Butyl ‘n Beautyon display at left herald a new style automobile inner tube designed to prevent the rapid deflation of air in the event of a puncture. Waffle-like construction causes a squeezing action around nail holes. Butyl is a synthetic rubber which retains air better than the natural product. The beauty—not synthetic—is Rae Caldwell.

Paris Motor Show in the French capital’s Grand Palais featured this white, two-seater midget—with its petite driver—and the unusual model car at right designed and built by Jean-Pierre Wimille, European road racing ace. The driver’s seat is in the center, as is the American “Torpedo” designed by Preston Tucker (see “Torpedo,” MI, Nov. ’46). This Position for the driver improves is visibility and judgment necessary for new high speeds.

Tiny Tims, all 6,000 pounds of them, cling to the wings of the Navy’s carrier-based AD-1 Skyraider, now in production at Douglas’ El Segundo, Calif., plant. The battery of Tiny Tims, two 12-inch and twelve 5-inch rockets, pack the explosive punch of a light cruiser surface ship. The AD-1 can carry a bigger load farther than any other plane of its type.

Also, henceforth I am going to use the spelling “computor”.

By the way, if you’re at all interested, this army training video detailing how an mechanical fire control computer works is amazing.

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Flying Missiles CAN Be Stopped!

Here is a sure-fire plan to down supersonic rockets like ducks—and wipe out the terror of sneak attacks.

By Frank Tinsley

HITLER was right when he ranted about the fearful havoc a “secret weapon” would wreak on his enemies. His V-2 rockets unleashed such terror on battered Britain that they nearly won the war—for the Nazis. For there was absolutely no defense against these mighty 3500-mph missiles—and no way to tell when—or where—they would strike next.

Today our military experts are still searching frantically for a weapon to kill the terrible menace of the V-2 type missile. Rocket specialists are concentrating on ground-to-air projectiles to intercept and destroy enemy rockets. But the experts admit that practical development of mechanical minute-men is years away. Right now, we are as wide open as a blind, broken-armed boxer— with still no defense against the knockout punch of the flying missile.

But even with the old ack-ack guns of World War II, high-flying supersonic missiles can be stopped. Here’s how we could set up a sure- fire anti-missile system this very moment: An enemy wants to blitz a key target— such as New York. Unlike wartime London, with rocket-launching sites just across the narrow English Channel, New York would be vulnerable only to long-range missiles— from another continent or—more probably—from rocket-firing subs off the coast.

Search radars—girding New York by ship and by high points from the outer tip of Long Island through northern Connecticut and the Catskills, then south and east around New Jersey—would warn of the attack and track the oncoming missiles. The nearest radar ship or station flashes by telemeter the exact bearing and position of each missile to the closest ack-ack batteries.

A central electronic brain controls the distribution of targets among the guns. Radars attached to every battery track the assigned target and keep close tab on the missile’s precise speed and trajectory. Instantaneous battery computors figure the lead, wind allowance and time of the shells to intercept the rocket. Then, based on these calculations, the guns point and fire the instant the target comes in range. As each salvo roars out to ring a missile, the computors pick a new aiming point for the guns and set ‘em up for the next blast.

Proximity fuses explode the anti-missile shells when they’re within lethal range of the target. When the shells go off, hardened steel balls hurl forward in overlapping cones so that the blasting projectiles form a circular, shotgun pattern, densest in the center. This deadly shrapnel wrecks the missile’s delicate mechanisms, throws it out of control or explodes it in midair.

Basis for this anti-guided missile setup is the recently revealed plan General Sir Frederick Pile, chief of Britain’s antiaircraft defenses during the war, developed in the hope of combatting the V-2.

Pile’s ingenious plan won the approval of Britain’s War Ministry in March. 1945, and might have checked the V-2 campaign. Before he could set up his system, however, the invading Allies overran the Nazis’ launching areas in France and Holland and cleaned out the V-2 bases. The plan then was buried away with other top secrets in the British war office.

To prevent surprise atomic attacks, defense rings could be maintained around every important target area in the United States. The cost in money, time and effort, of course, would be huge—but not so staggering as the destruction and panic that may hit our vital centers if they remain sitting ducks for rocket attacks. So, till our missile men finally do perfect those long-range counter-rockets, it’s comforting to know that we can stop flying missiles—with the equipment we have on hand today.

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IT’S NEW!

EMERGENCY FLOATS being tried here by Sikorsky S-55 helicopter can be inflated by pilot for any unscheduled landings on water.

TV COMBAT CAMERA developed by Army enables scout to send up-to-the-minute battle pictures to command post.

VACUUM CLEANER built by U. S. Hoffman Machinery Corp. weighs 15 tons, cleans runways of rubble to protect jet intakes.

SHOPPER’S MAILBOX, newly designed for people carrying a week’s provisions from the supermarket, was tried out recently in Washington, D. C. Foot pedal should be useful during Christmas rush.

EYE REACTIONS are recorded by camera as headclamped testee looks at boxes for Folding Paper Box Association’s study of sales appeal of various types of packages.

ARTIST IN STRAW. Berliner Friedrich Pruss von Zglinicke makes elaborate pictures of pieces of straw glued to wooden placards.

AVERT YO EYES. SUH! This lady is a cop and she’s hoisting her Roscoe. New holster is being tried out in Baltimore. Md.

HOLD IT! New TV tube (right) freezes selected images. Developed by Hughes Aircraft, it’s primarily an airborne radar weather aid. can retain an image up to three minutes for study.

DENTAL PANORAMA rivaling Grand Canyon is what you get with this new X-ray camera that takes all the teeth at one go.

TOY TRACTOR, radio-controlled, climbs 45-degree grades, can be operated at distance of over 200 yards. Made in Germany.

ROOF FIRST is the rule in new Army construction; concrete slabs for root floors, are raised on hydraulic hoists, then supporting walls are erected. Photo taken at Ft. Devens, Mass.

Plane Drops Motor in Case of Fire, Then Lands as Glider

Danger of fire breaking out in an airplane engine in flight gives promise of being eliminated by the perfection of a new method of mounting motor and gas tanks which permits them to be dropped from the fuselage of the plane in case of fire. Joaquin Abreu of San Francisco is the inventor of the new motor-mounting device. The photo below shows how the mechanism is attached to a frame underneath the plane, from which it can be dropped at an instant’s notice by simply moving the release lever. After the motor has been dropped, the plane lands easily as a glider.

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NEW in SCIENCE

Sharpnel-Proof Vest is displayed by Pfc. Ralph Barlow of Redondo Beach, California. While in front line action in Korea, Barlow was hit by shrapnel and knocked to ground, but received no serious injury. Vest stopped the metal fragment.

Bell X-5 is undergoing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It is our first plane able to change the sweep of its wings in flight from the most forward position, top, to a fully sweptback position, bottom, in 30 seconds. It is jet propelled.

Surfagage, precision device used by General Motors, detects scratches as small as one-millionth of an inch. It insures accuracy of finished surfaces of machined pieces and measures roughness of crankshaft, valve and precision parts in autos.

Solar Cooker is demonstrated in India’s National Physics Laboratory. The four-foot polished bowl concentrates the sun’s rays on the cooker and has power equivalent to 300 watts. It is hoped that, mass-produced, it will sell for $10 (U.S.).

Dummy Men will test new parachutes for the G.Q. Parachute Co., England, in the future. Made of steel and covered with rubberized foam, they weigh 182 lbs. and reproduce the behavior of a human body when dropped from high-altitude planes.

Bodygraph gives accurate measurements for tailoring. Felt vests of known dimensions are smoothed into place and have seams joined by photographic elastic bands. Form is registered when seams distend according to shape. D’Angelo, Paris, France.

Lubrication Platform for autos operates like a seesaw. It has a capacity of 1-1/2 tons and is adjustable for cars with wide tread. There is a clearance of four feet when one end is down. Made by Kurt George of Kasel, Germany, and sells for about $90.

Multimonica a novelty instrument, has two keyboards consisting of 41 keys each. With one it can be operated like any organ; with the other it produces tones electronically. It also has a built-in radio.

Shown at Fair in Frankfurt, Germany.

Toy Air Limousine Has One Hundred Fifty Rubber Band Prop Power
A TOY produced by a western manufacturer is guaranteed to fly several hundred feet. It is equipped with 150 rubber band propeller power, and has a steering wheel, gauges, levers, in fact about everything that is found on a regular machine. The windows are of celluloid and the passenger department is luxuriously upholstered.

World’s First Motor Coach Sleeper Compared with Huge Monoplane
THE world’s first motor coach sleeper has been completed with accommodations for twenty-six sleepers. There are upper and lower berths similar to those of an elaborately fitted Pullman car. The sleeper was taken to an airfield for comparison in size with the Ford monoplane.

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Number One Rocket Man

A Silhouette of the Shy Massachusetts Physicist Who Pioneered in Rocket Research . . . Much to His Distress He Broke into the Noisier Newspapers

By G. EDWARD PENDRAY
Past President, the American Rocket Society
Editor of Astronautics

ON a flat, dry plain, 18 miles north of Roswell, New Mexico, rises a 60-foot tower of steel that has roused more curiosity, and has probably had a greater influence on the future of the world, than any other feature of all New Mexico’s arresting landscape.

From this tower, at irregular intervals, a Massachusetts physicist and his assistants send roaring into the skies certain gleaming, cigar-shaped projectiles of metal, powered by gasoline and liquid oxygen, and landed by parachutes.

The physicist is Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard, a bald, spare, pleasant man who will be 56 years old next October 5 (1938). Rocket experimenters the world over recognize him as their Number One man. Not only has he made more contributions to the new field of rocket engineering than any other one individual, but it was Dr. Goddard who launched modern rocket research with his clear presentation of the possibilities of rockets, both their limitations and advantages, 19 years ago. His publication, modestly entitled “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes,” was published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1919.

