Web Concepts

Posts Tagged ‘Popsci Archives’

Clickhere to launch a gallery of auto-gyros, gyroplanes, autogiros, or whatever they're called, from the PopSci archives

The MTOsport is headquartered in Tomball, Texas, and at $75,000 costs a fraction of what a police force would spend on a helicopter. Operating costs are low too, at just $50 an hour, largely because it runs on regular pump gas.

The roofless, doorless contraption uses a rear-mounted propeller for speed, and an unpowered, angled rotor, spinning at 80 to 120 RPM, uses the air pushed into the blades from forward motion to create lift. It needs a little more than a hundred yards to take off, and then climbs into the air at a rate of 13 feet per second, eventually hitting speeds of up to 115 mph. Despite the lack of roof, the auto-gyro is arguably safer than a helicopter because it's always in autorotation. If power is lost, helicopter pilots have to ease their aircrafts down and hope that autorotation engages. The MTOsport would just glide down gently.

On the downside, no roofs or doors means riding in bad weather will be rough, and without thermal imaging cameras or large light beams, auto-gyros are best flown during the day. Even with these limitations though, the cost and efficiency of the auto-gyro makes it incredibly helpful for police forces in underserved areas like Tomball. The MTOsport can be in the air and on a mission within 10 minutes, and, in terms of coverage, is equal to the deployment of 20 officers, according to Tomball's chief of police.

[Jalopnik]

Curley (who would later become governor, serve two separate terms in jail, and have a Mighty Mighty Bosstones song written about him) wasn't the only one trying to fight winter's white plague. His idea wasn't really that different from this vintage PopSci concept, which gathered snow, melted it with a hot water spray, and then flushed the now-lukewarm water into the street to further melt surrounding snow. Or, really, that different from our recent roundup of snow-fighting tactics (ranging from geoengineering to snow-pooping robots), though significantly more badass than some.

[MIT]

Here are PopSci's very first looks at technologies, like the telephone and the Internet, that went on to be rather successful

For this gallery, we've hit the archive and assembled a few of our often-breathless first looks at these now-ubiquitous, then-revolutionary technologies that went on to reshape our modern lives.
Click to launch the photo gallery

Some inventions, such as the fax machine, excited us, and others we approached with surprising caution. MP3 players didn't appear on the cover until 2001, three years after we first covered them.

The unveiling of the telephone received only a simple news brief (in a section called "Popular Miscellany").

Sometimes we were right and sometimes we were wrong, but regardless of the thinking of the time, we've got it all documented for your browsing pleasure. Click through our gallery to see PopSci's first stories on everything from the introduction of talking motion pictures to the unveiling of the first MP3 player.

PopSci's very first looks at technologies, like the telephone and the Internet, that went on to be rather successful

As hard as we try, we may never best this gem from 1917

His article, titled "Fishing for Birds of Prey in the Air" and published in December 1917, proposed that people use airplanes to capture flocks of now-endangered bird species. Although we'd hate to imagine that our magazine contributed to the slaughter of our national symbol, we can't read quotes like this one without laughing at our misguided visions of a better future:

"Why should it not be possible to trail fine piano-wire nets, spread by small kite-buoys between two airplanes connected by a long wire, and enmesh the condors and eagles that soar over inaccessible mountain peaks? That ought to be a fascinating sport."

We promise that there's more where that came from, and the article is well worth a read, if only for the author's thorough recommendations on how best to capture a vicious horde of bald eagles. We won't spoil the best parts for you, so read them for yourself in "Fishing for Birds of Prey in the Air."

And when you're done, check out more aviation gems from the archive here.

In just over 100 years, we've gone from the first powered flight to a scramjet capable of Mach 6. Amazing.

Click to launch the photo gallery

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/general_sciences/A_Century_of_Aviation_From_the_Wright_Brothers_to_Stealth';

On December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers embarked on the first sustained, heavier-than-air, man-powered flight aboard the Wright Flyer. Although they made history that day at Kitty Hawk, people were skeptical of aviation technology's potential. An article we published in March 1904 examined what the brothers' feat meant for aviation before concluding that the machines would never develop into commercial carriers. "To say nothing of the danger, the sizes must remain small and the passengers few....navigable balloons and flying machines will constitute a great mechanical triumph for man, but they will not materially upset existing conditions as has sometimes been predicted."

Well, shame on us, because just over a hundred years later, we're launching wingless jets and maneuvering zombie satellites. There's even talk of an electric tethered hovering platform.

Of course, the progression we've made in aviation was largely a matter of trial and error. For every legendary fighter jet that soared, there was a sausage plane or a zeppelin that went under. Still, as the content our archives will attest, a little imagination and perseverance went a long way.

Click through the gallery for our favorite airplanes, airships, flying boats, and spaceships.