March 1930: Clessie Cummins sets the speed record for diesel-powered vehicles, 80 mph, in a modified Packard Roadster on the sands at Daytona Beach, Fla.
Transoceanic flight planned for airliner
In Machine Design: German aeronautical engineer Claude Dornier makes plans to fly his DO-X seaplane from Lake Constance in Germany to New York. The seaplane is the largest plane in the world at the time. For the flight, Dornier replaces the plane’s 12 Siemens & Haskle Jupiter engines (two per nacelle) with 12 Curtis Conquer engines, increasing the plane’s power from 6,000 to 7,200 hp. The flight will include 12 crewmembers and 50 passengers.
In Machine Design: Orville Wright became the first person to receive the Daniel Guggenheim Medal for Aeronautics based on his work designing and manufacturing the first engine-propelled plane. (His brother Wilbur had already died by this time.)
April 1930: Hostess Twinkies were invented by bakery executive James Dewar; and Wallace Carothers, a DuPont researcher, makes the first synthetic rubber, later called Neoprene.
Designing machines to mine coal
An entire article looks at the challenges of designing machines to help miners pull coal out of the ground quicker and, most importantly, safer. The article appears at the same time a major tradeshow, the Mining Congress, was being held in Cincinnati to unveil many of these devices. According to the article, “The exposition was said to be one of the most comprehensive of its kind ever held, proving that mine operators now realize fully the advantages to be gained from well designed and correctly applied machinery.”