Page:Popular Mechanics 1928 01.pdf/6

 



Comfort for the travel who suffers from seasickness is seen in a gas remedy a German physician has prepared. It is carried in cylinders like those used in a dentist's office and the patient inhales it through a flexible tubing and cone. Treatments can be given on deck and are said to be effective immediately.

 



Maintaining grass on golf courses is simplified with a hand-operated sower introduced in England. It works by pulling a "bow" back and forth as though playing a cello. This action causes a disk to rotate and scatter the seed which falls upon it from a holder above.

 

English speed planes, which took the Schneider trophy away from Italy this year, were so fast that they had to be specially weighted on the right-hand side to overcome the tendency of the plane to turn with the propeller. The winning plane, which averaged 281.49 miles an hour on the closed triangular course, attained a speed of more than 300 miles an hour at times on the straightaway. The winner, a Supermarine equipped with Napier engine, had a right-hand pontoon considerably longer and heavier than its opposite mate, as shown in the center sketch on the opposite page. It was unusual in several particulars. For one, the fuselage was built of sheet duralumin without any internal bracing or reinforcement, deriving strength from its tubular shape along. The engine was water-cooled and the radiators occupied practically all the leading edge of the very short wings. Special ventilation was provided to blow the burned oil fumes and other gases out of the fuselage, to keep them from overcoming the pilot. Another of the English entries, which, however, crashed on its trial flight in Italy, carried all its gasoline in a large tank in the right-hand pontoon to offset the engine twist while in flight. The third type of British ship, of which two were built, was the Gloster Napier, the only biplane entered, the others being of the low-wing monoplane type, in which the wing is placed below the fuselage instead of above it. The Glosters were unusual in that the powerful engines were geared down to fairly slow turning. Wing stuts were of duralumin because strength equal to wood can be attained with considerably thinner sections. The wing radiators, used to cool the engine water, were supplemented by radiators in the pontoons, which utilize the sea water for cooling while the ships are on the surface. 