Current Topics and Events

Abstract

Prof. F. G. Coker was recently presented in London with the Howard N. Potts gold medal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, awarded to him in recognition of his recent work on photo polari-metry. His method of determining stress in models of pieces and shapes made of homogeneous nitrocellulose material was brought to the attention of the Institute's committee on science and the arts in February 1921, and it was found that the General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, had in use Prof. Coker's apparatus. A committee was appointed to investigate the apparatus and method, and it reported that Prof. Coker's work was in the highest degree worthy of recognition by the Institute on account of the ingenuity and experimental skill shown “in applying the principles of photo elastimetry to the study of the magnitude and distribution of strains in models of pieces and shapes under stress.” The medal, with the accompanying certificate and report upon which the award was made, was presented to Prof. Coker at a dinner at the Savoy Hotel by Dr. R. B. Owens, secretary of the Franklin Institute. Some very remarkable achievements in gliding, or soaring flight, are described by the Berlin correspondent of the Times in the issue of August 21. The flights were made by two of the competitors in a test competition on the Wasserkuppe, near Fulda, for the grand prize for motorless sail-planes offered by the German Aeronautical Industrialists Union. On August 18 one of the competitors, Herr Martens, remained in the air forty-three minutes, cruised over the starting-place, and then flew due west, at an altitude of about 320 feet, a distance of ten kilometres, landing comfortably in a meadow near Weyhers. On the following day Herr Hentzen remained in the air about one hour forty-five minutes at an altitude varying between three hundred and six hundred feet, then cruised to the starting-line and across country, landing also in Weyhers, near the spot where Herr Martens had landed the day before. His total time in the air was two hours and ten seconds. The wind was west north west, a moderate breeze with occasional gusts. It died away as he set off for the cross-country flight. The machine flown by Herr Martens was a monoplane, designed by the Science Section of the Hanover Technical High School, in conjunction with the Hanover Flving School. The Times correspondent gives the following details of its structure: span, 39-4 ft.; wind surface, 172-2 sq. ft.; surface pressure, 2-4 lb. to the sq. ft. The pilot sits directly under the plane. The controls are worked by both the hands and feet. Lilienthal's glider, the correspondent recalls, had a span of 23 ft. and a wind surface of 151 sq. ft.