R_. C_.,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Sir:
I've sent along a thank you note through the post, but I that's not enough for such a beautiful present. Vivian and Carole almost died with jealousy when I tried it on for them, not that I noticed such things! If I were not the best dressed girl on campus before, well. . . .
I should also thank you for the chance to wear it out! I doubt A. could have got us invitations there. I don't know what it says that you can be in San Francisco for my 21st, and my parents can't! But you have already heard me out so patiently that I won't bother you again. Nor will I bother you again about what you talked about with A. after dinner. Spy stuff? Don't worry about talking in front of me, I am very discrete, and have almost no friends named Ivan or Katyusha!
Further on spy stuff, Mrs. C. is upset that she has been called back part-time to cover wiretaps of a certain unnamed "institution that is concerned with Pacific affairs at a university whose nickname starts with B." I do not think she is committed in her heart to official secrecy, not that I blame her given that she is being torn away from her baby to type out banal, English conversations. At least, she says, they could find a Russian or Chinese spy to spy back on.
If they have any, she adds, glaring at A. My fiancé shrugs his shoulders at that, and just says, "Washington." No one cares about it now, but if the President's rise in the polls continues through next November, expect to see this stuff back in the news, he says.
Yrs Sincerely,
Ronnie.
Flight, 16 October 1947
Leaders
“Reconstruction” There was a cabinet shuffle that included ministries
that have to do with airplanes, and Sir Stafford Cripps. Flight likes him because his big, burly brain is dreamy.
 |
| Fair Harvard |
“Large Aircraft” The Bristol 167 giant plane has been christened the “Brabazon,”
which is exciting, but it will take forever to prove its engine, and anything
can happen in that time.
“Tudor Benettdiction” Everyone hates the Tudor except Don Bennett, so
I guess the question is whether everyone else is right, or Don Bennett.
Here and There
For some reason it is still news
that racehorses fly. The Russians are going to have an air college, next. For
some reason it is still news that
hajjis fly. The Americans are working on a
nuclear-powered aircraft, while their latest aircraft carrier, the Coral Sea, cost twenty-two million
pounds. Under Britain’s new plan for scientific expansion, there will be
apprentice scientists, with 160 positions available to 16 year-old boys and
girls who meet the criteria. It will be a five year course with practical
training. The Detroit News says that
American rocket planes have already achieved 1700 mph in secret experimental
flights being carried out on a lonely island off the Virginia coast. The
Stratocruiser recently reached 406mph in shallow dives to test vibration
problems. BEAC has chosen the Decca Navigator as its helicopter navigational
system.
Still not a documentary.
“Pressurisation: Some Problems
of Cabin Air Control, and Modern Trends in Their Solution: Precis of a Paper
Given to the Royal Aeronautical Society by W. M. Widgery[*]” Military
pressurisation systems bring cabin pressure up to the minimum that allows crews
to function in oxygen masks. This was not practical in civil aircraft, but
larger cabins allowed higher pressures, safely. This means that military
systems could not be adapted to civil airliners. It also means that
humidification becomes important in civilian applications, with five gallons of
water being needed for every five hours of flight. The blower must also be
cooled and filtered, the cabin heated, and the blown air dehumidified if the
moisture content reached excessive levels. Heating the small space available to
each passenger to comfortable levels is a new problem in climate research, and
so is air circulation. Blowers are, for now, single stage, operating at very
high rotational speeds, but, in the future, will have to be multistage.
Refrigeration will also be needed in many routes, and might as well be
installed in all passenger air liners. The Tudor installation weighs 770lbs,
but this is not all dead weight, because it allows the removal of some oxygen
gear.
“Britain’s Test Pilots, No. 24: H. A. Marsh, Test Pilot and General
Manager of the Cierva Autogiro Co., Ltd” Marsh joined the RAF in 1918, left it
as a licensed air instructor in 1930, took on with Cierva because he needed a
job, with a retirement gratuity of £1/year served! Much of his piloting
consisted of giving free instructional courses to promote the autogiro, but he
took over as test pilot after Cierva was killed in an air(liner) accident.
During the war, he flew an autogiro in a radar calibration squadron, and now he
is back with Cierva. His only colourful flying story is a couple of mechanical
failures in a Sopwith Snipe in Iraq just after the war.
C. A. H. Pollitt, “That New Ideal: Some Comments on Sir Roy Fedden’s
Suggested Executive Aircraft” Polllit thinks it’s dumb, too. He offers his own
solution. (Which is dumb, too.)
H. F. King, “A View of France: Part II of a Diary of a Ten-Day Tour of
Industrial, Scientific and Military Centres” King had a tour of the Grand
Sniffle (“Grande Soufflerie”), visited the Arsenal of Aeronautics, (Chatillon-Sous-Bagneux),
which is for making or designing or whatever, the Government stuff that goes
into planes. They are fiddling with large piston engines, whose day is “not yet
over.” This includes a tandem Hispano Suiza 12Y, called an Arsenal 24H. It
gives 4000hp, is an utterly hopeless project (Uncle George explains), because
by the time it is finished developing, the day of the large piston engine will be done, but is maybe interesting
for those who wonder what the French might have got up to during the war, if
they hadn’t lost it in 1940. They also showed off a gadget for doing boundary
level experiments, and a “high speed research aircraft” with a prop engine,
which is not how you do “high speed research” these days. Then off it was to Le
Bourget on a cold, wet morning for a nice breakfast and a flight to an airbase
in the west of France where there was a reception, and much research was done
on wine and cheese.
“Four-Seater Silvaire” The Luscombe II, or Silvaire, is a new American
utility light aircraft being developed by the Luscombe Corporation, because you
just can’t waste too much money on small planes these days. A would-be Canadian
distributor brought this Silvaire over to England to show it off, because as
see above.
“Operation Neptune: Qualified Success of First Experiments” This was
the first trial flight of one of the high speed, unmanned, rocket-powered test
models. It was “Operation Neptune” because the model was aimed at the sea. Telemetry
from transponders, radar tracking, and a chase Meteor were supposed to see what
happened. This turned out to be hard, as the model promptly tipped over, dove
into the sea, and exploded, and the Meteor pilot unchivalrously declined to
follow. “[T]his misguided missile misbehaved itself to the extent of shying at
the sonic hurdle under controlled flight –which is the basic reson for its
existence.” Hee! I have no idea how to translate that literally
(it alliterates in English), but, trust me, you won’t see Flight, The Engineer or The
Economist writing like that very
often. At least, Flight points out,
the separation was clean. In the first trial, last week, the model slammed into
the belly of the launching aircraft before plummeting, out of control, into the
sea. It’s the fact that the model went into the sea on its own that makes this a “qualified success.” In shorter news, the ICAO (formerly PICAO) is
having a meeting in Geneva, a Rolls Royce Dart has flown, and the Italian Aero
Club is having a rally. (I hope it’s not Communistic!)
Civil Aviation News: “Tudor IV Returns
From Successful Tour: Full GEE Coverage for U.K.: Vickers Viking Freighter”
Not to be outdone by the social butterflys of ICAO, IATA has had a
meting in Rio. Sir William P. Hildred gave a speech. It is summarised. The
Tudor IV tour mentioned involved “A.V.M. D. C. T. Bennett,” of course. It is
said to be “10 per cent better from point of view of comfort, silence, payload
and cost of operation and equal in speed” to the Constellation. The “silence” has me skeptical, but the new
exhaust tailpipe has solved all problems, and the Tudor IV is the quietest
passenger aircraft Bennett has ever experienced. The cinema in the cabin will
be a talkie!
A blizzard of costing numbers show that the Tudor IV, flying with
a payload of 12,000lbs, will be far more profitable than the Constellation.
Pressurisation worked perfectly at 22,000ft, and tail buffeting was confined to
within 5 or 6 knots of stall. A GEE chain is to be provided for Scotland, and
testing for ground stations has been going on for the past four months. A
Vickers Viking freighter is “inevitable.” In shorter news, the Beechcraft Model 34 20 passenger transport flew for the first time in October. Pan American
carried almost two thousand passengers across the Atlantic in the week ending
27 September, the highest number for any airline, yet. Northholt handled 51,880
passengers during August, London Airport, 32,000. American airlines have
requested a moratorium on new routes in the Untied States. There are various
new routes, and American International just landed the flying boat Bermuda Sky Queen at Foyne with 52
passengers and a crew of 7, the first flying boat landing there since flying
boats were taken off the North Atlantic service in 1943.
Froman was "seriously injured" in a 314 crash near Lisbon on 22 February 1943
Correspondence
R. B.S. points out that the manpower shortage at the Ministry of Civil
Aviation could be fixed by hiring more people. “Dingbat” writes to clarify that
there were Heinkel 113s, they were just renamed He100s because of superstition,
or maybe the reverse. H. F. King patiently replies that there weren’t, and that is the fact, and that
there were also not nearly as many crashed German planes in Kent as people
thought, and he would know, because he was one of the men who had to go look for
them, including a midnight traipse through a miserable swamp looking for an
alleged He 113. “T. T. Marker” has opinions about the Pathfinder badge that
veterans can wear. Or maybe can’t wear. Or not veterans. I don’t care about badges! (Even Girl Scout badges, B.)
The Engineer, 17 October 1947
Seven-Day Journal
 |
| "Fuel" for growing families! |
“The Electricity Returns” The official returns to the Electricity Commissioners show that Britain generated “3,150,000,000 units of electricity” in September, as compared to 3.105 billion last year. Some other returns show increases in the same range, but the “total units sent out from the generating statins of authorised undertakers” was up more, at 4.3%.
Various people have been added to the Scientific and Industrial Research
Advisory Council and the Scottish Council (Development and Industry); and Dr.
Percy Good is the new President of the Institute of Electrical Engineers and
gave an inaugural address that appears elsewhere in this issue, as this space
is for his biography. Herbert Morison also gave a talk, to a meeting of
industrialists in Birmingham, where he talked about the importance of
leadership, by which he means, good labour relations. There is a draft code of
practice for “Site Investigation” circulating for comment by site inspectors.
Eric Burgess, “German Guided and Rocket Missiles, Part III” this part
of the series is devoted to a variety of aircraft-launched missiles “of
original and often unorthodox design.” They include the “X-4” air-to-air
wire-controlled missile and the X-7 ground-to-air or air-to-ground projectile.
The X-4 was intended as a fighter armament, to be aimed at massed day bomber
formations and guided by small metal combs situated on the tail fins,
electrically linked to the fighter by two insulated wires, 0.008 inches in
diameter and up to 18,000ft in length. The rocket was designed to spin at
60rpm, with spoilers on the wing vibrating, either regularly when no control
was needed, or with a bias in one direction or another when a turn was needed.