DR. GODDARD at that time had already been a rocket experimenter for nearly ten years. His first trials were made during some studies of the upper atmosphere while he was an instructor at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in 1909. Baffled by the uncertainty and limitations of sounding balloons, he imagined that by building some kind of huge skyrocket he could shoot self-recording instruments high into the stratosphere and bring back information of value to science.

This idea of reaching high altitudes with rockets was by no means new with Dr. Goddard. In fact, we are told that a certain Chinese mandarin in the 13th Century sought to lift himself to the moon by fastening rockets to the legs of his chair. Cyrano de Bergerac, the novelist, wrote a story 300 years ago in which the hero transported himself by rocket power. Warmen saw in rockets a potential carrier of explosives centuries ago, and in the Napoleonic wars rocket brigades blossomed in Europe. In the siege of Boulogne, the English succeeded in setting the town afire with rockets designed by Sir William Congreve.

But those early efforts were rule-of-thumb procedures, and really came to little. What Dr. Goddard proposed, 29 years ago, was to apply the methods of modern engineering to the construction of rockets. He perceived that several diverse and complicated problems would have to be tackled, seriatim: (1) the fuel, (2) the materials, (3) the methods of feeding the fuels, (4) the aerodynamic design, (5) control in flight, (6) the further unknowns.

For the rocket, though a seemingly simple device, is really very complicated. It works by recoil—by application of the ancient principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The action is produced by rapid combustion and simultaneous ejection of gas at high velocity. The reaction occurs in the body of the rocket, which flies at an accelerated rate in the direction opposite that of the ejected gases.

Had Dr. Goddard been a less practical man he would have been content to write an article about the idea, or give a lecture on it, and sit back to await the development at someone else’s hands.

But it happened that he was of the sort who undertake to test their notions before they talk about them. The only successful examples of rockets in his day were skyrockets and life-saving rockets— both powered by modified gunpowder. Beginning at this point, Dr. Goddard tested powder fuel rockets. As new teaching appointments took him to Princeton, and then to Clark University, the idea went with him.

Talk of rockets is so commonplace today—such success has attended the efforts of experimenters—that rocketry is almost respectable. But in the old days of 1914 and earlier, few sane engineers spoke of them except humorously, and physicists who entertained the idea of rocket transportation must have been as rare as one-armed flute players. Nevertheless, Dr. Goddard succeeded, one by one, in convincing his colleagues. In 1914, plugging away on his own, he took out two basic patents on rockets, pertaining to combustion chambers and nozzles. A short time later he talked the problem of rocketry through with Dr. Charles G. Abbot, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. So convincing was his argument that the conservative old Institution agreed to grant him modest funds for a series of experiments. In the tests that followed, Dr. Goddard demonstrated that rockets really need no air to push against, and that they are capable of development. He also proved that gunpowder-like fuels must be abandoned in favor of more powerful, more easily controlled kinds, probably liquefied gases.

Thus started what rocket engineers now refer to as the era of “liquid-fuel” rockets—the real beginning of scientific rocketry. Simple calculations show that the most powerful release of energy, pound for pound, occurs during the combustion of carbon or hydrogen with oxy- gen. The problem was to produce this combustion at the right time, in the right place, and under the right conditions.

After some preliminary trials, Dr. Goddard decided that the best fuel would be a chemical combination of hydrogen and carbon, as in gasoline, and that oxygen could most conveniently be supplied in the pure form, liquefied. These early tests were carried on very secretly near Auburn, Massachusetts, and apparently were the first “proving-stand”‘ experiments with liquid-fuel rocket motors —primitive, to be sure, but they set the foundation upon which a great deal of experimental work has since been built. Dr. Goddard tried out liquid oxygen and various members of the hydro-carbon series, including gasoline, kerosene, liquid propane, also ether. He finally discarded the others and settled on gasoline and oxygen. Virtually all of his experiments since have been made with these.

By 1923 he felt ready to try an actual liquid-fuel rocket. On November 1 of that year he completed and tried out a small one on his proving-stand, tying it down so it couldn’t fly. It seemed promising, but wasn’t good enough. For one thing, there was the problem of getting the fuels from the tanks into the combustion chamber fast enough. He had used small pumps on the rocket, but pumps are slow, heavy, and troublesome.

IT took two more years to overcome that problem. In December, 1925, he completed and tested a second liquid-fuel rocket in which the fuels were forced into the chamber by the pressure of an inert gas, nitrogen. This method worked well, but still the experimenter cautiously denied himself the experience of turning it loose to see it fly.

That pleasure was reserved until three months later, when on March 16, 1926, at Auburn, he put an improved liquid-fuel rocket into his improvised launching rack and let her go. So far as I have been able to find evidence, this was the first actual flight of a liquid-fuel rocket in this country or anywhere in the world. It was in no sense a public shot. The only witnesses were Dr. Goddard and a couple of helpers. The experimenter timed it with a stop watch and later reported that it fired for two and a half seconds, during which time it flew 184 feet, “making the speed along the trajectory about 60 miles an hour.”

A queer-looking rocket it was, too, compared with the sleek projectiles Dr. Goddard’s shop in New Mexico now turns out. The fuel tanks were slender tubes, placed one behind the other. The motor, consisting of the combustion chamber and its exhaust nozzle, was well ahead, supported on spidery arms which also carried the fuel lines. The whole contrivance was about ten feet long, but only about half of this length was actual rocket; the rest was the harness that joined the motor to the tanks. Pressure to force the fuels into the combustion chamber was furnished by an outside pressure tank and, after launching, by an alcohol heater carried on the rocket.

The idea of putting the motor ahead of the tanks was the mistaken one that this method of “pulling” the rocket, instead of pushing it, would make it fly better. In practice it did nothing of the kind; it only added to the difficulties of construction. Dr. Goddard abandoned the design at once in favor of rockets with the motor at the rear. Between 1926 and 1929 he shot a number of these, with varying success.

And then, quite unexpectedly, Dr. Goddard broke into the newspapers— much to his distress. Naturally reserved and somewhat uncommunicative, he had early discovered what most rocket experimenters find out sooner or later— that next to an injurious explosion, publicity is the worst possible disaster. (Most newspaper writers still seem to believe that every rocket is aimed at the moon.) It was his shot of July 17, 1929, at Auburn, that brought Dr. Goddard this great and unexpected burst of notoriety. The rocket was a fairly large one, carrying a small barometer and a camera. Being large enough to carry instruments, it also made a great deal of noise. Neighbors telephoned the police that an airplane had crashed in flames. A few ex- cited Auburnites were certain a meteor had fallen. When fire and police departments arrived, they found only a rocket experimenter, examining the remains of his rocket, pleased at the notable fact that his instrument, shot several hundred feet heavenward, had parachuted gently back from the flight and landed intact.

But the simple facts were by no means enough for the newspapers. Some, of course, had sensible stories, but they were in the minority. It was widely reported that he had shot a rocket to the moon, but had failed, that his rocket had exploded, that it had contained tons of explosive, that his intentions were to fly to Mars.

Fortunately the flurry was short-lived. Also, it had some good results, for it is said that as a result of the publicity Col. Charles A. Lindbergh first became interested in Dr. Goddard and his rockets. At any rate, it was in 1929 that the flyer brought rocketry to the attention of the late Daniel Guggenheim. The result was a grant that made possible the present establishment in New Mexico, under conditions that many experimenters consider ideal for rocket research.

About three miles north of Roswell, a shop 30 by 55 feet was erected, and near it a 20-foot tower built for proving-stand tests of motors and rockets. Fifteen miles farther north, on the plains, stands the 60-foot launching tower from which actual rocket shots are made. The region thereabout lias an altitude of about 3500 feet—enough to reduce noticeably the resistance of the air to rapid flight, as compared with the denser air at sea level. The country is level and open. There is space for high experimental flights without much danger of the rocket landing on an indignant bystander.

Gasoline and liquid oxygen, mixed, form a peculiarly violent detonator, yielding about five times as much energy pound for pound as TNT. Dr. Goddard has taken what may seem like extreme precautions against accident and injury. At the launching tower, all experiments are managed by remote control. The operator and observers are stationed 1000 feet away, in a shelter protected by sand bags on the roof. The observer whose task it is to clock the rocket flight, and who therefore cannot conveniently work from a shelter, is stationed 3000 feet from the tower. For close observations, to watch the firing, launching, and so on, there is a concrete dugout 50 feet from the launching tower. The observer looks through four-inch peepholes in a tilted slab of concrete three inches thick.

THE rocket motor used by Dr. Goddard in his New Mexico shots is 5% inches in diameter and weighs five pounds. It usually fires about 20 seconds, and delivers a maximum thrust of 289 pounds. Such a motor can hoist a real projectile into the air, and such, indeed, have been the projectiles that Dr. Goddard has been attaching to them. His first New Mexico rocket was shot on December 30, 1930. It was 11 feet long and weighed 33.5 pounds without fuel. It reached an altitude of 2000 feet, and a maximum speed of 500 miles an hour.

This was only the beginning. Heavier, more powerful rockets were to come. In August, 1934, the experimenter shot a pendulum-controlled rocket that made an altitude of 1000 feet, then turned horizontally for 11,000 feet, landing a little over two miles from the launching tower. At one point its velocity touched 700 miles an hour.

In none of these shots was altitude or speed the chief object. The experimenter, having tentatively solved, in order, the problems of fuel, material, methods of feeding the fuel, and aerodynamic design, was by now working on the hardest knot of all—control. Specifically, he was trying to build a rocket that would be capable of sure, dependable upward flight. After 25 years of experiment his eyes were still on the stratosphere.

