Huge Barrel Plane for Ocean Flights

PIERCED by a battery of tunnels a flying wing airplane is proposed by an engineer at the famous Caproni airplane works in Italy. Streamlined motors and four-bladed propellers will drive air blasts through the tunnels, each of which forms a Venturi tube, expanding toward the rear. Thus, according to the inventor, the air will give a forward push something in the manner of rocket propulsion. Aided by the Italian government, the designer recently completed a single-engined experimental craft incorporating his ideas. This odd flying barrel was put through successful tests near Rome. (P.S.M., Jan. ‘33, p. 18.) Details of the huge machine he proposes to build for transatlantic travel are shown in the pictures above.

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LARGEST LOUDSPEAKER HORN FOR AUDITORIUM

Designed for use in auditoriums, the biggest loudspeaker horn yet made has recently appeared on the market. Its twelve-foot opening gives it the appearance of the entrance to a tunnel into which an automobile could be driven. The claim is made for it that it will reen-force notes down to twenty-five vibrations a second and project it with no appreciable loss of tone quality, to the farthest corners of a large concert hall.

Monster Clock Has No Hands

Moving numerals, three feet high, will tell Londoners the time when a monster clock now under construction in one of this British city’s railroad stations is completed. The big timepiece is believed the largest without hands ever built. Three endless belts of steel slats, driven by an electric motor, carry the numbers past a rectangular window high on the station wall where they are made visible. Each numeral is outlined by silvered disks of reflecting material, and floodlights play upon the figures to make them show up clearly at a distance. The movement of the belts is governed automatically from a control panel with an extremely accurate master clock, which in turn is constantly regulated from the observatory at Greenwich. The steel roller on which the hour numerals are shown is thirty-seven feet long and the blinds weigh about 15,000 pounds.

Huge Truck FOR LAND OR WATER CARRIES SHIPLOAD OF CARGO

IMAGINE a motor truck so large that it dwarfs the biggest locomotive in the world —a veritable ship of the land, rolling on pneumatic tires as high as a bungalow. Fit this juggernaut, in your mind’s eye, with a boat-like hull, a Diesel motor, and an electric drive; add a propeller and rudder so that it can navigate in the water as well as on dry ground; fill its capacious hold with hundreds of tons of cargo, and send it roaring across the continent or through a wilderness to its destination. Then you will have a mental image of the 1,500-ton, amphibian super-truck that Eric R. Lyon, associate professor of physics at the Kansas State Agricultural College, predicts will be the freight-carrying vehicle of the future. To prove it feasible, he himself has worked out the engineering design of such a machine, which he calls the “navitruck,” and which our artist illustrates here and on the cover of this issue.

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I love the box on the second page listing all of the licensed TV stations in the U.S. All 25 of them.

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Giant Television Images

By H. WINFIELD SECOR

ULYSSES A. SANABRIA is one of the foremost geniuses in Television today. Mr. Sanabria is only 24 years of age, yet this youthful electrical wizard has demonstrated to the engineering fraternity and to the press, the largest television images thus far shown. The author was present at the New York demonstration when television images six and one-half feet square were exhibited and they were surprisingly clear. At the New York Radio Show, television images 10 by 14 ft., have been promised by Sanabria. The following description of the Sanabria system for producing these gigantic television images is authentic and was obtained in a recent interview with Mr. Sanabria.

AT the Radio Trade Show held in Chicago last spring, and also at a recent demonstration given to engineers and members of the press in New York City, Ulysses A. Sanabria startled his audience by showing surprisingly clear television images six and one-half feet square. Many of those present took advantage of the inventor’s invitation to stand in front of the television pickup, and thus have the images of their faces projected on the glass exhibition screen, much to the enjoyment of their friends. Considerable merriment was caused when some of the wittier ones, who posed in front of the photo-cells, made a few remarks which were picked up by a microphone and sent through an amplifier to a loud speaker below the glass screen on which the moving images of the speaker appeared.

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That looks pretty dangerous.

Giant Coffee Urn In Service
THE U. S. Coast Guard base at New London, Connecticut, has been provided with a coffee urn which is believed to be the largest ever constructed. It holds 60 gallons of water and the handle on its cover is just within reach of an average size girl. The big coffee maker is the center of attraction on cold nights for men returning from chilly excursions aboard patrol boats.

I really wish they had a picture of the girls greasing the pan wearing bacon ice skates.

Largest Omelet Fried in Half-Ton Pan With 7,200 Eggs
DID you ever hear of an omelet frying record? Well, such a record was established for all time recently at Chehalis, Washington, where a Gargantuan omelet, composed of 7,200 eggs, was fried in an eight-foot pan weighing nearly half a ton.

A record for novelty in greasing was also established when two young ladies used the pan as a skating rink, the skates being slabs of bacon tied to their feet. Stirring the omelet required use of a huge paddle larger than a rowboat oar as shown in the photo above. One Swede remarked that the whole thing was a big yolk.

For some strange reason this picture reminds me of this article.

Angler Gets Record 956-lb. Tuna
TIPPING the scales at 956 pounds, the biggest tuna ever caught with rod and reel was pulled out of Liverpool bay, Nova Scotia, recently by Thomas Howell, Chicago financier.

More than 200 pounds heavier than Zane Grey’s record catch of a few years ago, the giant fish was landed after only a 3-1/2 hour battle. The strain of the line, holding the mouth of the fish open, actually drowned it.

Huge Bulb Holds Kneeling Girl
BUILT as a laboratory exhibit, a mammoth lamp bulb, weighing 50 pounds and standing 56 inches high, is large enough to accommodate a kneeling girl.

When exhausted, to create a vacuum within, the quarter-inch walls must withstand a crushing strain of 40,000 pound:; and a tremendous temperature generated by incandescent tungsten wire thicker than a fountain pen.

The filament of this giant lamp would operate at perhaps half the temperature of the sun’s atmosphere, equivalent to an energy of 135 horsepower. To conserve this heat the bulb is filled with 200 quarts of a rather rare gas called argon.

Ah, racier days. The caption doesn’t say she’s “holding it”, no, she’s “fondling it”.

Think of the Light Bill!

EVEN at reduced rates for household electricity, Mr. U. Consumer would think a long time before putting one of these new German incandescent lights in the parlor; it consumes 50 kilowatts of current, or 67 horsepower. The multiple filaments are shown clearly, at the right.

This young lady is fondling, not a balloon, but the largest incandescent lamp bulb in the world, over 100,000 candlepower. As they used to say on the Fourth of July—”Do not hold in the
hand after lighting!” (Osram Lamp Works)

Largest Camera Weighs 14 Tons
THE world’s largest camera has just been completed for the Coast and Geodetic Survey. It weighs 14 tons and is 31 feet long.
Two years’ time was needed to build the camera which can take photographs with microscopic exactness. It is equipped to make nautical and airway charts with a precision of less than l/1000th of an inch. The camera can hold plates as large as 50 inches square.

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“Oh my! Your tube is so big!”

Giant Radio Tube Produced
CLAIMED to be the largest ever made, a new water-cooled radio tube demonstrated in Chicago stands about eight feet high. The tube takes 18,000 volts in operation. Rated at 250,000 watts each, five of the new tubes will be required to operate a transmitting station now being assembled.