The missile could fly at 550mph and climb at 3000ft/min, and it was made of
aluminum alloy with a 55lb warhead with a proximity or acoustic fuse. The
rocket motor, gyros and battery were in the aft fuselage, and the total weight
was 132lbs which propulsion was from a bi-fuel rocket motor using nitric acid
and “R-stoff” oxidiser. (So in answer to your question when I phoned, yes, it
is the usual “witch’s brew.”) The engine plumbing is gone into at length, which
is important, as it is a regenerative type, and it is neat and ingenious
considering the size and weight limitations. The X-7 was a smaller version of
the X-4, except an experimental type using a solid fuel of diglycol dinitrate,
which, since it doesn’t sound like a
fuming acid, is probably safer. It’s also a two-stage motor.
At Rheinmetal-Borsag, they worked on designs developed at the HermanGoering Research Institute. Again, liquid fuels with aggressive fluids, in this
case “T-stoff” (hydrogen peroxide –they say Nazi Aryans should be blond, and
someone was taking it seriously!) and Z-stoff (sodium or calcium permanganate).
This engine was giving 132lb of thrust for up to 25 seconds, giving an
acceleration to a maximum velocity of 920ft/s. Not surprisingly, this design
was “not developed as a weapon.” The F-25, which followed, was given a solid
fuel, again, with roll stability through ailerons on the wing tips again,
controlled by a gyroscope activating electromagnetic servos. It was to be
launched from a ramp, and had not been made into a useful weapon at the end of
the war. Details of a German anti-aircraft barrage rocket close out the
installment.
“Institute of Metals, No. II” The Institute of Metals heard several
papers on corrosion of magnesium metals. Discussion is summarised here. High
purity magnesium alloy plates are found to have sometimes very rapid rates of
corrosion under various conditions; but the variation is great, say E R W Jones
and Marion K. Petch. It might be due to iron contamination, or it might be due
to poor handling of the statistics, but the people who say that manufacture
magnesium. My take on this is that because Uncle Henry is involved, there must
be something shady going on, and that is probably very unfair to the other
magnesium makers.
“ATC Developments on the GWR” In plain English, the Great Western
Railway is experimenting with automatic train control and audible cab
signalling. GWR now has 2462 distant signals and 3364 locomotives equipped with
cab-signalling and train-control apparatus. The new four-indication colour
light signals will allow more trains to run on heavily-used tacks, especially
high speed expresses barrelling onto routes used by slower trains “running with
close headway.” I don’t like the sounds of that! There’s lots of technical
details, but it is about horns that blast and lights that flash, which doesn’t
seem all that technical to me. It’s the other extreme from the write up of the
Bristol 171 rotor drive!
“Moving the Bristol Brabazon I” The Bristol Type 167 has been
finished, christened, and us so large that it was an extraordinary effort to move
it from the erection shed to the assembly hall. So they built a turntable
underneath the plane to turn it around so that it could be moved.
“Crankless Air Motors” Broom and Wade, Ltd. of High Wycombe, stopped
making crankless air motors to concentrate on air compressors and pneumatic
tools. Now, it has reintroduced three models of these motors, in 3, 6 and 30hp
settings, modernised for the demands of the fast-paced world of today, etc. As
usual, the article gives me not a clue about why you would care that your air
motor was crankless, and focusses on the new features, which mainly involve a
“distributor” and its connections to the “cylinders.”
The British Welding Research Association has an annual report out. It
has been researching cracking in welds of both ferrous and light alloys, and
knows much more about the fatigue and resonance vibration that cause that
cracking. The British Non-Ferrous Metals Association has responded by
increasing its research into stronger aluminum alloys for welding.
“The Launch of the Orient Liner Orcades”
Orcades, the largest passenger liner
built since the war, was launched by Vickers-Armstrong in Barrow this week. It
will cut the England-Melbourne time down from 36 to 28 days. It has a gross
tonnage of 31,000, and can carry 1500 passengers and 608 crew. Power is by a
Foster-Wheeler water-tube boiler driving Parsons gear, the steam conditions
being 525 lb/sq inch, 850 degrees Fahrenheit. I shall consult the experts to
determine if this is satisfactory.
 |
| By PhillipC on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/flissphil/8254620/in/pool-82049428@N00/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11310679 |
Leaders
“Standardisation and Production” Mr. Percy Good’s talk to the IEE
focussed on this. Making less things more is better. Non-standard parts creep into production
designs when a drawing office feels that it cannot deviate too much from the
dimensions in the original specification, so even though it may have a full list of standard parts, it won’t
use them. Other arguments for non-standard parts is that it increases the range
of products on offer, and reaps the profit of supplying spare parts. But these
are luxuries these days.
 |
| Bigger is always better. |
Percy Good, “Industrial Standardisation” Since The Engineer has talked about this talk twice, it is time for the
talk! It is about the kinds of standardisation that are good (simplification,
national standards, standards of performance, and kinds that are bad, such as the tyranny of the metric system), and how to achieve it through sampling and
certification. It is also to be hoped that more exact terminology can be
adopted to make it easier for manufacturers to understand what is wanted.
“A Small Hydraulic Pump” LML Industries makes two “interesting”
hydraulic pumps, one a constant delivery, the other a variable delivery. The constant
delivery gives 5 gpm at 2000lb/sq in, while the variable delivery gives between
0 and 5gpm at 2000lb/sq. in. The constant delivery pump consists of a hollow
cylinder rotated by the driving shaft at 1400rpm. The cylinder contains two
pistons, which are reciprocated as the rotor turns by two cams, which are
mounted on the piston via slipper pads, in such a way that, as they rotate,
they cause the pistons to reciprocate, first plunging towards each other, and
then apart, giving two pressure and two suction strokes in each rotation. There
are inlet and outlet valves, and that’s that. In the variable delivery pump,
one cam can be rotated with respect to the other, so as to vary output from
zero to maximum capacity. I’m not sure how, as it is clear that I misunderstand
how the cams work, but hopefully you’ve got the gist of it.
“A Potato Harvesting Machine” Globe Harvesting
Company, of London Colney, has a new potato harvester out. It digs the
potatoes, cleans them, and elevates them to the point where they can be
automatically bagged, although they must be manually sorted from stones and
clogs first. It is tractor-drawn, lightly built of primarily aluminum, and,
with two pickers and a bagger aboard, clears 30 hundredweight an hour. The cleaning
discs and elevator are driven from the tractor’s power takeoff.
“Curved Safety Glass” Triplex Safety Glass Company can now supply
safety glass, which will make automobiles much safer, either because now they
have safety glass windows, or because now you will be able to see through them
without obstruction.
“Side Pits at LPTB Rolling Stock Depots” Modern rail passenger cars
don’t have equipment compartments, because they reduce passenger space.
Instead, the equipment is on the bottom of the car, which makes them hard to
inspect, which is why it is fascinating that the LPTB has put in pits so that
inspectors can go down and look at them. I
think it is fascinating because I never realised that you had this
additional expense when you bought modern passenger cars for your subway!
“The First Commercial Axial Flow Blower” Built in 1901 for supplying
blast to a lead-smelting furnace, this machine is now an antique, and has been
donated to the London Science Museum.
“A Maximum Power Demand Alarm Device for Factories” Glacier Metal
Company has built a siren that sounds when a factory hits its maximum power
use, so that workers know to turn things off. There’s a bit of engineering
complication, in that it isn’t easy to measure maximum power demand.
William MacKenzie, “Seaweed Harvesting Methods, Part II” They harvest
seaweed? They do! I have no idea why, but they use boats and shore stations and
cutting gear to cut it up. The article is mainly interested in the equipment
that does the cutting.
“North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board Distribution Scheme for Seil,Luing and Easdale” It’s a transmission line.
 |
| That is, the "Slate Islands," which used to "roof the world." |
Continental
Engineering News
During the war, the six locks between the Meuse at Liege and Antwerp,
and the sixty-six bridges that crossed the Albert Canal were all destroyed,
closing a canal that could accommodate 2000t barges, and which was built over
ten years, at a cost of 2 billion Belgian francs. It is now reopened, after a
23 day operation to pump it full of water again. The Port of Flushing is almost
fully reopened, and the city of Leningrad is to have an underground railway
with three main lines and an overall length of 25 miles, to be completed by
1950.
 |
| Subways and canals are the same; they're an awful lot of work, and when they're done, it's hard to tell that anything has been done at all. |
French engineering news is for some reason a separate section, and
notes that the Signals and Electrical Firm at Riom is open for business, that
another dam has started generating power, and that, except for the Orne
bridges, Normandy’s rail system is working well enough for the metal industry
to start up again.
Industrial and
Labour Notes
Wages are up, Sir Stafford is setting up Regional Boards to coordinate
“Economic Affairs,” and iron and steel production is up.
Time, 20 October 1947
Letters
 |
National Affairs
See above. The Herter Committee is back from Europe, where it
established that life is hard, and charity is good, and the Marshall Plan would
be better, because COMMUNISM and because Europeans are excitable. Hurrah! Four
pages down! (Time isn’t done with
COMMUNISM yet, and has a weird bit a few pages on remembering the time when
Jimmy Byrnes fought Hank Wallace over Viv Molotov.)
“Horatius at the Icebox” I would explain the classical reference, but
it’s actually a Nineteenth Century Scotsman making bowel movements on paper.
-Oh, I’m sorry, please don’t tell my Mother that I am not a proper lady, yet. If we’d all eat less and have eggless and
meatless days, the food would be carried across the ocean by he president of my
college in a big, red sleigh pulled by nine reindeer. (So he’d basically sit,
crack a whip, and take credit for the reindeers’ work when it was done.) It’s
Chuck Luckmann’s idea, and Clint Anderson is in trouble for suggesting that
it’s all “symbolism,” and that it is like going to Church on Sunday,
which is probably insulting to the church going crowd, if I know them.
“Passing” Oh, here’s a rare one. Walter White, the NAACP president who
is, by cosmic irony, light enough that “he frequently has to explain that he
is, in fact, a Negro,” talked to the Saturday
Review of Literature last week about how “every year, approximately 12,000
white-skinned Negroes disappear –people whose absence cannot be explained by
death or emigration. Nearly every one of the 14 million discernable Negroes in
the United States knows at least one member of his race who is ‘passing—’ the
magic word which means that some Negroes can get by as whites. . . “He goes on
to point out that while some of these “passers” are not important people,
others are, including members of Congress, “certain writers,” and “several
organisers of movements to ‘keep the Negroes and other minorities in their
places.’” Time points out that
Coloured athlete, Chester Pierce, played in the Harvard-University of Virginia
football game last week, and the Southerners in the crowd didn’t riot or
anything. I can tell
you that if the team lost 47-0, like Harvard did against Virginia, there'd be a riot here, and
it wouldn’t be about race!
