AMERICA’S LATEST WONDER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2124, 6 May 1920, Page 4

AMERICA’S LATEST WONDER.

FLYING TUBE FOR MAIL

The metropolis of California has on several occasions' startled the world, notably with its memorably earthquake and lire in 1906, and nine years later with its Panama,Pacific International. Exposition, but now it is seeking to become the world’s aero hub in the series of big airplane events which are on the races the machine ahead nntaxed. The entry for the first round-the-world air race of a 500-milc-an-hour projectile type air machine, to be known as ‘’The Greene Service Tube,’’ has injected an unusual flavour into latest Hying devices. The inventor of this remarkable-machine is a San Franciscian named E. M. Greene, who has just unfolded some of his secrets to a mystified public. The machine —on which nine basic patent claims have been allowed — will revolutionise aeronautical 1 science, ifs inventor declares. Plans have been perfected to have the lube constructed within four or five months for introduction info a mail service to he established between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America. Greene, the successful inventor of a number of devices, including the first gasolene power rock drill, has had the ’“Greene Sendee Tube’ 7 approved by Fred V. King, a well-known consulting engineer of San Francisco, and by a Russian engineer, Marcus Love. A report will shortlv be submit!ed to the Invention Board in Washington for one week’s consideration by the, United Slates Government of (Irene's offer of a first production option, after which, savs the inventor, he will place his device in the hands of waiting structural interests.

MAIL BY CAPSULE. Greene and his consulting engineers are prepared to demonstrate how his ,200-foot tube will have a, lifting capacity ten times greate* (kan the stock 550-foot Zeppelin dirigible. The base upon which Ur.! inventor claims he will revolulionise ■practical aviation is the adoption of the two lift principle employed in airplanes and gas dirigibles. “A single 200-foot machine will carry without si op from San Francisco to New York,” said Greene, “a distance ‘of 3,330 miles—as much mail as is sent across the Continent now daily in any one train. 1 have carefully worked out a mail system that will deliver practically an unlimited number of letters from San Francisco to New York and way cities. Ordinary mail sacks will he handled for a time, but we shall rapidly in- ( mince filmed letters. I mean that widi an office camera a San Francisco stenographer will make a copy of a letter the size of one cinema exposure, which will curl into a numbered metallic capsule, and will finally be retyped under an office microscope that evening in the New York addressee's office.”

introducing another new basic principle, Greene has provided a ‘‘Jiving pro pel! or” which will enable bis tubes to drop within a foot of the ground and hover indefinitely without touching. The same propellors, one at each,end of the ship swinging in any direction at command, will turn the machine in its own length, he claims, .It is asserted that ame of iho first “Greene Service Tubes” to be constructed wilt have streamline allowances, and a. six-passenger gondola ear that will limit speed only by beat friction. This is to say 1,000 miles an hour! The tube will have four cigarshaped gas containers designed to fit around an aluminium composition framework, leaving a. centre tunnel or passage-way. The trout propeller thrusts its blast through this channel, where the lifting power of the breeze is taken advantage of, as in the case of an airplane, by ilarbracve’s kite surfaces. Through the buoyancy of the four helium gas containers, the machine's deadweight is equalised. By means .of the Hargreaveks kite surfaces the lifting capacity is so increased that the central driving team of propellers races tea machine ahead nntaxed. The tube's “skin” is of the improved “Onnitson” aluminium composition employed in Zeppelins. A 200-foot model tube will weigh, Greene says, four and a-half tons. It will carry

a collapsible landing gear, and will alight on land or water. Greene, while spending much of his time in experimentation, has served for 16 years as cashier in the office of the Sheriff of San Francisco.