Air Wonder Stories, July 1929 — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

92 10,000 Planes Prédticed for 1929 N estimated production of airplanes in the United Stutes for 1929 has been put at 10,000 by I. B, Rentsohler, president-of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce. This will be twice the produotion of 1928 ond thirty times that of 1921. The growth of the number of workers in the industry is giso phenomenal rising from 6000 in 1921 to over 2 hundred thousand at the present time. Air Secretary Reviews Tremendous Growth ILLIAM P, McCRACKHN, Jr. retiring Assistant Secretary of Commerce in charge of civil aviation reviewed recently the tremendous growth of aviation -in- this country. He pictured an air network in which 57,516 miles were flown daily or more then 70,000,000 miles a year. One of the reasons for the great growth of commeroinl flying he sald-was the Inorease In Nghted aAlrweys. Three yéurs ago there were only 2,000 miles of it, with Hghts 25 miles apart, now there are 10,000 miles with stundard lighting equipment 10 miles apart In ad- dition we have revolving beacons, coutsa lights, and lights thot flash the messages to flyers In Morse coda. A complete chain of radio broadcnusting stations serving the principal airways is expected before the end of the summer. Fifty weather gathéring bureaus have been established so that fiyera may know the weather almost any hour of the day for almost any part of the oountry. The growth of night OHying for passenger and freight service Is also remarked, The planes of today are -provided with every comfort for paseangera so that they resemble luxurious Pullmors, Ho calculates further that we have twice as many airplanes In 1939 ap in 1928 nnd that seach one flew five times as much, making tha Increase It fiy- ing for the year tenfold, Americans to Operate Chinese Air-Service B: the granting of a contract by the Chinese government, the Aviation Bx- ploraHon Company of New York, a subsidi- ary-of the Curtiss Company, will carry mall for the Nanking Government, Three ines will be operated connecting four of the principal oities of China: Nanking, Peking, Hangkow and Shanghel. ‘The Americans will establish schools to train Chinese pllots, and will engage on thair own account in pa pessenger service. The representative of the Americans, Mejor Willlam Robertson ls said to be the man who first discovered Lind- bergh and gathered the funds to finance hig trans-Atlantic hop. Sailplane Built for Soaring AX improyed type of glider called a sail- plane hns-been built by William Bowlus of thé San Diego Air Service Corps, one of the pioneers in gliding In America, which he believes will materially improve soaring performance. He describes the details of {ts construction in Aviation. The sallplane, he says, differs from a glider in that It offera less sir resistance by adopting ®& cleanness of design; and can be kept In the air indefinitely, He belleves that hls me- chins 1s the first built in Amerieo. The Tmethod of reducing. sir resistance was by streamlining. ‘The machine has a span of 44 feat, a wolght empty of 160 pounds and en overall length of 265 feet, while the chord at the root is 544 feet. Under test, having @ weight of 305 pounds, the take-off was 22 milea per hour and the glider ratio about 20—1, Plane Turns On Airport Lights HB scream of a wind-driven siren con- trolled by e& pilot 2,000 feat in the air was picked up by an “electric ear’ on the hanger of the Newark, New Jersey, Airport and put on three batteries of Westinghouse flood- lights providing 24,000,000 candle power. This was-the method used to insaugurate the opening of the Newark Airport. This was the first practical operation of this device which, it seems, will be invaluable for aviators trying to locate thelr position and make a Janding. Used In tho operation is said to be the most sensitive tube ever de- veloped, the Knowles, grid-glow which is affected by the energy caloulated to be thet of nfly climbing up a wall ons inch. When the apparetus is set.to the frequency of the plane siren it operntes only when that par- ticular note le sounded. The tube energy is ampitfied sufficiently to provide the power necessary to put on the floodllghts, AIR WONDER STORIES GENERAL Night Aerial Photography Perfected ANY photographs that we see as taken from the alr are never recognized as having been made at night. Their day-light appearances is due to an invention of great kld, both:to sclence,; business nnd military tastios, by Lieut: Goddard of the U. S. Air Corps. The fleld of alr photography at night was practically untouched when God- dard began work on it. He finally perfected @ method of dropping a flashlight bomb from the plane and making a time exposure when the bomb exploded, The films how- ever were blurred and dim, Heé finally per- fected o device whereby the operation of the shutter of the camera waa:synchronized with the flash. The task.presented: of syn- chronizing these things, which are necessar- fly hundreds of feet apart, may be rendily re@Hzsd. -Hxactly how it was done, the War Department does not care to state. But the success of the method is evidence by the photographa that haye been tnlcen, 85 Pound Radio for Planes J Base Problem of the control of airplanes from a central point involving the uae of the radio on the planes hus been worked out satiafactorily by the Pan-Amierloan Air- ways, The engineers of the company were given the job of instolling radios in the Dians, but the limitation of 100 pounds was placed on the weight. After muoh study the engineers designed their own set which wil wefgh but 85 pounds as compared with sets of 1509 to 200 pounds used by the army and navy, * . 