Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1928-04-05, Page 3Auto Ravers Near Limit of Speed Nerves of the Drivers, Air Re. sistance and Other Condi' tions Stand in. the Way of a Much Higher Velocity To drive an automobile, an earth- bound vehielo, at the unprecedented rate of 206.95602 miles an hear, as Captain Malcolm Campbell did pa the Rands of Daytona Beach last week, in- volves more than engine power. His Bluebird Special had a twelve -cylinder engine of 460 horsepower. Yet he broke the record of 203.792 miles an hour made by Major H. 0. D. Segrave last year in the Mystery S, an auto- mobile fittedwith two 500 horsepower engines. Had Frank . Lockhart not swerved . as he was roaring over the beach at 226 miles, an hol0r .and in- jured himself and his machine by plunging into the ocean, it is probable that the world's record for the fastest mile on land would now be his, ;ff Segrave and Campbell had teats- -Cies in a vacuum and over an ideally smooth road, they would have .made their records with perhaps as little as a hundred horsepower. Both sped along in storms of their own making. Few winds attain velocities of 200 miles an hour, and long 'before they do trees aro uprooted and roofs 'bee ripped off like sheets of paper, Air resistance increases as the cube of the speed. To make 120 miles an hour a car must have engines not merely twice but eight times as pow- erful as those required to'make sixty miles an hour. Every additional mile ispaidfor heavily. Probably one-half the horsepower at Campbell's disposal was used in overcoming air resistance, At a speed of 220 miles an hour, whtch he says he attained at one time, the resist- ance must have been over halt a ton to the square •foot. " Segrave has stated that the pressure on his fore- head was over .100 pounds to the square foot. When Campbell was tossed up for a moment above the Windshield `after he struck a bump ample -is enough to make the ma- in the sand his goggles were nearly chine' hop, so that it seems almost to torn off by the wind, flutter along if It is watched closely. To cut down this terrific' wlud re, Thirty times a second each part of the sistance elaborate investigations and tire strikes a hammer blow on the experiments in wind tunnels must be road, carried out. What are called para- We know what happens when a sitio surfaces—surfaces which offer !Hire is bent back and forth or when extra resistance -must be suppressed.) cold `steel is hammered. Heat is de- The designer atrives for a form with- veloped, Both the wire and the steel eoowfike,' except for the easy curves. Whatever the wind Mattel may teach about airplanes it teaoltea ti°mething very different for automobiles, The preemie° downward' on the neap of A high-speed automobile and up- ward pn the tail is terrific. Besides, air is spilled over the tildes in ways that tend to out down speed.-- In order to equalize the downward pressure 10 front and the upward • or negative pressure behind, the surfaces Are curved in forms that must seem etrange to an air racer, The object of the eut'ves is to let the air slip over the machine rather than to let It bat= for the sides and bottom. Thus is to be explained the squat look of both Segrave's and Cambell's machines. Florida's Unique Course. Florida has the only beach in any eivillzed country on which Mysteries and Bluebirds can be teeted at top aped. A runway of.. at least twenty miles is regpfred, and It must be straight and as free from inequalities as possible.' Thele is no question of. taking 'eurees. Moreover, the runway must be .' without ,trees or flanking An Exeeedin iy Chilly Thrill BUFFALO "SNOW -BIRDS" PLAY .HOCKEY IN BATHING SUITS ditches;' A beach of hard sand alone word. As he guides a vehicle rushing fulfills the conditions. Iu Europe no over the sande at more than 200 miles an hour he is scarcely conscious of his acts. "Just before I finished the mile I glanced at my instruments and was making 220 miles an hour. Be- fore' I could look up I had crossed the final wire and was headed for the sett sand duces;', Campbell said..Five thousand hearts stood still during that tense moment, How ho managed to right his car he himself cannot ex- plain, He knows only that his feet left the accelerator and brake com- pletely. Lockart's Experien twenty -tulle beach free from sand dunes can be found. Even Dayton's beach,on which, many motoroyole and automobile records have been made and broken, is not all that a Segrave. or a Campbell can wish. Twenty ml1es of billiard table would bo better, inas- much as every pebble and shell has its effect at high "speed. Campbell allowed himself foitr miles in which to get a rolling start, and then found that