THE EDITOR'S VIEWPOINT Hon. Charles S. Whitman, Governor of the State of New York: There has recently been some agitation regarding the equalization of motor-liability rates, and quite justly, too. On the other hand, this subject offers a wide field for discussion-namely, as to making every motor vehicle carry liability insurance, thus giving every man, woman and child of this State a chance for just compensation in case of accident. While statistics prove that accidents are more numerous among the owners of cheaper and lighter cars, it is also the driver of this type of car who is careless, particularly so as, having no financial resources, he drives indiscriminately as well as indifferently to the property or liability rights of either pedestrians or other motorists. Another phase presents itself, and that is: Would the owners of these lighter cars take still more chances were they insured? This, however, could be offset by the State putting the burden of proof as to claims on the reckless driver, and either the cancellation or refusing of licenses to drive any motor vehicles thereafter. The situation as stated could be summed up as follows: Let the State create its own Liability Insurance Department; let its provision be along. the lines of the Employers' Liability Law; make all motor vehicles take out insurance before licenses are granted; make the increase of premium a check on reckless driving; equalizing liability premiums; elimination of fraudulent claims by enactment of stringent laws governing the same. The foregoing is merely a rough draft of my views regarding this situation, but I think. if the matter could be given careful consideration there would be no trouble in enacting laws along these lines that would have the support of all citizens, besides insuring justice. and equality to all. New York, Sept. 18. W. GERALD HAWES. O WHAT ABOUT THE PLANES? NE of the big questions in connection with the cessation of hostilities and subsequent demobilization, and one which interests all automotive men, is what will be done with the airplanes previously constructed for Army and Navy use, and for which the government now has little use, and in the solution of this problem lies the answer to another which is also puzzling some of our brightest minds, namely what to do with our huge capacity for airplane manufacture. For the immediate moment, the requisition of the Postal Department for about 400 planes of three different types perhaps points out a use for a whole lot of the planes we now have on hand, built for war work but eminently suitable for peace. That is to say expansion of existing plans for aerial mail carrying, and the rapid establishment of new routes. The Postal Department has asked for bid on carrying the mail to Alaska, a service for which airplanes are particularly fitted. As we go to press the New York-Chicago service is struggling through its initial difficulties. The post office promises that this service will be extended both further across the continent and by means of feeder routes to and from all the large cities reasonably adjacent to this main line. All this means a use in 1919 of perhaps 700 to 1,000 machines of various sizes and capacities, providing only these plans are all carried out. In addition, much work is being done on the big overseas flight, and a number of machines are known to be in course of construction or are now being tried out and perfected, which are intended for the long overocean trial. Packages will be carried via air route in greater and greater quantities, valuable papers, greater and greater quantities of mail, and naturally passengers. Signor Caproni claims to be able to carry 100 passengers in a machine which he is now building, and his past achievements with large-capacity machines goes far to prove that he knows what he is talking about. Fifty passengers have been transported a considerable distance in the vicinity of New York in a single machine. Other work along these lines is known to be in progress. In short it would seem that 1919 and 1920 will see a progress in the use of airplanes beyond the dreams of any but the wildest enthusiasts, a rapid expansion alongside of which the marvels accomplished by the automobile will seem tame. AN EXPLANATION TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS F OLLOWING the statement in our October issue, explaining why that issue was late, it is necessary to explain subsequent developments. After mailing the October issue around the middle of November it was figured that the lost time could be made up gradually until the right mailing day was reached. But this it was found impossible to do, so the decision was made, although with considerable regret, to omit the November issue, and get out December as promptly as possible, and as close to the December mailing date as could be. Barring other strikes or other similar matters beyond our control, subscribers are hereby promised all the issues of 1919 promptly on time, as well as larger and more valuable in the matter of editorial contents. O NE of the greatest errors in connection with the problem of