Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/880

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��Popular Science Monthly

���The motorcycle mounted on a platform at the side of the airplane. The cyclist is a passenger. Army and navy officials believe it will increase the scouting efficiency of the fliers

��Some Lessons Learned by the Deep-Sea Divers

EXPERIMENTS made by the British Admiralty and the United States Navy prove that deep-sea diving is feasible. It has been found that the shorter the time a diver takes in getting to the bottom the better, because the body absorbs less nitrogen. Also, the diver must have at least one and one half cubic feet of air per minute at all depths. Lacing the legs of the diver's suit increases his stability and permits him to come to an erect position with ease. It also lessens the dan- ger of his falling or being sud- denly blown to the surface.

��Adding the Motorcycle to the Usual Airplane Equipment

A MOTORCYCLE was recently carried on a cross-country flight over Ingle- wood and Los Angeles, California, in a fifty-horsepower tractor biplane, on a plat- form between the planes and alongside the fusilage. A motorcyclist was also carried as a passenger. Despite this extra weight, the great plane got off the ground with a run of two hundred and seventy feet and climbed to an altitude of two thousand feet and later to six thousand feet, without any apparent addition- al effort.

When the flight was fin ished members of the army and navy flying corps were unanimous in their belief that the combina- tion of airplane and motorcycle marks the beginning of a nev.'^ era in military airplane equip- ment.

In the test flight the mo- torcycle was secured with straps to the airplane in such a way that it could be quickly removed. The platform that held it in position was easily constructed. At one time the airplane landed because it was short of gasoline. This the motorcyclist quickly secured.

���The steel pin fits into a hole in the crank-shaft. When the pin is pulled out, the arm slips loosely on the shaft so that the motion-picture op- erator may go through the motions of taking a picture, to please some one, without exposing a foot of film

��The Fake Camera -Crank for Taking Motion Pictures

THE life of the camera-man who takes the weekly news motion pictures is not always one of glory. When Mrs. Vander- rich, for instance, asks him to take a picture of her poodle when he wants per- mission to take pictures of her yacht, he finds himself between two fires. Either he must waste some precious film on the dog or he must refuse and be shown the quickest way back. One wise camera-man, how- ever, improvised a fake camera- crank for such occasions. The crank-arm fits loosely on the shaft of the film gear in the camera. When the poodle is going through his antics, the turning arm slips on the shaft, and not a foot of film is exposed although to all appearances a pic- ture is being made.

On coming to the yacht, however, a flat block on the crank -arm is pressed inward. This pushes a steel pin attached to the thumb block into one of the holes drilled into the crank-shaft. The crank-arm is thereby locked to the shaft, so that when the crank is turned, the film gear op- erates as usual.

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