Then there are stories about a Socialist being elected mayor of some
town in Massachusetts, a union boss who is fighting communist activists, and
the NLRB reversing its course and ruling that the top officers of the AFL and
CIO wouldn’t have to sign an anti-Communist oath required under Taft-Hartley. Inshorter political notes, it turns out that there’s going to be a Presidentialelection in 1948.
“Pigeonhole for China” General Wedemeyer’s report says that America
has to give the Koumintang a boatload of money RIGHT NOW, or the country will
fall to the Communists. You’d think Time would
be in favour, because then the Communists wouldn’t surround China any more,
but, no, it’s still not satisfied, but thinks we have to soft-pedal the China
thing until the Marshall thing is through Congress, because that’s how politics
works. Wow. I get the New Criticism. I can explain what Existentialism really
is. I’m even coming, slowly, around to the idea that Aristotle has a point
about drama; but I can’t make heads nor tails of this. (There’s another story
about how America will have to pay the bill for reconstructing Germany, because
the British can’t. It might cost $700 to $800 million, which at least is short
of the $1 billion required for China!!!!
“What was a Cop to Think?” Several New York city cops have been
suspended by Mayor O’Dwyer for throwing their weight around with people they
oughtn’t be, such as reporters. The Americana
feature says that the Census Bureau says that America gained 2.279 million
residents in 1946, the biggest increase in history, and is up to 142,673,000.
Psychiatrist Johann G. Auerbach was given a ferocious lecture from the bench
for leaving his eight-month-old baby daughter parked in the street on 48th
while he gave a lecture on “The Cultural Importance of the Theater to Our
Present Civilisation.” Traffic noise, the judge thought, also has a (bad) cultural influence on Our Present Civilisation.
International
The UN has a flag. It’s blue. Vishinski is terrible. Russia is
terrible, because it is not cooperating, has formed the “little Chloroform—”
Oops! Cominterm! And because it
probably has the atom bomb. Time reassures
us that Russia does not have the atom
bomb, because the moment that they do have
one, the War Department will detect it. I don’t know; Maybe all those flights
over the North Pole are looking for Santa Claus? Or Herbert Hoover?
This is all in aid of Time’s opinion that “frank words” do not cause war, so it is okay to be very, very frank with the Russians, as Winston Churchill is being. Also, the Little Chloroform is spreading its communistic cobwebs to the Russian zone and Poland and other places where people spell their names with more “zs” than is decent, and to Latin countries where excitability could lead to Communism. Also, Harold Laski is communistic, and that’s why he is awful. (He used to be awful because he was socialistic, and he was always awful because he is Jewish, but you don’t say that, because it is rude.) If all of this seems rambling and silly, it is, and there’s a reason, because buried in the middle of this second four-page wander around the idea that communism is bad, is a passage that outright says that a good Red Scare is just what we need to get the Marshall Plan through Congress, and we need the Marshall Plan.
 |
| "The Lady of the Lake:" B-29 abandoned near Eilson AFB. It was dumped in a quarry, not crashed. Source: http://rebrn.com/re/a-real-b-downed-in-alaska-1163697/ |
This is all in aid of Time’s opinion that “frank words” do not cause war, so it is okay to be very, very frank with the Russians, as Winston Churchill is being. Also, the Little Chloroform is spreading its communistic cobwebs to the Russian zone and Poland and other places where people spell their names with more “zs” than is decent, and to Latin countries where excitability could lead to Communism. Also, Harold Laski is communistic, and that’s why he is awful. (He used to be awful because he was socialistic, and he was always awful because he is Jewish, but you don’t say that, because it is rude.) If all of this seems rambling and silly, it is, and there’s a reason, because buried in the middle of this second four-page wander around the idea that communism is bad, is a passage that outright says that a good Red Scare is just what we need to get the Marshall Plan through Congress, and we need the Marshall Plan.
So, there’s a plan to get the Plan through, and it consists of
implying that the Russians have a plan. Got it!
Foreign News
“Enter the Technocrats” Because if there’s one thing that the land of Flight, The Engineer and The Economist needs,
it’s technocrats. This is a story about the cabinet shuffle, which those
other papers have talked around; Time has
the details. Shinwell’s out because he can’t raise the coal. He’s gone to the
War Office, so that instead of not having coal, Britain will have no war! Hugh
Gaitskell is in at Fuel, Harold Wilson at the Board of Trade, the youngest
ever. George Strauss is in at Supply. Sandwiched in between this and a story
about awful canned fish from South Africa is the news that Princess Elizabeth
will leave Buckingham Palace at 11:16, and that Prince Phillip will be at
Westminster Abbey waiting from 11:15. Then it is on to Greece, which is in
terrible shape because Western “liberals” keep demanding that the Communist
rebels be given a chance to surrender. I am not sure why “liberals” has to be
in quotation marks, but I thought it was important enough that I would talk
about this story about how –heavy sigh—communism is bad in Greece, which crawls
down the side of the page besides a huge box story about how communism is bad
in France.
“Be Seeing You?” The Mufti of Jerusalem, who is not in Jerusalem
because he muffed up there (It's a pun in English. Sigh. I should probably edit it out), is now in Lebanon, waiting to cross over the
border with Arab League troops. Associated Pressman Joseph Goodwin took a trip
along the border, and could not find these alleged troops, and the Russians and
Americans, surprise, surprise, agree on the partition plan; so maybe there won’t
be a war. My fiancé says that Goodwin has friends over there, and that Central is working with him.
“Autumn Offensive” The Communists are on the advance in Manchuria, but
the Nationalists are confident that they can hold the cities through the
winter. It is the spring offensive that they are worried about, and by that
time they are hoping to have their American aid, and etc.
In Latin America, the Chilean president, Gabriel Videla, has broken
with his communist allies, while Argentine factory production is down 40%,
foreign exchange and gold reserves are vanishing, and shortages are
multiplying. In Brazil, people are making pilgrimages to the parish of PadreAntonio Ribeiro Pinto in Minas Gerais, to be healed by his miracles. Canada
doesn’t have miracles, and neither does it have housing, with one-fifth of the
population of Halifax doubled up in houses or in attics. C. D. Howe promises
6000 homes next year. Maybe you were at the speech? You seem like you might
have an in with the Minister of Everything! On the bright side, says Henry
Luce’s organ –Don’t tell my Mother!—Canadians make good yachts.
 |
| Henry's organ likes something. |
Business
“Where Are the Cars?” A shortage of railcars, which may be due to the
steel shortage, may cause a coal shortage this winter. Production was “only”
6000 this August; but car builders also blame the railroads for not moving the
steel in “even flows,” leading to shortages, leading to production hold-ups.
Senator Clyde Martin Reed has called everyone to Washington to explain, and
perhaps put together a plan to allocate steel. The steel shortage has also
nipped auto production, and 37,000 workers have been laid off, with GM at only
65% of capacity. Ford is putting $18 million into its own rolling mill.
“Alam Kabeh” The oil refinery at Palembang, “only recently cleared of
insurgents by the Dutch,” has begun producing oil again, and perhaps hit its
prewar production of 45,000 barrels a day by this summer. It has been a tough
go, because the company hasn’t been able to pay its employees, mostly extracted
from Japanese camps, because, the natives won’t take any of the three
currencies circulating in Sumatra (guilders, occupation yen, and Indonesian
rupees), because they deem all three worthless. The company is therefore paying
in food and “credits.” I suppose that, say, American dollars or silver are out of
the question, because that would be expensive.
“Too Big?” In a special, boxed article, Time says what the British press will not: The Brabazon I is far
too big to be practical.
 |
| Bigger is always better. |
“Plan for Abundance” The Department of Agriculture is laying plans for
“parity,” which will lead to permanent agricultural abundance by ensuring that
farmers are paid enough for their work. Cue raging slap-fight over definition
of “enough.” There follows a neat story about RKO Studio, which I am torn
between quoting word-for-word, and ignoring, because I don’t see what it has to
do with technological progress, and later one about the children’s music
division of Decca. Eh, you probably don’t care, anyway.
 |
| Second generation kids are bigger! There's apparently a gain on grandparents' height, too; and there's interesting questions about social mobility. . . |
State of Business Covers off the ICC
granting a request for a 10% increase in rail freight rates because business is
good. David Lilienthal, former Evil Master of the TVA and even more Evil
Presidential Nominee to Head the AEC, is now just plain Commissioner
Lilienthal, and thinks that commercially feasible atomic power is at least a
decade off. Regulators have also signed off on converting the Big and Little Inch into gas pipelines, to move Texas natural gas to the East Coast, marking
the defeat of the CIO’s attempt to keep the market for coal gas.
Science, Medicine,
Education
“Vicky” Time covers the high-speed
drone that high speed dove into the water, mentioning that Gerald Bernard
Lockee Bayne of the Ministry of Supply “touched” the button to launch it. The
British press says that “Vicky” broke the sound barrier, but it did not;
Americans say that even if it did, they have
broken the sound barrier with rockets, and that it doesn’t count. The British
reply that the American supersonic rocket was much less complicated than
“Vicky,” so it counts more, except for not counting at all.
“American Face” So, apparently, someone
called “Tepexpan Man” is the oldest known American. “He” is a skull dug up in
Mexico City, to which Vienna-born sculptor, Leo Steppat, has attached a face made
from “statistics and Plasticine.”
 |
| * |
“Bacteria and Sex” Scientists used to think that bacteria, being
simple, single-celled organisms, only reproduced by splitting (so, you know,
like your basic Hollywood star). But, the other day, dirty old bacteriologist E. L. Tatum
happened to be sitting in his laboratory, looking through his microscope (WHY?)
and, well, ooh-la-la! No, it involved slides and stains and X-rays and all that
science stuff, but the conclusion was the same.
“Hooded Airline” All-weather flying is happening in America, but not on the private airlines. The
Army’s All-Weather Flying Centre at Wilmington, Ohio, says that it has done a
daily round-trip scheduled flight from Ohio to Maryland for the last fourteen
months, with planes landing in zero-zero soup, thanks to pilots who have
mastered instrument flying “under the hood.”
“Pestilence in Egypt” Asiatic cholera has been detected in Egypt, thefirst outbreak since 1902, when the cholera swept the country, killing 34,595,
a mortality of 85% before spreading worldwide. “[L}ast week, a vast machine
reaching from Russia to the U.S., swung into action. Troops sealed off the
infected areas; cinemas were closed; new water wells were dug; two thousand
doctors began the slow and dangerous task of mopping up the disease.” A US Navy
DC-4 flew in enough anti-cholera vaccine for 200,000 people. More followed,
including a plane from China with a million doses; Russia is sending a million
more later in the week. The modern treatment begins with sulfa drugs, and a
saline drip to thin the blood, and the vaccine is effective in preventing new
infections. DDT spraying will prevent malaria from rising in the wake of
cholera. However, far too many Egyptians are undernourished, live in crowded
conditions, and have no built-up resistance to cholera.
