Credits: Courtesy of Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, Western Carolina University and WCU Mobile App Development Team (screenshot); Mutlu Kurtbas/iStockphoto (iPhone)
Dial-a-Flood: A New Smart Phone App Helps Residents and Researchers Predict Storm Surges
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Barnstorming Spirit: Who’s faster? Charles Hamilton in a Curtiss biplane races a high-powered automobile along the shore at Galveston, Texas. The winner was the biplane "which beat the auto by a liberal allowance.”... Scientific American, Vol. CVI, No. 10, March 9, 1912
Bombs from the Air: The idea of deploying bombs and grenades from aircraft was not new, the question was how to do so accurately. Here’s one method, the steep dive, much to the surprise of a passing flock of seagulls... Scientific American, Vol. CVII, No. 11, September 14, 1912
Paris Air Show, 1912: Two years before the outbreak of World War I, this ominous comment: “The most noticeable feature of the show this year was the fact that nearly all the machines are intended for military use.” Shown at the exhibition and in plan, the Deperdussin “Monocoque,” holder of the airspeed record for much of 1912 and 1913... Scientific American, Vol. CVII, No. 22, November 30, 1912 and Vol. CVI, No. 18, May 4, 1912
Folding Wings: Useful for storage and transport. The inventors of the Marçay-Moonen airplane, however, envisaged that with wings folded, the propeller would drive it along roads like an automobile... Scientific American, Vol. CVI, No. 18, May 4, 1912
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Lab Work: Gustave Eiffel, designer of the eponymous tower, opened his new aerodynamics laboratory in Paris. This photo shows the giant suction motor for the 100-foot-long wind tunnel. The lab still stands at 67 Rue Boileau... Scientific American, Vol. CVI, No. 20, May 18, 1912
Human-Powered Flight: A prize of 10,000 francs for muscle-driven flight drew 23 inventors to a Paris park in June. The results were so wretched that the Scientific American editors questioned the motives for the contest: “Perhaps it was merely a desire for publicity, perhaps an exuberant sense of humor.”... Scientific American, Vol. CVII, No. 1, July 6, 1912
Fly Your Own: Airplane kits and finished models were sold widely. This advertisement for the short-lived Brooks Aeroplane Co. shows the pilot “with both hands off the controls” (presumably to show how safe and stable this death-trap was in flight)... Scientific American, Vol. CVII, No. 7, August 17, 1912
Airplanes for the Navy: The first successful catapult launch of an airplane in November, 1912, proved that airplanes could be used from battleships. This configuration, a catapult track on top of a turret, was to be used by navies worldwide for decades... Scientific American, Vol. CVII, No. 24, December 14, 1912
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Transatlantic Flight: “The next great conquest of the aeroplanes will be the transit of the turbulent Atlantic.” This theoretical design had a wingspan of 100 feet and an airspeed of 50 miles per hour... Scientific American, Vol. CVI, No. 5, February 3, 1912
Researchers have had a notoriously difficult time predicting how much flooding a given area will experience in the wake of a storm. Now a team led by researchers at Western Carolina University has developed a Web site and smartphone app that may help. The scientists gathered storm-surge data going back 65 years at more than 3,400 sites along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and are making it available just in time for the June 1 start of the Atlantic hurricane season (see http://stormsurge.wcu.edu). Users can enter a zip code and view a map that shows all high-water measurements made in that area. Also shown are the paths of the hurricanes that caused those floods, along with other aspects that most likely influenced storm-surge height, including wind speed and barometric pressure.
The database, which the researchers continue to compile, will ultimately be maintained and archived at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. Detailed analyses of this information may lead to a better understanding of the nonstorm-related factors that influence surges, including the slope of the seafloor immediately offshore, says Katie McDowell Peek, a member of the Western Carolina team. And scientists may be better able to forecast a storm’s effects by comparing its projected path and strength with those of hurricanes that previously struck the coast.
This article was published in print as "Go with the Flow."
This article was originally published with the title "Go with the Flow" in Scientific American 306, 5, 27 (June 2012)
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