he: had not picked up what he deemed,to be sufficient speed when he crossed the line. Clutching tete wheel he exerted Avery effort to keep on a straight course: Such was his inertia as he was flying alopg at what must have been 220 miles at times that the slightest swerve as- sumed alarming -proportions in the fraction of a second, Hence the fear of running Into the crowd. Such is the centrifugal force of wheels spinning around at the rate of about 2,000 revolutions a minute, or over 83. a second, that ordinary tires are practically useless: The slightest inequality -a mere pebble, for ex - out projections for it is easier to drive' a smooth, ` correctly designed bulk through the air than to rake it with many excrescences. The details of Campbell's Bluebird Special have notbeenpublished,. Hence it is im- possible to compare her lines with those of Segrave's Mystery S. High Marks In Doubt. Neither the Bluebird nor the Mys- tery, S traveled at maximum speed, so that, _despitethe records, no one can maintain that the lines of the one are finer than those of the other. Campbell's exposed wheels must have retarded him. On the other hand, the 41n at the tail of his machine made It easier to control the Bluebird' lateral- ly in the face of the NUB wind that blew across the' course. If Segrave carries out his intention of trying to beat Campbell'srecord, the lines of his Mystery 5 plus her power may set a new mark. As a high-speed _machine rushes along it creates a suction behind it— What the engineer calls. "negative pressure." Any one who has ever stood on the platform of an observes tion car has Seen stones sucked up from the tracks and dropped. A Tittle cyclone is created. Bicycle' riders are aided by. the 'suction of motorcycle pacers. This 'suction .tends to push the rear end of an incorrectly design- ed machine upward. Hence there is a tendency at high speed for the ma- chine to capsize. Because the pressure of the air from every angle must be'considered, the designers of Segrave's and Camp- bell's machines had to .depart from the rules established by airplane builders. It is the practice to test the air resistance of every part of an airplane in a windtunnel and thus to discover " the shape which can bo driven through the air with the least ,amount of energy. Wind -tunnel re- search proved that the traditional sharp' prow of a -ship is .scientifically wrong, Fast swimming birds and Rah are correctly designed. Nature, discovered long ago that the prow must have a rounded, rather blunt form and that the tall must be fine if speed ie to be attained with little ef- fort. " This ,is what is meant by "stream- lining." No eddies must be stirred up, if possible, andno wake should be left behind. Foantlug bow waves and wakes may gladden the'eye of the ma- rine painter, but they are the vielble evidences ofinefficiency to the en- gineer. The truth is that our locomc- ' Lives and steamships pay too high a price for speed in the form of engine power and therefore fuel. Probably the Mauretania and the Twentieth Century Limited could attain :their present speeds with half the fuel that they now consume if they were steam - lined, Airplanes and Automobiles. If , the lessons of the wind tunnel had boon. followed strictly' .the Mys- tery 5 of. Segrave and the Biuobird of Campbell would resemble airplane fuselages more than they do, They Would have egg-shaped fronts and flne tails. Aa it Lei their forms are almost call «" lnstluot" for lack of a better bocoine too hot to hold. The wire eventually breaks. Rubber is a par- ticularly sensitive Substance. If it were not it could not be vulcanized. The tire makertries to make an he- •tegral mass out of clIttton ^fabric and rubber, but at about 490 degrees Fah- renheit the two disintregate. At the end • of. an the, race tiresare found • to be internally reined because of the heat that has been generated. Campbell's tires wereproduced by a manufacturer who had spent months inconducting experiments to dis- cover how they 'could be made more ,resistant to heatandcentrifugal force than those with which stock cars' are provided. ` Flywheels explode if a cer- tain critical speed is exceeded, and Campbell's tires had to withstand cen- trifugal force as great as that of many flywheels. When he was traveling at top speed they were .no longer circu- lar, but oval in cross-section. No re- cords are available to ,Judge the con- dition` of Segrave's or Campbell's tires, but it is safe to conclude that, despite the best efforts of the manu- facturer, rubber had parted from fab- ric, after the race against time was over. It is highly improbable that Campbell will use his old tires again if he decides to beat