Now there may be some trick of aerodynamics or design that will guarantee vertical flight without special control mechanisms and the extra complications they entail. Many rocket experimenters hope so, but to date they haven’t discovered it. After his early experiences with cantankerous projectiles, whishing through the air at express speed but fol- lowing whimsical air-paths all their own, Dr. Goddard decided that a gyroscopically-operated control mechanism would have to be devised.

In the beginning he tried some other devices, notably the pendulum, but these depend on gravity and are affected by the course and acceleration of the rocket. The gyroscope, however, holds its position with relation to space, regard- less of the torque or acceleration of the projectile carrying it.

The main problem was to construct a sensitive servo-mechanism that would steer the rocket back on course without disturbing the gyro. Dr. Goddard’s idea was to have small vanes pushed into the path of the exhaust gases in such a manner as to deflect the flight. In his first trial the system didn’t work as well as expected. The performance led the physicist to suspect that the vanes were too small, and he resolved later to try again with larger ones.

The improved system worked better. The vanes, driven by gas pressure into the rocket exhaust stream, were set to apply controlling force when the axis of the projectile deviated as much as 10 degrees from the vertical. The finest shot so far reported with this system reached an altitude of 7500 feet. Rising slowly from the launching tower, the rocket undulated from side to side as the gyro-control continually corrected the course. “The first few hundred feet of the flight,” reported the experimenter, “reminded one of a fish swimming in a vertical direction.” After the rocket had gained more speed, the curves smoothed out.

Such a flight, of course, is not ideal. Much power is lost in useless undulations. But flight control had at least been started, and the physicist of Worcester could check off one more step in the series of conquests leading to the de- velopment of the rocket. Still before him are those problems classified as “the further unknowns.” One of them is the problem of reducing the weight of the rocket, for every extra ounce requires extra fuel to lift it, and extra fuel to lift the extra fuel, ad infinitum. There are no filling stations on the route to extreme altitudes. The rocket must start with a full tank, and one filling is all it can expect.

Other problems are those of improving the efficiency of the rocket motor, which is still far from that which is theoretically expected; improving the aerodynamic design for flight at super-sonic velocities; smoother control; and a surer technique for releasing the parachute or other landing apparatus at the exact top of the flight.

IN justice it should be said that Dr.

Goddard is no longer alone in the colossal task of mastering these difficulties. All over the world, since 1928. rocket societies and rocket experimenters have sprung up, some to make a few tests and drop the subject, others to plow on toward the goal as doggedly as does Dr. Goddard himself. In this country there are at least 20 other active experimenters, and a rocket society that numbers nearly 300 members. In England an experimental group has about 50 members. There are rocket experimenters in Austria, Russia, France, Japan, New Zealand, Canada. The American Rocket Society has an active affiliate at Yale University. Other American universities are considering the establishment of affiliate groups of experimenters among their engineering students and faculties. California experimenters cross the continent to report their work in New York before the Institute of Aeronautical Engineers.

Dr. Goddard’s work thus may have opened a new era in transportation, for rockets can do more than explore the upper atmosphere. They ultimately may carry mail and goods—and possibly even passengers—with speed rivaling that of the telegraph; usher in an epoch of swift communication more spectacular than that brought by the telephone and airplane; alter once more the complexion of civilization as only basic inventions can alter it.

It was Col. Lindbergh who, in a letter recently to the President of Clark University, put the matter most directly: “The rocket is now in that most interesting period of discovery where the shore lines are unplotted and the future limited only by imagination. We cannot state what speeds or ranges the rocket may attain, but it is not restricted by the rotation of an engine or by dependence on the atmosphere.

“As the airplane gave man freedom from the earth, the rocket offers him freedom from the air.”

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NEW PRODUCTS AND INVENTIONS

Hume workshop hobbyists who own drill presses will find the new auxiliary work table shown at right extremely useful. The top is made of heavy gauge steel permanently bonded to a plywood base. Fits any type drill press. Comes complete with anchor studs, threaded bushings, irregular shaping pin and special pivoting fence with wing nut clamp. Provides a large, flat working surface for all operations.

The new type slip-stream deflectors above are said to keep the car’s windshield clear of all foreign substances. Fastened in front of the windshield, they turn the airstream and dirt aside.

A two-faced clock for desks, tables and between twin beds is the latest thing.

The garbage and waste disposal problem can now be solved by every home owner with the aid of the gadget pictured at right. This unit can be installed in any type of sink and will pulverize waste matter before flushing it down the drain.

Although the gas shortage is apparently over, the price of gasoline remains high, and motorists will want to drive as economically as possible this winter. Those contemplating a new car will be interested in the new light sedan just placed on the market, and illustrated at left. Consuming two-thirds less gasoline than the average small car, it delivers up to 50 miles per gallon of gas. The body of the car is all steel, with a steel “turret top.” It has ample leg-room, and rides very comfortably. The model stretched out alongside gives an idea of the car’s size.

Service stations may soon take on an additional duty with the introduction of a newly patented flying automobile. The novel vehicle is primarily intended for land travel and has the appearance of a conventional car, but it is adapted to function as an airplane with a minimum of additional equipment which can be attached by a service station attendant. So far as possible the standard power and control elements of the automobile are adapted for use with the vehicle in flight. The flight surfaces are designed to be added as a unit, so that the owner of the motor car may drive up to a flight service center, attach the flying unit to his car, take off and fly to another landing field where the flying unit may be detached and used on another automobile. One important application of the invention is said to be in military operations for transporting troops by air and by ground. This would increase the mobility of mechanized units.

Bathing beauties have a new accessory to add charm with the introduction of a novel type of bathing cap. Instead of the old flat and smooth type of cap used heretofore, a woman may now wear a cap to which is attached a wig in the form of a well dressed head of hair. The wig is of molded rubber and is not affected by water. An inner head holding portion serves to maintain the cap on the head. The inner part and the outer part form a closed space which can be inflated with air to fill out the shape of the wig.

A double function barber’s apron serves not only to catch falling hair, but also to protect the clothes of the customer while being given a shampoo. The apron is in the form of a circular doughnut shaped ring and is made of oil silk to render it water-proof. Being washable, it may be kept clean and sanitary.

A new bird-shaped exerciser is claimed to be valuable for strengthening the muscles of the arms, legs, chest and back. The device includes a series of feathering wing sections attached to arm-holding units. When the wings are swung upwardly the sections are open; while the feathers close with the downward motion to give a maximum of lift. The wing motion gives a sense of buoyance and tends to develop a personal sense of poise and balance according to the inventor. This function is stated to be of value in the training of aviators.

Persons who must use a telephone and use both hands at the same time may find a new telephone support of interest. The support is shaped to hold the telephone on the shoulder by pressure from the side of the head. The holder is made of sponge rubber, soft rubber, or felt. A roughened shoulder holding part assists in preventing slipping.

-Morton Leese.

Patents Identified Automobile ……………………………………….No. 2,241,577
Bathing Cap ……………………………………..No. 2,242,420
Apron ………………………………………………..No. 2,243,505
Exerciser …………………………………………..No. 2,244,444 Support………………………………………………No. 2,243,554

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Why Don’t We Build… FLOATING AIRPORTS

Then when the inevitable crash occurs, it will be on open water and not a crowded city such as Elizabeth, N. J.

By Frank Tinsley

THE modern four-motored air transport is a flying fire bomb. It takes off with about 5,000 gallons of high test gasoline with the explosion potential of T.N.T. In 90 per cent of all crashes, this liquid dynamite either goes off with disintegrating force or is showered over a wide area in a flaming rain that sets fire to everything it touches. That this can be a deadly menace to people living around air- ports is shown in recent statistics. The Greater New York area alone has suffered five such crack-ups in a period of four months.

Through all the loud shouting about these crashes, it is interesting to note that neither the airport critics nor the airline defenders have come up with one obvious solution. Like New York, most of our great urban centers are adjacent to or surrounded by large bodies of open water. Throughout the United States bays, sounds, lakes and rivers provide a simple and relatively inexpensive answer to the problem. Floating airstrips!

•Does the idea sound ridiculous? It did when first proposed to the Allied Council prior to the Normandy invasion, but the brass was in no position to scoff at anything. Too many “screwy” ideas had already paid off. There were the British schoolboy’s ”degaussing cable” which countered the menace of the Nazi magnetic mine, and balloon-like rubber rafts that had saved many a pilot’s bacon. Who dared to say that the notion of forming flight strips, docks and harbor facilities of interlocking, water-tight tanks might not work?

Work it did! “Operation Lily,” a test seadrome 520 feet long and 60 feet wide, was given a tryout in 1945 at Lamlash, Firth of Clyde. It was formed of six-sided, steel buoyancy cans, each six feet in diameter and 30 inches deep. Naval Swordfish planes, weighing 9,000 pounds, used them without trouble. Anchored in otherwise unusable shallow water, the airstrip was kept headed into the wind by powerful motors and it was a complete success.

Now, Ronald M. Hamilton, Lily’s English designer, proposes a modernization of the plan to provide safe, floating airports for American cities. M.I.’s visualization of one is shown in the accompanying illustrations. Shaped like an arrow always pointed into the wind, the strip consists of a rigid, two-story structure supported by a flotation base of individually mounted watertight tanks.

The main structure resembles an elongated aircraft carrier with an open flight deck above and an enclosed hangar deck below. In the ends of the latter are repair and storage space for planes. Each two-plane compartment is separated from the next by an elevator shaft. Workshops and service facilities are spotted in projecting arrowhead islands along the entire length of the hangar deck.

The islands also contain sub-surface engine rooms in which powerful diesels are mounted to drive water propellers. These operate automatically to keep the airstrip headed into the wind and are governed by a master wind-vane on the forward deck. The incoming plane touches down just inside the after end of the flight deck and is halted by arrestor gear at the first island. A deck handling tractor then couples to the nose-wheel gear and tows the plane to the “down” elevator. Painted tracks on this portion of the deck help keep it in alignment.