“Fat and Unhappy” Dr. Hilde Bruch, of Columbia, has made a major
scientific breakthrough, establishing that overweight is caused by overeating,
and not glandular imbalances, which affect at most 1 in 200 people. She thinks
that it is largely due to children being spoiled as children, leading to a
rotten personality, while many girls stay fat because “it is a protection
against men and sex and the responsibilities of womanhood.”
“Nobody Gets Any Younger” Doctor Albert Lansing, a 32-year-old
geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis, has been studying microscopicanimals called rotifers, and has discovered many interesting facts about how
minute, water-dwelling, multicellular animals age. I read the article waiting
for a conclusion about how this might lead to a cure for human aging, but Time’s
Medicine page is on its best behaviour this week. Perhaps it is terrified of a
scolding from Dr. Bruch? I know I am!
“Markup” The cost of tuition at private universities is up 29% since
1939, and tuition in law schools is up 46%. The Office of Education warns that
when the GI Bill winds up, colleges will either have to cut tuition, or be
satisfied, with well-to-do students. There follows a long story about Maria
Montessori, the “forgotten progressive,” and about Soviet Russian education.
Even though the Russians spend a larger proportion of national income on public
education than any other nation, they don’t get much form it, because it has to
much communism and too much military.
Press, Radio, Art,
People
“Lifting the Curtain” The Herald
Tribune sent a team of reporters to the darkest of dark continents, which
lies behind the Iron Curtain, to learn about the revival of the Chloroform.
Their reporting is full of what Time calls
“unemotional factualism,” and not mixed metaphors.
“Land of the Middlebrow” Cyril Connolly is a British editor. He edits Horizon. Horizon does special issues
about countries. Horizon just did a
special issue about America. It thinks Americans are “middlebrows.” This is
news. (If my punchline worked, all those simple, declarative sentences were
worth writing. I have to admit they were much easier to translate!)
“Hiring the Boss” Charles R. Denny has quit as head of the FCC to
become general counsel at NBC(!)
“Dizzy Blonde” Marie Wilson is following in the footsteps of Gracie
Allen and Jane Ace with her own situation comedy, My Friend Irma. Lever Brothers took it up after twenty weeks and
put it on Sunday night between Jack Benny and Charlie McCarthy. The man running
the show is Sy Howard, who describes himself as an egomaniac and a tyrant.
Wilson herself is apparently actually a
dumb blonde.
 |
| * |
“The Good Old Drawings” Just to show how eclectic it is, Time starts off with Illustrators of Children’s Books, a 527
art book published by Horn. Next up is the Pittsburgh Carnegie Annual, which
gave its $1500 first prize to Zoltan Sepeshy for Marine Still Life.
Betty Smith, of A Tree Grows inBrooklyn, has a book coming out. Intrepid photographers got a shot of Greta
Garbo in Southampton, on her way back from Sweden. Franklin Roosevelt’s
furniture and books, at least those held in his mother’s Manhattan house, have
been burned in a fire. General Eisenhower is not house-hunting any more, as he
will be living in Columbia’s presidential mansion. Ambassador Douglas’ wife is
upset that she can’t find an American-made prefab house for their California
ranch in America, but could find one in a housing project in Birmingham.
Orville Wright, General Frank Merrill, Senator Vandenberg and wife Hazel, Lila Lee, and, lastly, Congressman John F. Kennedy
are in hospital for reasons ranging from tuberculosis to malaria. Yehudi Menuhin, Xavier Cugat, Vivian Della Chiesa and Johnny Meyer are in family court, or just out of
it in some cases. Maria del Rosario Cayetana has married, as has Kathleen Harriman. Arthur Padway, Samuel Hoffenstein, Baron Henri de Rothschild and
Sidney Webb has died. Time can’t
resist one last, snide line about the Fabians’ “dullness.” Would it prefer them
as flaming revolutionaries?
The New Pictures
“Body and Soul” is a movie about prize fighting, introducing a theme
of people being slapped in the face that continues through a review of Fun and Fancy Free, which is another
Disney mix of cartoons and live actors. The lead story, Bongo, was written by Sinclair Lewis, which makes me sad, even
though it is the best part of a bad movie. In The Unsuspected, Claude Rains gets mixed up in a murder, which
makes me wonder how they could possibly justify
the title. Magic Town is another of
the “seriocomic fables in favour of the American way of life which . . . cannot
be made without Jimmy Stewart.” (No charge for fixing your joke, Time!) Well someone didn’t like It’s a
Wonderful Life, but since Mr. Luce isn’t allowed to complain that he is the
model of Mr. Potter, so he's on the warpath.
Books
Olivia Manning has a book about Stanley “rescuing” Livingstone,
entitled, The Reluctant Rescue, the
point being that the heroic story has a dark and seamy side that has nothing to
do with its being set on the Dark Continent. Lionell Trilling’s new book gets a
review which I do not agree with at all,
about which I would tell you at enormous length if I weren’t still burning with
embarrassment at takin so long to notice how much I was boring you about The Wasteland the other day. Cleveland
Amory has written a book about how stuffy Boston is, for a town founded on
piracy and opium. What is this? Westbrook Pegler? The third volume of Sir Oswald Sitwell’s autobiography is out, which is news for those who know who
Sitwell is.
Flight, 23 October 1947
Leaders
“Confounding the Critics” The Bermuda
Sky Queen’s “emergency alighting” in the mid-Atlantic is a triumphant
demonstration of the wonderfulness of flying boats, since it kept floating long
enough for the passengers to be rescued.
“Alternatives” People say that flying boats can’t land on alternative
(or any) airfields, and not on most stretches of water, and certainly not on
the open ocean. This is true, Flight admits,
but what about giant planes that can’t land at most airfields? What about them?
“Turbines: Taking Stock” It turns out that turbines are still
unreliable and not very fuel efficient, so it is very embarrassing that the
British do not have new piston engines coming on.
“Safir in the Air: An Analysis of the Equipment and Flying Qualities
of a New Swedish Three-Seater: SAAB 91 with Gipsy Major 10 Engine” Yay! An
article I don’t have to read! In shorter news, what will probably be the
largest air evacuation in history is now going on in Delhi, while Squadron Leader T. S. “Wimpey” Wade, is joining Hawker as a test pilot.
“Robert Carling,” “Casual Commentary: Need for Continued Piston-Engine
Development: A Word for the Corporations: ‘Drag-Consciousness’” I wrote something longer about this, but when I set out to translate it, all I got is, "We're stuck with the Stratocruiser."
Here and There
Prestwick town is getting a bus factory, which is news here because
Prestwick has an airport. I guess. The XP-86, the first swept-wing fighter
designed for the USAAF, is undergoing ground tests.
Trans-Canada is halving the fare for food parcels on its trans-Atlantic flights. The Gas (Turbine) Establishment is putting on courses on industrial turbines. The AEC has put the University of Chicago in charge of the Clinton Laboratory at Oakridge, in place of Monsanto. The Australian who recently flew across the Tasman Sea solo is courageous and determined, just like the five who did it before him. Olympia is hosting a machine tools exhibition next summer. And to think I doubted the newsworthiness of the last article!
Trans-Canada is halving the fare for food parcels on its trans-Atlantic flights. The Gas (Turbine) Establishment is putting on courses on industrial turbines. The AEC has put the University of Chicago in charge of the Clinton Laboratory at Oakridge, in place of Monsanto. The Australian who recently flew across the Tasman Sea solo is courageous and determined, just like the five who did it before him. Olympia is hosting a machine tools exhibition next summer. And to think I doubted the newsworthiness of the last article!
 |
| Monsanto had a lab at Oakridge? I'm calling my local conspiracy theorist! |
“S/L P. J. Garnier: Photographs of his Last Flight in the WestlandWyvern” Squadron Leader Garnier was killed in this flight, and Flight decides to run the pictures it
was taking before the propeller broke from having its double reverse inverse reduction
gearing spinning at opposing rotations at a million miles an hour (that’s not
in the article, but I have a source). This makes me sad, and a bit angry at Flight.
“Offensive Support” An article about a demonstration of Air Force and
Navy planes dropping bombs, shooting rockets, skipping bombs. Twelve Lincolns
were also supposed to drop 130 bombs under direction of pathfinders and a
master bomber, but the weather was bad, so they went home. A Vampire showed
that it could drop bombs on army targets by flying with undercarriage down and
air brakes extended, so that it could go as slow as it could. A Hastings and
Valetta were supposed to be there, but were too busy with developmental flying.
“Power-Plants for Helicopters: Weight, Speed, Mounting and Cooling are
the Problems” When you just try to put an existing engine in a helicopter, it
has to be put on its side, and the crankcase drains. Helicopters don’t go very
fast, so there are cooling problems, and I guess reduction gears for the rotors
are hard to design.
H. F. King, “A View of France: Part III of a Diary of a Ten-day Tour
of Industrial, Scientific and Military Centres” This article covers the six
days to the end of the tour, because the first two were so boring. Mostly, King
flew around France in a Dakota popping into one factory after another,
including one where they build gliders, including powered gliders, which still
doesn’t make sense to me. Otherwise, he was mostly shown drawings of prototypes
of planes with confusing number-letter names that mostly start with “S.,”
although at one he was invited to fly a six-year-old giant flying boat.
However, on one day, the Dakota’s second navigator was killed in a flying
accident (in another plane), and King had the plane to himself while most
everyone else went to the funeral, and used the opportunity to fly down to
Toulouse to look at the Navy’s air forces’ laboratory, which used to be the
National Veterinary School, where they are
using some test equipment to play with that twin-engined torpedo carrier
plane. He probably had a nice lunch, and that must have been some consolation
when he was kicked out of France for being so damn insensitive.
 |
| You think that's big, Frenchie? Let me show you big! |
American
Newsletter, by Kibbitzer: “The Martin 2-0-2/Convair 240 Race: Pampered Passengers: Busy
Airports: Timing of Speed Records” Kibbitzer spends the first third of his
column complaining about how inconvenient it is to meet airlines’ slapdash
schedules. If they’d just take off when they say they will, you wouldn’t have
to be waiting at some hotel for the airline bus all the time! Or, worse, show
up at 11 for a 12:30 takeoff. Ridiculous! US
airports have very high traffic figures. For example, LaGuardia has 11,528
commercial landings and takeoffs a month, and the busiest airports, Atlanta,
Cleveland and Phoenix, have over 40,000 each. This is “interesting” given
complaints about delays at Heathrow. However, these figures aren’t really
reflected in passenger miles and revenue growth. The Convair group has been
sold by AVCO to Mr. Odlum, husband of Jacqueline Cochrane. Benny Howard is also
involved. This might allow the 240 to take the lead in the development race. I didn't even know there was a race? speaking of, K. has opinions about the speed record that are even more "shop talk."
