Popular Mechanics/Volume 50/Issue 5/Will Rocket Planes Reach the Stars?
The Perfect Streamlining of the Lockheed "Vega" Plane, Which Sir George Wilkins Flew across the Arctic, and Art Goebel Flew Non-Stop across the Continent, Shows How Great Speed Can Be Obtained by Proper Design. One of the Problems the Rocket-Plane Makers of Germany Are Attempting to Solve; the "Vega" Fuselage Is Pressed from Wood Veneer
CONSTRUCTION of man-carrying rockets capable of crossing the millions of miles of outer space and reaching the planets is scientifically possible and may eventually come, according to Fritz von Opel, the German automobile builder who, within a few months, has produced a rocket automobile and a rocket airplane.
But such ideas, he adds, are still far off, and have nothing to do with the practical work of introducing the rocket age, which he visions as an era of almost unbelievably fast transportation over the face of the earth. Rocket planes, he says, will span the Atlantic in an hour and a half, rising miles above the earth's protective envelope of air into a realm where there is neither air resistance nor the vagaries of weather to be reckoned with.
What such speed, 2,000 miles an hour, would mean can be conceived by comparing it with the non-stop flight across the continent, made by Col. Arthur Goebel, winner of the Dole race, who landed in New York just eighteen hours and fifty-eight minutes after leaving Los Angeles. His average speed for the trip, which broke all existing records, was 142 miles an hour. At that speed he clipped two hours and fifty minutes off the fastest previous crossing of the continent, Lieut. Russell L. Maughan's famous "dawn to dusk" flight. But, more interesting still, the latter was made in a specially prepared racing ship, an army pursuit type, and in a series of hops, as the plane could not carry more than a few hours' gas supply. The flight of Goebel's Lockheed "Vega" plane was non-stop, carrying a full load of gasoline, and the ship itself was a stock model commercial plane, with cabin room for five passengers. The difference between Lieutenant Maughan's record and Colonel Goebel's achievement represented just four years' progress in airplane and engine building.
Only one plane had ever crossed the country non-stop before, piloted by Lieutenants MacReady and Kelley, and Goebel cut nearly eight hours off their record, besides making the flight in the opposite direction, so that he had to lift his entire load of gas over the Rocky mountains in the first hours of the flight, instead of reaching the high mountains near the end of the journey, when his ship had been lightened by the consumption of most of its fuel.
Opel's rocket-car and rocket-plane experiments are important because the rocket offers the one method yet discovered for navigating space at high altitudes, above the earth's envelope of air. All existing motors depend on air for their operation, and all existing types of propellers screw their way through the self-same air. The rocket, on the other hand, can be shot out into space and attain tremendous speed by escaping the resistance of the air.
The rocket idea is not new. Prof. R. H. Goddard, at Clark University, Worcester, Mass., made some experiments and calculations as long ago as 1912 and 1913, to prove that it was technically feasible to shoot a rocket to the moon and explode a giant charge of magnesium powder, producing a flash big enough to be observed by telescopes on the earth.
Sheets of Veneer Are Glued Together, Then Placed in This Concrete Mold and Formed into Fuselage Halves under a Pressure of Fifty Tons: Two Halves Are Then Joined
Three German engineers, H. Oberth, W. Hohmann and Max Valier, and the work of the latter largely inspired Herr Opel's rocket car and plane. Valier has calculated that a rocket plane could be shot from Berlin to New York in ninety-three minutes, dividing the journey in three stages. He would start from the German capital and come down at Vigo, Spain, take off there for an island in the Atlantic, and make the third hop to New York. He would shoot his rocket into the air at the steep angle of seventy degrees in order to reach the region of rarefied air in the shortest possible time. A minute and five seconds after the take-off, the plane would be thirty miles above the earth and nearly forty-five miles from the starting point, and would have attained a speed of more than 4,500 miles an hour. Allowing 100 seconds to get under way and reach full speed and 1,500 seconds for gliding, Vigo would be reached in twenty-seven minutes from Berlin.
The only objection he sees to rocketing across the ocean is the weight of the explosives required. Fully sixty-nine per cent of the entire weight of the ship on the
Courtesy New York Times. An Artist's Conception of a Rocket Plane in Flight Out in Space beyond the Earth's Envelope of Air, Where It Would Have for Neighbors the Northern Lights and Occasional Meteors
first leg of the journey would have to be given over to fuel, and seventy-six per cent for each of the ocean stages. To transport a ton of pay load from Berlin to New York thus would require about fifty-two tons of fuel.