Descending to the hangar deck, the plane is towed off the elevator and forward into the “depot” area. Here, completely under cover, the passengers deplane or emplane and the ship is serviced. It is then towed forward to the “up” elevator and ascends to the flight deck again. The tractor then tows it clear of the elevator and the plane’s undercarriage is engaged to the catapult traveler. A variation of the new British steam catapult accelerates slowly and smoothly and whips the plane into the air for the next leg of its flight.

Adjoining the depot area in a large central island are the passenger accommodations. If the traveler wishes to. go directly ashore, he is directed to a door on his right. This leads through a thwartship passage to the taxi waiting room, customs shed, etc. Fast water taxis are tied up to an open boat landing. In another section, helicopter taxis load in a pair of elevator shafts and are then whisked to the flight deck above to take off for various points in the city. Should the traveler find it necessary to wait for another plane, he turns to his left. Here he finds a spacious and comfortable lounge, flanked by an information booth, airline offices, newsstands, etc.

A city like New York could anchor a whole string of these airports in nearby Long Island Sound, the Lower Bay or even in the Hudson River where landing approaches and take-offs could be made over uninhabited stretches of water. Accessibility would be at least as good as that of the present airports and with helicopter taxi service, it would be better. Most of the other great centers of our country are similarly situated. Why don’t we build floating airports to make air travel safer and save our cities? •

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IT’S NEW!

SWAMP WAGON’S nine-ft. tall rear wheels have hickory treads steel-clamped to 28 in. rims weighing 700 lbs. Vehicle is designed to clamber over Florida’s soft muck bogs.

TOTCYCLIST Brad Bradley drives cut-down 125 cc Harley Davidson like a pro. Five-year-old was taught to ride 50-mph machine by his Dad. Brad began career at 18 months.

MANY-LENSED Italian Summa camera has revolving turret housing regular lens, wide angle lens and two for direct sighting. It also has hand grips and flash attachments.

NO FANCY PANTS, Solly Davis holds Geiger counter inside Goodyear’s new one-piece vinyl film anti-radiation suit Inflated by compressed air, suit is air-conditioned.

BLOW-UP house can be inflated by a man in three minutes. British rubber hut is nine ft high with floor space of 30×19 ft. It has all comforts of home—phone, lights.

SINKPROOF claims Danish inventor Clous Sorensen of his novel lifeboat which has its rudder and screw hidden in tube. Mate is strapped in seat under plastic hood.

DIRECTOMAT in Times Square, N.Y., issues a card with directions to get to any station in subway system when destination button is pushed. Great aid for out-of-towners.

SUPER SOFT Terra-Tires allow this plane to taxi at high speed over scattered 2×4 blocks. Goodyear is testing them for use by aircraft on rough ground cluttered with obstacles.

MOTO-VAC sucks up dirt in car when attached to exhaust pipe and engine is started. Nobby British invention comes with 12 ft. hose, operates by exhaust jet extraction.

TINY TV camera developed by Lockheed will give engineers ringside seat when studying the performance of control surfaces on new aircraft during flight operations.

FLASHLIGHT is latest Russian all-weather jet fighter. Sleek craft is swept-wing, twin jet, dual-placed job which gives the appearance of being effective interceptor.

RED TV antennas bristle atop these wooden shacks in the suburbs of Moscow. Soviet citizens like video and many houses that have no running water boast a TV set.

Flying Saucer is for advertising purposes only. Walter Galonska, left, of Germany, spent a year building it. Since free-flying machines are verboten to Germans, Galonska anchors it with a steel cable. An electric motor drives the two contra-rotating propellers. Here he shows it to Dr. Ursinus, glider plane experimenter.

Teleran – “radio eyes” for blind flying!

Teleran (a contraction of TELE-vision — Radar Air Navigation) collects all of the necessary information on the ground by radar, and then instantly transmits a television picture of the assembled data to the pilot aloft in the airplane.

On his receiver the pilot sees a picture showing the position of his airplane and the position of all other aircraft near his altitude. This is superimposed upon a terrain map complete with route markings, weather conditions and unmistakable visual instructions to make his job easier.

Teleran—another achievement of RCA—is being developed with Army Air Forces co-operation by RCA Laboratories and RCA Victor. Moreover, when you buy any product bearing the RCA or RCA Victor monogram, you get one of the finest instruments of its kind science has yet achieved.

Radio Corporation of America, RCA Building, Radio City, New York 20… Listen to The RCA Victor Show, Sundays, 2:00 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, over the NBC Network.

RADIO CORPORATION of AMERICA

HOSPITAL ON AIRSHIP MAY SWEEP PATIENTS ABOVE CLOUDS IN QUEST OF MORE SUNLIGHT

For persons suffering with tuberculosis, or just from nerves, will physicians soon prescribe a trip to the clouds in a flying clinic instead of a visit to the mountains?

Not long ago Charles L. Julliot, French lawyer, proposed that airplanes or dirigibles transport such patients above the clouds. His suggestion, which America hears was approved by the medical faculties of France, called attention to the fact that high altitude and sunshine produce well-known changes in the blood, in many cases beneficial. Add to this the natural exhilaration of an air trip, he says, and the effect might be even better than that of a mountain vacation (P.S.M., Mar. ’30, p. 34).

Dr. Karl Arnstein, vice president and chief engineer of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, and the man in charge of building the Navy’s great new airships at Akron, O., has described for Popular Science Monthly just how this hospital airship might be designed. The drawing of the “flying clinic” shown above was prepared from data supplied by Dr. Arnstein.

Like a huge blister, on top of the airship, would rise the aerial sanatorium, with suitable provision for the care and comfort of the patients. In that position it would receive the full benefits of sunlight. Its walls and roof would be studded with windows, the panes made of celluloid or some similar material which transmits the healthful rays of the sun. Glass would be ruled out because of the danger of breaking and the added weight.

In shape and probably in size the body of the airship would follow the de- sign of the two 6,500,000-cubic-foot airships being built for the Navy. A hospital airship of this size would be able to stay aloft for weeks at a time. An airplane carried inside its hull could maintain communication with the ground and if necessary make trips for special medicines and supplies.

The skipper of such an airship would maneuver his craft according to the weather. By cruising about to dodge storms, and soaring upward whenever clouds threatened to cut off its sunlight, a practically stable and unchanging weather condition could be maintained.

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COMING: Rooftop Airports

Runway-less air terminals, VTOL’s will greet air travelers of 1965.

STRANGE-looking craft that take off and land on rooftop airports, operate via automatic flight instruments and controlled by electronic traffic cops are some of the things in store for the air traveler of 1965. Dream stuff? Not according to Civil Aeronautics Administration experts who made the above predictions. Many such planes are already working models or on drawing boards. Limited runway space will mean more and more vertical takeoff and land (VTOL) ships in the air. Passenger planes will have tilting wings and power plants on a horizontal body and will rise and land like helicopters. Skyscraper roofs will be the “fields” for the aircraft of tomorrow.

The article that forecast “bat wings” was posted here

“Bat-Men” Troops Join California State Guard

Major MALCOM WHEELER – NICHOLSON, military expert, forecast the use of circus “bat-wings” for parachute troops, in the August issue of Mechanix Illustrated. Now, as a preliminary test, the California State Guard has organized just such a unit of “bat-man” paratroopers, under the leadership of Mickey Morgan, famed jumper (left). Bat-wings, it is claimed, makes paratroops more maneuverable-and swifter.

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IT’S NEW!

HYDROFOILS in kit form are easily installed on almost all outboard craft from 12 to 16 feet Safe, smooth, they literally make boat fly. Atlantic Hydrofin, Miami. Fla.

GROWING UP LAMP’S base has yardstick with spaces for marking date, weight, height of little Oscar, who likes to see how much he “growed.” Device was exhibited in Chicago.

SLIT SPECS, originated by the Eskimos, are considered the most on Canadian ski slopes these days. Glassless, slits guard against sun’s glare. This pair costs $20.

ONE-MAN HELICOPTER developed by Goodyear Aircraft Corp. and designed by Paul Ziegler, weighs slightly over 400 pounds and is capable of more than 60-mph.

ROCKING BED equipped with bellows is tested as possible replacement lor iron lung in Chicago trial. Rhythmic see-saw action of bed acts on bellows, supplies oxygen.

BICYCLE CART made from two standard bikes is going over big in Brunswick, Germany. Assembled in five minutes, it totes two. tot, luggage. Frame costs $15 to $20.

GOGGLE-EYED flight suit will protect its wearer for 80 hours at 100.000-foot altitude, according to University of Illinois tests made for the Toronto. Canada, manufacturers.

Shortly before his death in 1981, Mr. Northrop was given clearance to see designs and a scale model of the B-2 Spirit which was unveiled in 1988.

The “Flying Wing” Takes To The Air

PROBABLY the strangest looking thing ever to fly in the air is the Northrop Aircraft Company’s new “Flying Wing,” seen in action above, and viewed from the rear on the ground below. It has no fuselage nor tail surfaces. Twin pusher propellers power it. Power plant and personnel are housed within the contours of the airfoil. The greatest secrecy is being maintained by both the company and the army about the weird plane’s performance, but reports which have leaked out credit the ship with remarkable efficiency.

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PARATROOPS by the PACKAGE

Like rations or ammo, infantry squads in metal containers can be dropped behind enemy lines.

By Frank Tinsley

SURPRISE packages have become America’s newest war weapon!

Engineers in the Air Materiel Command are testing a 6,000-pound capacity container which can be used to drop an entire infantry squad, completely equipped, from an airplane.