car suspension is the following: It is absolutely wrong to consider the oscillations of one corner of the car, supported by one spring, resting on its wheel. One man is perfectly willing to waste away his time on speculations as to how would that one point car behave under different conditions, what trajectories it would describe owing to bumps, etc. Another practical man will, say, photograph the motion of the spring with reference to the axle, supporting it. Still another engineer will try to prove "once more" that the pendular formula of the oscillation of the spring is correct for such a method of loading (which it is not and can never be). And all of these get different results, altogether worthless and unconclusive, for the simple reason that their premises are wrong. When we come out of an average college, we generally have a few distorted notions as to the subject of dynamics of a particle; but owing to "lack of time" the school generally does not give the young graduate one iota of rigid dynamics, which is an entirely different science, having formulas or theorems of its own, much more difficult and immensely more interesting. So, of course, not knowing what else to do, the young man starts with the assumption that it is probably pretty much the same thing, and that his "practical" judgment will be able to suggest to him how to juggle with what simple formulae he has in order to get a "theoretical" result; after which he begins to blame the theory for not giving him the right results. It is curious to observe that it is only a half baked engineer that speaks disparagingly of what he thinks to be "theory." An astronomer does not; he starts his problems with a much fuller stock of knowledge and his results are perfect. One of the typical illustrations of the above is the ease with which an average engineer "assumes" that the problems of torsional vibration in a shaft is the same as that of the torsional pendulum, illustrated on page. so and so of his course of Mechanics for Engineers (a most humiliating sort of a title to give to a book, to say the least). It is just this way: a torsional pendulum has one degree of freedom, while there is an INFINITY of torsional periods of at shaft. One of the Difficulties By N. W. AKIMOFF Another illustration is the problem of suspension; here is an example that will illustrate what I mean: A weight of 100 lbs. compresses a spring just 1". The rate of natural oscillation will thus be 188 oscillations per minute. This is one experiment. Another experiment consists of placing a rectangular beam, 10' long and weighing 200 lbs. on two supports, one of which is the same spring as we just had, and the other support is say a box or a hinge like in my Dynamic Balancing Machine, etc. Now the natural spring will be deflected through the same amount, 1". But the natural rate of oscillation will be about 230 per minute. Is there any similarity between these two results? (See a problem of this sort worked out in my book Lagrange's Equations, p. 167). What I mean is that until the engineer has been convinced that the problem of suspension can only be handled from the standpoint of Rigid Dynamics, he will never get anywhere. Some of the books on this subject are elementary and delightful: for instance, Worthington's Dynamics of Rotation. Or Slocum's Theory and Practice of Mechanics; or Loney's Dynamics. The first of these three books is the easiest and the most elementary and should be mastered by everyone. After this radical difference has been mastered the reader will see very clearly why I am advocating the slowest obtainable pitching period as the very cornerstone of rational suspension; after this feature has been secured, there is plenty of time to consider trajectories, relative motion of various elements, etc.; sooner or later this point will be understood by the designer, and everything else is merely a matter of construction. Experts Claim Efficiency for Fuel Substitute The last of November, Liberty Fuel was announced as an invention of two experts connected with the War Department, and who have been working on the problem of airplane and motor fuels for some time. Much is claimed for this new fuel, that it is cheaper than gasoline, is adaptable to all forms of motors, is odorless, tasteless and non-corrosive, that it leaves less carbon residue and develops greater power, etc. The main point is that it can be produced readily and is now being turned out in large quantities. The new fuel is the result of more than 5 months devoted to experi ments conducted by Major O. B. Zimmerman and Capt. E. C. Weisberger of the research and development divisions of the general engineering depot here. Exhaustive experiments are said to have proved that the new fuel is adapted to all kinds of motor vehicles, stationary engines and airplanes. Kerosene is the base of the new fuel. Credit for the production of the new fuel is given by Major Zimmerman to his colleague Capt. Weisberger, a gas and oil engineer of wide experience and established reputation. "There'll be no more 'gasolineless Sundays' now that 'Liberty fuel' has