Floating Fuel Station for SEAPLANES

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

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Firefighting Helicopters

Guardians of our national forest reserves now have a versatile weapon to pit against nature’s ancient and devastating enemy—fire.

BY DAVID P. GODWIN, Asst. Chief, Div. of Fire Control, U.S. Forest Service, as told to James N. Miller

THE newest and most promising tool tor the protection of our national forests is the firefighting helicopter. Its practicability has already been proven in tests conducted by Army and Forest Service officials.

The greatest value of the rotary wing aircraft lies in its ability to hover and land almost anywhere. Visibility is not a serious problem for the craft literally can feel its way through darkness or cloudy flying weather by circling around trees, mountains and other obstacles. In these respects it is superior to the airplane which has been used by the Forest Service for some 25 years.
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Experimenter Flies With Bat Wings

RESURRECTING an ancient theory of the Greeks which had to do with the flight of humans equipped with bird wings, Adolph Matz, an aeronaut of Brookline, Mass., recently gave a demonstration of a novel means of self propulsion through the air by the use of bat’s wings.

Made of heavy cloth and braced with wooden ribs, the wings are strapped to the body as illustrated in the photo below.

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Flying Cameraman Ousts the Old-Time Prospector

Where prospectors of the old school searched the gold country for years in quest of the precious metal, the modern aerial cameraman discovers and records all the salient features of a mineral-bearing region by the simple click of a shutter. Read here how the amazing instruments disclose topographical secrets to flying prospectors.
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Fit to Fly a Jet?
OUR jets are the hottest things in the air and it takes hot pilots to fly them. Even the fighters cost a few hundred thousand dollars each and Uncle Sam makes certain he doesn’t put a muttonhead behind the stick whenever there’s flying to be done. It’s easy for him to select good pilot material, however. Read the rest of this entry »

Future Dirigible Without Hangar
A GIGANTIC dirigible which would have an all metal body made of corrugated sheet steel, and which would be so durable as to eliminate the need of the customary hangar, is the novel craft recently designed by an eminent Russian inventor, Konstantin Ziolkowski. This craft will expand or contract according to the interior gas pressure.

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AIR WAR OVER THE ARCTIC

Our planes are waging a relentless battle to conquer polar cold and guard America against sneak attacks across the world’s roof.

By Major General K. P. McNaughton, U. S. Air Force

FOR nearly four centuries the Arctic defied the hardiest explorers from the temperate zones. This vast ice-locked world with its midnight sun, Aurora Borealis and paralyzing cold has been an impregnable barrier across the shortest route between the East and West.
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WORLD’S LARGEST WHIRLYBIRD

THE world’s largest transport helicopter and America’s first twin-engined tandem whirlybird transport is the Piasecki YH-16. An important feature of its tandem design is that cargo can be loaded quickly without too much regard for weight balance. The craft’s rotors are connected by a shaft to permit single engine operation and its all-metal blades, 82 feet in diameter, are the biggest shaft-driven rotors in existence at the present time.

Air Buoy Marks Location of Field

Suggested as a means of enabling fog-bound pilots to locate the position of landing fields, the floating air buoy above has won the approval of veteran airmen. A plane flying above the cloud or fog strata sights the captive balloon bearing the name of the airport, learns of conditions by reading large-dialed instruments suspended from the balloon, and is enabled to make a safe landing in spite of the fog.

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Crashing PLANES for the Movie

by DICK GRACE – the world’s most famous movie stunt man

FOREWORD
Dick Grace is by long odds the world’s most famous movie plane crasher. He has cracked-up 34 planes intentionally, and lived to spend the money. The reasons why he has been able to climb alive out of these wrecks he tells in this thrill-packed article. Crashing planes for movie shots, such as Grace did in “Wings,” “Lilac Time,” “The Flying Circus,” and many other films, is done scientifically, by physics and mathematics. How he does it Grace explains in this personal story written expressly for Modern Mechanics’ readers, and his thrilling narrative is told with the same gusto and cool assurance that makes him the most famous stunt flyer in the world. Dick Grace is also author of the book “Squadron of Death,” an amazing autobiography telling his own story and that of countless other stunt men.
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This was the cutting edge in aviation technology until the introduction of the minutemeter in WWII.

Invents Hourmeter to Time Hops

THROUGH an electrical contact attached to the landing gear, the recently invented hourmeter timing device records trip and total flying time the moment the plane leaves the ground. The same contact stops the clock when the landing is made. Spreading and contracting of the landing gear actuates the electrical circuit. Current is supplied by two dry cells, or from the ship’s battery.

Aeronautical experts declare that this instrument will fill in one of the gaps of aviation.

“PLAYER PIANO” ROLL Controls Sky Sign

USING a musical siren to gain attention, a new sky sign, designed by Edward Link, Cortland, New York, aeronautical engineer, after five years of experimental work, took to the air for the first time over Miami this winter.

The sign, constructed as a lower wing to a high wing monoplane, is operated from an automatic “feeler” roll. It can display ten letters at one time, using as many as 75 words per message.
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