A universal-type container, along with another cargo container, recently designed by the laboratory, will be used in the newer cargo airplanes such as the Fairchild C-119. The second container has been developed for use with the overhead mon- orail of the C-119. Still in an early research and development stage, the universal container holds great promise. Besides its use as a transporter of infantrymen and equipment, engineers foresee its utilization as a complete weather station, rescue station and survival and rescue hut for Arctic use. Military Air Transport Service already is considering it as a weather station, to be dropped with men and equipment into inaccessible areas.

The container consists of a framework of tubular sections mounted atop a metal landing skid provided with plywood flooring. Four movable aluminum triangular compartments are attached to the framework. They can be arranged as a square box to carry cargo or can be rearranged to carry troops. The framework will not obstruct the exit of troops if they are forced to bail out during an emergency. It is quickly removable for easy loading and unloading.

Two types of parachutes may be used for the descent—a single 100-foot chute for loads up to 3,500 pounds and two 100-foot chutes for loads up to 6,000 pounds. The parachute assembly is placed atop the container. Then, a small pilot chute pulls out the 16-foot extraction chute, which pulls the container out of the airplane.

Landing or impact deceleration is provided by four large air bags constructed much in the shape of barrels. They are fastened underneath the skid and remain completely deflated until the container is dropped from the aircraft. One-way openings in the bags permit air to rush in during descent, inflating the bags so they form a cushion to absorb most of the landing impact.

The container, which is designed to withstand a landing shock of 6 G’s, measures 96 inches square and 70. inches high. Four of the 500-pound units will fit into the C-119.

Ground operation is possible with the use of four wheels, one on each corner of the container. They are removed when the device is loaded into the aircraft and may be carried along for use after landing.

The other type of container, designed for use with the C-119 overhead monorail, has a 500-pound capacity. It can drop such equipment as small arms, ammunition, fuel and food. To land this container, an expendable 24-foot muslin parachute is used. Tests indicate a 500-pound load can be dropped safely at an aircraft speed of 175 mph. A 400-pound load can be dropped at 225 mph. Overall dimensions of the container, fully packed, are 20 by 30 by 60 inches.

Air Materiel Command engineers have not yet jumped in the revolutionary containers although indications are that the first descents will be made soon. When they do take place, it will be the first time U. S. Air Force personnel has ever descended in just an enclosure.

If the time comes when these weapons must be used, our enemies will discover that while good things come in little packages, knockout blows come in slightly bigger ones. •

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Helicopter Prodigy Designs Man-Carrying Rocket

STANLEY Hiller, Jr., isn’t satisfied with his helicopters. He has his sights set on a star. Literally, that is. And if he has his way, he’s going to get to that star in a machine of his own make, a man-carrying rocket which he calls the VJ-100.

The present model uses a combination of jet and rocket power and looks like a V-2 with wings. It is designed to take off straight upward, powered by a Rolls Royce Nene turbo-jet engine and 5,000 lbs. of rocket thrust. Later conversions will make use of rocket power alone to drive the VJ-100 away from the earth’s gravity on its interplanetary explorations.

Hiller is a 25-year-old genius who. in spite of his tender years, already has carved his name in aviation’s Hall of Fame. In 1944 he received the Fawcett Aviation Award for his work with helicopter control mechanisms, and in 1947 he won the Grand Award at the World Inventor’s Congress for the development of his two-passenger helicopter. He is now president of his own company, United Helicopters in Palo Alto, California, where he is working overtime to catch up on back orders for the Hiller 360, a radical three-seater helicopter which is so simple to fly that most students can solo it in a few minutes In the research which led to the VJ-100, Hiller and his engineers were looking for an aircraft which would combine the vertical take-off and landing characteristics of the helicopter with the horizontal speed of conventional aircraft. First, they tried attaching helicopter rotors to the wings of an airplane. The rotors were to lift the aircraft straight up into the air and then were to be tilted forward to provide the power for level flight. “This got too complicated aerodynamically,” Hiller explains, “so we tried something else.”

Their next design was a four-winged, pencil-shaped model with jet engines at the base of each wing. Control surfaces were placed in the stream of the rocket blast. “The trouble with this design was that the failure of any one of the jet engines would make the ship uncontrollable,” the young designer pointed out.

The final design, the VJ-100, has two wings and a single power source in the tail. All the control surfaces are in four tail fins placed in the path of the jet blast. The pilot operates these surfaces with a control stick which can be moved in flight to raise or lower the nose and to turn it right or left. Pressure on foot pedals warps the tail surfaces to give the ship a twisting or banking motion.

The pilot climbs into his cockpit behind the transparent nose of the “rocket ship” and straps himself into place in a standing position beside his copilot-observer while the ship is resting on its tripod tail. During the take-off he and his companion remain upright, keeping the craft poised on the pinnacle of the jet and rocket blast similar to the way you would balance a stick on your finger. When the ship has leveled off, the pilots fly in a prone position which makes them less susceptible to blackouts caused by high speed maneuvering.

In case of an emergency the cockpit, which is really a capsule inside the rocket hull, is catapulted from the rest of the ship. When it has slowed down to bailout speed, the occupants can use conventional parachutes for the rest of their descent.

The VJ-100 lands by backing down. As the ship approaches the landing spot, the pilot pulls the nose up and throttles back on the jet engine to kill excess speed. Then he allows the ship to settle toward the earth tail first, breaking his descent with the blast of the engine and going through his balancing act as on take-off.

This rocketship may be an answer to high-flying enemy bombers and guided missiles. Because it needs only a fifty foot circle for take-off and landing, it will also be valuable as a highspeed reconnaissance plane. Highly mobile units operating in close tactical liaison with ground forces will launch the VJ-100 from advanced positions to obtain latest photographs of enemy installations.

The Hiller rocket is being tested at Wright Field, Ohio. The full-size edition will be 30 feet long and will weigh about 5-1/2 tons. Its inventor estimates its speed will be 650 mph.

DIVING SPIDER PLANE To HURL Big BOMB

AVIATION’S newest wartime l threat is rumored to be a plane, tiny enough so that a fleet of them will fit into a dirigible, which, when released, will guide huge, two-ton bombs to within a few hundred feet of their objective.

Like giant spiders clutching bottle flies, they will zoom into power dives, each carrying tons of destruction.

Fantastic? Not if recent experiments are carried to their logical ends. The use of the power dive as a means of attack is not new.

When attached to a carrier, the bomb becomes an integral part. It is released only when a direct hit is a certainty. After releasing the bomb, the plane can return to the carrier or act as a interceptor fighter.

New Navigation Computer Solves Flight Problems

SIMPLIFYING aerial navigation problems

to a point never before possible, an entirely new type navigation computer has been perfected by engineers and adopted as standard equipment by many pilots on the nationwide air travel systems.

Designed to provide an immediate answer to navigation questions the pilot must face during the course of a flight, the new instrument combines features of a slide rule with a series of special scales in the form of three celluloid discs which rotate around a common center.

By means of this instrument the pilot may determine immediately the true air speed of the plane, the compass course which he must follow, gasoline consumption and the flying time between terminals. It can also be used to calculate wind direction and velocity while the plane is in flight, allowing the pilot to keep an accurate check of upper air information provided at the beginning of the flight.

New Flying Machine Patterned After Structure of an Owl
AS THE result of intensive study of the flights and structure of heavy birds, Robert Myers, of Rockford, 111., has designed and built an ornithopter from which he expects to develop ideas for further experiments with such ships. The strange ship has wings crisscrossed with rib structure and hinged to the body in such a way that the wings can be flapped to propel it. Myers, like many before him, believes that it may be possible to learn secrets of flight from birds that will enable man to perfect highly developed flying wings; a type of aircraft radically different from the rigid type of winged ships now in use.

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Crashes CAN Be Harmless!

Airplane fatalities must be reduced. Moreover, they can be reduced! There is absolutely no sensible reason why all efforts toward this end should be confined solely to preventing the crashes! It is obvious that accidents are still happening. The job now is to make planes withstand them better. It can be done!

by George Daniels Aviation Editor

TOO many people are killed in airplane crashes. It’s about time to realize that pilots aren’t supermen. Accidents continue to happen and there’s no sense in claiming they can be entirely prevented. The only intelligent thing to do is to build the planes to withstand as violent a smashup as Possible.

Six years ago Lou Reichers was flying a big twin engine, fuselage-lift transport invented by V. J. Burnelli, when the ailerons came off over Newark Airport. There wasn’t anything wrong with the design of the plane. It was just one of the things that sometimes happens to a test ship. A handful of bolts had been left out of the control hinge brackets during the assembly job. The result was a crash at 2 miles a minute. The big ship hit the ground so hard that one of the engines landed about 200 yards away.

It was the thirteenth of January when it happened, and the ground was frozen as hard as a brick, but the wreck plowed a ditch big enough to hide a whale in. Every aviation engineer on the face of the earth should have wanted to know how the ship’s cabin managed to come through that crash in perfect condition. As a matter of fact, Reichers and the engineer who rode with him, John Murray.

walked out of the ship for a smoke as soon as it stopped plowing up the earth. They might as well have smoked inside because the gas tanks hadn’t even sprung a leak.

That ship was an unusual design. It had a broad, flat fuselage shaped like a wing. Inside there were seats for 16 people. Both engines were located in the nose of that single body, with the pilot’s compartment behind them. The total weight of the thing was a little over eight tons—with about 1,500 horsepower to pull it. The lines were pretty clean, even by today’s standards, giving a top speed of 250.

The cross sectional dimensions of the fuselage were so generous that the amazing strength was almost easy to attain. Extruded dural beams and channels gave the cabin the toughness of a young railroad bridge. The position of the engines in the nose eliminated the likelihood of their smashing anything but themselves when the plane hit head first. And that’s about all they did smash—the windshields right behind them didn’t even crack when the ship crashed.

The fact that Reichers and Murray weren’t killed is easy to understand when you see a Picture of the pilot’s compartment and passenger cabin. The worst effect noticeable is the mud on the windows.

