The Flying Automobile 



Glen Curtiss builds a limousine in which 

 you can take trips through the air 



By Carl Dienstbach 



SEVERAL years ago Glen H. Curtiss 

 launched into the air a new kind of 

 craft, which he called a "flying boat." 

 Such a craft is much heavier than a land 

 aeroplane. Naturally, Curtiss asked him- 

 self: If a heavy motor-boat can fly, why 

 should it not be possible to launch a heavy 

 automobile 

 into the air 

 by means of 

 wings. 



Although 

 Curtiss was 

 the first to 

 make a fly- 

 ing boat, he 

 was not the 

 first to con- 

 c e i V e or 

 even car- 

 ry out the 

 idea of fly- 

 ing in an 

 automobile. 

 About six 

 years ago 

 the French 

 oil mag- 

 nate, Henri 

 Deutsch de la Meurthe actually placed an 

 order with the Bleriot works for what he 

 called an aero-taxicab. That name fitted it 

 well. It looked like one as it flew in the air. 

 It used to be supposed that triplanes 

 would never do for fast flying because of the 

 great head resistance which they offer. 

 But resistance can be reduced by proper 

 designing, and triplanes, as a result, are as 

 fast as the biplanes of three or four years 

 ago. A triplane can be made strong and 

 still light. That, no doubt, is the reason 

 why Curtiss adopted it when he made up 

 his mind to build a flying limousine. 



Look at Curtiss' new machine, as it is 

 revealed in the accompanying picture. 

 What a contrast there must be between 

 flying in this well-designed enclosed body 

 and an open military machine! You step 

 in, wearing your silk hat and afternoon 

 clothes, just as you would into an automo- 



The lines of the automobile have been deliberately retained in spite 

 of the tremendous downward pressure of windshield and motor hood 



bile which is to take you to some fashion- 

 able tea. The body of the Curtiss limousine 

 is remarkably well designed, from an aero- 

 plane point of view. At the rear, the car 

 body terminates in a knife edge. This also 

 made it necessary to place the propeller 

 behind the limousine, in the same manner 

 as a slender poop is provided for the protec- 

 tion of a steamer's screws. It may be noted 



that the aero- 

 plane portion 

 of the craft is 

 very much like 

 the triplane 

 built by Curtiss 

 recently 

 for Ruth 

 Law and 

 described in 

 the March 

 issue of the 

 Popular 

 Science 

 Monthly. 

 The use 

 of an auto- 

 mobile 

 body has 

 solved at 

 one stroke 

 a knotty 

 mechanical problem. In the ordinary fly- 

 ing machine, motors and propellers are 

 directly connected. In the flying auto- 

 mobile, there is a reduction gear between 

 the motor and propeller — something quite 

 new. This appears in the form of a shaft 

 running back through the limousine and 

 connected by belts and pulleys with the 

 propeller shafts. Thus, it becomes possible 

 to drive a 93^-foot, four-bladed propeller — 

 extraordinarily large — by only a hundred- 

 horsepower motor. Obviously, by slightly 

 raising the limousine's floor, a change-gear 

 and a reversing gear might have been in- 

 stalled as snugly as in an automobile. 

 This would have made it possible to start 

 and land on restricted areas. 



The front wheels of the machine are 

 steered exactly as they are in an auto- 

 mobile, so that the craft can run on 

 unobstructed land for long distances. 



542 