Civil Aviation News
The Cunliffe-Owen Concordia has been sent on a world tour, in case
anyone wants to buy it. The Ministry says that it is going to have a FIDO
operational at RAF Manston so that planes coming into London and Northolt
without the range to divert to somewhere outside of a London fog, will have
somewhere to land. I am not sure whether I feel better or not! The Ministry is
buying some Airspeed Consuls to test civil pilots for renewal of their
instrument landing ratings. The Consul will be equipped with an instrument
console consisting of a Standard Beam Approach receiver, a STR. 9 VHF set, and
a Murphy Type 24 receiver for the Consol transmission. So it will be a Consul
with a console for training with Consol. Got it! Prestwick Airport is to have
its runways resurfaced to take the new Stratocruisers in bad weather (because
rain makes the mud underneath the tarmac to muddy to take heavy loads, I’m
told, although not here). There was a disagreement between the Ministry and
Scottish Aviation, but the Ministry said that it would make the planes divert
to a nearby NAS if the work wasn’t done, and now it is underway at an estimated
cost of £200,000. The pilot strike at American Overseas Aircraft is continuing
as of press time. C. D. Howe recently flew on the first Trans-Canadian
transcontinental DC-4M proving flight, from Vancouver to Montreal. The DH
Rapide will son be available with an new manually-variable-pitch airscrew that
will reduce takeoff run by 16% to 450 yards, increase cruising speed 15% to
141mph, and improve economy while reducing engine wear. Flight then prints part of the Reuters report on the Sky Queen accident, which I will cover
when it comes up in a newspaper that isn’t wearing egg on its face.
Another reminder that London "fogs" were terrible in 1947.
“Flying the Ambassador: Some Impressions from the Pilot’s Viewpoint:
Good Basic Characteristics” Flight says
that it is printing the “Ambassador Progress Report,” “exactly as received.”
So, in conclusion, the manufacturer thinks that the prototype Ambassador is
“outstanding.”
Correspondence
E. Howard-Williams still thinks that his book is wonderful, and that
all the mistakes in it aren’t really mistakes, or, at least, are typesetting
mistakes. J. Lankester Parker, of Shorts, writes to say that Dennis Powell is
wrong about flying boats not having air conditioning. Or, more accurately, that
he’s right but it doesn’t matter, and, anyway, it’ll hopefully be fixed soon.
“B-Licence Pilot” writes to point out that the American achievement in
automatic flying across the Atlantic was impressive, and that the British are
only now catching up with technology the Americans have had since early in the
war, since the SEP1 is the first British electrical or electronic automatic
pilot, six years or so after the American types that have led to the Sperry A-12 used in the flight, and, contrary to British criticism, both SEP and A-12
need to have an radio-controlling operator in sight of the plane for landings,
as neither autopilot has altitude control or pitch trim control yet. Flight apologises and explains that its
article was “really” intended to counter the claim that the British could have
done the flight ten years ago (when the Queen Bee appeared), and criticisms of
the A-12, specifically. (My sources tell me that the Sperry autopilots used to
have an awful reputation for hunting due to lack of rate-rate control, but that
is largely fixed now.) Ann M. Finnie, of Airworks, writes to say that her
company’s experiments with cloud-seeding were perfect, and that the critics are
wrong.
That’s quite the letters column! Mr. Howard-Williams sounds like the
usual idiot who clogs up the pages, but the rest of it is substantial, even
though I think that Mr. Parker protests too much.
The Engineer, 24 October 1947
Seven-Day Journal
The new session of Parliament has begun, and this has some
implications for the engineering industry. London Transport is undergoing a crisis on the
busses because there are no replacement busses and hardly any spare parts
available. The Engineer covers the
final statement on which factories are to be dismantled in Germany to cover
reparations. There are 496 in the British zone and 186 in the American. The 302
war plants must be dismantled, and so must the non-ferrous metal producing
plants, as Germany is no longer allowed to produce aluminum, beryllium,
vanadium and magnesium, but this is silly, and will be changed. The
production of synthetic rubber, synthetic gasoline, ball and roller bearings
and ammonia is temporarily allowed, and these plants have not been scheduled
for dismantling yet. I think the controversy in Hamburg covers a “war plant”
that has been reconverted for civilian production. Lloyd’s Register shows that
shipbuilding is up. The British engineering industry is upset that the basic petrol
ration has been cut, because their workers will give up on life if they can’t
drive. A further reduction of the Home Fleet to one cruiser and four destroyers
is contemplated, so that released crew can replace national servicemen, who
will, in turn, be released to industry. The cuts are strictly temporary, the
Government says, and research and development has not been affected.
 |
| All that work to build it, and now we can't play with it? |
“Historic Researches, No. XXV: Conduction of Electricity Through
Liquids” Since I don’t think there has been room for twenty five instalments of
this series since last we left The
Engineer, I am going to take a guess that this is . . . filler. It’s very long filler, taking things down from 1725 to 1800 or so. (Intrepid girl abbreviator makes googly eyes. Then scrunches them in that "Watch out, mister" way.)
Eric Burgess, “German Guided and Rocket Missiles, No. IV” I can’t
remember if I gave the author credit in my last. I could look, but what would
be the fun of that? This issue covers the “unguided barrage rocket,” the
“Taifun” in more detail, before moving on to yet another ground-to-air guided
missile, the “Enzian,” which is basically an unpiloted Me 163 with a very large
explosive charge. It has another of the Walter rocket motors with solid-fuel
boosters. Nothing is said about the guidance system, whatever it might be, in
contrast to the discussion of the Natter, which follows, as it is technically a
manned aircraft. Finally, another ground-to-air missile is a cut-down version
of the V2, the A-4. I apologise for not discussing the chemistry of the rocket engines in any detail, but I’m told that the Germans were barking up the wrong tree, and so it would be a waste of timeto go into it.
 |
| The Germans were spending money on this in 1944. Tell me again about the efficiency of totalitarian regimes. |
“Launch of the Orient Liner Orcades”
This is the same article as last week, but with more details about the luncheon
put on by Vickers for the Orient Steam Navigation Company and its chairman, I.
C. Geddes. Why is that name familiar?
“Kingston upon Hull Water Undertaking, 1447—1947” Kingston-Upon-Hull
has had some kind of municipal water supply since 1447. In 1947, they also had
a celebration of five hundred years of water, with pictures of a municipal
pumping station that might be more impressive if this paper could afford better
printing.
“An Anti-Vibration Machine Mounting” The “Cushyfoot,” by Metalastick
is a rubber mounting. The next article, describing an electro-pneumatic gauge
by sigma Instrument Company, is a bit more interesting. I don’t even know what
to say about the concluding installment of Mr. MacKenzie on seaweed harvesting.
Leaders
The leaders cover joint production committees, which are a new thing
in Britain, and the Atomic Energy Commission, which is old enough to file its
second annual report to the Security Council. Actually, there are two
commissions, and this is the UN one. The report calls for inspectors to go
everywhere in Russia looking for atomic bombs, while the Russian
counterproposal is for the Americans to destroy all atom bombs and their
factories. The compromise solution is for everyone to not say anything while
the Russians create their atom bombs, after which the Americans and Russians
will each stand in their own corner and glare, wild-eyed, each daring the other
to be the first to Stone Age-ise the planet.
Obituary: Sir Leonard Pearce,
CBE Sir Leonard had been the chief engineer of the London Power Company for
twenty-one years. Since he was born in 1873, that means that he was chief
engineer from the age of 53 to 74. He built various power stations, travelled
extensively on business, and was a member of the Alpine Club, the Alpine Ski
Club, and the Swiss Alpine Club. Dying slightly younger is Frederick S.
Hayburn, formerly managing director of Marconi, and G. L. Groves, partner in
the civil engineering firm of Messrs.. Mott, Hay and Anderson. Chief engineer
on the Newport Bridge over the River Usk, and the reconstruction of the
Wearmouth Bridge, Sunderland. He worked on the 10-mile extension of London
Transport’s Central Line from Liverpool Street to Ilford, and on plans for the
Severn Bridge.
“Internal Stresses in Metals and Alloys” This is a summary of a
symposium on the subject held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on the
15th and 16th. It heard 36 papers over twelve hours, with eighty
speakers. X-ray diffraction is getting quite good at measuring what’s going on
inside metal pieces. What is needed is confirmation from mechanical methods,
and higher accuracy of measure.
“Cold Repair of Broken Castings” Metalock Casting Repair Service, of
London, is a British company, formed by an associate company in Canada, to
bring an American-developed method to British shores. It basically involves
fasteners, although the method of creating a fluid-tight seal around the area
where the fasteners are applied is patented, and involves the new “Metaloy”
material.
E. M. Trent, “Manufacture and Application of Sintered Carbides”
Sintered carbides use alloying metals such as nickel and cobalt to produce very
hard steels that resist very high temperatures.
Continental
Engineering News
All but one of the Danube bridges at Budapest were destroyed during
the war, and the survivor, the Arpad bridge, was in sad shape. They cannot be
repaired now because of the steel shortage, so the semi-permanent Kossuth Bridge has ben contrived to take the traffic, along with two floating bridges
on pontoons. Antwerp overtook Rotterdam as the most important continental port
this year. Dutch Royal Shell is building a large refinery in Holland. Under
French notes, ball bearing deliveries are now delayed from eighteen to twenty-four
months by the destruction of the SRO plant at Annecy.
https://www.budapestindex.com/blog/291112/budapest-kossuth-bridge
 |
| Quite the engineering story. |
“North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board: Gaur Project” A dam is to be
built on the outlet of Loch Eigheach on the River Gaur, with a fish race. The
loch, which is in the middle of “boulder strewn moorland,” will be doubled in
size, and generating capacity will be 500kw/h.
 |
| Overlooking the reservoir |
“Experimental Electric Lighting sets on a GWR Locomotive” A turbine,
running off the exhaust, will provide electric lighting in the cabin of the
experimental locomotive, St. Brides Hall.
The arrangement must be constant-speed somehow, as it gives 12v across a “wide
range of load and boiler steam pressure.”