When the cabin of a plane stays in one piece the passengers stand a chance in any crash. Usher Rousch proved that pretty conclusively three years after the Burnelli wreck. He was coming in from Chicago to land at that same field in Newark. The fog was so thick you couldn’t see both ends of a cigarette—and there wasn’t a hole in it anywhere.

Rousch didn’t relish the idea of slamming a plane load of passengers into the side of a hangar in a blind search for the runway, so he headed for the swamps around the airport He hit the mud so hard that the engines doubled back under the wings, but the cabin stayed in shape. The result proves the point once more. Not a single passenger was scratched. Rousch, himself, was the casualty list. He got a few cuts from the jolt.

Private planes bring out the importance of a strong cabin every now and then, too. A pair of sport flyers looking for a good beach to swim from, made a good example about a year ago in Florida. They came down to what looked like a beautiful spot to land and swim. The trouble was that they didn’t notice a tangle of old. rusty cable imbedded in the sand. Their wheels had no sooner hit the surface than they jammed into the cable and whacked the ship over on its nose. Nothing buckled up, and nothing bent. The little bus was well made. Even the propeller didn’t break—that was almost freakish, however. Later on they pushed the tail down again, took off, and flew home. Ironically, the name of the pilot in that sandy mishap was Beech.

The scene down at Lovettsville, Virginia, last year gives a pretty clear picture of a passenger cabin in fragments—with 25 dead, United States Senator Lundeen among them. That ended a 17-month death-free record for the airlines, and proved again that whether you like it or not, accidents do happen. Although nobody will ever know just what happened to that ship, it doesn’t take an expert to see that the cabin went to pieces like the rest of it.

It was only about six months later when Captain Eddie Rickenbacker startled us all by being a victim in the wreck of one of his own airliners. That crash should show what happens when only part of the cabin breaks up. Only part of the passenger list met death that night; seven at the time. Eight were injured. Captain Rickenbacker was lucky enough to come out alive, though badly hurt.

Airplane designers might take a tip from the railroads. A good many of us can remember the days when the railroads used wooden cars. When those cars got into a wreck casualties ran high and the sight was pretty ghastly. Today railroad cars are of steel, and they stay together well in most any collision. Railroad wrecks don’t take many lives now.

It’s the same with automobiles. Remember when they used to scatter all over the street when they hit something? They don’t do it now. Ruggedly reinforced metal bodies hold their own even in violent accidents. Modern cars can roll over and up on the wheels again, and drive away with loads of disconcerted but unscathed passengers.

Movie stunt men could tell the airplane engineers some interesting things about safety, too. Most designers don’t expect the pilots of their planes to dive into the ground deliberately, or to try to crash in as spectacular a manner as possible. The movie boys do it, though. And ‘ what’s more, they seldom get hurt doing it. Their method is just about the same as the one that saved the day for Reichers and Murray when the big Burnelli crashed. They reinforce the cabin or cockpit, as the case may be. Then, no matter what happens to the rest of the ship, the part they’re sitting in holds up.

In the days of wooden fuselage construction, these daredevils added wooden reinforcements to the longerons and cross members around the cockpit. The entire cockpit structure was then heavily taped to prevent slivers of wood from impaling the pilot in the event of an unexpected fracture. Modern crackup artists reinforce with steel tubing.

It might be wise if designers didn’t get one-track minds. Passenger planes go fast enough for the time being. Let’s see if we can build them to withstand crashes a trifle better. There’s little use in trying to prevent crashes altogether, so why not try to make them less fearful.

The war should turn up a few tricks along this line that even the Hollywood stunt men haven’t been using for years. But if it doesn’t, there are still examples to profit from. Planes should be designed so they can take a good crash. Research departments can easily boast that they have developed instruments and gadgets that make crashes entirely avoidable. They can add these things to the pilots’ compartment until the walls are cluttered up with them from top to bottom. They can evolve all manner of flapping, fluttering doo-dads that pop out of tails and wings and accomplish some purpose or other. For the most part, these things work quite well, but most of them need considerable attention from the pilot. When something unforeseen happens you can’t blame the poor pilot for making a little error. If you sat for hours in that wild array of levers, handles, buttons, gauges, and lights, you’d probably make a little error now and then, too. More gadgets won’t prevent accidents. The speedometer hasn’t stopped automobile accidents. Steel bodies, however, have reduced the injuries.

The pilot knows how to crash his ship on a wing to cushion the impact if he has time to think about it. It’s up to the engineers and designers to build the ship so the pilot and passenger compartment will stand up as the rest of the ship squashes. At the present time the pilots are in a pretty hopeless spot when a crash comes. The passengers aren’t much better off.

If you feel foolish sometime, drop your glasses on the sidewalk. They’ll break. If you drop them on the rug they won’t. That quarter-inch of cushioning is enough to save them. That’s why a pilot in a jam may try to come in on a wing. It breaks the fall. That’s also why some planes have crash pads on forward cabin walls to save the occupants. Let’s think about all this. We can save lives in the future that might have been saved in the past.

LOCKHEED JETSTAR: The corporate-size jetliner with stand-up, walk-around, stretch-out room

You won’t feel cramped or hemmed in aboard the JetStar. Even on long trips, big active men find plenty of room for comfort on this largest of corporate jets. There’s space, too, for the tables, desks and lounge furnishings you choose, or for 10 airline-type passenger seats. And more room for galley, private lavatory, separate pilot’s flight deck and a generous amount of baggage.

With all this space, with the smoothest pressurization and all-climate air-conditioning, you might forget that the JetStar still is a compact jetliner. Yet emphatically it is. It lands at hundreds of U.S. airports where the big jets can’t—uses over 1,100 terminals in this country, hundreds more abroad. So name your destination. JetStar wings you closer to it at speeds up to 550 mph.

You’ll find that peace of mind has been designed into the JetStar: four-engine power and security, a 2,250-mile range, and all of the airline safety features. Remember, the JetStar is not a paper airplane. Its perfor- mance has been proved by 26 million miles of flying. Its eight-year reliability record is unmatched.

Obviously, the JetStar costs more than smaller jets. But a lot more goes into it. No wonder the few resales made so far have brought more than their original purchase price.

Only the JetStar has all these airline-jet features for your safety and comfort: Four engines • Dual wheels ? Antiskid braking • Thrust reversers • Double and triple backup operating systems • Six-foot headroom • Unlimited life design ? Pressurized, air-conditioned cabin

LOCKHEED

JETSTAR: Fully certificated, made in America, in production at Lockheed-Georgia Company, Marietta, Georgia, U.S.A. • A Division of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation

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If you’re going to travel by air, you can make use of these answers

How much do you know about the planes you fly in, and how they are guided from city to city? What do you know about weather, and how your pilot copes with it?

Here are answers to some of the questions that occur to almost every air traveler. They were compiled by Eastern Air Lines, which found that passengers have a lively interest in all kinds of flight operations. EAL collected questions and answered them in a booklet, which explains many expressions the layman either hears or sees in print. The writers of the book throw in bits of miscellaneous information, too. For example: Did you know that some clouds (the wispy, high-flying cirrus) are made of crystals of ice?

Here are bits from the EAL booklet: WHAT IS “OVERCAST”?

A continuous unbroken layer of cloud covering practically the entire sky. “Overcast” may be termed “thin” or “dark” in airways weather reports, depending upon the thickness and the appearance of the layer. Cloud formations are sometimes in layers, and your plane often flies “on top,” or ‘way up above the top cloud surface, in brilliant sunshine or under a roof of star-studded sky. “Visibility” is the distance at which objects can be seen and identified. It is determined, officially, by an observer at the airport who checks on known, fixed objects at or near the airport, as shown at the right.

WHAT IS “CEILING”?

It refers to the height above the ground of the lowest clouds, in case they cover more than half of the sky. A lesser amount of cloudiness is termed “scattered clouds” and has no bearing on “ceiling.” The term “ceiling unlimited” generally means perfect flying weather, when clouds, if any, have bases above 9,500 feet. “Ceiling zero” means no flying and a cloud level below 100 feet. A remarkable instrument, the “ceilometer,” has been introduced at several airports and will, doubtless, soon be used widely. A thin, mercury-light beam is projected vertically on the cloud base. A photoelectric cell in the “ceilometer” is sensitive to the projected beam, and measurement is made of the angular elevation of the beam at the cloud base. A recording device makes a continuous record.

WHAT IS “HIGH-FREQUENCY VOICE COMMUNICATION”?

Any time he may choose, the pilot can communicate by radio with airports or Government ground stations, where men, on duty around the clock, are listening for aircraft reports. Often this means of communication is used to report special weather information. At regular intervals the pilot reports over “check points.” The pilot always uses radio communication when approaching an airport, for then he talks to the control tower, from which he takes his landing instructions. Drawing shows plane in communication with control tower.

WHAT IS “INSTRUMENT WEATHER”?

When cloud formations prevent the pilot from seeing the horizon or actual terrain over which your ship is flying, it is considered “instrument weather,” since the pilot then employs his flight instruments to guide him on his course. One such instrument is the gyro-horizon, an artificial horizon that indicates the attitude of the plane with relation to the horizon. The gyro-horizon is an instrument that shows the pilot how his plane might look to the pilot of a ship following directly behind him. By looking at the small model of his plane on the instrument dial, he can see whether his own ship is climbing or descending, or flying level or with one wing low.

WHAT ARE “MARKER STATIONS”?

At certain locations on the radio-beam highway (about 25 miles from each airport) special ground transmitters send a fan-shaped signal directly skyward. When your plane passes through this signal, radio equipment aboard picks it up and causes a light to flash on the instrument panel. It also produces a special audible signal. Knowing the exact location of these marker stations and their distances from airports, the pilot can easily determine how far he is from his destination, when and how much to reduce his altitude, and what time, to the minute, he will arrive at the airport.

