Also featuring Alaska — Uncle Sam’s Next Western Front and Cloud Jumping with America’s Gliders
Tag: Modern Mechanix
Parachute Artillery Spotter
Filming Table Top Earthquakes
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.
Sea Slug Liner
Airplane-Zeppelin
300 Mile-An-Hour Zep-Plane Proposed
CAPABLE of rifling its way through the air at a speed of 300 miles an hour, or hovering motionless above a chosen spot, an airplane-Zeppelin soon to be put through exhaustive tests at Rapid City, S. D., is expected by its inventors to become the transport plane of the future.
Startling though the design of the plane may be in its radical departure from accepted plans, combining as it does features of both the airplane and the Zeppelin, it represents years of work on the part of Rev. C. H. Loocke, known as the “Flying Parson,” and Lorin Hansen, a young printer.
Suspended in a structure resembling a conventional airplane minus the fuselage is an all-metal, cigar-shaped gas chamber provided with corkscrew type driving vanes. This hull is built of beryllium and filled with helium gas to provide a large percentage of the lift.
This entire issue can be downloaded here
Electro-Ray Tank
LIGHTNING, enemy of man for countless centuries, may become his deadliest weapon of war. Combining the Van deGraff lightning generator with the newest high speed war tank, a design has been suggested for an electro-ray tank which promises to revolutionize offensive warfare.
The gunner of this lightning-generating tank, seated at the control desk inside the massive metal sphere, can direct at enemy troops a small but extremely powerful stream of water, as the screw-driven vehicle rumbles forward at high speed. Along this conducting stream artificial lightning from the hundred-million volt charged sphere would crackle ominously, delivering instant death to all living creatures sprayed by the water.
Giro-Car
FLYING automobiles are within reach of the public today as a result of a dual drive for land or air invented by Edward A. Stalker, of Ann Arbor, Mich. His gear drive includes a simple clutch which engages a wheel to drive the car on land or a propeller to push the vehicle through the air.
Dyno-Wheel Motor Bus
Promising to revolutionize the field of motor transportation, the new Dyno-Wheel bus operates upon practically the same principle as the tiny “Dynasphere” auto which was successfully built by Dr. J. A. Purves of Taunton, England, some years ago.
A single huge drum wheel supports the car at high speeds. Control wheels on either side are raised or lowered in response to the steering gear, to tip the bus slightly and change the direction of travel. Small fore and aft wheels come into action only when stopping or starting. A stabilizing fin keeps the car level at high speeds.
Spinning Top Plane
Aero-Drive Monorail Express
Obviously, I usually focus on the covers of these magazines, but the articles are just as amazing in their own way. In this one issue, you could read about;
600-Passenger Plane of Future to Use Underground Airport
Scientists Invent Machine To Discover How Brain Works
Professor Stays Home; Conducts Class With Two-Way Radio
Turntable Swings Autos To Pumps In Rotary Gas Station
Building Stratosphere Air-Liners
Umbrella Follows Modern Trend With “Safety” Window
Baby Bounces Through Window in “Safety” Chair
Pneumatic Tubes Shoot Hot Meals To Homes
New Projector Throws Illustrations Behind Speaker’s Back
Defense Gun Hurls Balls of Fire
Taxi Plane For Non-Stop Airlines
Aero-Drive Desert Bus Replaces Camels
Protected from tropical sand storms, desert travelers of the future may be able to whiz across the Sahara in monster 100-passenger aero-drive buses following radio beam highways. Camel caravans
would be out-moded by the standard of comfort possible in the proposed buses.
Preliminary details of this whirring, bouncing giant of the sands call for propulsion entirely by air, with a 2500 h.p. aviation engine and pusher propeller mounted atop the roof. Most unusual feature of the desert bus is a series of spherical tires on each side which would provide good traction over the shifting sands. Directly back of the propeller is a steering fin which controls the direction of the ship.
Also featuring Around the World on the New Airways of the Seas
Under-Sea Tractor-Sphere Roams Ocean Floor
Newest of mechanical monsters intended for under-sea exploration is the tractor-sphere being designed by Otis Barton, builder of the bathysphere used by Dr. William Beebe in setting a new world’s diving record of 3028 feet.
The new invention, intended to be driven into the sea from the beach level under its own power, might be classed as a bathysphere mounted on caterpillar treads. Powerful electric motors operating from sealed-in storage batteries would move this undersea tractor over the rocky slopes and pinnacles of the ocean floor.