32 Passenger Plane in Detroit Exhibit UTSTANDING among the 104 types of aircraft assembled in Detrolt for the sac- ond All-American <Aircrait Show, is a $B passenger Fokker Plans, whioh is said to be the largest ever built in the United States, Only the fuselage shell was dlaplayed aa the completed ship would be too large for the exhibition hall. The ships, which the Fokker Company Is expecting to turn out in standard production, will ba motored by 686 H.P. Wright Cyolone engines, It fs expected that they will be used in passen- ger air Ines In the Middla West Con- spicuous about the show Is the larga number of small sport pinnes, Indicating that the manufacturers expect, within the near future, that a great many Americans will be owning thelr own planes, Expand England-India Air Service H Americans so absorbed in our own avintion progress sometimes forget what our neighbors #orosa the sea are doing, Hngland, with the problem of holding to- gether her Hmplre, hes made great strides, particularly in the Wngland-Indin service. Now comes the announcement of the placing of orders by the Imperiol Airways; Inc,, on that rottte for the construétion. of a number of 2,000 horsepower, 40° passenger planes to to built by the Handley Page Company. Hvery provision will be mads for the -com- fort of passengers, even the motors being Ploced on the wings where thelr roar will not be so apparent. Gliding Makes Progress OINCIDEN'T with the progress In fsvia- tion {a9 the progress belng made with gliders—ths motorless airplanes, By the in- teresting of man of weelth in the davelop- ment of the glider, the experimenting with it, and testing. its possibiNfles under all con- ditions, has come a new great interest. A manufacturing organization called Gldors, Ino., are building the machines, and # num- ber of associations thruout the world formed as cluba are enthusiastically promoting the art. In Amerlon there Is thea American Motorless Aviation Club, foremost in the sport (for sport it is at present). The Ger- means having been the first to play with gliders hnye developed it to the highest point. They uso three types of machines. There i9 on elementary glider heavy and sturdy for the beginner. ‘This is not intend- for sonring but merely for getting off the ground and giving the pilot opportunity to use controls, Then there is a secondary or {ntermedinte ship, a Httle more éfficient than the first and with s greater tendency toward soaring in o breeze. Tha third typo is meant to get up into the air and stay there. This ia mode for a grilled pilof It is hoped, by those interested, that by 1940 the art will be sufficiently advanced to pere mit of national and international contesta. s Fewer Airplanea Makes Say Ford (OR EE on the 104 types of air Planes exhiblted at the Detrait Show, Henry Ford prophesied fhat this number would be materially reduced in the future by the consoldation of companies now oper- ating Independently, Drawing his analogy from the -history: of the eutomobile industry he finds that many typés of creft oun hnve thelr good fentures pooled to minke designs thet fill 2 particular need in the industry. Rabelais Foresaw Flymg HAT Rabelol#, the famous French wrilsr of the sixteenth Gentury, foresaw the pos- sibility of flying and mnny other sclentifi¢ triumphe ia fndieated in an exoerpt from his writing as reqorded by Aero: Digest. “Who-knows" he says in part, “but that by an herb they may conirive a way for humankind to pierce into the high aerial clouds, get up Into the springhered of the hall; tnke an inspection of the snowy Bouroes, and shut and-open, as they please, the sluices from whence proceed the flood- gates of the rain; then progacuting their getherenl voyage they mey step into the Ughtning workhouse and shop where all the - thunderbolts-zre forged . . . Then they will set forward to invade the territories of ths Moon; whence passing thru both Mercury and Venus, the Sun will serve them for a torch to-show the way from Mars to Juplter and Saturn. We shall not then bé able to resist the Impetuogity of thelr Mtrusion nor pot-a stoppage to their sntering in whatever Teglons, domlolles they have a mind to soe, stay dn, or travel thru. Some wil] take-up their lodgings at the Ram (a celestial con- stellation of the zodiao) others at the But! (another constellation) s0mé et thes Balanoe, some at the Scorpion, eto, .,." Saya the Digest, ‘we have achieved mnoh in neronautics without the new herb but Roabelsis four hundred years ago’ dreamed of an aerial ftinerary whioh will keep the industry on its toes to compléte.” Weather Report System Improved NEW weather report system for aviation wos put into effect by ths Waesther Bureau which is designed to materially Im- prove the sarvice rendered. Forecasts of Weather and wind oat various levels are ipsued twice every day at noon and mid- night to corer the ensuing twelve houra. Forecastm are {ssued for each of fourtean zones into which the country fea divided. Glider Thrives on Siorms HER the storm is a fearful thing to an aviator, to the gHder it ia source of power, says Dr, Wolfgang Klemperer, glider expert who is now In America to encourage the art, Operated without a motor tha glider depends on air currents to carry the oraft upward, <A storm will provoke verticn} alr currents, whioh the skillful! glider can uxs to carry him to altitudes of 1,000 foat or up- ward. It fs only the calm air that kesps the g&uder on the ground, said Dr. Klemperer. Flight to Mars in Rocket Planned (A CoenS to Mars, to take only five Minutes is the plun of an BHvanaville, Indiana, high sehool professor according te the Akron (Ohio) Times. The craft which is on the rodket principle will. look Ike a radio loop verlal It would take ite energy from space, using no known fuel and lt will acquire a speed of 186,000. miles a seoond, equal to that of Hght itself. The Mmventor claims he will be able to rise vertically And descend vertically. The motor at the top Is pivoted so that It will be upright no mst- ter at what angle the oraft rises or tales, When the machine gets halfway out. to Mars lt will poss from the eurth’s gravite- tional field und be pulled toward Mars, Then it-will gradually sawing sround and manpgo to Innd on Mara right glde up. Oxygen tanks wHI be cartied so thet the 100 pas- sengers contemplated can explore the mys- terlons planet, The diffoulties enoountered in outer space where there /J¢ only. ether ond no air-would be surmounted, the in- venter belleves, by having power radioed to him, (The fallacies of this idea are, of course, evident to anyone, By the Einstein theory o body travel+ ling at 186,000 miles a second would have tts length reduced to nero, Furthermore; the Heavi- side layer, existing about 100 miles above the earth's surface, would bar the passage of radio \wdties, except those of very short wave lengths. Bey st just a few of the more glaring fallacies. —AEdjror. 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