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ATTAINMENT of the full potentialities of airships as carriers is dependent upon and will be greatly expedited by the solution of mooring and ground-handling problems. It is felt that the fundamental solutions have been found, and trials of newly designed equipment are virtually at hand. Communities that desire to erect mooring masts and provide servicing facilities are advised to await patiently the further trial of experimental equipment designed by the engineers stationed at the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, N. J. This equipment is now under construction on contract. Evolution of the mooring mast, a British post-war device, and the present methods of mooring an airship to the mast are described to show the trend of development.

CONVEYORS and handling systems often are planned and installed after a building is erected. The Pontiac plant, described in this paper, is an exception because it was designed without limitations as to space and for a definite production program. With the aid of photographs and floor plans on which the positions from which the photographs were taken are indicated, the complete production line of the plant is shown in detail. The order of assembly and the points at which various units are applied to the chassis are shown; also the locations of the storage spaces for many of the parts and the provisions for transporting them to the assembly line. Among the striking features of the chassis-assembly line is a hump, midway of the length of the building, which raises the chassis to the mezzanine level to allow passage underneath.

MENTIONING the various attempts that have been made to secure continuous progressive changes of gear in the automobile, the author states that nothing of this sort is of value unless it is automatic. He has designed a transmission consisting of a wabble-plate which actuates six connecting-rods that operate as many roller clutches on the rear axle. Changes in speed result from varying the inclination of the wabble-plate, and this is controlled automatically through the combined effects of inertia and the reaction of resistance. This transmission has been applied to a number of cars of different weights, some of which have seen much service. The action of the various elements of the transmission is analyzed with the aid of drawings, diagrams and formulas, and the proportions that have been found most successful are stated. This transmission is combined with a gearless differential and a planetary reverse-gear.

The complementary-color headlighting system is based upon the use of differentiated light, that is, light having different wave-lengths. Each head-lamp is oval and contains two paraboloid reflectors, one emitting light through an orange glass filter, the other through one of blue glass. While driving at night, the driver looks through a viewing-filter of transparent glass of the same color as that of the headlight which is in use. The viewing-filters are arranged so that whenever one is used, the headlight of the same color is automatically turned on. When the headlights are not in use, the filters are held in the filter-box and are out of sight. It is the intention that cars traveling in a general direction, say north and east, shall use the blue light; that those traveling south and west shall use the orange light. Each viewing-filter is transparent to the light that is thrown on the road by the headlights of the same car but is opaque to the lights of approaching cars.

A racing airplane seems to possess a special quality that sets it distinctly apart from the conventional type of airplane; but, unless a person has at least dabbled in its design, he cannot realize the enormous amount of time, effort and ingenuity that has been expended by the designers who have made these super-speed airplanes possible. Therefore, an outline is given of the procedure adopted in designing and producing a specific model of racing airplane, as well as an outline of the yearly progress made in development. The first procedure is to allocate the work to the various members of the engineering organization. Finally, a type of design is chosen after a series of engineering conferences, and the design section studies the detail design of the component parts. A wing section that is adapted to the design already chosen is developed, and an accurate weight estimate is made of each unit part of the complete airplane.

Evolving gradually since the time when opinion prevailed that accidents are unpreventable, modern safety methods have come into being and successfully organized effort concentrated on their application in industry has accomplished an amazingly effective system of accident prevention. In the automotive industry, effort focused on preventive measures looking toward the elimination or reduction of casualties and fatalities has resulted in greatly increased conservation of life and property; but, as new conditions and new demands continually appear, it is evident that new methods, new means and new modifications must be continually in process and that putting these forces into production requires concentrated scientific study, forethought and executive ability.

Solicitation of sales and the delivery of the product to the customer constitute the most important operative features of the motor-truck fleet supervised by the author. Endeavor is made to install the vehicles in the various fields along standardized lines. The volume and the extent of the business and the topographical conditions of each locality determine the size and the mechanical equipment of the vehicle that is employed, and it is installed only after a study of all the conditions pertaining to its operation. Adequate training of vehicle operators, not only along mechanical lines but also as direct sales representatives of the company, is made a feature; and so is accident prevention. These interests are promoted in various standard ways and are furthered by the publication of “house organs.” After a vehicle is installed the slogan adopted is: Keep It Moving With a Pay Load.

