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Analyzing Air Car Designs

How well do the air cars perform?

Here is the full story – - what makes them go, the problems they face and what their future looks like

By WAYNE WILLE

CALL them air cars. Call them ground effect vehicles. Or call them air cushion sleds.

But, above all, call them experimental. All the models currently under development pose some difficult problems for the designers and engineers working on them. Such problems as:

• How can we make them fly high enough to clear rocks, fences, high waves and other obstacles?

• What is the best way to steer them?

• Will they perform adequately at high speed, if at all?
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FIRST Transatlantic Air Line LINKS TWO CONTINENTS

By Rene Leonhardt

SLIDING down the map 1,800 miles from the bulging west coast of upper Africa to the projecting northeastern tip of South America, a few weeks hence, a flying boat will inaugurate the world’s first regularly-scheduled transatlantic airline.

This aerial bridge across the South Atlantic will link Bathurst, just west of the Sahara, in British Gambia, with Pernambuco, south of the Amazon, in Brazil. It will clip nine days from the traveling time between Berlin, Germany, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

At first, the big machines, on a biweekly schedule, will carry only mail and express. Later, passengers will be accommodated as well. Following the trail blazed by daring ocean flyers, the pilots will take off surrounded by elaborate precautions and aided by the last word in navigation instruments. For behind the project lies more than three years of intensive preparation by the Lufthansa, the great air transportation organization of Germany.
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Auto Lights Save Planes Lost in Fog
Summoned by radio, 2,500 motorists lined an unused California field the other day to rescue two jog-bound Navy planes. While the cars’ headlights formed an improvised beacon, as shown above, a big transport craft found the flyers and led them to a safe landing. They had gasoline left for only twenty minutes’ flying and faced the prospect of diving through the fog to an almost certain crack-up

This looks pretty fun.

Pilot “Treads” Air On Jet Board

Intensified study of vertical take-off principles has brought forth some brand-new ideas in aviation, the latest of which is a jet board. It is buckled to the pilot’s feet and supports him in flight by means of air jets from an attached hose. To hover, the pilot stands still, and to move, he merely leans in the direction in which he wants to travel. Tests of a simplified research model by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics show that the pilot has full control over the board, even in gusty winds up to 16 knots.

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The Challenge of Space
The dream of human flight is as old as man—and the ultimate goal is the stars.

This is the birth of the airplane black box. Doesn’t look all that sturdy, does it?

Recorder Logs Flight
Flight analyzers installed on passenger planes of a leading American air line will record the craft’s altitude during flight, the amount of time a “gyro” or automatic pilot is in use, and the number and time of radio reports to the ground. In case of a crash, the records may help shed light on the cause.

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Perils Faced in Around-World Flight

Army Fliers to Cross Twenty-Two Countries in Journey that Will Cover Thirty-Nine Thousand Miles

UNDER the imaginative pen of Jules Verne, Phineas Fogg went entirely around the world in eighty days, using boats, trains, elephants and even a sail-equipped sled. On the home stretch he burned’ the furnishings of his ship for fuel. But these difficulties pale into insignificance when compared with the hazards of the feat proposed by the United States army—a round-the-world flight by a fleet of airplanes, American designed and built throughout. “The United States,” said Maj. Gen. Mason E. Patrick, chief of the air service, “has the distinction of holding every air record of value, including speed, altitude, endurance and distance, and now has conceived a project rivaling in importance the circumnavigation of the globe by Magellan. Read the rest of this entry »

“Balloon Cops” May Clear Traffic Jams

THE traffic tangles caused by major football games has become a problem of great importance to those cities that have the larger stadiums within their bounds. For hours before and after the games the police are compelled to work at top speed to restore the normal movement of traffic, being called upon at times to handle some fifty thousand additional cars.

At the various traffic conventions held about the country this problem has received much attention but it was only recently that a plausible solution to the matter was offered.
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What exactly were they testing? Did they think the car would evaporate at high altitude?

Auto Strapped To Plane Is Tested One Mile Above Earth

A SPECTACULAR “first time in history” —an automobile actually taken for a mile high joy ride—recently astonished onlookers at Floyd Bennet Field, New York.

The plane was a giant Uppercu-Burnelli transport. With a 12-foot wide cabin, there was more than enough room between the wheels of the landing gear to strap on a standard 1935 automobile.
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Revolving Paddles Lift Odd-Style Plane

Built entirely without propellers as such, but deriving lift from revolving wings which spin in windmill fashion, a unique auto-airplane invented by Paul Lewis, of Denver, Col., gives promise of portending a new trend of development. Principles of its construction are explained in these photographs and drawings. One of the photos shows the lifting wings being tested in the workshop, where they developed a vertical lift of 12 pounds per horsepower. The diagram immediately above shows how lift is obtained.

I can’t imagine why these didn’t take off. That monorail train looks utterly stable to me! Not to mention the plane stabilized by a pendulum.

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Vehicle Oddities

Boynton Bicycle Locomotive built in 1889 was tested in Gravesend, Brooklyn, on one overhead and one ground rail. Arrangement was supposed to reduce weight, friction and save power on curves.

Bicycle Airship designed to fly in any direction was the fantastic brainchild of Herman Rieckert in 1889. Bicycle apparatus in pilothouse flapped side and center wings, providing motive power.
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This just seems like a bad idea.

FLYING PLANE REFUELS FROM SPEEDING AUTO
Transferring gasoline from an automobile to a speeding airplane was a feat accomplished at Muroc Dry Lake, Calif., the other day, demonstrating a new way of refueling on the fly. Hitherto an airplane making an endurance flight has been able to take on fuel only from another plane. For the unusual stunt, a small sedan was fitted with a special superstructure to handle the hose, and contact was successfully made between plane and car after a few minutes’ maneuvering. When the fuel tanks had been replenished a supply of oil was pumped to the plane. The success of the stunt depended on keeping the machine at the same speed.
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