Taking the Air (1941)

[Music] h [Music] today Aviation speeds our defense AIDS our business in hundreds of different ways man has taken the air great progress has been made in the conquest of the skies in the past 30 years back in the year 1910 50 mph was about tops wherever it went this flying Barn Door had a regular built-in headwind it dragged along tons of air even in 1920 planes could barely do 100 m an hour because they just weren't streamlined early plane designers should have paid more attention to an Englishman named Horatio Phillips as long ago as the '90s Phillips had a contraption that was really an early version of a wind tunnel and with it he learned something about streamlining as the current passed around this blunt-nosed block it swirled and eddied agitating the feather and showing Mr Phillips what happened to the air finding that the air was much disturbed by its passage around a square block Mr Phillips experimented with many others this one had a curved surface and the air flowed smoothly around this object because it was very little resistance Mr Phillips had discovered the basic principle of streamlining which is simply shaping lines so the air can pass over smoothly without too much resistance but somehow nobody thought this was very important at the time Mr Phillips was forgotten until years later we wanted to make our planes go faster then began scientific research to learn the secrets of air in motion man-made cyclon shriek through Modern wind tunnels at speeds as high as 760 mph even faster than the speed of sound the brainchild of Horatio Phillips has come of age at last in this age of wings with these instruments Engineers observe the action of the Wind on a Model suspended in the tunnel down down down spinning to the Earth will the wings crumple when the plane pulls out of the dive no because in vertical wind tunnels like this models are first tried out under conditions simulating those met when a full full siiz plane is in a real dive and today in gigantic wind tunnels like this one at America's famed Langley field fullsize planes are tested a veritable tornado comes out of that immense tunnel forcing tremendous pressure against the plane to stir up a hurricane in that monster it takes 8,000 horsepower as a result of this unending research American designed an American built PL s are today the Envy of the world Ultra streamline Beauties which slip through the air at better than 400 mph Engineers found that the same principles of streamlining could be applied to craft moving through the water so today the halls of sea planes are designed from tests made in this artificial River the huge framework above the water is a rolling Carriage which will tow this model Hull at speeds equivalent to 80 M hour hang on as we go with the engineer for a test and the result of months and years of experiment transoceanic planes that carry heavy loads thanks to streamlining the same methods have helped to perfect the fast new Navy mosquito boats roaring over the waves at 57 M hour Uncle Sam's newest weapon packs a mighty sting streamline for both air and water now what about streamlining on land Automotive Engineers have been busy too and today with a new method of Photography they are able to study the motion of the air around a moving object a stream of air will be blown against this block we will be able to see what happens to the air just as if the block were moving ahead hitting the front of the block the air meets a lot of resistance as in the oldfashioned automobile which was shaped something like this resistance wasn't much less when cars of a few years ago were shaped like this block but the engineers kept on improving rounding off sharp corners and slanting flat surfaces until today the the Contour of the modern automobile follows a design which is the result of many experiments here is the Streamline shape of our most modern automobile designed so that the air streams by in a smooth easy line which is the basis of all streamlining thus resistance is lowered speed and safety increased let's take this car out on the road for some practical tests of streamlining those ribbons are floating easily across the top of the car because of stream streamlining this experiment shows that there's no bubbling or confusion of the air just a smooth gliding stream let's try another test this affair is a hydraulic jack arranged so it will open the doors of the car and hold them open when it's traveling at a fair cruising speed this gauge will tell us how many pounds of pressure we're up against now let's go for a ride we'll sit in back and keep out of the way of that Gadget say they've even got the inside streamlined the front doors will be closed at the start and then the hydraulic jack will open them well we're getting up to a nice Road speed now let's see what will happen if we open those doors watch this there go the doors opening slowly against the tremendous pressure of the onrushing air they're only partly open but the pressure goes up and it takes more gas to hold our speed at 50 here's some something you'll never see on the road doors wide open at 50 mph and it takes a wide open throttle to fight against that pressure 200 lb of pressure and using twice as much gas to keep that speedometer up there now see what's happening to those ribbons the resistance of the door makes the air churn around in edies causing drag this experiment shows the terrific pressure the engineers had to overcome and did by streamlining the modern car streamlined as it is meets Little Resistance air currents can slip over the rounded Contours and that makes for greater safety Automobiles of today are faster safer and more economical to operate designers and Engineers have spent years of testing years of finding out about the air and what it does so on land water and in the air America has been streamlined America takes the air l [Music]