If the speed of the gases could be increased, the amount of fuel could be cut down. Valier estimated that if, instead of the technically possible 7,200-feet-a-second velocity, the gases could be made to move at 13,000 feet a second, the fuel would be cut from fifty-two to sixteen tons.
In Professor Goddard's experiments, using smokeless powder, he obtained gas velocities of 8,000 feet a second. The fastest rifle bullet has a muzzle velocity of not over 2,500 feet per second. As every marksman knows, increasing the muzzle velocity of a bullet increases the kick-back of the gun, so Professor Goddard's 8,000-foot-a-second gases should produce an enormous recoil to propel the rocket on its way.
One problem that remains to be solved is whether the human body could withstand the terrific strains involved in being shot into space at such speeds. In experiments with a rocket car mounted on railway wheels and operated on a track, Opel placed a cat in the seat to see how it would withstand the strain. The car, however, blew up and the cat was killed, so nothing was learned.
TWO SHIFTS GIVE MORE DAYLIGHT
Employes of an eastern mill enjoy nearly half a day of daylight out of the shop each working day, and the company has been benefited, officials report, as the result of a two-shift, eighty-eight-hour week schedule that has been in effect several years. The first shift goes on at 6:30 o'clock in the morning and works until 2:30 p. m., when it is replaced by the second shift which is on until 11:42 p. m. On Saturdays, the first shift works until 12:30 p. m. Lunch time deducted each has a forty-four-hour week. Younger men prefer the second shift, for it gives them a long week end, from Friday night until Monday afternoon, and the older men favor the first shift with its shorter day. From the company's standpoint, the plan reduces overhead costs and machinery gives a maximum return before it becomes obsolete. The three-shift program is necessary in some establishments, but in this particular business, the two-shift schedule has been practiced as a happy medium. Elimination of the third shift, from midnight on, has not meant a serious loss, for studies have shown that this is the least productive period.
MIRROR ON STREET-CAR DOOR HELPS PROTECT WOMEN
Mirror on Street-Car Exit Door Induces Women to Face Forward When Alighting
Street cars in Germany are being equipped with mirrors on the exit doors to induce women to face forward just before alighting and thus prevent a possible fall. Such accidents are common among women, an explanation being that, due to centuries of experience in carrying children on the left arm and working with the right, she naturally uses the right hand to grasp a support when leaving a street car or train. This causes her to face to the rear, the wrong position. Since the mirrors have been installed, accidents have decreased in number, it is reported, and women passengers appreciate the additional mirror.
LIFEBOAT LAUNCHED BY TRACTOR SPEEDS RESCUES
Launching the Big Lifeboat with Aid of Tractor That Hauls It across Sands and Rough Shore, Pushes It into the Water and Hauls It Out Again
To speed up the launching of lifeboats rushed to the rescue of sinking or distressed ships off the English coast, the British royal national lifeboat institution recently tested a tractor and auto trailer that hauled a lifeboat and crew to the aid of a ship off the dangerous shore of Dungeness, on the English Channel. The tractor, named the "F. W. D. Roadless," brought the lifeboat over a rough shingle road to the shore and then launched it by pushing the boat and its carriage into the sea. The tractor then backed, and by an ingenious device, pulling on a cable which travels around a pulley at the rear end of the boat and passes to the bow, pulled the lifeboat off the carriage and sent it in a seaward direction. When the launching had been accomplished, the auto tractor hauled the carriage to the shore, while the seven-ton lifeboat rowed out to the distressed ship. On loose shingle and sea-soaked sandy shores, the new auto tractor has operated successfully.
DRAWINGS REPRODUCED DIRECT FROM POSITIVE
Positive prints of drawings and other subjects, that are said not to fade and that can be made as easily and as economically as blueprints, are prepared from a positive under a patented process. Dark lines are revealed on light tinted paper as in the original and are not reversed. No liquid or water is used; the undeveloped print, after exposure, is merely inclosed in a box containing a dish of ammonia water or any compound which gives off ammonia fumes. These act upon the paper to produce the picture. The print can be removed in five or ten minutes and needs no further attention.
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