PORTSMOUTH AEROCAR, PART 2
THE BEAUTY OF a good hobby is never knowing where it might lead. And so it is with my GMax/Microsoft Flight Simulator hobby and the Portsmouth Aerocar. Yesterday I offered a … Continue reading
PORTSMOUTH AEROCAR, PART 1
THIS IS a tale of post-World War II aviation optimism, the independence of India and, seven decades later, serendipity of the name Portsmouth in researching my GMax/Flight Simulator hobby. This … Continue reading
THE POTENCY OF COLOR
IT WAS the color scheme that attracted me to the Vulcan American Moth. Its photograph in Classic Airplanes of the Thirties: Aircraft of the Roaring Twenties (Flight, Its First Seventy-Five … Continue reading
CAUDRON G.3 TECHNICALITIES
I UNDERRATED technical nuances of René Caudron’s G.3, the aeroplane flown by Frenchwoman Adrienne Bolland in her 1921 conquest of the Andes. Describing the G.3, I termed it “of the … Continue reading
OTTO’S FOUR-STROKE—DIRECTOR’S CUT
TODAY I offer my director’s cut of the previous two items, “The Otto Four-Stroke—Self Taught” (http://wp.me/p2ETap-2hj) and “Otto’s Four-Stroke—The Continuing Tale” (http://wp.me/p2ETap-2hL). Building a computer model along the lines of … Continue reading
THE OTTO FOUR-STROKE—SELF TAUGHT
THE UBIQUITOUS Otto four-stroke internal combustion engine didn’t originate with Otto. For instance, Frenchman Alphonse Eugène Beau de Rochas patented the four-stroke concept in 1861, fifteen years before German Nicolaus … Continue reading
SCHMID LSR CRACKS 800 KM/H AT BONNEVILLE
VIRTUALLY, THE Land Speed Record car of Leopold F. Schmid has achieved its design goal of 800 km/h, 497 mph or 432 knots. I include this third equivalent unit because … Continue reading
HENRY DREYFUSS—DESIGNER FOR HUMANITY
ONE PROMINENT American industrial designer gave the world the Hoover vacuum cleaner, the Bell telephone, the Honeywell thermostat, the Westclock Big Ben, the 20th Century Limited’s design of locomotive, dining … Continue reading
GMAX, THE SCHMID LSR—AND SET THEORY
DO YOU remember set theory? This amalgam of logic and geometry is fundamental to mathematics and was part of The New Math of the 1960s. Do you remember New Math? … Continue reading
SCHMID’S LSR
EVER SINCE La Jamias Contente (French for “never satisfied”) set its land speed record of 105.882 km/h (65.792 mph) in 1899, cars designed for breaking speed records have been bizarre … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 