One of the most famous wings in the California State Museum of Science and Industry, Los Angeles, is Agricultural Hall, containing 104 different exhibits covering every important phase of the State's billion dollar farm industry. One attraction (left) is a display of prize fruits and vegetables preserved in giant glass jars—some more than 30 years old. Another feature is a colony of bees living and working in a transparent hive. 

This exhibit, sponsored by the G. E. and Mattie B. Kinsey Foundation, features a transparent incubator in which baby chicks hatch throughout the day. In wall mounted cages domestic fowls, and birds are displayed. On another wall talking slides portray the development of the chicken from egg fertilization until hatching time. 

Skimming along smooth ice at 35 miles per hour—higher speeds may be reached on good snow—it doesn't slack-en speed when approaching open, water. Its momentum causes it to plane lightly over the surface and the wave created at the bow cushions any shock which might occur when the craft climbs back onto solid ice. The hull, made of oak crossbeams, and longitudinal stringers of spruce, withstands buffeting by rough ice and engine vibration. Sides, deck and cabin are of 1/4-inch plywood. Three layers of plywood form the bow halfway to the stern,, with two layers for the balance of the bottom. The bottom and parts of the side are also convered with three layers of 16-gauge galvanized iron. Welded steel piping forms a mount for the 134-horsepower Menasco aircraft engine. Aluminum piping is used for propeller guards and braces for the fin and rudder.

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images and info provided by Popular Mechanics ARCHIVE from the Zetu Harrys Collection

It is a. bright morning in 1965, At precisely eight a. m. Joe Lees emerges from the back door of his lakeside cottage, only 75 miles from his job in the city. In the graveled center of his backyard his jaunty new plastic saucer rests lightly on three tiny balloon tires.

Greeting his neighbor who rides with him, Joe lifts a flush flap in the saucer’s rounded nose. He turns a recessed locking handle and throws back the bubble-like windshield. Spring loaded, like the hoods of today’s cars, the enclosure lifts easily. As it does, the interlinked nose cone swings down to form a handy step.

Joe’s neighbor steps up over the low instrument pedestal and then across the folded pilot's seat to his perch in the rear. Joe follows, slams the windshield shut and turns the starter key. The two men fasten their safety belts as the engine comes to life.

As the fan-like inductor begins whirling with a high-pitched whine, the automatic servo-flaps pop open and a torrent of air is drawn inward over the circular wings. Faster and faster it flows, building up the lift pattern of a racing, fixed-wing take-off. For a moment, the trembling saucer remains stationary. Then, slowly and smoothly, it rises vertically into the air like an elevator ascending an unseen shaft.

At 450 feet per minute, the saucer climbs to the southbound traffic lane and the engine’s pulsing torque is shifted to the pusher propeller at the machine’s tail. As the prop takes hold, the inductor fan gradually slows to a halt and the servo-flaps clamp shut. Functioning now as a fixed-wing airplane, our saucer banks around and heads south at a comfortable 165 mph cruising speed.

As it tools toward the city, other saucers join the parade and there is a thick stream of aerial traffic. Soon, the downtown towers of the metropolis loom on the horizon and a whole complex of distant traffic lanes converge from the four corners of suburbia. Over the business district, Joe turns out of the main stream and heads for the company’s building. He throttles back his prop, shifts to the air inductor again and slowly descends to the landing pad. It is now 8:30a.m. The 75-mile flight took only 30 minutes.

MI’s saucer was conceived by Peter Nofi, an officer in the Merchant Marine. Nofi, a dedicated student of aerodynamics, has combined the downward jet thrust of the ducted-fan with the proven principle of the high-lift air-foil. We know that the fan will work because using it, men and machines have been lifted bodily into the air by the modest power of outboard engines.

Nofi’s arrangement is inherently simple. He has merely taken the straight airplane wing and pulled the ends around to form a circle with the leading edge facing out. In the center hole of  this doughnut-shaped airfoil, he has mounted a ducted-fan which sucks a high-speed airflow in over the wing and, in the form of a compressed air jet, blows it out through the bottom of the hole.

