At 4 a.m. one morning last November at Boeing’s Seattle plant a huge tarpaulin-covered shape was rolled out to the test areas under armed guard. The shape under the canvas was that of the Air Force’s newest and world’s biggest jet bomber, the XB-52, a 350,000-pound plane built on lines of a jet fighter. In the drawing above, Artist John T. McCoy shows the power and beauty of the plane which is the culmination of 35 years of progress in U.S. military aviation. In the drawings on the following pages, McCoy traces the ancestry of the XB-52 back to the wood-and fabric biplanes of World War I, then shows the developments of the fighter from the Spads bought from France in 1918 to today’s 700-mph jets and illustrates how far the Navy has come from its 85-mph flying boats. The untested XB-52, still far from the production line, will be of no immediate help to the Air Force.

Read more life magazine back issues here.

Earlier this year, Apollo 14 had Alan Shepard and his version of a golf club. This July, Apollo 15 will have its own version of a golf cart. Folded, squeezed and packed into a storage compartment in the lunar module’s descent stage will be a four-wheeled battery-driven moon car called the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). More simply known as Rover, the cart is built to travel at 10 mph and go 40 miles before its nonrechargeable batteries run down. The Apollo 15 mission plan calls for Rover to carry astronauts David Scott and James Irwin about 20 miles in three seven-hour explorations during their 86 hours on the moon. For safety’s sake Rover will travel only three to four miles from the LM at any time, which is the distance an astronaut can walk if need be. Nor will the vehicle exceed 6 mph unless an emergency occurs or in the unlikely event its drivers find a smooth, fast straight- away and decide to hold the first lunar drag race. Within those limits, though. the cart will make it possible for Irwin and Scott to do more exploring than all the other lunar astronauts put together.

Read more old life magazines here.

Scattered about the U.S. are some 1,100 houses which long before the housing shortage were receiving the longing stares of almost everyone who passed them by. They were designed by Royal Barry Wills, a Boston architect whose products seem to be an almost perfect fulfillment of the sentimen. tal American ideal of what a home should be. Most of Mr. Wills’s houses are early American in design-Cape Cod cottages, houses with saltbox roofs or garrison houses with overhanging second stories. Besides designing real houses Wills has designed several hundred on paper and published them in six books which have a combined sale of 520,000, making him the nation’s most popular architectural author. Solidly entrenched as the leading U.S.

Read more life magazine back issues here.

You have to look twice at the airplane pictured above to see that it is flying without a propeller. Its motive force is the thrust of two invisible streams of hot combustion gases, jetted at high velocity from its engines. This plane is the Army Air Forces’ P-59, the first U.S. plane to be flown by jet propulsion, Like the first horseless carriage, the propellerless P-59 does not suggest by its appearance that a new age in locomotion is at hand. The fact is, however, that the aerodynamic lid is off. With jet propulsion, aircraft have already climbed to new speeds and altitudes. The ultimate ceiling is as high as man’s daring and ingenuity will take it. The principle of jet propulsion, demonstrated on the next two pages, is Newton’s third law of motion: to every action there is opposed a reaction which is equal in force and opposite in direction. Anyone who has fired a rifle knows this reaction as the recoil that kicks the butt against the shoulder. 

Read more buy life magazines here.

You have to look twice at the airplane pictured above to see that it is flying without a propeller. Its motive force is the thrust of two invisible streams of hot combustion gases, jetted at high velocity from its engines. This plane is the Army Air Forces’ P-59, the first U.S. plane to be flown by jet propulsion, Like the first horseless carriage, the propellerless P-59 does not suggest by its appearance that a new age in locomotion is at hand. The fact is, however, that the aerodynamic lid is off. With jet propulsion, aircraft have already climbed to new speeds and altitudes. The ultimate ceiling is as high as man’s daring and ingenuity will take it. The principle of jet propulsion, demonstrated on the next two pages, is Newton’s third law of motion: to every action there is opposed a reaction which is equal in force and opposite in direction.

Read more vintage life magazines here.

Remember When Booklet from 1987. The perfect way to share your memories with those you love. 24 full-color pages of fascinating facts and authentic advertisements are sure to trigger many emotions as you reminisce about your special year. this Remember When Booklet is the perfect way to share your memories with those you love. 24 full-color pages of fascinating facts and authentic advertisements are sure to trigger many emotions as you reminisce about your special year. Envelope included.

Welcome to WordPress! This is your first post. Edit or delete it to take the first step in your blogging journey.