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Cycle Engine Gives 50 m.p.h. Speed to Wheel Chair
A THREE-WHEELED chair built around a motorcycle engine brought Norman Tapper, 23-year-old Californian whose legs have been paralyzed since childhood, to Indianapolis almost a month before the start of the 500-mile auto race. The motorized chair was parked at the gate of the Speedway, to make certain of a good position on the day of the race.
Tapper asserted that this novel wheel chair, which he built himself from motorcycle and automobile parts, reached 50 miles an hour on the long drive from California to Indianapolis.
.A PORTFOLIO OF Cars you’d like to own
HERE’S A CAR THAT CLIMBS WALL
SOMETHING special for the off-the-road motorist: the Hickey Trail Blazer, built by Trail Blazer, 9424 Gallatin Road, Downey, Calif. Designers Victor Hickey, Sam Weaver and Jack Henry meant it for climbing mountains and slogging through sand but it can do its share of roadwork and takes stop-and-go traffic good-naturedly.
.Luxury Side Car Is Streamlined
DRESSED up in modern streamlining, the new motorcycle side car which is making its appearance on European highways is making a strong bid for popularity among motorcycle enthusiasts.
The latest side car of streamline design has a windscreen which extends well over the passenger’s head, with a head rest in the rear built up to follow the sweep of the air stream. Along the bottom edge of the screen is an adjustable ventilator which provides a flow of air to all parts of the car.
The blunt nose of the earlier model side car has been replaced by long sweeping curves.
.Streamline Beauties Lure Travelers to Rails
ROLLING along railways of the world at greater than mile-a-minute speeds, streamlined trains are conquering time and space in an attempt to keep the traveling public from deserting the rails for airplanes and motor buses.
Three choices have been offered to the jury of travelers—the ordinary steam train running on faster schedules, the beautiful Diesel-powered streamliner, and the light weight steam streamliner in its gleaming new dress of chromium and brass. A fourth contestant recently entered the picture—a turbine-drive steam locomotive that may surpass all others in speed, safety, and comfort.
.Motor Unicycle Proves Fast, Safe
A SPECTACULAR demonstration of unicycle operation was given in Los Angeles recently when Walter Nilsson, California inventor, drove his specially constructed machine 18 miles per hour in second gear without the aid of a pneumatic tire.
His unicycle consists of a single outer wheel driven by an inner wheel held in a stationary frame and powered by a one-cylinder motor. The engine is mounted motorcycle fashion between the rider’s legs. Steering is accomplished by means of a secret device which tilts the outer wheel while permitting the rider to remain upright.
With the arrival of a pneumatic tire, Nilsson expects to be able to attain 100 miles per hour.
.Exhaust Flame-Thrower is a new gadget for hot-rodders. Spark plugs set in the exhaust pipes ignite unburned gas in the vents which shoot out flames to a distance of 20 ft. on fast starts. It’s noiseless and police want an excuse to prohibit it.
.“Fill’er Up with Cold Air!”
Texas gas stations are delighting motorists with a new kind of free air. When a car stops for gas, a nozzle fixed to an air conditioner is poked in the window. Station attendants say temperature inside the car drops as much as 20 degrees in two minutes.
It seems like they didn’t quite understand that the planes were the important part, not the tower.
.Giant Air TOWER to GUARD PARIS
TO GET defense aircraft into action more quickly, architects of Paris have worked out plans for a huge aerodrome tower, more than a mile in height, which will literally hurl planes, into the air at the 5000-ft. level, ready for combat.
High-speed elevators would bring planes from the roof-top-level landing field up to each of the three aerodrome platforms. Swooping downward after leaving the inclined take-off platform, planes would reach flying speed with little loss of altitude.
If he actually tried to jump off that cliff with those I’m guessing this is the last picture of him alive.
.Oregon Man Builds Flapping Wings for Mountain Gliding
WITH only a pair of strange cloth-covered wings strapped over his arms, Joe Fodie of Rowena, Oregon, hopes to glidfe through space by the power of his arms alone, after jumping from a mountain top precipice. Should this intrepid inventor glide safely to earth, it will be the first time man has flown through the air under his own power. The queer wings are hinged at their center, with a stop to prevent them from buckling upward. As the arms are moved upward in flight, the outer halves of the wings would naturally fold inward; on the downward stroke they flatten out again, providing lifting power. Fodie designed his wing action to resemble as closely as possible the flapping motion characteristic of a bird in flight.
.George Andrews, of Akron. Ohio, who likes to drive midget racers, wants his son to follow in his footsteps; so he built this “midget midget” for Junior. It isn’t powered now, but George plans to mount a Ford starter motor on the rear axle. Eventually, after Junior masters the battery-driven job, a one-cylinder gasoline engine will be employed for power.





