South African
Engineering Notes
This feature is usually a waste of ink, as there is hardly any
engineering in South Africa; this one covers the extension of irrigation in
Capetown Province, and associated water supply schemes; a plan for making oil
from coal in the Transvaal, mineral surveying and irrigation development in
Southern Rhodesia on the Saabi River, expansion of the manganese industry, and
plans for a new road that will bring Port Elizabeth within a day’s drive of
Cape Town. Eight passes between the George and Storms River will be eliminated
by the new route, and four miles of distance removed by eliminating curves.
 |
| Port Elizabeth city hall. I had no idea Cape Province was so big. Shows what I know. |
Industrial and
Labour Notes
Grimthorpe workers heard the
first report of the fact-finding committee struck to look into the strike
there. The total working population of Great Britain in August was 20,146,000,
down 8000 from July due to there being 14000 fewer women at work. The total
working population is up 396,000 from 1939 (230,000 fewer men, 626,000 more
women). There were 5,486,000 people manufacturing for the home market;
1,580,000 for the export market, up 1,170,000 since August 1945. 239,912
insured persons were out of work, and 14,097 uninsured. This includes 8000 men
who have had no employment since release from the services, 30,000 married
women who are probably not coming back to work, and 4370 boys and girls under
eighteen who have not yet entered industry. British overseas trade was £99
million last month, up £6 millions from August but down £11 millions from July.
Imports were at £160 millions, a substantial reduction over the previous two
months. Everyone is impressed at the way that the iron and steel industry has
increased output, and the TUC reminds everyone that unions must be consulted
about things.
Notes and Memoranda
The GWR is reconstructing the Feeder Bridge at North Somerset Junction
that carries the Paddington-Penzance main line. The Road Safety Committee
report emphasises that if all vehicles were roadworthy, road accidents would be
“considerably decreased.” The GWR has arranged for a special weather service
giving 24-hour notice of fog conditions.
Newsweek, 27 October 1947
Letters
The American Legion and Herbert Hoover’s private secretary are upset
at Newsweek. Hoover wants it to know
that he did support the war effort. Bob Long is on the case of sending American
food scraps to Germany, or something. (Germans are starving, so it is wrong to
feed scraps to hogs in Des Moines. I don't get it?) H. H. Davenport writes to defend General Lee. Two correspondents
weigh in on the question of whether the West Coast slack cut is too
slim-fitting for American women.
 |
| Source: Vintage Dancer |
The Periscope
The Herter Committee went to Europe, they are still drafting
Eisenhower, Jimmy Byrnes’ memoirs are out, the President hopes that any of his
staff who resign will do so in the next few months, because there’s an election
in ’48. Some people say that everyone says that most people say that the
Marshall Plan is all right with them. Harold Ickes has memoirs coming out, and Bill Draper is back from Japan convinced that we need to stop purging–You know what, I’m
just going to read this as saying that Japanese businessmen finally have enough
money to bribe the Occupation. Sweden
and Greece are fighting over what’s happening on Greece’s borders, which are
next to Greece, but policed by Swedish observers. (Are we still looking for
International Brigades?) Italy’s “African colonies” are still in the news,
because some people can’t get over the fact that Italy is not getting them back.
 |
| Not the first time Ronnie has crossed paths with the father of Silicon Valley venture capitalism, and not the last, either. |
Washington Trends The Marshall Plan
is a trend. Republican threats to cut taxes as soon as the next Congress
convenes aren’t a trend, because the President doesn’t think that they can get
themselves together to do it. Meanwhile, the President continues to gain in the
polls in spite of high cost of living. It is thought that next month’s Kentucky
election will be a bellweather that weathercocks the turning of the metaphor. The
Luckmann campaign is a runaway success. There’s going to be a Presidential
election next year.
National Affairs
We lead off with a bit about free trade negotiations, about which my
opinion is neither needed nor solicited. Also feeling left out is Will Clayton,
who is coming home to retire, which has something to do with trade. At this
point you ask yourself, “Have I heard anything about the Marshall Plan and the
Paris Plan lately?” I mean, pages (by which I mean a page) have passed since I heard about that. Well, good news,
because here’s a boxed article on “Stopping Up Holes in the Paris Plan.”
Hurrah! Then there’s a bit about Luckmann’s poultry-free days, and a bit about
the controversy over Greta Kempton’s portrait of the President, and a longer
bit about the President’s gain in the Gallups, and then a bit about Colonel
McCormick’s pick (not Eisenhower!) in the Presidential election which, you
might not have heard, is happening next year. Also, Admiral Nimitz is stepping
down (Newsweek is sure to tell us
that Uncle Chester can’t retire, because he is a Fleet Admiral). And Glenn Taylor is making an ass of himself by publicising plans to ride (partway)
across America as a tribute to Paul Revere. Are the British coming?
“Rescue at Sea”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but Bermuda Sky Queen landed in the middle of the Atlantic this week,
next to the Coast Guard weather ship, Bibb,
because the navigator had just realised, after flying right over the Point
of No Return, that they were 22 hours out from Newfoundland, and not 19, and
that there was no way on God’s green Earth that they were going to make it.
Sky Queen took off at least 10,000lbs overweight, which is what you’d expect carrying 62(!) passengers in a ten-year-old plane. Since Martin couldn’t have got off the water if he were not trimmed to the weight, he had to have known he wasn’t going to make it, Reggie says. Second, there is no way that you can land a ‘314 in 30ft waves. The Reuters dispatch makes it clear that the thirty-foot conditions only blew up overnight. A landing in five-foot waves is impressive enough. The only reason to gild the lilies is that so much egg is on the face of the CAB inspector who certified the Sky Queen and American International Airways owner, J. Stuart Robertson.
Charles Martin, a 33-year-old ex-Navy man made an “’incomparable landing
at sea amidst waves as high as three-story buildings.” Reggie was beside himself
at this. First, although Martin blames heavier-than-expected headwinds, nolandplanes reported same. The only way to reconstruct the plot is if the plane took off at least 10,000lbs overweight, which Martin would have had to have known, because he would have had to trim the aircraft for takeoff.
Sky Queen took off at least 10,000lbs overweight, which is what you’d expect carrying 62(!) passengers in a ten-year-old plane. Since Martin couldn’t have got off the water if he were not trimmed to the weight, he had to have known he wasn’t going to make it, Reggie says. Second, there is no way that you can land a ‘314 in 30ft waves. The Reuters dispatch makes it clear that the thirty-foot conditions only blew up overnight. A landing in five-foot waves is impressive enough. The only reason to gild the lilies is that so much egg is on the face of the CAB inspector who certified the Sky Queen and American International Airways owner, J. Stuart Robertson.
 |
| Conditions on the Bibb must have been pretty extreme, too. The story notes that planes flew overhead to drop diapers. |
Newsweek barely mentions the
fact that, because of the sea conditions, Bibb
had to hold off rescue efforts all night, with forty passengers still on-board
Sky Queen, “prostrate with
seasickness,” whatever “prostrate” means in an eighty-foot boat in thirty-foot
seas. It’s a miracle that no-one
drowned.
Not miraculous at all is a
story about Secretary Marshall giving a talk to the CIO, except in the sense
that I don’t have to read it.
 |
| Sponsor's message. |
Washington Tides,
with Ernest K. Lindsay, “What Our Congressmen Found in Europe” Starving children, raging
Communists, I bet. (The intrepid girl abbreviator puts on her reading glasses,
about which NO ONE MUST HEAR, and reads.) Yes. That’s what they found!
“Many the Tasks and Short the Time,” and “Safety First” The world is
barrelling towards the end of the British mandate in Palestine, at which point
the Jews will implement partition, and the Palestinian Arabs will not, and the
rest of the Arab world will –we don’t know, and we don’t know what the United
Nations will do about whatever they do. Uncle Henry actually had a very good
point about this, the other day: When no-one is doing anything, you need to
decide what you’re going to do, and
do it, and apologise later, if you have to.
“Reparations Repercussions” Germans are upset that they are losing
their factories. French actresses are upset at losing their clothes. Also,
Stalin is terrible and Konni Zilliacus is a socialist.
 |
| Even in 1947, and even granted Henry Luce's batshit politics, Newsweek was still sleazier than Time. At least once Time got rid of the correspondent who filed all those rape fantasy stories. |
“Socialised Banking” The Australian plan to socialise the banks is
still going ahead over fierce objections from people with money. (My Dad is so
mad it’s funny! Though I shouldn’t point my finger, after getting my ear talked
off by yourself. No, no, please don’t feel the need to telephone. I take your
points –I’m not some raging socialist like your son!)
“China’s Part in the Peace Stalemate” After glancing through this all
too quickly, I’m not even clear where peace is supposed to be breaking out,
although I do gather that the only place that is likely to happen is Japan.
“Said the Duchess” The Duchess of Montoro’s wedding is the biggest
royal news of the month –sort of an appetiser for Elizabeth’s nuptials. She
really is the prettiest bride. Newsweek has
a short bit on the leadup to the wedding next, and the drydocking of the entire
Home Fleet.
Foreign Tides with Joseph B. Phillips
“The Fate of Little Compromise” Communism, Andrei Gromyko, and Fellow
Travellers are awful. (It’s an allegory.)
“Plan for Germany: A Businessman’s Report: Unify Germany, Feed It . .
. Let It Produce in Plenty for Itself and for Europe” I’m including a clipping,
since I get the feeling that this is “floating” an official plan.
 |
| How many years of six day work do you suppose you can ask of manual labourers before you start to hit the point of diminishing returns? |
Most of this week’s Canadian
Affairs section is devoted to “See Here, Uncle,” which is a lecture
disguised as a newspaper column. Canadian journalist Leslie Roberts can’t
contain himself, as he condescendingly explains what Americans are doing wrong.
Thanks, Les! The tanks roll tomorrow! Meanwhile, in Latin America, less
communism, more Americanism, in celebration of which, the President gives a
nice flag to the Mexicans in honour of the Martyrs of Chapultepec, and I can’t
see a problem, here! (Even Dad remembers he’s Mexican when it’s time to talk about
Chapultepec.)
Business
“What to Blame for High Prices” The President says that food prices
are up because of grain speculators. (Dad says that it is the Agriculture Department,
buying to support prices so those “damn Democrats” can be re-elected. He does
concede that it is good for Europe.) The Agriculture Secretary says that it is
the drought.
“End of Easy Money” Marriner Eccles has won some kind of obtuse
concession that allow him to step in and “end easy money,” which is why the
stock and bond markets are slowing. “Ending easy money” means that the interest
rate on borrowed money is rising, which means less borrowing, and so less
spending of borrowed money on, well, stocks and bonds. However, Eccles can
only go so far, since an increase in interest rate payments on government bonds
would be such a heavy load, but he thinks he has enough room to manoeuvre.