The efficiency of internal-combustion engines increases with the pressure of the charge at the time of ignition. Therefore, a compression at full load just below that of premature ignition is ordinarily maintained. But when such an engine is controlled by throttling, the efficiency drops as the compression is reduced, and as automobile engines use less than one-quarter of their available power the greater part of the time, the fuel consumption is necessarily high for the horsepower output. On account, also, of the rarefaction due to throttling, more power must be developed than is necessary to drive the car; automobile engines in which the fuel is introduced during the induction stroke, would be more efficient, therefore, if the maximum compression were constant during all ranges of load.

The author discusses commercial-airplane design in general terms, considering the subject under the main divisions of economy, safety, speed and comfort. Under economy, mention is made of possible reductions of first cost by designing for long life and reliability, the effect of the former on the depreciation allowance being obviously advantageous. Airplane size is debated also, the trend of progress being seemingly toward the giant airplane. Safety is stated to be dependent upon reliability, structural strength, stability, control, fire prevention and reduction of risk of injury to passengers in the event of a crash. Minimizing the results of a crash is considered suggestively. Speed is governed almost solely by the ratio of wing loading to power loading; hence, speed will always be kept as low as possible without loss of business to competing transportation enterprises. Included among desirable measures to secure comfort are adequate ventilation and the elimination of noise.

The indicator was an important factor in the early development of the internal-combustion engine when engine speeds were low, but on high-speed engines such indicators were unable to reliably reproduce records because of the inertia effects of the moving part of the pressure element. The first need is for a purely qualitative indicator of the so-called optical type, to secure a complete and instantaneous mental picture of the pressure events of the cycle; the second need is for a purely quantitative instrument for obtaining an exact record of pressures. The common requirements for both are that the indicator timing shall correctly follow the positions of the crank and that the pressure recorded shall agree with the pressures developed within the combustion space. Following a discussion of these requirements, the author then describes the demonstration made of two high-speed indicators, inclusive of various illustrations that show the apparatus, and comments upon its performance.

Unsteady laminar flame propagation confined in a closed cylindrical combustion bomb is studied by numerical computation for an axisymmetric two-dimensional laminar flame. Computation includes complete two-dimensional unsteady Navier-Stokes equations of change for a chemically reacting propane-air mixture. Implicit Continuous fluid Eulerian, Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian finite difference technique, simplified reaction kinetics models, and artificial flame stretching transformation and inverse transformation were adopted in the calculation. Physically realistic flame behavior can be demonstrated even with rather coarse computing cell size, simplified reaction kinetics models, and personal computer level low power computing machines.

The sequential fuel injection, in which fuel is injected into swirl being generated for mixture stratification, was used to pursue the potential of a lean burn engine for its performance improvement. As a result, it has been found that the most effective method to increase thermal efficiency while reducing NOx emission level is to combine a high-compression compact combustion chamber located on exhaust valve side in cylinder head with DICS (Dual induction Control System). This method was used to build a high-compression lean burn concept vehicle, which was evaluated for compliance to various emission standards. Testing showed that the concept vehicle can improve fuel economy by 10.5% on the Japanese 10-mode cycle, by 8.3% on the ECE mode cycle, and by 6.3% on the U.S. EPA test mode cycle while meeting respective emission standards.

In this paper a computer simulation study on the effects of steering parameters on lateral dynamics of the guideway bus to contribute to a development practice of designing optimum steering control system are dealt with. A stability limit of vehicle lateral motion is analyzed and an emphasis is laid on the effects of moment of inertia of a conventional steering wheel and lateral elasticity of the guide rail which have proven to reduce the critical vehicle speed. It is pointed out conclusively that a normal bus equipped with additional simple guidance equipments can be guided smoothly on a simple guideway at adequately high vehicle speed.

The influence of the tyre properties on the driving behaviour of single-track vehicles has been measured by performing running tests with full-scale vehicles. The indoor dynamic tyre measurements using the sideslip angle as the input signal reveale that the sideforce and self-aligning moment characteristics are helpful explaining the measured driving behaviour. The obtained tyre parameters values and second order equations have been implemented in the simulation program ADINA-MOBSIP. This program is specially conceived for the simulation of the driving behaviour of single-track vehicles and is based on the finite element method.