Edgar
HOLMES
Gyradoscope
Gyradoscope
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1978&dat=19321027&id=Spo1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=1qsFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3095,534485
The Owosso Argus-Press ( 27 October 1932 )
1000
Miles An Hour With Plane Design
By NEA Service Denver -- Speeds from 800 to 1000 miles an hour are seen possible through the use of a new device, the "gyradoscope", to replace the propeller of an airplane, according to the inventor of the attachment, Edgar R. Holmes.
Holmes asserts that the gyradoscope will double the power thrust of the conventional-type motor and increase air speed of the ordinary plane more than 200 miles an hour without altering the present construction of plane or engine.
He hopes to reach from 800 to 1000 miles an hour by special designing of motor and the plane itself.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/strange-lifting-force-used-in-novel-airship/
Modern Mechanics (January 1931)
Strange
Lifting Force Used in Novel Airship
WHAT is certainly the most unique airship in the world is now under construction in the form of an experimental model in the factory of its inventor in Denver, Colorado. As depicted on these pages, the extraordinary ship will use neither propellers nor gas to keep it in the air, but will depend on a mechanism which its inventor, Edgar R. Holmes, calls the “gyradoscope”.
Each horsepower of gyradoscope is expected to lift 1,000 pounds vertically in midair and sustain the load at any desired elevation by regulating the speed, and the inventor expects a machine weighing 2,000 pounds to lift 500 tons.
Briefly, the gyradoscope combines gyroscopic action with centrifugal force. As described in the prospectus of the company, the gyradoscope consists of two wheels rotating in opposite directions in the same plane. Each wheel has several weights, the arms of which are connected to eccentrics on each wheel, which propel the weights in opposite directions in such a way that a lifting effect is exerted when the weights are at the top point of travel.
The exact mechanism by which this effect is produced is somewhat obscure, but a model of the device already built has been bolted to the floor of a freight elevator, it is claimed, and succeeded in raising and lowering it with ease. In this test a 20-horsepower gasoline engine furnished power.
Lifting force exerted by the gyradoscope is likened to that of a ball thrown on the end of a string. The weight of the ball at the moment it draws the string taut exerts a lifting effect on a pencil or other object to which the bottom of the string may be tied. In the gyradoscope the moving weights on the wheels are analogous to the thrown ball. To a casual scrutiny the whole idea seems very much like lifting one’s self by one’s boot straps, but the success attained with models indicates that the inventor may be successful in developing an entirely new type of aircraft.
Forward motion is to be supplied by a gyradoscope in horizontal plane, and steering will be accomplished by a similar mechanism. In case of accident to the lifting gyros, which would result in the ship’s dropping like a plummet, auxiliary machines are provided which are kept running at idling speed ready to be called upon in an emergency.
Four hydraulic landing feet, one on each corner of the ship, absorb the shock of landing, which is expected to be insignificant since rate of descent is controlled by speed of the gyradoscope.
Mr. Holmes, inventor of the gyro-ship, also has the invention of a popular front wheel drive for autos to his credit, as well as a four wheel drive and a caloric steam engine. This latter machine would supply the power for the airship. As developed by Mr Holmes, waste heat from oil combustion is used in the caloric engine to convert water into steam, which drives a turbine, and is then condensed to be used over again.
http://www.keelynet.com/news/121913f.html
KeelyNet
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Transportation-The-American-Gyro-Co-Denver-CO-1931-Letters-Ephemera-/350942745003
http://keelynet.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/strange-lifting-force-used-in-novel-airship-jan-1931/
The
American Gyro 'Gyradoscope' Inertial Flyer
Above is a picture of the Gyradoscope unit that American Gyro company is now building and which it expects to have completed in the very near future.
A - Is the Gyradoscope
B - The Gyro Amplifier or transmission
C - An ordinary gasoline engine
D - The base or floor of the Gyro Ship
This working model of the Gyradoscope, which is 20 inches in diameter and 14 inches in width, is designed to lift and sustain in Mid-Air, a load of approximately 3,000 pounds with 3 HP applied energy.
The machine has two large Gyro wheels that revolve in opposite directions at about 3,000 RPM, or a rim speed of more than 2 miles per minute.
In the machine are twelve 7 pound weights, each of which travels from the center to the periphery or rim of the gyro wheels at each revolution of the wheels.
Thus each weight is traveling two miles per minute in one instant, and the next instant or half revolution of the wheel, it is only traveling some 300 feet per minute.
The difference in the velocity of these weights traveling between the high and low points of rotative speed, together with the gyroscopic action of the Gyro wheels, creates the force that is controlled and directed. A brief explanation of the Gyro Amplifier is given on the opposite page.
The exact mechanism by which this effect is produced is somewhat obscure, but a model of the device already built has been bolted to the floor of a freight elevator, it is claimed, and succeeded in raising and lowering it with ease. In this test a 20-horsepower gasoline engine furnished power.
Lifting force exerted by the gyradoscope is likened to that of a ball thrown on the end of a string. The weight of the ball at the moment it draws the string taut exerts a lifting effect on a pencil or other object to which the bottom of the string may be tied. In the gyradoscope the moving weights on the wheels are analogous to the thrown ball.
To a casual scrutiny the whole idea seems very much like lifting one’s self by one’s boot straps, but the success attained with models indicates that the inventor may be successful in developing an entirely new type of aircraft.
Forward motion is to be supplied by a gyradoscope in horizontal plane, and steering will be accomplished by a similar mechanism.