According to Nofi, the negative (upward) pressure created by the passage of air over the top of the wing, plus the reaction (upward) pressure of the air jet, add up to a total lift ample for vertical flight.

The other unique feature of Nofi’s saucer is the pair of semi-circular servo-flaps hinged to the top of the wing root on either side of the fuselage. These open automatically to permit inward airflow when the ducted fan is operating, then close to form the top curve’ of a large fore-and-aft airfoil when the machine is in forward flight as a fixed-wing airplane.

A twin control system is employed to provide for the differing conditions of vertical and forward flight. For vertical take-off and landing, compressed air from the inductor is piped to the aileron and flipper areas and expelled through differentially operated jet nozzles. These are built into the conventional control surfaces used in forward flight and are operated by the same wheel column.

In line with his low cost philosophy, Nofi plans to have the top and bottom surfaces of his saucer stamped out on a press, using a plastic material reinforced by glass “flock.” This technique, now successfully employed by small boat builders, will also be used on the servo-flaps, fuselage and other components. Cemented together with the internal gas tank spar, plumbing, etc., in place, the hollow wing will then be filled with a foamed plastic compound which cures into a rigid, air-filled sponge. This replaces expensive interior structure and converts the wing into an unsinkable life-ring for emergency water landings.

Transportation of city inhabitants through subway or overhead tubes on endlessly moving belts, providing more speed and comfort than our present systems of passenger service, loom as a possibility, according to Norman W. Storer, engineer of the Westinghouse Electrical Co., who has developed the idea.

As described by Mr. Storer, the system is in arrangement of continuous trains or belts of cars, running on parallel tracks. There is a stationary loading platform along the entire course of the system.

Passengers board the first local train at any point, and it stops every 50 seconds for a period of 10 seconds. When the doors close, a gong sounds and the local platform starts moving. Now there is another signal and gates open for a second platform, or express, on which the passenger takes the major part of his trip. After ten seconds the gates close and the local slows down for another stop, while the express picks up to a 22 m.p.h. speed.

Noise of the system is at a minimum, and passengers are delivered at no more than 300 feet from their streets. All stations are controlled from one central point, all elements being so timed that there can be no hitches.

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images and info provided by the Popular Mechanix ARCHIVE from the Zetu Harrys Collection

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Pupils in Jean Bryant's class at Chelsea Park School in Seattle learn to pilot early. Miss Bryant persuaded parents and the school board to buy an old ground trainer to spur interest in lessons. Only students who complete their work and file a flight plan can "fly" it.

Dissapointed with his first-year performance as a general science teacher at Hamilton Shcool in Wichita, Kan., Bill Allen figured that what he most needed was something to stimulate his pupils' interest. In his garage workshop he gathered together a chemical drum and a paint can, some scraps of wood, wire, assorted pulleys and a couple of electric motors. Drawing on his knowledge of mechanics and electricity, he wired them together, creating a homemade robot he named Magnamo.

Magnamo walks on wheels, turns, raises its arms and grabs metals with its magnetized hands.

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images and info provided by the LIFE Magazine / LIFE Magazine International / LIFE Magazine Atlantic ARCHIVE from the Zetu Harrys Collection

Elektro walks, smokes, counts to 10 on his fingers, speaks 77 words, and even distinguishes colors.

A star performer at the New Yotk World's Fair 1939-1940, the seven-foot-tall, 260-pound aluminum robot returned to the public eye after a 10 year break. His new role is to framtatize the possibilities of Westinghouse controls for automatic machines at the 1949 Pittsburgh Industrial Exposition. Elektro responds to an attendant's commands, spoken into a microphone or given by flashing a light.

Through 83 relays in his electrical "brain", these commands trigger 11 electric motors that work his mechanical "muscles" and turntables containing his vocabulary. An aluminum dog named Sparko performs with him.