WHAT ARE “FRONTS”?

The term was introduced by Norwegian meteorologists to denote the line of separation between cold and warm masses of air. The more important “fronts” are caused by large-scale, horizontal movements of air, which bring air masses of widely different origin into juxtaposition. From the line of the “front” on the ground, the “frontal surface” slopes upward over the cold air.

A “cold front” is the boundary between an advancing cold-air mass and a mass of warm air, under which the cold air, being denser, pushes like a wedge. Passage of a “cold front” is normally accompanied by a rise in pressure, a fall in temperature, a wind shift, showers, and sometimes a squall or thunderstorm. A “warm front” is the boundary line between an advancing warm-air mass and a mass of cold air over which it is rising. Cooling, due to the lifting of the warm air, usually causes precipitation over a considerable area in advance of the “front.”

WHAT IS “ON THE BEAM”?

The radio beam employs the use of sound to guide the pilot. Two directional ground transmitters alternately send International Code signals at acute angles to each other. One sends the code signal for the letter N (dash-dot); the other, for the letter A (dot-dash). Along the path that divides the angle, these alternate signals interlock and are heard as a steady hum. When the pilot hears this hum he knows he is on his course, or “on the beam.” If he hears either of the signals independently, he knows exactly which way to go to return to his course—guided by whether he hears the N or A signal.

WHAT ARE ALL THOSE OUTSIDE GADGETS?

Those scientific-looking things on the outside of your plane are the antennas for the various units of radio equipment aboard. Here’s what they’re for, so you can identify them:
A – Glide path and localizer antenna.
B – High-frequency, two-way communication antenna.
C – Very-high-frequency, two-way communication antenna.
D – Tower receiver radio antenna.
E – Manual beacon receiver antenna.
F – Manual direction finder compass loop.
G – Automatic direction finder compass loop.
H – Automatic direction finder sense and marker antenna.

“AUTOMATIC RADIO COMPASS”

Radio transmitting stations operate on special frequencies or wave lengths. Airline pilots know these frequencies, as well as the locations of all principal transmitting stations along the route. ‘With one quick adjustment to the frequency of a station, the “automatic radio compass” instantly points the exact compass direction to that station. To determine his position, the pilot has only to repeat this procedure with two or more stations, then convert the compass readings to bearing lines on his flight map. He is at their intersection.

The difference between the “automatic radio compass” and the “radio direction finder” is that the latter is operated manually while the former is self-operating.

WHAT IS THE “CONTROL TOWER”?

It controls the traffic on the airport and in the air within a radius of three miles, except when designated approach controls are in effect. “Control tower” gives the pilot his landing instructions. All movements of any aircraft, or vehicle, on the field are regulated by radio or light-beam signals from “the tower.”

WHAT IS “CLEARANCE”?

When a dispatcher is satisfied, after careful examination of local traffic and weather forecasts and reports, that flying conditions are satisfactory, he issues a “clearance” to the pilot that authorizes the flight to be made. However, the pilot can still refuse to make the flight if, in his judgment, flying conditions are not favorable. Both the pilot and dispatcher must be in agreement. When a member of an airline staff tells you “everything will be routine” about your flight, it means no interruptions are anticipated.

The movements of all commercial, military, and private aircraft are rigidly controlled by “Airways Traffic Control,” which is equivalent to a Federal traffic-police department of the air. For every flight a pilot must submit his proposed flight plan to the ATC for approval or amendment before he is permitted to take off. This flight plan predetermines all facts about the flight, such as estimated time and the altitude at which the plane will pass over check points en route. ATC also tells airports of your expected arrival time.

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Graphic Section

All the characteristics of a mammoth ocean liner are reproduced in the “Columbus,” the miniature ship shown above. It is 25 feet long and was constructed by a German engineer at a cost of #4000. Top photo shows the model coming into dock under its own power after a practice spin; below it appears a close-up of the ship. It is driven by an electric motor.

Neil Hamilton, movie actor, demonstrates a revolving camera for taking “dizzy” shots in which rooms and people tumble all over the screen.

Novel Automobile Is Driven By a Single Wheel at Rear.

Half automobile and half motorcycle, the novel vehicle shown above was built by an Englishman to take his bride on a honeymoon trip. The car is driven by a motorcycle engine and rear wheel.

British machine gunner with gas mask and latest type rapid fire gun.

The above model of the first commercial electric generating station, designed by Thomas A. Edison in 3 882, was made for Henry Ford’s museum at Dearborn.

Tandem Motors, Long Floats, Mark Unique Air Racer.

This shows a Savoia Marchetti twin-motored seaplane with its pilot, Dal Molin, standing alongside. This is Italy’s fastest airplane, capable of a speed of 200 m.p.h. Note position of pilot’s cockpit between the two motors.

Static lift of dirigible gases combined with dynamic lift of airplane wings is expected to make the novel aircraft shown above the air leviathan of the future. Its inventor, John Hodgdon of Long Beach, Cal., claims that the presence of wings will prevent the rolling and pitching common to blimps and will make it possible for his ship to land without the aid of a ground crew.

One of the largest guns in Uncle Sam’s army was inspected by West Point cadets of the graduating class who visited the Aberdeen proving grounds near Washington. The Big Bertha shown in the above photo is a 14-inch mounted railway gun which fires a projectile weighing 2000 pounds a distance of 32 miles, and can pierce 14-inch armor plate.

Uncle Sam Manufactures 2,000,000 Mail Bags Each Year.

This special machine cuts, prints, folds and stacks the mail sacks in one operation.

The machine shown above rivets the grommets, or metal eyelets, into the mail sacks. More than 20,000,000 grommets are manufactured and placed in the sacks every year. Although the bags are made out of the most durable canvas, the government carries such a huge volume of mail every year that the factory must run without a stop to keep the postoffice supplied with sacks. Practically all of the manufacturing machinery is specially designed for its purpose. Like the government printing department, the mail bag factory saves Uncle Sam thousands of dollars every month through efficient large-scale production.

Largest American – Built Airplane Carries 32 Passengers.

Designed to carry 32 passengers, the new Fokker F-32, shown above, is the largest airplane ever built in America and the largest land plane in the world. The photo shows 47 persons standing in line under the giant’s wings and gives a good idea of its tremendous size. The huge ship successfully passed its trial flights before a committee of aeronautical experts. It is powered with four radial motors mounted in tandem under the wing. This type of power plant mounting, it is predicted, will soon displace the tri-motored type in which one engine is mounted on the nose of the fuselage where its efficiency is somewhat impaired.

Built-in furniture as an integral part of the decorative scheme will distinguish the apartment of tomorrow. Above is a built-in radio and phonograph with disappearing doors.

This faithful replica of a Viking ship stopped off in London on its way around the world.

Speeding Motorboat Endangers Crowd in Thrilling Upset.

Spectators sought cover in a hurry when the motorboat Invicta II leapt the bank in a recent race at Rickmansworth, England. The remarkable action photo above shows the motorboat just as it bounced over the bank. Note the woman spectator underneath the boat. Fortunately no one was hurt —not even the pilot, who was flung out of his craft in making a sharp turn.

Old motor oil may become a source of new if the experiments of W. H. Herschel of the U. S. Bureau of Standards, shown above, perfects the apparatus on which he is working. It is claimed that oil refined by his process costs only two-thirds as much as new oil, and that it has a greater resistance to heat owing to the fact that unstable elements have already broken down.

The plane shown above taking off at a sharp angle by means of automatic interconnected wing slots and flaps is the Hand-ley-Page entry in the Guggenheim contest to determine the safest airplane. It is claimed that the wing slots make it impossible for the plane to stall or fall into a tail spin. The wing slots can be seen in the leading edge of the upper wing.

Seadrome for an Ocean Landing Field Nears Completion.

The ocean seadrome designed by Edward B. Armstrong to provide a safe floating landing field for trans-Atlantic airplanes is shown above nearing completion in a Delaware shop. Only one of the units is shown in the picture. Hollow ballast-filled bases support the platform solidly in the water.

Novel forms of radio loud speakers ate illustrated in this picture by E. L. Rice, Washington inventor who has been experimenting along this line. The tapestry on the wall forms a loud volume speaker; the photo easel contains more speaker cells, as does the pillow at his arm. In his hand he holds a vest pocket speaker, and in the vase is another packet which makes it a talking vase.

Army Tank Built on Auto Chassis Makes 45-Mile Speed.

Built on an ordinary commercial auto chassis, the armored car shown above is the invention of Col. Bruce Palmer of Fort Riley, Kansas. It is a cross between a tank and an automobile. It can maintain a speed of 45 miles an hour and carries a machine gun on a flexible mount. In addition to the regular pneumatic tires there is an auxiliary set of solid rubber on which the car rides in case of punctures by enemy bullets. The circle at the right shows a close-up.

Spraying of insect-killing chemicals from an airplane is the method employed by up-to-date fruit raisers in eliminating plant pests. Photo shows plane with funnel-like device designed for this work.

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Learning to live with The Sonic Boom

By Claude Witze

With newer, faster supersonic planes, the sonic boom will become as inevitable and unavoidable as thunder. Since we can’t escape it, the next best thing is to understand it. This article, condensed with permission from “Air Force-Space Digest,” official journal of the Air Force Association, tells the story.

IF YOU’VE never heard a sonic boom, it won’t be long before you do. And you won’t have to visit an air show or live close by an air base. It may awaken you from your sleep, or it may set dishes jumping in the cupboard at any hour of the day or night no matter where you live.

It’s no longer a stunt performed by a diving fighter pilot to impress a crowd. The boom is becoming part of the day-to-day operations of the Air Force, an inescapable element of straight-and-level flight at supersonic speeds. We must learn to live with it, for in today’s unsettled world we cannot live without it.