With reference to the posted ebay item for $50.00, they write; "Lot contains the contents of two offers from The American Gyro Company, discussing its inventions related to automobile and aviation performance, and soliciting stock orders from the public at one cent a share! The contents of each include lengthy sales letters extolling the company's Gyradoscope ("the answer to the problems of rapidly transporting great burdens through the air").
Mention is also made of The Caloric Steam Engine, the Gyro Amplifier and the Holmes Twin Shot Dieselator, a spark plug. A brochure is included about the last mentioned product. Testimonials about the Dieselator are included on a separate page. A subscription blank for ordering the one cent stock is also enclosed.
The second offer enclosed an illustration/diagram of the Gyradoscope and Gyro Amplifyer, which was designed to lift and sustain in mid-air, a load of approximately 3,000 pounds with 3 H.P. applied energy. It is described in some detail. On the reverse is a detailed description of the Gyro Amplifier, "an automatic self-contained automobile transmission that is gearless, frictionless and has no clutch."
There is very little information available about these products. However, the company did produce a most unusual aircraft, the Shelton AG-4 Crusader, c1935 (see illustration).
Only one was ever produced, the company going bankrupt c1938. The plans for the plane were sold to Timm Aircraft, but there was no further development of the craft. Thomas Miles Shelton worked for the American Gyro Company as an engineer and was the principal designer of the Crusader.
The Owosso Argus-Press - Oct 27, 1932
1000
Miles an Hour with Plane Device
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner ( 1933-03-23 )
ATTENTION Ladies and Gentlemen: Once more and finally I would like to bring to your notice and the enormous and immense consideration the great assets, merits, and wonderful possibilities of American Gyro Company, Inc. American Gyro has been incorporated approximately only three years, with five revolutionary and absolutely new inventions as its assets from the start, which have grown to eight inventions at the present time, and has increased from four hundred original stockholders to eight thousand. Five of these eight inventions, each and every one of them separately would be big enough to form and constitute a great industrial concern in itself, but those eight combined which form American Gyro have been and are now growing, right at the present, in the midst of the greatest depression ever known, with amazing speed, into one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, industrial giants ever recorded in the annals of commerce. What American Gyro has accomplished in the last three years, since its inception, is really and truly marvelous and startling. Come and see and I will show you. I have been connected with American Gyro for two years and a half and have all the data concerning the same on my finger tips. The first of the three Inventions on the market now is the American Gyro Cartridge-Fire Spark-Plug. It is a wonder without compare. Saves in the first place from forty to fifty per cent, gasoline, and is by actual test five times as efficient in every respect as the very best spark plug up to date in use. American Gyro Cartridge-Fire Spark-Plug was entered into the Labor Day Races, made forty successive trips up to Pikes Peak and back, each trip in nineteen minutes or less and each trip of twelve miles, and was found as perfect at the finish as at the start, whereas the best spark-pliug en the market up to date could negotiate the same round trip to Pikes Peak but once and in very rare cases twice. There is a market in the United States alone for three hundred million spark-plugs every year, and .American Gyro is protected with patents for all eight inventions throughout the world. I handle the spark-plug right here in Fairbanks, Come and see them for yourselves. Immediately after the Pike's Peak races the great Superiority of the A.G. Cartridge Fire Spark Pulg was again demonstrated in the terrific run against time from Denver, Colorado to Los Angeles, Calif. in a blinding snowstorm over the Sierra' Nevada Mountains and back to Denver again, 2824 miles driving time in 2726 minutes officially checked and sealed by Western Union—and after arrivel in Denver and seal broken it was found spark plugs were perfectly clean and practically n as good z. condition as before the start — good for any thousands of miles of usage. I gladly will show photographs of both Pkes Peak and Denver—Los Angeles races to anyone who may care to see them at my place at the Riverside Hotel. The Gyradoscope, the greatest invention of them all, ever conceived and accomplished by man, was only proven and perfected in the • last nine months. With only two segments or one unit in the gyro plane it will transport six and a half tons of pay load from Los Angeles to New York in approximately eight hours, which event is scheduled to happen and be accomplished in the latter part of coming August, and the same Gyradoscope, in multiplied number of units, combined with the rocket principle, in the real Gyro ship, without wings and no outside propeller, which will be called into being by American Gyro. Company in the near future and which will be the greatest gift ever presented to mankind, will transport in one ship load thousands of pas' sengers and tons of freight, with undreamed and unheard of speed, around the world, in less than a day. Space forbids to mention the other six great inventions..
Automatic
transmission
US1863985
US1863985
[
PDF ]
1932-06-21
... This invention, briefly described, consists of a device having a heavy inertia member or fly wheel rotatably carried by the drive shaft and having also an eccentric that can be connected with the drive shaft, so that it will be rotated by the drive shaft or which can be disconnected from the drive shaft so as to permit free relative motion between the eccentric and the drive shaft...
[ Compare this design with George CONSTANTINESCO : Inertial Transmission and Eric LAITHWAITE : Gyroscopic Levitation ( & other Motion Rectifiers ) ]
Note that both the article & patent descriptions include a flywheel and eccentric. -- This is the "Gyro Amplifier"... From Modern Mechanics above :
"...the gyradoscope consists of two wheels rotating in opposite directions in the same plane. Each wheel has several weights, the arms of which are connected to eccentrics on each wheel, which propel the weights in opposite directions in such a way that a lifting effect is exerted when the weights are at the top point of travel..."
A very interesting design...
Inventor: HOLMES EDGAR R // SHELTON THOMAS M
Applicant: AMERICAN GYRO CO
CPC: B64C11/24
Y10S415/914
IPC: B64C11/24
1933-08-15
Dual-Ignition :
