Around the 1920's Lester Hendershot, a keen aviator, was looking at trying to improve the Aviation Compass to make a more reliable Compass. He stumbled on a Energy Generator to be later named to the Hendershot Fuel-Less Generator. Some called the device the "Hendershot Magnetic Motor" or the "Hendershot Fuel-Less Motor".
"Fuelless Motor Impresses Experts"
New York Times (Sunday, February 26, 1928) - W.B. Stout Says, Invention Works Uncannily --- Washington Thinks It=92s Important ~ Built On A Radio Principle ~ Armature Winding New -- Invention Inspired By Young Son -- Lindbergh Flies Here
"Invention Result Of Dream"
Hendershot Made First Fuelless Motor For His Son=92s Toy Plane ~ The invention of the fuelless motor, tested at Detroit, was the result of a dream by its inventor, Lester Jennings Hendershot, who lives on "the street back of the railroad" in this town of about 3,000 inhabitants,
15 miles from Pittsburgh."Works On Principle Of Compass"
Lester J. Hendershot first came to Bettis airplane field in McKeesport between two and three years ago, and soon afterward brought one of his motor models to the officers of the field for inspection.
"Fuelless Motor Is A Generator"
New York Times (February 27, 1928) - The Hendershot "Fuelless motor" is not a motor at all but a generator, according to Major Thomas G. lanphier, commandant at Selfridge Field, Mich., where he with Lester J. Hendershot, the inventor, and D. Barr Peat, have been quietly working on an experimental model.
"May Seek Motor Patent"
New York Times (November 12, 1928) - M. C. Kelly to Ask Five Scientists to Test Hendershot Device
"Explains Magnet In Fuelless Motor"
New York Times (February 28, 1928) - Hendershot Says Shifting Its Field To east And West Causes Rotary Motion ~ Winding Of Magnet Secret ~ Inventor Asserts Engine Weighs But 4 Ounces Per Horsepower
'FUELLESS MOTOR' IS A GENERATOR; New Hendershot Device Has Enough Power to 'Kill a Man,' Lanphier Says. EXTENSIVE TESTS AHEAD Major Adds That Much Remains to Be Done Before Invention Can Be Applied Practically.
Hendershot Says Shifting its Field to East and West Causes Rotary Motion.
Winding of Magnet Secret. - Inventor Asserts Engine Weighs about 4 Ounces Per Horsepower Expected Here Today.
The New York Times - 1928 February 28 - PITTSBURGH Pen. - Initially indignant because the manner in which his fuelless motor gains its power had been misrepresented in dispatches from Detroit and Washington, Lester J Hendershot today stated there was nothing mysterious about his motor that the force that energizes it is the "same force that pulls the needle of the compass around, and there is nothing mysterious about that".
The fuelless motor was not his objective, he explained, at the time he began his experiments some three years ago, when he first became interested in aviation.
He soon learned that "the ultimate development of aviation depended largely upon the discovery or invention of an absolutely true and reliable compass," he explained, 'The ordinary magnetic compass does not point to the true north - it points to the magnetic north, and varies from the true north to a different extent at almost every point on the earth's surface." 'There is another compass, the magnetic induction compass, that indicates the true north. But it must be set before each flight, and is not always reliable."
"I found that with a pre-magnetized core, I could set up a magnetized field that would indicate the true north, but I didn't know just how to utilize that in the compass i set out to find." "In continuing my experiments, I learned that by cutting the same line of magnetic force
- north and south, I had an indicator of the true north, and that by cutting the magnetic field, east and west, I could develop a rotary motion."
"I now have a motor built on that principle that will rotate at a constant speed, a speed predetermined when the motor is built. It can be built for any desired speed, and a reliable constant speed motor is one of the greatest needs of aviation." The main secret of Mr. Hendershot's invention, his friend, Barr Peat declares, is, "the method of winding a magnet in the motor so that it will rotate in the opposite direction than the earth revolves." He says there is no heat, because magnetic forces are cold and the motor is stopped only by breaking the magnetic field in the windings. The magnet in the motor, he thinks probably would have to be recharged after about 2,000 hours of operation.