“Offspring of the Jeep” James D. Mooney left GM in January 1946 to do
something exciting,a nd now we see what, the “station sedan” version of the
Willys-Overland Jeep, a “college boy’s delight.” It’s one of five new Jeep
models that are driving Willys-Overland to comfortable profits.
 |
| So why is Mom showing it off? |
Products The new products
feature puts the spotlight on children’s waterproof mittens with flannel linings
and outside coverings of red rubber, a juke box for bars with a choice of
television program, recordings or a radio show, a tubeless tire that is
self-sealing and almost puncture proof, cookpots with copper sandwiched between
two layers of stainless steel, which spreads heat evenly, keeping food from
sticking and burning, and a washable, electrically heated sheet to sell at less than $30 from
Westinghouse.
 |
| The old waterproof ones were awfully clammy, but good for skiing. Source: Chronically Vintage |
Trends and Changes Coal producers say
that there will be enough coal for the winter, if there are sufficient
railcars, but there will be spot shortages of special-purpose coal such as the
kind used by the steel industry. The Committee for Economic Development has
given up worrying about right now, and is making plans to “avert a major depression
in the 1950s.” Gasoline prices are up after crude oil prices advanced 20 cents
a barrel to the highest level since 1920, in the fifth major round of increases
since VJ Day.
Business Tides,
with Henry Hazlitt “Are Profits Too High?” Can you guess what Henry says? Can you? No, they are not. The very high numbers we
have heard reflect the high volume of business and the inflation and the taxes and
bad statistics. In fact, they are too low!
Science
Damn it! The dreaded folding, spindling and mutilating error has eaten
the Science page! It looks as though
there is a big article about something to do with Sperry gyroscope examining
bees flying to improve their “directional locator,” but everything is too
smudged to read.
Medicine
“Don’t Play with Nails” Two Atlanta doctors have a story in the New England Journal of Medicine about
extracting a nail that had become lodged in a boy’s intestines with a magnet.
“Spleen Extract for Cancer” Spleen extract is one of those “controversial”
cancer treatments. Well, Dr. George F. Watson, of Kitchener, Ontario, and Drs.
Irene Corey Diller and N. Volney Ludwick of Philadelphia have now published a
paper which has “revived interest” in the treatment.
 |
| As my brother points out, when you remove tubercular patients from the community to southern sanitariums, and then let them die without informing the next-of-kin, you stop being seen as "medical care" and start being seen as "the Gestapo." |
“Corset Ulcers” Up to about twenty years ago, women had four to five
times as many gastric ulcers as men, but now the situation is reversed. Dr. A.C. Ivy, of the University of Illinois, thinks that it had to do with corsets,
and warns that the New Look is going to bring them back.
And it’ll be worth it!
“X-Ray Warning” It turns out that too many x-rays are bad for you.
Education
“Great Issues at Dartmouth” President Dickey of Dartmouth says that
instead of having a fuddy-duddy (I cannot believe that is a character, but my
dictionary would not lie!) Great Books series, Dartmouth will have a Great
Issues programme which will feature lots and lots of international relations.
“For Would-Be Freshman” The good news for non-veterans hoping to enter
college next year is that there will be more of them. Hmm. The point is that
while there will be ten percent fewer veterans in the University of California next
year, the overall enrollment will be up from 40,800 to 44,000.
Press, Radio, Art, Transitions
“Four on Their Jobs” Newsweek is
tired of hearing about the war and heavy, global problems. How about some newspaper
people who would write about what really matters
–newspapers! Well, this week Al Laney, Bill Mauldin and Matt Weinstock did just
that. While I agree that there are too many bad stories about “heavy global
problems,” I don’t think they’ll care about the old days at the New York Herald Tribune in seventy years,
either, much less the Rochester News.
 |
| I'm guessing that's already a gross, sexist insult by 1947. |
“Vishinsky versus Winchell” Vishinsky is terrible, and Walter Winchell
is on him.
“The Modern Art Racket” Newsweek
jumps up on the “My Five-Year-old could do that!” bandwagon. It’s a review
of Robsjohn-Gibbings’ book, and it swallows his nonsense whole.
John Pershing had a birthday party, Margaret Truman is on tour, Graham
Moulton, of I Spy, is getting divorced. There’s something shady up between Vann
Johnson, Diora Costello and Pepi Campos. Leon Josephson is going to jail for
refusing to testify before HUAC, and Eugene B. Casey for income-tax fraud.
James Farley tells a Wellesley College dinner(!) that there can never be as woman
president, because the weaker sex is too weak. Even Newsweek thinks that that is bad politics. Gitz Rice and Ellsworth
Huntington, “leading authority on the effects of climate on man,” have died.
There’s a lovely baby picture of the latest Barrymore.
 |
| Stories about the Barrymores are just inherently sad, so instead of the baby picture, here's the illustration for that Time review of the children's art coffee table book that I couldn't find yesterday morning for some reason. |
Movies
Newsweek went to see Green Dolphin Street, and is grumpy
about it, since it went on much too long, and was much too silly, although I
think it was funny when the review suggested that the plot was best explained
by “hereditary imbalance.” Or not so much funny as true-to-life when I look at my synopsis of the film's plot.
The Swordsman is a “Western” set in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century? That’s your Waverly era, if you care about fussy old Scottish novels, and it is just impossibly romantic, and of course I’ve been to see it, and of course I loved it. Newsweek, not so much. Variety Girl, the Paramount movie with everybody in it, is out, and everyone except the audience has a swell time. That’s not Newsweek being grumpy, by the way. I didn’t like it, and neither did Vivian, who is usually an easier sell on this kind of thing. (Vivian says “Hi,” by the way.)
The Swordsman is a “Western” set in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century? That’s your Waverly era, if you care about fussy old Scottish novels, and it is just impossibly romantic, and of course I’ve been to see it, and of course I loved it. Newsweek, not so much. Variety Girl, the Paramount movie with everybody in it, is out, and everyone except the audience has a swell time. That’s not Newsweek being grumpy, by the way. I didn’t like it, and neither did Vivian, who is usually an easier sell on this kind of thing. (Vivian says “Hi,” by the way.)
 |
| Fortunately, others read this newsletter, and some of them are less naïve about the risks of a flirtation between Reggie and Vivian. Grace, rereading this in 1993, will think of that, and Green Dolphin Street. |
Books
 |
Three Kirkus reviews in a row, for that
old-timey feeling. Remember when "war
books" were a drug on the market?
|
Perspective, with
Raymond Moley, “The Propheteers Were Wrong”
 |
| No mention of the defence cuts, either. Different times! |
Flight, 30 October 1947
Leaders
“Design Policy” Leslie Frise, of Bristol, has written the Times to say that it was a waste of
money and manpower to develop a coupled Centaurus engine for the Brabazon
prototype when the Proteus was coming along. Flight aggressively misses the point and then adds that the coupled
Centaurus will allow the prototype to do test flying, and the Proteus might
take awhile yet, so it wasn’t a waste, after all.
 |
| Bristol Britannia with four Proteus engines. Gorgeous, but inlet icing . . . By RuthAS - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29471494 |
“Axing the Future” The Economist
is on about reducing capital expenditures and resource diversions to
increase exports, which is all very well until the question turns to cancelling
the Brabazon and the Saro SR 45 flying boat, because they are the future and just can’t be cancelled.
 |
| Gentlemen, I give you, "The Future!" |
“Helicopter Progress” Flight was
looking at the complicated rotor on the new Bristol helicopter, and it occurred
to Flight that it is very
complicated, and that the rotor head on a “gyroplane” isn’t complicated at all,
on account of it not being a helicopter, and why can’t we have both? But mainly
autogiros, because autogiros are nice.
On top of the bumpf for the Concordia and the Ambassador last week, this
ad for Cierva makes it look like Flight has
completely sold out to its spivviest advertisers. (Look at me talk like a
Bright Young Thing!)
“The ‘Mambalanc’ Delivered” The ‘Mambalanc” isn’t Mom in a station
wagon with a box of Band-Aids, it is a Lancaster with a Mamba engine in its
nose. It looks really, really funny, but I guess it’s a good way to test a
Mamba. Air Service Training oversees making sure it doesn’t fall off. That’s a joke.
“Speed-Record Turbine” Details of the General Electric TG 180 (J-35)
as Used in the 650-mph Skystreak” The TG-180 is an eleven-stage compressor
stator axial-flow turbo engine with a single stage turbine, with shaft and hub
forging of “4340” steel (the only steel specified in the description). It has a
direct-flow combustion chamber, a multi-injector lubrication system, and air blast
cooling on the fourth for the three rear bearings from the fourth stage of the
compressor.
Flight regrets to report
the death of Bernard Leak, a young aircraft designer.
 |
| On the other hand, if he's still trying to flog Chislea aircraft, that's just sad. |
“The Sperry Pilot Aid: Introductory Details of a Simplified Autopilot
for the Lighter Types of Aircraft” The Pilot Aid is the first autopilot viable
in an aircraft of less than 15,000lbs. It has an air-driven vertical gyro with
potentiometer-driven pick-offs with magnetic switches for detecting roll and
pitch. Electrical DC signals are converted into movements of pneumatic valves
(in other words, it is air driven with DC control signals). The linear servos
from the pitch and roll pick-offs have feedback, and the directional gyro
operates the roll relay valve to maintain direction through aileron control.
The power supply required is 40v DC, with air pressure of 12 lb/sq in. Damping
is purely aerodynamic, so stiffness has a roll limit that cannot be exceeded
without oscillation. Stiffness can, however, be increased beyond the limits of the
deadbeat valve with an adjusting gadget, since some oscillation is lost in
general bumpiness. In other words, in rough weather, wiggle this thingamajig
until the autopilot works or the plane goes into a spin. There is a control for
limited turns without disengaging the autopilot; beyond that point it must be
caged and reset. Since the gyro continues to run, on reset, the plane goes into
a banked turn and levels out in its new direction with no waiting. “This
all-British production meets the original specification requirements and is the
lightest automatic pilot in the world,” at 17 ½ lbs, and, if a Directional Gyro
is already installed in the plane, the installation weight is only 13 ½ lbs. On
the basis of this work, Sperry has received a contract to build an automatic
pilot suitable for even larger planes.
 |
| Here's one of those "1940s precursors to the IT industry" ads, so that I can admit that I can't find anything about the Pilot Aid on the Interwebs. Either it's because of official secrecy, or it's because no-one wants to write about autopilots. I suspect the latter: Making up stories about how the robots are going to exterminate us is much more fun than trying to understand how they actually work. |
In shorter news, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Lloyd gave a talk to the RUSI
about how the Allies won the air war in the Mediterranean because they were
smarter and politer and more charming than the Axis and always listened to
their Mother when she told them what a properly brought-up young air force
ought to do, and figures out from America say that operating a helicopter is
quite expensive.
