sunken peaks of land that once connected the mainland with Asia. Siberia is but a stone’s throw distant, and the northern islands of Japan not much farther away. Since, by a recent bill passed in Congress, the United States has relinquished control of the Philippine islands, we will have no Pacific base of importance other than Hawaii and Guam, which makes the Aleutian chain all the more important in the scheme of national protection.

Strategic Importance of Islands Airplanes are being carried by the expedition and these will make a careful aerial survey of the islands. A weather observation station will probably be established on Tanago or Adak island, and the best suited of the nearby islands will be chosen as a possible base for an airplane field. Harbor facilities will be carefully charted with a view to possible installation of a naval base for ships and submarines. Alaska, of course, is a United States possession which we are free to fortify as we may see fit. An incident of the World War which has just come to light illustrates the ingenuity of the western mind in the world of machines. German engineers designed a mine fitted with clockwork which permitted the device to float in toward English shores when the tide was right. When the tide ebbed, the mine automatically sank to the bottom, where it waited the proper interval and then released itself again to float closer to the shore. The British were unable to figure out how the mines got there.

No Noise From Electric Rifle

NEW Army recruits suffer badly from nerves after their first session or two on the rifle range; headaches also result from noise and powder fumes. So a rifle instructor has invented an electric rifle, noiseless, powderless, harmless, since it shoots a spot of light instead of a bullet. A luminous target is first projected on the target board. When the electric gun trigger is pressed, a black spot appears on the target at the point where the gun is aimed. An ingenious system of lenses within the barrel, with an electric light bulb as projector, constitutes the mechanism of the rifle.

Thomas Foster’s School By Mail

By Alfred Lief

COAL mine accidents in the 1880′s prompted a Pennsylvania editor, Thomas Jefferson Foster, to crusade for safety laws. In his paper he ran question -and-answer columns for miners which proved so popular he later compiled them into a free handbook. But it seemed to him that the message he had to tell should be conveyed to his readers in a more systematic way.

He prepared a textbook of clear and simple instruction papers which they could study at home and added questions to be answered by mail and later corrected by competent instructors.

The Complete Coal Mining Course, as he called it, was ready in 1891. Within seven months Foster had enrolled 500 students. About 10 per cent finished and qualified as mine superintendents, inspectors and engineers. By the end of the year the enrollment was 1,200. The success of his idea proved to him that he could teach all engineering trades and professions similarly. By 1898 his International Correspondence Schools, 17 in number, had attracted 70,000 home-study students.

With each change in the industrial scene the schools met new challenges and trained new personnel. More textbooks, more courses, a larger faculty—but the system remained the same.

Thomas Foster died at 93, happy in the knowledge that many people who attained eminence had gotten their start by learning by mail—a cowpuncher had become an electrician, a ferryman a surveyor, a mule-driver a plant superintendent. This year the ICS enrolled their 6,000,000th student. •

LIGHT THAT BENDS
AN AMAZING new optical instrument now being developed at the Imperial College of Science at London, England, is the Fibrescope. When completed, this device will enable doctors to search inside the human body, physicists to watch radioactive material from the other side of lead walls and engineers to examine hidden parts of complicated machinery.

The Fibrescope consists of a bundle of glass fibres, each one several times finer than a human hair. Looking along the axis of the bundle, an image at the other end is clearly seen, no matter how many times the bundle has been knotted, twisted or bent around corners. The instrument is expected to substitute for many of the expensive existing optical systems whose complicated arrangement of lenses makes it difficult for them to be used where flexibility is required. Drs. H. H. Hopkins and Punjabi Narinder Singh Kapany are developing the Fibrescope.

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CUSTOM CARS and HOT RODS

JUDGE a man by the company he keeps” is a proverb which has managed to survive the years. But nowadays you can substitute “the car he keeps” and still be on the right track.

For more and more motorists are getting bored with the production-line beauty and middle-class standard performance of our stock cars. And more and more of them— are actually doing something about it.

What are they doing? Well, the next time you take a spin down Lincoln Highway, take a good look at the cars that whiz by. You’ll be startled to realize the high percentage of unusual vehicles. For America’s auto enthusiasts are buying and building custom cars and hot rods as never before.

These special jobs reflect not only the individuality of their owners but the basic individuality of America. • Lon Hurley built this $8,000 dream car in eight months. Hood, grille and fenders are Cadillac parts while rear deck and doors are original design.

This Packard model never got past the experimental stage. Built to make over 125 mph. it represents an investment of more than $200,000.

Small German auto which looks like a racing car is called the Porsche. It has a four-cylinder engine in the rear of the two-seater coupe body.

Built in 1939. this French custom car has a body designed by Figoni & Falaschi and a Delahaye V-12 chassis. Owner says it can make over 115 mph.

This 17-year-old double-cowl Duesenberg phaeton is a supercharged show model with a body which was specially built by Brunn of Buffalo, N. Y. It was later listed and sold as a 1934 model.

One of the classic cars of the 1930′s, this Auburn super-charged speedster can make over 100 mph —and there’s a plaque on dashboard to prove it.

Recent motor show in Paris displayed this Super-leggera Ferrari, a long nosed Italian car. It’s only a two-seater although it has a sports coupe body.

J. S. Inskip of New York lust built this Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith (late model) for Tommy Manville and wife, shown with him. Price tag was $22,500.

Le Baron of Detroit built the body of this Chrysler Newport in 1939. It has a wide separation between the front and the back seat and sold for $25,000.

