Wind Powered Tractor

Wind Powered Tractor ENERGY Wind Power 6-2-18 Jim Bradley, of Milestone, Sask., held a carefully constructed graph of prairie wind velocity and tapped it occasionally for emphasis. "You study that awhile; you can see that there is more power in wind than in anything we have, more than our coal mines, water power or anything else. And it doesn't pollute, it's inexhaustible, unlimited and available anywhere ù especially here." He should know. In the summer of 1931, Bradley, now 81 years old, worked up a nice seed bed on his farm with a homemade wind powered tractor. "There was no shortage of gas or oil back then, just a shortage of money, so I rigged it up as an experiment," Bradley recalls. The base was the bottom of an old Fordson tractor which supported the 12-foot tower that held the blades. The tractor could travel against as well as with the wind with the four large blades turning a gear that powered the drive-shaft, controlled by a clutch assembly just above the tractor on the windmill tower. In a normal wind the whole apparatus would chug along at two miles per hour pulling a small plow. Not bad considering the whole thing weighed in at three tons. "The biggest problem was its tendency to tip. The front wheels would lift right off the round," Bradley added with a laugh. This was remedied by the addition of two steel beams to the front, giving the tractor more stability and more weight. What Bradley really had in mind was an automatic tractor that would run itself, starting as the wind picked up and moving with its fluctuations. Steering would be handled by a device that followed the ridges of soil left by the discs which ran along side of the plow, a plan that may be limited to Saskatchewan with its level and limitless horizons. He actually did build an automatic tractor, a gas-powered one modified to plow in big concentric circles while he went home for lunch.

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