A cutaway within a cutaway. Drawn by Stewart Rouse, this illustrates a generic WWII fighter plane peeled back to show the pilot within. Then the pilot’s gravity suit itself is peeled back to reveal some of its inner workings. Bladders within the suit were inflated with air from the craft, to minimize the chance of… Continue reading WWII Fighter Plane Cutaway Showing Gravity Suit, 1945
Category: 1940s
Cutaways from the 1940s (1940 to 1949).
Futuristic Car Cutaway, 1940
In 1940, it was asked if we might be driving a car like this in only two years. The novel cutaway turned the notion of how to design a car on its head: streamlined to look like “a giant aerial bomb on wheels,” with the engine in back, driver in the center, and rear passengers… Continue reading Futuristic Car Cutaway, 1940
Quonset Hut / House Cutaway, 1946
A gorgeous picture of a Quonset hut from 1946, touted by Popular Science as a possible “stop gap” to the immediate post World War II housing shortage. I’ve called it a Quonset hut/house because it clearly does not resemble its earlier incarnation: Army barracks. In fact, the vets were said to be moving back to… Continue reading Quonset Hut / House Cutaway, 1946
Palomar Observatory Cutaway 1947
Famed Palomar Observatory, just outside of San Diego, CA, had not yet been finished at the time this cutaway drawing was published. The drawing shows the observatory’s massive 200-inch mirror that, at that moment, was being finished at optical labs at Cal Tech, Pasadena, CA. The disk of glass was 17 feet in diameter, and… Continue reading Palomar Observatory Cutaway 1947
Consolidated Vultee Clipper (PanAm) Cutaway, 1945
I’m not certain when this Rolf Klep cutaway was produced, but the magazine text mentions that V-E Day was upcoming, so I’ll put it at 1945. This 160 ton aircraft was expected to be able to take 200 passengers from New York to London in 9 hours. Consolidated ventured that it would build about 15… Continue reading Consolidated Vultee Clipper (PanAm) Cutaway, 1945