10 YEARS AGO — NOVEMBER 18, 1999
High-tech street sweeper: The Johnson 5000 sweeper, designed and built by Johnson Engineering Ltd. in southern England, easily accesses narrow city streets. The hydrostatically driven sweepers feed a 4-cu-m hopper. It is powered by a 4-liter Perkins Phaser engine and has a top speed of 50 mph.
30 YEARS AGO — NOVEMBER 22, 1979
First production LACV-30s readied for the Army: Four LACV-30s (Lighter, Amphibious Air Cushion Vehicles–30-ton payload) are being built for the Army by Bell Aerospace Textron. The vehicles are designed to improve the Army’s capabilities to move containers from ship to shore and on land. The LACV-30 is essentially a stretched and modified version of the Voyageur air-cushion vehicle first built in 1971 by Bell Aerospace Canada. The new craft features two Pratt & Whitney of Canada ST6T-76 engines, each of which has a 1,400-shp normal rating and a 1,800-shp maximum rating.
50 YEARS AGO — NOVEMBER 26, 1959
Saggy satellite will be target for trackers: New balloon-like satellite derives no lift from its gas-filled microthin plastic bag. The 100-ft-diameter bag helps Earth observers locate the vehicle in space. The satellite starts its journey folded in a 30-in.-diameter sphere and, once ejected in space, is inflated by the automatic release of 4 lb of water (the water immediately vaporizes in the near-vacuum of space). Two intended uses of the satellite include as a lunar probe and as an Earth satellite to reflect radio and radar beams for investigation of forward-scattering techniques.