his own record. The Limit of Speed. After having traveled in an earth- bound vehicle ;faster' than anyman before him Campbell is reported to have card: "There is no limit to speed." Perhaps not from the view- point of the engineer. The racing automobiles 02 Segrave and Campbell may not be the last word in power and ground -speed, but is :the human. brain and hand capable of controlling machines even faster? Isn't the 'dif- ficulty to be overcome in the future psychological rather than mechani- cal? As one walks along one' stubs olio's toe. How long does it take the nor vows system to signal the fact to the brain? . The great German' physicistt von Helmholtz Made the first trust- worthy measurements, I3e found that the speed at which a nervous excita- tion, such as pain, is transmitted varies 2r0m 147.6 to 180.4 feet a see ond, although it seems to us that the prick of a pin is felt instantly. But Oampbeil's racer ^ flashed over, the sands at the rate of 803 feet a second. Man' has attained a speed on the ground greater than that of sensation! Campbell's roaring en- gine drove him 'Mt faster than his brain could order a muscle to move, faster than he could wink or shift an eye, 'Septum that it took him two seconds to. read a speedometer on the. instrument board. In that brief inter. vat he rushed over 606 fent of ground —three city blocks No wonder that he,was terror-stricken when . he thoght for a brief moment that he had lost control of his • oar and.was about to plunge into the Crowd half a mile away-, Reasoning "is out of the question even when danger seems fairly die.. tont. There is no time for tete logical processor of thought, Man bacon ] relying in g on what We might ail anim+f, Lockart probably does not know ex- aetlywhat happened to him. Ile was seen to swerve first this way and thea that. Perhaps a bump in the sand threw him momentarily off the straight course that he was trying to maintain. Such was his inertia at 225 miles an hour that his machine tended, to keep on the swerving course that had been assumed. He landed in the ocean, providentially escaping death. The craving for speed 18 in itself a primordial' instinct, the reason for which we' see In all other creatures. Fleetness Is.. many an animal's salva- tion in the struggle for. existence. An evolutionist probably would hold that when they are seated in their high- powered racers men like . Segrave, Campbell and Lockett slip back a mil- lion- years or more partly because. they; are striving to satisfy au old but persisting instinct to .flee from some-. thing, partly because they must rely on the cave man's instinctive co-or- dination of brain, nerve end muscle to guide themselves. So it seems as if we must turn to. the air if distances are to be covered at velocities higher than 250 miles an hour. The Frenchman Bonnet has already trade 275.48 miles an hour in an airplane. When Lieuttenant Jas. H. Doolittle. .of the United States Army succeeded in performing an out- side loop he 'probably traveled at the rate of more than 300 miles an hou, And at what risk! Such was the cell trifugal force generated as he whirled around that it seemed to kiln as if itis eyeballs would be torn out of, their sockets. To prevent their necks from being snapped by centrifugal force the per- formers wlto "loop -the -loop" before circus ' crowds see to it that their heads are rigidly strapped in place. Yet their' speeds never approach that of Bonnet or Doolittle. Even in .rac- ing motor boats pilots have been hurled out by centrifugal force as they whirled around the marking buoys of a course. Ilence even in the air the "stunt' maniac is restrained by his: nerves and his soft tissues. There can be no short, sudden turns in any future voyage to Europe in a 300 -mile; an -hour machine. Even if heads are strapped in place, who knows what the effect of centrifugal force may be. on the heart and the comparatively soft brain? Thequestion also arises,whether a machine . any faster than that built for Campbell or Lockhart can stay on the, ground -whether it 'may- not become a kind of airplane and soar - into the air or whether' it will not -turn turtle: As he rushed along Campbell created a veritable hurri- cane. Air pressed: on his machine. That 'pressure could, not be ignored. In a machine;tlesigned solely fpr tea veling at the highest possible speed the pressure . on the under aux-l0ce might well lift the entire weight into. the air. Wilbur Wright once said that a kitchen table could be made to fly if there were power enough to drive it. Campbell's record may be beaten by a slight margin—a fraction of a per cent, perhaps—but there is no likelihood that there will be a sudden lump from