But, except in rare cases, it will only assault your eardrums. It isn’t going to crack the plaster or start any earthquakes. It may break a few windows. And that will be about all.

In the days of slower aircraft it was possible to go faster than sound by diving a fighter plane, such as the North American F-86, and directing the boom at an air show or the wastes of a desert. The public got the idea that the boom was created as a single clap of thunder when the pilot passed through the “barrier” that faced him when he reached Mach 1, or the speed of sound. It was commonly believed that this was the end of the noise, that it would be heard again only if the plane slowed down to less than Mach 1 and then broke the barrier again.

The truth is that an aircraft capable of supersonic speed in straight-and-level flight creates a continuous sonic boom. It follows the flight path of the aircraft; if it were visible it would look like a cone—in fact, like two cones. One of them has its apex at the nose of the plane, the other at the tail. The cones are shock waves that travel to the ground at the speed of sound (about 762 m.p.h.).

The two shock cones are so ‘”lose they almost always sound like a single clap of thunder. If they were real claps of thunder they would impose a pressure of about one-half pound on each square foot of the earth or the obstacle in the way.

What is the pressure from a sonic boom?

Not more than five pounds per square foot—10 times that of a thunderclap, five times that in a boiler factory.

But the altitude of the plane, upward of 35,000 feet, and the loss of energy that muffles the shock on the way down, will keep the pressure below the five-pound level.

More boom than bust. This means the boom is not strong enough to inflict structural damage on the flimsiest chicken coop. Tests have shown that it takes a pressure of 70 or more pounds to damage ground buildings. In fact, tests with nuclear explosions have shown that it takes 150 to 300 pounds per square foot to damage brick or frame building construction.

The strongest sonic-boom pressure ever recorded was 33 pounds per square foot, measured on a mountain top, with the aircraft only 280 feet away.

But when people hear a noise that is roughly 10 times as loud as a clap of thunder, they immediately start looking for damage.

In an area such as southern California, where as many as 90 supersonic aircraft may be in the air at a time, this leads to serious complications.

Under existing law, claims must be settled by the perpetrator: Air Force, Navy or manufacturer. But it is difficult in some cases to identify the airplane that broke a window.

Air Force general policy, followed in facing demands for payment, includes these considerations: • Plate and window glass may be broken by shock waves.

• Light bric-a-brac may be shaken or vibrated from shelves.

• Loosely latched doors may be pushed open and damaged.

• There is a possibility of aggravation of existing plaster cracks only when extensive damage is present.

• Structural damage to foundations and load-bearing walls is practically impossible.

• No sonic-boom pressure is strong enough to injure a person.

For the Air Force, the problem first got critical in the New England area when the Lockheed F-104 interceptors were made operational at Westover Air Force Base, in Massachusetts. There are other areas: central Ohio, the St. Louis region, central Texas, and southern California. All of them involve military bases and aircraft-manufacturing plants.

The biggest problem in 1959 is the Convair B-58 Hustler, our first supersonic bomber. So far, the B-58′s sins against the countryside have been minor —disturbances created at irregular intervals by test pilots. Before this year is over, however, the airplane will be operational with the Strategic Air Command and flying regular practice missions all over the United States.

Boom in your future. About 30 cities, many of them major metropolitan areas, will be used as targets in simulated bombing raids at supersonic speeds. It will not always be the same 30 cities. In most cases there will be ample notice to the public, via newspapers and radio.

Don’t get the idea that the boom problem is going to remain forever the charge of men in uniform. The nation’s airlines are giving it more and more attention as transport designers turn from their first subsonic jets to the idea of a Mach 2 or Mach 3 passenger liner.

The airline problem, however, is several years in the future. The military problem is here today.

Most of the people made unhappy by sonic booms have assumed that they are not necessary, are caused by aerial hot-rodders and clowns in cockpits.

Sonic booms are characteristic of supersonic missions flown for serious reasons. They are unavoidable. They are the Sound of Security.

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Flying Bombs Being Perfected to Deal Death in Next War

THE advantages to be obtained from flying bombs are self-evident and the various nations of the world have been trying to develop these mechanically controlled, death dealing planes for the past many years. Every so often an article appears in a newspaper which indicates that France, England, Italy, or some other country has perfected an airplane which takes off, flies through the air for an appreciable time and lands without human hands touching either the airplane or engine controls. The average person when he reads of these mechanical marvels thinks in terms of transports for carrying pay loads and perhaps the commercial companies will find use for them but behind the screen of secrecy is always the thought that such devices would be of untold value as military weapons.

In general flying bombs are of two types; the radio controlled and the mechanically controlled. The radio controlled bombs can again be divided into two classes; those that ride a radio beam from the point of take-off to the target and those that are guided through the air by a directing plane.

Flying bombs are nothing more or less than small airplanes. The size of the device varies with the load of explosive to be carried and the distance to be covered. In all cases provisions are made for the bomb to go into a dive when it reaches the target. In the bombs which ride a radio beam, the beam is directed toward the target and the planes launched as fast as they can clear the take-off platform. In this way a perfect stream of flying bombs may be directed toward the target with no danger of having any flying personnel caught in the anti-aircraft barrage.

Some inventors favor the mechanically controlled flying bomb on account of the danger of the enemy jamming the air and causing the radio controlled types to go “hay wire.” The mechanically controlled type usually is started and held in the right path by means of a gyro-compass.

It is essential with both of these types that the distance to the target be known very accurately as the bomb must be made to dive on the target a hundred miles or more away from the operators. This dive may be the result of a radio signal or it may be caused by some mechanical device which functions after the bomb has covered a given distance.

Flying bombs moving under control of a directing plane can be made very accurate for the personnel in the plane are able to follow the course of the bomb and actually direct its course. Usually the plane can stay just outside of the anti-aircraft defense zone and send its messengers through with no danger to itself.

With this type there is always the danger of a hostile plane driving the directing plane away and the bombs then veering from their course. Furthermore, the directing plane can only control a limited number at one time. Then, too, while there is but a small possibility, it would be sort of sad if one of the bombs should have its mechanism go to the bad and start chasing the directing plane.

The idea of the flying bomb appeals strongly to the military mind. With such weapons it will be possible to direct a steady stream of planes each carrying 200 pounds or more of explosive against an enemy concentration camp, munition dump or other military establishment. The hostile aircraft can shoot them down if they so desire but the resulting explosions will make other hostile airmen a trifle more cautious. Anti-aircraft batteries can knock them from the skies but scores of others will take the place of those knocked down. Somewhere out of the danger area there will be an airman who will watch these flying messengers of death as they dive to the earth and who will send back data by which the ground force some hundred miles away will send more bombs out with corrected settings to secure hits instead of misses. Such a method of fighting leaves but one course open to the troops at the receiving end, abandon the area under fire with a minimum delay.

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High-Speed Escape

So that high-altitude ball-outs will not kill, the fast new planes are being designed to cone apart, allowing a safe drop in a tight capsule.

BY ERIC SLOANE

4 T 60,000 feet the flyer’s plane becomes his cell of life, its equipment almost as important as his own body. Outside the plane the cold of space is of instant-freeze intensity, much colder than any thickness of clothing could protect from. It is so thin that an exposed human’s body would cease to function. Blood would boil there at body temperature. Death from oxygen lack would occur quickly. Accordingly, the high-altitude plane has a cabin pumped with high-pressure air. Heated clothing is plugged into the plane’s power line. The flyer’s lungs are con- nected directly to the ship’s oxygen supply by means of a mask. To abandon such a design for living at 60,000 feet would be like leaving behind the most important organs of the body. Yet if things go Wrong with the high-altitude supersonic ships now being designed, it may be necessary to abandon ship at stratospheric heights. What then to do?

Even at 45,000 feet (today’s flight ceiling) a flyer cannot safely parachute from his ship. No flyer in his right mind would bail out from great heights when he can ride his ship to safer levels first. It would take a parachuter about a half hour to float to earth from 50,000 feet, time enough to make the trip fatal. The trick is to fall free—about a three-minute trip—through the deadly thin air, then open the ‘chute at about 10,000 feet. Of course you would have to carry a portable oxygen bottle for even that short fall through the dangerous area. It is interesting to note how the body falls slower as it approaches the denser air near the earth. Although you would fall at 275 mph from 50,000 feet, you would strike the ground at only 109 mph. These speeds are maximum velocities for the man of average weight. In the chart, the darkened portion is that area to be dropped through at the greatest speed—where cold and thin air mean death within a very short time.

Another stratospheric parachute difficulty is the yet unexplained shock experienced at the ‘chute’s opening. One would think that the greater speed would be counteracted by the thin air, but no. The shock of opening a ‘chute at high altitude often reaches 40 G’s! Even at low altitudes, if you opened your ‘chute at 400 mph you would add 6,000 pounds to your weight; not only would your body break, the ‘chute would, too. Only a closed cell or “capsule” could protect the flyer when abandoning ship either at supersonic speeds or at great heights. A ribbon-type chute would then be reefed out until the capsule has slowed down to normal falling speed, then allowed to blossom to full size.

The drawings show three ways that the designers are considering to release a pilot’s capsule into the stratosphere. The cabin cell could be released from either nose or tail position to parachute downward; then at lower altitudes the flyer could easily leave the capsule and use his own ‘chute. Or, explosive rivets may be used to disattach the cell from the rest of the plane. Inasmuch as the cabin of the stratospheric ship must necessarily become an air-tight cell, the separate and detachable capsule becomes an easy job for the designer to plan. At present there are many thousand-mile-an-hour rockets on the designer’s boards, and each design includes such a capsule. A new kind of aeronautical engineer has been born—the pressurized capsule expert. The world looks to his genius to send the first human into the space between the planets. •