been discovered," Major Zimmerman said in explaining the product. "Liberty fuel" acts perfectly as a gasoline substitute, added the Major. "It is odorless, tasteless and noncorrosive. Tests for corrosion were made in a motor cycle that covered 23,000 miles of variable operation. "It leaves less carbon residue than any gasoline, requires less air or oxygen for combustion and develops greater horsepower. "The force of the explosion of 'Liberty fuel' has been found to be 30 per cent. greater than gasoline." The discovery, which, it is asserted, ranks with the greatest of the war, resulted after 27 gasoline substitutes had been produced. The ingredients are of low cost and can readily be obtained, while the process of manufacture is exceedingly simple. The tests, said to have proved conclusively the value of "Liberty Fuel," have been most exact and rigid. They were conducted under the supervision of the Bureau of Standards here. "That no step was left untaken to prove its practical suitability is shown. by the fact that the fuel was used extensively in automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, tractors, stationary engines and hydroairplanes, in cold and warm. weather under violent variations of load, and with poor and good operators," said Major Zimmerman. Sweden Now Manufactures John R. Rettig & Co., of Stockholm, have taken up the manufacture of micanite, an electric insulating material. Before the war the article was imported into Sweden from Britain and Germany. The Automotive Specialties Co. of New York, N. Y., has changed its name to the Grundy Mfg. Co. 10 O AUTO-TILLER Fig. 1. General View of the Auto-Tiller, a Walker or Garden Tractor of Unusual Merit. I The Auto-Tiller, a Two-Horse Team Replacement Unit New Motor Tractor for Farm Work, Intended to Do Everything T WILL be a great surprise to the great majority of people, even people well informed on farms and farming topics, to be told that there are in the United States 3% millions (3,150,178 to to be exact) farms of less than 100 acres, and 134 millions of these (1,722,126 to be precise) are of less than 50 acres in extent. Hitherto all of the manufacturers of agricultural tractors have built big machines, machines intended to haul a big string of big plows, a couple of immense harvesters, several large road drags, or some similar immense load. Naturally such machines were intended for use on large farms, and on these they met with a splendid reception. Many thousands of them were sold, and the tractor manufacturer immediately concluded that the best and richest field lay in these large sizes. So all of the early tractors were of the larger sizes. In fact right up to now, this tendency has continued to such an extent that perhaps 90 per cent. of a list of all the tractors manufactured in this country would of a size large enough to pull five or more 14-inch plows or an equivalent load, and rating at 25 horsepower or more. This is a good field but a limited one. Of late, that is in the last couple of years, a number of tractor manufacturers have produced what they have called (and unfortunately, considered as) a baby tractor. These generally have a small four cylinder engine rating at approximately 15-18 horsepower, the machine throughout being shorter, narrower and lighter in weight. But even these so-called small or baby tractors have been of a size and type to fit them best for the farms of approximately 50 to 100 the farms of approximately 50 to 100 acres and are not fitted to the very small farms. In this connection, and in connection with the figures given above, it may be stated that the farms in the country over 100 acres total but 2,269,787, of which 1,153,501 are 175 acres or larger. what the man owning this small sized farm would want, a mechanical man of all work, the auto-tiller has been developed and will be described herewith. This small machine was designed originally to do everything on a farm that a team of horses would do, do it better, quicker, cheaper and at less cost, and in addition do a great deal of regular daily farm work which these horses could not do. It would surprise the average nonfarming man to know the extent of these various farm "chores," which a small machine of this kind, light in weight, operated by one man and he not necessarily a skilled motor mechanic, can do around a small farm in this general category (50 acres or less), and which would be equally useful on small parts or all larger farms. While a divergence from the general subject, the following list gives a good idea of what is in mind. this being a list made up by farmers themselves as to what work other than regular plowing etc., their tractors were doing, the figures at the right being the numer of farmers listing To fit into this need and be just their tractors as doing this work. A It is apparent that the biggest field lies under 100 acres, and that there is a tremendous opening for something small which would fit in on a farm of 50 acres or less. Fig. 2. The Auto-Tiller as Rigged up for Plowing and Giving a R elative Idea of Its Size, Compared with the Man Operating It. |