This beauty, built as a gag by Noble Heuter, has made 112 mph. It’s a 1929 Model A Ford body with roof chopped off and rear fender retained for laughs.

Evans special, a Class C Lakester, placed second recently in the Bonneville National Speed trials. The little belly-tank hot rod made 174.75 mph.

Bob Pierson’s chopped off ’34 Ford coupe with a ’46 Mercury engine is probably the fastest coupe in the world. It holds Bonneville record of 142.98 mph.

Only the top was built to order on Les Callahan’s ’22 Dodge body set on a ’32 Ford frame. The car has regular Ford axles and a ’46 Mercury engine.

Ant Eater, which has been called the world’s faster roadster, was clocked at 152.54 mph. The entire body swings up on hinges to expose the engine and cockpit, below right. Belly-tank nose seats the driver, below left, while the 268 cubic inch modified Mercury power plant is located in the rear.

Three-quarter midget car built by Bob Feuerhelm has an all-plastic body and a motorcycle J.A.P. 30.50 cubic-inch rear engine, seen at left. Association which regulates three-quarter midget races specifies that all entrants must agree to sell cars for $2,000 in order to keep investment down.

Carash Custom is a ’36 Plymouth with a Ford rear and a modified ’32 Cadillac V-16 motor. It’s handmade from sheet steel over tubular framework.

Yellow racer built by Fred Ige has a ’25 Model T Ford body and frame, a ’28 Hudson axle and a ’41 Mercury motor, shown at left. The car is all hand-made with aluminum shell and grille, full belly pan, bucket seat upholstered in plastic, louvered hood, Ross steering wheel and safety hubs on the wheels.

Screwdriver, a hand built streamliner owned by Bob Arner of Culver City, Calif., has had many motors in it—now a ’45 Mercury. It’s done 139 mph.

Designed by American Gl Pat Leighton in a Jap prison camp, this ’32 Ford channeled roadster with a ’42 Mercury engine has made 117.64 mph.

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Meet Hans Krause

His pocket-size sculptures are soothing to handle, sweet-scented and habit-forming.

ONE PATH to serenity, say the Buddhists, is through contemplating certain objects: the sky, a tree, a design. Not relying on sight alone, the Chinese have long used hand stones—small objects combining form and smoothness in a way that makes them delicious to handle.

Hans Krause, a German sculptor living in the Mediterranean island of Ibiza, has revived the hand stone. Playing with his dactylforms (Greek daktylos means finger) not only replaces habits like smoking but can produce calmness even in extremely disturbed mental patients. While admitting their value as medicine, sculptor Krause insists that his pocket sculptures are primarily works of art. Each is an individual form in polished Savina wood, a rare Mediterranean material that takes a thousand years to grow and yields an aromatic scent when warmed in the hand.

Kiddie Car-Belt

RICHARD G. OSTRANDER of Yonkers, N. Y. is not a man who puts things off till tomorrow!

Recently his young son narrowly escaped injury when he was thrown off an automobile seat by a sudden stop. To Ostrander this was a situation when stop meant go. He decided to do something about it and a few days later he presented to harassed parents everywhere his Wiggly Car Belt, a safety device for youngsters.

The belt, which can be installed in a few seconds, is made of sturdy webbing and consists of two sections. One encircles the back of the car seat and the other fits around the child’s waist. The latter slides up and down the back strap by means of a D-ring. This arrangement allows the child to stand, sit or lie down as he desires but prevents him from falling from the seat or being thrown into the dashboard or windshield when the car stops suddenly. The Wiggly Belt can be left permanently attached to the seat. Junior, too, if you wish.

Blind Can Now Read Printed BOOKS

ORDINARY printed books can now be read by the blind, thanks to the genius of M. Thomas, a French inventor, whose remarkable device is illustrated on this page, photo-electric cells, which, as is well-known, are sensitive to light, hold the secret of the machine’s operation.

The book to be read is placed on a moving carriage beneath a lens, and the page is illuminated by a powerful lamp. Suppose that the word being read contains the letter “R,” which is used as an example in the accompanying drawings.

How the Letters Are Read

Light rays pass from the “R” through a lens and are thrown upon a mirror which in turn projects the rays onto a panel of 42 photo-electric cells, arranged like a checkerboard. Certain of the cells, it will thus be seen, are thereby darkened by the shadow of the letter. All that remains, therefore, to convert this shadow into something which can be read by a blind person, is to make the cells register themselves in tangible, “touchable” form.

This is accomplished by having each cell operate an electric circuit comprising an electro-magnet with suitable relays. A touch-plate, corresponding to the checkerboard of 42 photo-electric cells, is perforated with 42 holes in the same arrangement, and through each hole runs a small metal rod, in much the same way as a piston in a cylinder.

To get back to our letter “R,” the particular photo-electric cells which have been darkened by the shadow of the letter actuate an electric current which sets the electro-magnets into action and results in certain of the metal rods being forced up through the perforations of the touch plate.

The rods thus raised will be the ones corresponding to the cells darkened by the projected shadow of the letter being read, and the blind reader is thus enabled to identify the letter “R” by feeling it take shape under his fingers.

The next step is to move the book on to the next letter in the word. A hand operated crank accomplishes this result. Each letter is read in turn until the book is completed.

If this explanation of the operation of the device sounds complicated, a glance at the drawing below will show that its principle is really quite simple.