his 207 miles an hour to 230 or 250. Because of tare slowness with 'which the brain telegraphs its orders through the nervous 'system to foot and hand there is some reason to believe 'that the highest speed at- tainable over the ground Hes some- where between 240 and 250 miles an hour. Undoubtedly the engineer can de- sign and build a car that will go much faster.. But what's the use it human nerves are unequal to the task of con- trolling it? There Is good reason to believe that Segrave's Mystery 8, which held the record until Camp- bell's Bluebird broke it, can skim over the sand at 236 miles an hour, but the. iron -nerved Segrave himself doubts if he will ever reach that speed. It is a pity if human endurance has reach. ed the breaking point, for the engin eer has not said„his last word. A Doleful Tune I know a man who is, I think, I Peculiarly' athletic, When winter blasts are far from ten- der, , hey feet are first upon the fender And I feel most pathetic. But he puts on a leatIlor coat, Runs down the drawbridge 'creme the moat. And when I to the window go :I3e beans me with a ball of snow. This `morning he, vouchsafe', "Let's l take ' ,Our supper up beside the lake.” I did not know quite what he meant, I do not know Just why I went, t The day was cold, the air was raw, ,Which ought to be against the law. The lake was on a mountain steep Where heavers are too cold. to sleep, Should Hide It. "Say, don't walk around all day with such a rye look on your face, You look just like an undertaker." "Well, confound it! That's just what I am." Sedan Chairs Slow Traffic Chinese Veterans Still Retain • Old -Time Transport I sat within my cote raccoon, And up above my hat the moon,' And through my teeth the wind did play A doleful tune. My friend said much to him it meant To lamp thestarry firmament. And he was glad he did not know What then was on my radio. And there I sat inpitchy dark Without electric lights to mark Jtlst what I was so coldly eating; And I said nfuch I'm not repeating. He had soma hard bofl'd eggs in shells, I think he gave me nothing else. I, ate the shells nixed up in eggs And rapt a rug about niy legs. He pointed out three little stars That make up Mister Orion; And what I' saki was rather tryln' He said they made Orion's belt. I told him how my ankles felt. We travel'd home in painful ruts And those we passed said: "Pipe the nuts." I wonder 1f it's ever best To try to be a willing guest, When what you eat you don't digest. When goofy guys on ice.cavort, Oh, do not try to be a sport. Shanghai—Shanghai foreign settle- Sit fast at home and let 'em go, menti has many 'curious anomalies in I And then you won't cadge such a co' dealing with its traffic problem. Two .As I have got, and don't go out sedan chains, relies of a picturesque 'uniess It's hot. —Hall Pegg. past, with 'their 12 -foot poles, green BoostingBusiness• curtained' windows and spare collie bearers, cqutinue to. find use as the The All -British Plight advertising property of two Chinese veterans who campaign has made its bow to the Ar - refuse to bow before the customs of gentiue 'public. The flight is to be the age. Fifteen years ago there were over some 20,000 kilometers and calls hundreds of sedan chairs in use; a are being made at some 160 towns year ago there were still eight on where over 3,000,000' leaflets will btu the streets, but they are now reduced dfetributed. Tho machine circles ovor to two. I the towns, and leaflets are thrown These chairs require almost as..down, afterr which a landing et made, much space as a motortruck. Thole the wings are folded back and the ma• paseege exacts a great degree of con-I'chine Is towed into some suitable deaceuslon on the part of the trafficplace for exhibition, where it remains police Shanghai's traffic is the most diverse in the world, ranging from rickshas and wheelbarrows to the latest models of riotoa'trucks and limousines. Double jeopardy is when the wearer suddenly realizes that Both pairs be- longing to the two -pants suit have seen bettor days. some five or six hours in order to give everyone a chance of seeing it. The names of the firms, all of which are British, their addresses and the artic- les that they wish to adverlse, are pained on the machine, as well as Printed on the leaflets. The scheme, -t hicit is refreshingly novel, has re- ceived the support of the British Am- bassador, and sucoess should attend this new venture to push British goods. Every Boy and Girl Would Like One TRIP ON A TINY TOOT -TOOT A young machinist ht Vienna has built what' is claimed to be the smallest locomotive in, the world, com- plete to every detail, Hero it is working. Scientists Told Effect on Radio Of Air Stratum Physicist ,Says Heat Layer Tops Frigid Regions Nine Miles Above To- ronto Addresses Montreal Group Height of "interference Area" Put at 50 Miles in Day Montreal --"If wo went etraigitt UP - ward from Toronto for seven or eight miles, we would passe through on ex- ceeslvoly Bold.layer of atmoshlrcre, and .the ninth, a layer that etas about the same "iamputes's a as a warm emmpnrel.