Some ideas just won't go away
1835
1935
Some ideas just won't go away
1835
1935
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|
300 MPH Zep-Plane |
We await with interest the return in
2035
I found a copy of the period engraving in Volume 1 of The World in the Air by Francis Trevelyan Miller. And learned that myriad umbrella like devices are some sort of propellers. But there is much that persists in puzzling me. What are the mystery things dangling from the lower spar that look like 1/2 paddles or books suspended by their covers?
The World in the Air is a wondrous two volume collection of pictures from a Van Dyke painting of Daedalus and Icarus to President Hoover and a small crowd of aviation luminaries in high collars, gathered together for a posed photo.
the
'Flying Parson', and Lorin Hansen, a young printer." But their model isn't
near as swoopy as the unsigned illustrations produced by the magazine.
I suspect the great Douglas Rolfe is responsible for them.
According to the story in the Sept. 1935 Modern Mechanix This hull will be built of beryllium and filled with helium. And they announce...
"Capable of rifling its
way through the air at a speed of 300 miles an hour, or hovering motionless
above a chosen spot, an airplane-Zeppelin soon to be put through exhaustive
tests at Rapid City, S. D., is expected by its inventors to become the
transport plane of the future."
While
free flight zepps are certainly possible. The kind with the rotating gas
bag seem pretty far out. (But maybe a radio guy can astound the world)
So I feel a lagniappe is in order.
The pics on the left are from Edwin Hamilton's 1933 edition of The Complete Model Aircraft Manual. I have no idea where he found it.
The more funner plan and pix below are from Model Airplanes Fully Illustrated, a book with no title page. I have no idea who the author is. The Zepp is definantely modeled on a pre WWI concept .
Note the geared propellers and the magnificent 12 foot length.
If anyone really wants to build either of these, I can overwhelm their e-mail box with the details.
Another nice one from the Miller World in the Air book. It seems easy enough, two long motors and four dime store balloons. Weight it with slightly negative buoyancy and set all the fins to give lift as long as the rubber holds out. Maybe I'll try one.