The Magnificent Men In Their Whooshing Machines

"Classic means of transportation on wheels are coming to the end of a historic run." So says Kyunojo Ozawa, one of Japan's ace aircraft designers, who is dean of science at Meijo University. All over today's industrial world, entrepreneurs, scientists and bureaucrats are busy developing imaginative ways to move men and goods both faster and cheaper. A lot of the innovations still depend on wheels, but some ride, glide or whoosh lightly over the surface on cushions of air. Certainly many an American contemplating auto traffic in Los Angeles or other big modern cities has come to the instinctive conclusion that the wheel must go.

Ozawa, a thinker and tinkerer who designed such World War II bombers as the "Flying Dragon," contends that the world will soon have to adopt radical approaches to surmount the speed limits of conventional land transport. On a test track near Nagoya, he has built a miniature model of his "sonic gliding vehicle," which looks like a needle-nosed submarine. His idea calls for a 627-ft., jet-powered shell that would slide along the tops of vertical columns spaced 300 ft. apart; it would carry 1,000 passengers from city to city at speeds close to that of sound.

Ships on Air. From such far-out ideas come down-to-earth breakthroughs. It was only ten years ago that Christopher Cockerell, an English engineer, reversed the suction on a household vacuum cleaner, stuck the hose through the bottom of an open-ended tin can, watched the can float--and got the idea for the hovercraft. Today's hovercraft are amphibious vessels that glide across land or sea a few inches above the surface, supported on jets of air around the perimeter of the hull. Two weeks ago, Swedish Lloyd and the Swedish American lines signed a deal to put hovercraft into big-league passenger service for the first time.

Next May, the companies will begin summer trips across the English Channel with two leased 38-passenger craft, built by Britain's Westland Aircraft. The vessels will cruise at up to 50 knots, make the Ramsgate-to-Calais voyage in 30 minutes (v. 1 1/2 hours for conventional ships). In 1968, the Swedish firms will get even bigger and faster amphibians: 500-passenger craft that will cross the channel in 18 minutes at cruising speeds of 70 knots, can operate year-round even in rough waves.

The French government has just put up $600,000 to develop a high-speed hybrid combining elements of the hovercraft and the monorail. Called the aerotrain, it will be designed to glide over a T-shaped rail at up to 240 m.p.h. on a cushion of air, provide rapid transportation between cities that are too close for economic air travel. Berlin & Co. expects to test the first no-wheel experimental model by year's end. If it works well, it could be the first to break through the 200-m.p.h. barrier beyond which conventional trains encounter such friction and air resistance that they have trouble staying on the rails. Along similar lines, Ford Motor Co. has devised a model of a cigar-shaped vehicle dubbed the Levacar, which runs 300 m.p.h. along guide rails on a film of air forced through the perforated metal pads on the car's undersides.

Remote Controls. Trains with old-fashioned wheels are speeding up too. Japan led the way with its silvery Tokaido Express, which races from Tokyo to Osaka at 125 m.p.h. Last week in Munich, at the International Transport Exhibition, which drew 300,000 people in its first twelve days, the West German government showed off an electric train that covers the 40 miles from the exhibit grounds to Augsburg in 26 minutes--at a top speed of 130 m.p.h. As fast as they can improve roadbeds elsewhere, the Germans plan to introduce the speedy service throughout the country.

In the U.S., Philadelphia's Budd Co. last month displayed a model of a self-propelled train--powered by either electricity or gas turbines--that could sprint along the Boston-Washington corridor at 160 m.p.h. In Pittsburgh, Westinghouse Electric has just completed an experimental 9,340-ft. "skybus" test track, over which "trains" of rubber-tired buses are guided at up to 50 m.p.h., by an electrically charged center rail--with no driver at the controls.

In the air, the trend is to giants. The Aereon Corp. of King of Prussia, Pa., is even trying to revive that dinosaur of air travel, the dirigible. Though its triple-hulled airship has yet to fly, the company hopes to fill a need by hauling freight faster than it can go by land, yet cheaper than in conventional planes.

Russia impressed the Paris Air Show last month by introducing the world's biggest plane: 187 ft. long, with a 211-ft. wingspan, the AN-22 turboprop can haul 80 tons of cargo or 720 passengers. Last week three U.S. companies--Boeing, Lockheed and Douglas--cautiously divulged some of their plans for a projected U.S. military cargo jet, the C-5A, which would top the Soviet behemoth. They are competing for a contract that the Pentagon is expected to award next month; the winner should have a plane flying by 1969.

Boeing's version, larger than the others, would weigh as much as four whales (about 700,000 lbs.), have a wingspan of 220 ft. and an interior floor longer than a hockey rink. Lockheed's model, with a 212-ft. wingspan, could carry 100 tons of cargo or 700 passengers at speeds above 500 m.p.h. (v. 460 m.p.h. for the Soviet giant). The 228-ft. Douglas ship could haul 1,000 passengers or 150 tons of cargo. All could lead to economical commercial models by 1971 or '72. Douglas figures that, by carrying so many passengers at once, it could cut the cost of air tickets to Europe or across the U.S. by one-half.

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