% day," Bald Professor J. 0, McLennan, director of the physlcal laboratory, University of Tai'ordo, in addressing the Wlimelees ABaociatlon cf Ontario in the Physics Budding at Ivlpntreal. This •stratum of air, the spaakes' said is but one of a series of Iayers' that enshroud the earth, starting with air of the 1obwer levels, with a cold- er sphere next and layer ort layer piled one on bop of another, to a height of about 500 miles, These sev- eral layers have an effect on radio transmission, P:iolesoor McLennan said, but the height' of the "interfer ence area" varies from an •area about fortyflve or fifty males up in the day- time, to about 90 to 130 utiles above the surface of the earth at night. Ozone •aiso came in for consider- able comment from Professor McLen- nan, He said that 12 all the ozone contained in the atmosphere were compressed to atmospheric pressure at sea level' the layer would be less titan one and a half moles . thick. The Aurora Borealis', or Northern Lights, were also spoken of at length, and two experlumetut a perfcirm•ed by Brofestsors McLeod and Wilhelm, workers of Professor McLennan, in showing haw varloue ectentiflc dis- coveries would be tirade in reference to the lights, to come through sta tions being eatabllshed iu northern Parts of Canada and through appara- tus being installed in Western Cana- dian universities, The Vanishing Elephant It must be a efasoivatiag experrierkeo. to think in :millions of Yearn, I3enay lfialrlield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Naltional IL* tory, looks at the vanishing wild ilfe of Afrloa and retina -rite that "a t ai1- llon years ago the entire world, ire eluding every continent, was titled wtth these glorious animals twbdch It had taken millions of years 'to create," , Mont of us, when we see an elephant., sere only a towering 'beast. Mr, Os- born, ap'par'ently, looke upon an °teeth- ant and sees a panorama of Iters mil- t 11ou years, . A little animal, barely a Yard hi:gli, without as yet the tUsiso or the proboscis .,which spells olepb• ant to most of us, browses 1n his vision along the river sides of North Africa, and a whole ,train of its des- cend'antsmarphing across the eon. Unseats . through the millennlu no, con- nect that little animal with. he pachy- derms of to -day. Photographs of elephant herds seem to eve messuranee that there will always be plenty of ,elephants to delight the children at the zoos, But it does not require even a palaeonto- logical mend to doubt it. Africa is changing in our generation. Despite the great Parc National Albert which the Beglien governmeent has estab- lished - in equatorial Africa, it will not be many decades before the fat garish is se extinct as the little quagga that 0000 ''trotted in vast herds aerates South Africa, Carl Akeley, collecting ,specimens for the magnificent African Hall. of the. Am- erican Hall of the American Museum, noted in 1926 that the abundance of animal life which had •delighted him two decades earlier was already a thing of. 'tbo past. Areas ence rich in game were becoming lifeless des- erts or civilized and uninteresting. Never sine the first spark of life,not mean in the millennia when glaciers were crushing out life or when the giant dtnesaurs were being extin- guished fram the face of the earth, have whole species been wiped out with the ruthless speer of this trans- forming age, "In Africa alone," as Mr. Osborn pointe out in the' current issue of "Natural Hisetory," organ of his museum, "there survive the off- spring of 30,000,900 years of mam- malian evolution," Ar -d- ill Africa they :are disappearing. A few more Irish Poteen decades, and ,unless foresight pre - Gets Rude Jolt outs, the motion pictures and the museums will have all that it left. Excise Duty on Whiskey Tempts Small Farmers to Make Their' Own, But Heavy Penalties' Are Hav- ing Effect; « Many Stills Found Set Up in Bogs By Shan O'Cuiv Dublin—Forty persons ware impri- alined and ninety fined for poteen- making in the Tree State in 1927. The number of detections and seizures of illicit "stills" and 'the number of per - eons prosecuted were greater than in 1926. This doss not denote an ex- tenslen of the manufacture and sale of 111iclt spirits, but more intense potivity ou the hart of the police and a better knowledge