Flying Platform. US Navy demonstrates its Flying Platform in 1955, a “flying skateboard” or “hover board” vehicle that uses a direct lift rotor aircraft, using contra-rotating ducted fans controlled by the pilot shifting his body weight around to tilt the platform. Although it looked like it could have been a massive development [and a great [...]
Camouflaging the telephone is a method used by the proprietor of a café in Los Angeles, Calif., to provide service at any time to those acquainted with the secret. The exterior of the building being of concrete blocks, an imitation block having a spring door has been made of wood. Persons familiar with the location of [...]
For industrial pictures, for use in hospitals, or for moving-picture shows at home, a new projecting machine has been devised which can be operated by electric dry batteries or from the regular house-lighting circuit. In lace of the usual strip of film, the pictures are made on round disks similar in appearance to phonograph records. [...]
Feminine wireless fans will be interested in the introduction of a tiny radio set which is made in the shape of, and is worn as, a garter. Wire is coiled around a piece of cardboard, which is covered with silk, and attached to this are two ordinary eyeglass snap chains, one fastened to the foot [...]
To aid amateurs in developing a mechanically perfect swing, a golfing robot has been constructed which displays the technique of the professional with the additional advantage that it does not tire or become impatient, regardless of the number of times the operation is repeated. It consists of an iron framework with metal arms which grasp [...]
By reflecting beams of light through a mile-long pipe line from which the air has been practically exhausted, Dr. Albert A. Michelson, famous physicist, is making further checks and measurements of the speed of light. His previous research has shown that light’s velocity is in excess of 186,000 miles per second, but with the improved [...]
An electric car, operating in a tube, which cannot collide with another car, which is run by electricity and yet contains no motor, and which may be derailed and practically wrecked without injury to the propelling member is in almost daily operation at an experimental plant in Paterson, New Jersey ca. 1913. The car does [...]
By the time this reaches our readers, Frank Barker, now under sentence of death in the penitentiary at Lincoln, Neb., will have performed his own execution. The idea originated with Barker, who is something of an electrician, and was readily accepted by the warden. It is quite likely the same plan will be adopted elsewhere, [...]
After years of experimenting with the gyroscope an inventor has begun the construction of a gyroscopic unicycle, 14 ft. high and weighing 2,000 lb., for use on speedways, which promises to attain remarkable speed, 200 miles or more per hour being the estimate of the builder. This vehicle is being constructed along lines similar to [...]
The peculiar arrangement of the planes of this flying-machine, which is the invention of two Minneapolis men, and for which the press of that city claim a successful midnight flight, has caused it to be called a “butterfly” aeroplane. The inventors are J. Stewart, a retired engineer, and S. Bromwell, a farmer with considerable mechanical [...]
On June 26, 1929, Elton W. Miller, Chief of Aerodynamics at Langley Research Center, wrote to George W. Lewis, Director of Aeronautical Research at NACA, proposing the construction of a model of the full-scale tunnel. The excellent energy ratio obtained in the new wind tunnel of the California Institute of Technology suggests that before proceeding with our [...]
A Boston professor is the inventor of some wonderful boots which enable him to walk on the surface of deep bodies of water, with no fear of sinking. The boots are made of cedar and are 4 ft. 2 in. long, 6 in. wide and 6 in. deep. The feet are held in the boots [...]
With the aid of a huge megaphone, installed at the top of a slope in one of the training camps, a single bugler is able to make his calls heard over the entire. area. The conical sound magnifier is about eight feet long and is pivoted to the top of a post set in the [...]
We take our phones for granted these days, what with a new cell phone coming to market every couple of weeks. And while AT&T takes loads of criticism from iPhone users for their spotty service, it was this company, or at least the precursor to the current incarnation of it, that constructed the first transcontinental [...]
In 1922, at NASA Langley Research Center, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautic (NACA), completed the Variable Density Tunnel (VDT), the world’s first wind tunnel in which air pressures could be varied. Prior to the VDT, wind tunnels of substantial size operated at normal atmospheric pressure. Because test models were at a smaller scale, the [...]
A man of diverse scientific interests, Dr. McIntosh founded the McIntosh N.U. Supporter Co. in the early 1870′s. He also entered the medical electric field, first incorporating as the “McIntosh Galvanic Belt and Battery Co.“. His 1881 ad for this company featured a microscope convertible to a stereopticon as well as a conventional small medical [...]