Mr. Hendershot declares that one of his motors, complete and ready to be installed in an airplane, would weight little more than four ounces for every horsepower it developed, while the best of the gas engines now built weighs about two pounds per horsepower.
Mr Hendershot says that altitude would not affect the efficient operation of his motor, for the magnetic influence of the earth has been found to remain the same as high as man has ever reached.
He said the same principle which made his original model operate only when it was placed in one direction - north and south, will be developed so that it will provide a compass that will always indicate true north.
Lester J. Hendershot inventor of the "fuelless motor" or self-driven generator or electrical, energy collector, nobody seems to known quite Which, is expected in New York today to dissipate some of the mystery surrounding his machine. It has aroused a good deal of skepticism among men who have dealt with electrical energy all their lives, and among physicists who do not believe that the law of the conservation of energy has been repealed. However, Major Thomas Lanphier, commander of the First Pursuit Group at Selfridge Field, Henry Breckinridge attorney for Colonel Charles A. lindbergh, and D. Barr Peat, a friend of Mr. Hendershot, are just as confident that the inventor has stumbled on something which may be capable of development into a revolutionary power source. Whether the machine has yet arrived in the City, Major Lanphier would not say, and he said yesterday that he did not care to say anything more about the motor until Mr. Hendershot arrives. He did deny again, however, that Colonel lindbergh had any interest in the machine aside from his examination of it while at Selfridge Field.
LIGHT SHED ON MARVEL MOTOR
Interesting light on the new "fuelless motor," which recently has stirred the scientific world, is cast by W. A. Spalding, former president of the Academy of Sciences and a well-known resident of Los Angeles...
Article 10 -- No Title (THE MAN WHO HAS TAKEN THE KICK OUT OF MOTORS)
Lamphier to Quit the Army.
2,000-Volt Shock From His Fuelless Motor Paralyzes Hendershot During Experiment
HENDERSHOT IN FOG OF RUMORS
The whereabouts of Lester J. Hendershot, for several days as mysterious as details of his invention, the fuelless motor, became known today with the discovery that Hendershot has been a patient at the Emergency Hospital here since Tuesday afternoon.
ahhhhh *sob*
Col. Lindbergh Helps to Test a New Motor, Said to Use Electro- Magnetism, No Fuel
L
Tests of the model of a wonderous no-fuel motor, operated by electro- magnetism have been made at the Selfidge flying field near Detroit.
Only today (writes the New York correspondent of the London "Daily Chronicle") am I able to give certain details of some of the results of yesterday's experiments.
Among those who are in the secret and who have witnessed the trials of the model are: Colonel Lindbergh, of trans Atlantic flight fame; Mr W. B. Stout, head of the Stout Airlines and designer of the all-metal tri- motored Ford monoplane; Major Thomas Lanphier, flight commander at the Selfidge field.
This seemingly miraculous machine is the invention of Mr Lester J. Hendershot, a Pittsburgh **ELECTRICAL-ENGINEER**
LATENT POWER MADE ACTIVE.
A company is being formed to develop it. It functions by a hitherto unknown manner of winding the armature. The inventor explains that energy is drawn directly from electric currents which exists permanently in the air and in the ground. in which are inexhaustible.
Though properties within the motor it self these potential energies are transformed into kinetic energies. Thus power can, is asserted, be delivered efficiently at the propeller shaft.
The model used in the test was about the size of the tiny motor used in vacuum cleaners.
Mr W. B. Stout says:--"The demonstration was very impressive. It was actually uncanny. I should very much like to see how a larger model, designed to develop power enough to life an aeroplane, would operate." Mr Stout is being assured that such a model will be built. Colonel Lindbergh declines to express any opinion about it. Mr Lanphier commits himself no further than to say that he things the machine has great possibilities. (This is a similar scheme to that upon which Taff* Jones was working here some time ago.)
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