of the haunts and methods and devices of the pate= makers. The poteen makers are quick-witted and ingenious., but thea' are being beaten in the battle of with by the police, who are malting it dan- gerous- and unprofitable either to make or sell illicit whisky, ?lie excise deity on whisky Is a great temptation to the smell farm- ers and others in the mountains and glens of the west e.hd uorthweet of Ireland and the island's off the coast to try their land at whisky -retaking. The heavy fines and imprisonment are now beginning to tell against that temptation. Under title licensing sot of 1924 -cer- tain areas are echoduled, and this sale of materials thea could be used in; the manufacture .of poteen has to take place under Iloensee from the police. Nevertheless, the peaeante manage to get supplies of raw material and to fit up new distillerlee w,heeen their equipment is confiscated; but police vigilance le making their task ever mono ttifflcult. Experience has shown the police that christeitimgs and wed- dings are often preceded by a "ram" of patean ter the oelebratlon, and they ume on the watch when any such event Is expected in the s*beduled areas, By watching the traveling tinkers they also fired out replacement of equipment and make seizures•, The fact that the number of oefzares is nnueh grealbe.r than the number of de- tections is due to he Ingenuity of the pate= makers, who select bog$ or other common property for .their op eratieate to that osnterehip .cannot be established. They are as ingenious jas bo,o,tleggetrs, bat their occupation is beoamhtg more and more difficult with Church and State agadnst them. Cirdousiy enough, the first die.ccve ery of poteen in County Louth, In Leinster, within living memory was made .recently, The seizure took place in the Ravensdale Park diztni'et,' whteh Ls Just off the main road 'to Dublin end Bolfaat. A man has been arrested and remanded In °ennneeticat with alto seizure, Pie -eyed. Judge -•-"What is the cb.argo, Al- cor?" Officer--"Di'itdng while in a state of eetrente iniateationl' Advertising Britain John Bull has a reputation for pm - grossing slowly and surely. It is reported that the Association of Municipal Corporations in sponsor- ing a bill to confer powers on local authorl''tles for promoting "the publi- city tbmoughout the world of Britain's amenities and advantages." This, of course, does not mean that an act of Parliament is needed to awaken Britons to the dollars and Gents value of advertising, The necessity for Parliamentary action proceeds from the fact that a munietpaltty's present powers of pub- Itcity are limited to an infinitesimal tax levy whch is altogether inade- quate for the busness of attracting' tourists from abroad. FM' Finstance, at present a borough may advertise Resit as a health re - Bort bed, may apply to this purpose only such moneys• we it gets by rent- ing chairs, bathing machines or stalk 202 beach vendors and by charging for admissions to parks. Few towos havememt, speolfic powers of self -advertise - The handicap thus imposed on places of great historic interest is scarcely realized by Englishmen dhemeeives, so accustomed have they become to ICipling's viewpoint as ex- pressed in the lines:: "What do they know of England Who only England know?" Yet it will be greatly to tate advan- tage of the Empire if dweller's in out- lyiug parte can have brought to their notice the especial charms end amens ties of the Old Country that they may be led to visit and explore its country- skle, obtain Haat-hand contact with its traditions and exchange ideas with rhofoundpeople of the Shire's where, after all, the heart of England is ,to be , The human touch counts for mush in au the Autos.Autos.of life and in none more than the promotion of a proper Empire spirit—MOThtn'eaL Star. Higher Education Victoria Colonist t(Cons.): (BY the end of the next financial,' year the Dal. vereity of British Columbia will ham) ; coat' the people of the, province $11,•' 000,000 since its inception), Higher education by the State is desirable in many respects, but it is accent, panted by a wastage of 'funds that is deplorable. British Columbia , have . done excellently 'ln providing up-to-date buildings and all modern' equipment for University purposes and in liquidating the capital charges fro these. It is unnecessary that its Should do any more. Now that the buildinge are provided the students should be soli -supporting In their etudtes,. and; for the students of the poorer families, there should bp scholarships available, as there uta ngoubtedly would be through DAVIT.,, IfonatiOns 0000 the taxpayers are rb.' leaved of an annifal burdnli of upwards of half a milieu dollar9.