Word: doodlebug
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...still not satisfied. He persuaded the Denver Post to hire him to investigate further. Cahn came across Herman Flader, a Denver grain man and industrialist who said he had dealings with Newton and Ge Bauer in 1949. For $34,000, said Flader. they sold him an interest in three "Doodlebugs," radio-size machines covered with dials and bulbs that lighted up when a Doodlebug detected a well...
Reporter Cahn took the results of his investigation to the police and FBI. Ge Bauer and Newton were quickly picked up and released on bail to await trial for fraud. When police examined a Doodlebug, they found no plutonium, no delicate electronic mechanism. The Doodlebug was just a piece of war-surplus radio equipment that could be bought for $3.50. There had been one slight" change; flashlight batteries had been installed to light up the bulbs when the knobs were turned...
...freezing December night in 1928, a weird-looking little monoplane called "the Doodlebug" took off from a Milwaukee airfield and headed hopefully in the general direction of New York City. Designer-Pilot James S. McDonnell Jr., then 29, hoped to make aviation history by a daring night flight. Ha also hoped to prove that his plane was the safest in the air, thus get enough orders to start manufacturing the air "flivver." But he had scarcely cleared Milwaukee before the engine began flying apart. By a well-executed dead-stick landing in a farmer's field Pilot McDonnell saved...
...Doodlebug washed out, but Denver-born, M.I.T.-trained "Mac" McDonnell kept on doodling with designs, ultimately founded his own company and made his share of aviation history. In 1945, he got an order to build the first carrier-based jet fighter for the U.S. Navy, and thereby turned his small, six-year-old McDonnell Aircraft Corp. into a fast-growing big planemaker almost overnight. Last week, as he announced new expansion plans, McDonnell put his backlog at more than $200 million, the seventh biggest in the industry. And his profits for the fiscal year just ended were...
After the failure of his Doodlebug, McDonnell went to work for the Glenn L. Martin Co., rose to be chief project engineer of land planes. In 1938 he decided to take a second try at manufacturing, gave himself exactly six months to raise his stake. It took him seven. He rented a second-story office in St. Louis, hired 20 engineers and went scouting for orders. In the first two years he got none, even though he won a $3,000 design-award from the Army and a $9,900 award from the Navy. His first actual order...