Here and There
The Netherlands have ordered some Meteors. BOAC wants you to know that
it has your typewriter, folding perambulator, children’s toys, coats, books,
spectacle and pipes at their Lost Property Office at the Airways Terminal. The
Paris Air Show will not be held this year. The American post office is promoting
airmail with talking post office letter boxes that say, whenever they are
opened to drop a letter in, “Thank you for posting a letter. I hope it is
airmail.” New York will have an air exhibition next year to celebrate the
anniversary of something or another. Australia will be buying its carrier
aircraft from Britain to go with its carriers. America has spent eighteen
million pounds on radar, airfields and underground command posts in Alaska, and
over a hundred flights have now been made over the North Pole and its vicinity
to test men and equipment. South African Skymasters may soon carry movie
projectors, if a test flight goes well. Air Marshal Sir Richard Peck is taking
over the Savings Movement in the Forces after Field Marshal Deverell died last
year. US air production is said to be below the level in 1939. I know that Grace likes to summarise these
claims by saying that America will be in trouble if “WWII happens again,” but
with the situation with Russia, it doesn’t seem completely silly.
J. N. D. Heenan, “Proposed Fulfilment: The Designer of the Planet
Satellite Discusses Sir Roy Fedden’s New Ideal” As far as I can tell, no-one
takes either Sir Roy’s proposal, or the Planet Satellite seriously, so why
should I?
“Helicopter Research Trials” The included picture shows a helicopter
flying very close to a lighthouse, presumably to lift off that keeper who is
always getting appendicitis when the boat needs repairs. I would say, during
the worst storm of the season, but I don’t think a helicopter would help then!
“Bristol Helicopter: First Detailed Survey of Latest British
Rotary-Wing Aircraft” The prototype 171 is flying with a Wasp, but will receive
an Alvis Leonides soon. The structure is a conventional tube build, the real
details being in the engine and rotor drive, which is all a sea of technical
jargon to me –a coaxial sleeve surrounds the crankshaft extension, running back
to a bevel pinion which meshes with a bell-type crown wheel, the crown bevel
being hub-serrated to a vertical drive shaft around which are pivoted the
toggle-action wedging levers that carry the slippers that form the freewheel
device. Straightforward! I see why the other writers tend to just include some
negatives at this point, and I’m going to do the same. You want to see the
“large diameter ball-type steady bearing,” well, it’s off to that darkroom
you’re so proud of! Though I imagine you’ll get distracted with those beautiful
garden pictures you do, and you’ll never see how the main transmission shaft is
a 2 ¾ inch steel tube terminating at an 8-point Layrub coupling to the rotor
head. And at this point I am less than
half done poking fun at the article, because the bit about the tail rotor is at
least as long.
 |
| A Leonides, successfully turned on its side. Ten years of development is paying off for Alvis. By ChrisO - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10888897 |
“Progress with the Newbury Eon: First Impressions in the Air:
Development and Detail Improvement in Hand” The Newbury Eon is a nice little glider.
“Atmospheric Testing: New de Havilland Test House for Research and
Development in Pressurisation and Allied Problems” De Havilland is the latest
aeronautical company to build a chamber which can achieve the air pressure and
temperature conditions that high altitude aircraft are likely to face. It’s
only for components, though, as the working space in the chamber is only 12 ft
wide and 27ft long, and so much for putting an entire flying wing in it. I was
looking at the publicity pictures of the Northrop bomber, and wondering if the
de Havilland airliner will be bigger or smaller, and, if bigger, just how large
the chamber would have to be to test the entire thing at “altitudes up to
80,000ft”; but that is not on the table. There’s even a fuel test bay to
determine how fuel is affected!
Under books, a short bit discusses Admiral Sir Gerald Dicken’s Fallacy of Total War, which is an answer
to Air Chief Marshal Harris’ Bomber
Offensive.
“High-Temperature Alloys: Metallurgical Problems of Gas Turbine
Components: Precis of a Talk Given to the Royal Aeronautical Society by Sir
William T. Griffiths, D.Sc.” As the Admiral is always saying, you can’t burn
things in nothing; that is, if you’re going to burn gas or oil or whatever, you
have to have a container that will stand the heat, or you’ll find that your
welds are suddenly coming unwelded. Griffiths’ special concern was turbine
alloys, which must withstand extreme mechanical stress as well as temperature.
The combination of mechanical stress and temperature leads to “creep,” which is
an exception from the usual rule of mechanical engineering jargon in that I
think I can imagine what it means. The blades get longer, right? This is
obviously terrible in a turbine engine, where the blades mesh like a meat
grinder. Although it seems that the bigger problem is rupture. The experiments
were intended to pinpoint the temperature at which the creep beings to speed
up, and why certain alloys, notably the “Nimonics,” are so resistant. It turns
out that it is due to the “solution and precipitation” of carbides of titanium,
and this insight might lead to improved grades of Nimonic. Good that someone is working on that!
“Irving-Bell Abroad: European Demonstration Tour on a Helicopter” Mr.
Irvin Bell is taking his Bell 47 on a European tour to scare up sales. In
similarly advertisory-related news stories, Roy Harben, DFC, of Air Schools,
Limited, was going to open an Aeronautical College, although the timing
suggests that we would call it an Aeronautical High School. This is going to be
difficult now that he is dead, but the Board has been reconstructed, and now it
will be Group Captain Wilcock, OBE, AFC, MP, who will open the college.
“Dart and Merlin Developments” The Rolls Royce Dart installed in the
chin of that Lancaster has now done over 5 hours of flying in its initial trial
programme, with hundreds of hours of bench testing lying behind. Rolls-Royce is
also delivering the new Merlin 35 for Avro Athena and Boulton Paul Balliol
trainers pending the possible eventual arrival of a turboprop engine. The new Merlin
is a very nice installation with a single-speed supercharger.
Civil Aviation News
The IATA had some meetings and decided to keep international fares at
their present level through the winter, except on the North Atlantic, where
they will go up £6 4s 1d to £86 17s. The two Swedish airlines are amalgamating.
Captain John Woodman, with 8500 flying hours to his credit, will be awarded the
first British Master Pilot’s Certificate given out since the war. He joined
BOAC in 1934 and has been flying the Atlantic route of late. Qantas’ chartered
Bristol Freighter has had a “mishap” at Wau field in New Guinea “recently.” It
landed safely on the field, which has a 1-in-twelve gradiant(!), but then
“careened out of control” for a thousand feet before bouncing off the twenty-five-foot
edge of the field, crumpling the starboard wing and tearing off the fuselage,
although none of the passengers or crew were injured.
The Chief Inspector of Accidents has filed reports on the recent Viking and Aerovan accidents.
The Viking accident was concluded to be an undercarriage collapse due to excessively heavy loading and, as a result of that and “bad handling of the fuel supply,” a bad landing. The Aerovan accident was caused by an engine failure, but the Chief Inspector implies that the operators might have been negligent, as the paper work on the loading was incomplete. Russian civil aviation is making “rapid progress,” with more services in all directions all the time, while the American light aircraft market is declining rapidly, as nearly everyone who wanted to fly postwar has bought themselves some Government surplus, or one of the over-produced small planes now being dumped on the market. However, the Stinson division of Vultee reports steady sales in the “business plane” market. I imagine that there’s less competition, because business planes are expensive, and you can’t get into production with nothing but a dream (delusion?). In related news, Republic is selling the production rights to its Seabee.
 |
| This is scraped from a site called "Pacific Wrecks," which is pretty vehement about not hotlinking without donating. I didn't hotlink, but I do feel guilty about taking their image. |
The Chief Inspector of Accidents has filed reports on the recent Viking and Aerovan accidents.
 |
| By RuthAS - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6255715 |
The Viking accident was concluded to be an undercarriage collapse due to excessively heavy loading and, as a result of that and “bad handling of the fuel supply,” a bad landing. The Aerovan accident was caused by an engine failure, but the Chief Inspector implies that the operators might have been negligent, as the paper work on the loading was incomplete. Russian civil aviation is making “rapid progress,” with more services in all directions all the time, while the American light aircraft market is declining rapidly, as nearly everyone who wanted to fly postwar has bought themselves some Government surplus, or one of the over-produced small planes now being dumped on the market. However, the Stinson division of Vultee reports steady sales in the “business plane” market. I imagine that there’s less competition, because business planes are expensive, and you can’t get into production with nothing but a dream (delusion?). In related news, Republic is selling the production rights to its Seabee.
Correspondence
“Reactionary” thinks that various people might be at fault for
announcing the Meteor IV prematurely. “Ven Lai” thinks that Hong Kong Airways
ought to be made to buy British.
W. P. Kemp replies to David Brice’s “attempt to put a damper on the rapidly increasing popularity of the large flying boat.” Next up, W. P. Kemp explains to David Brice that Santa Claus and fairies really are so real. “Resurgam” thinks that there should be a “European Central Flying School” to train all Europeans to fly the right (British) way. He is disagreeing with the ICAO here, in a very long letter full of abbreviations, so here's mine: IDC. Guess what it stands for!
This has nothing to do with the correspondent, or 1947, but it is interesting.
W. P. Kemp replies to David Brice’s “attempt to put a damper on the rapidly increasing popularity of the large flying boat.” Next up, W. P. Kemp explains to David Brice that Santa Claus and fairies really are so real. “Resurgam” thinks that there should be a “European Central Flying School” to train all Europeans to fly the right (British) way. He is disagreeing with the ICAO here, in a very long letter full of abbreviations, so here's mine: IDC. Guess what it stands for!
The Engineer, 31 October 1947
Seven-Day Journal
The Fire Officer’s Committee
reminds everyone that staggered hours raise fire risks by leaving less down
time for inspecting, maintaining and cleaning machinery, and that care should
be taken that temporary electric connections not be used unless the feed is of
ample capacity and the work is carried out by competent electricians. The
offices disseminating technical reports from Germany and Japan have been
rearranged. The British Iron and Steel Federation reminds everyone of the vital
importance of recycling iron and steel scrap. The Industrial Research
Secretariat of the Federation of British Industries reports that 420 firms
filed reports showing that they spent at least £1000/year on research, and that
it can be estimated that British industry is spending £30 million a year on
industrial scientific research, the work being carried out by a staff of
45,000, including 10,000 qualified scientists and engineers. Three out of five
firms intend to extend their research effort, and 3 million feet of additional
laboratory space is planned to accommodate a total of 2500 more qualified
staff, especially chemists, physicists and engineers. The British Road
Federation presents findings proving that roads should not be included in
deferred capital expenditures during the current crisis.
The “Historic Researches” article leaps ahead all the way to 1833 this week.
“Internal Stresses in Metals and Alloys, II” Professor Leslie
Atchinson presides over a session on removing internal stresses. I’m impressed
by a brief bit describing A. G. Warren’s work on “autofrettaging” gun barrels
and pressure vessels, where it is frankly admitted that the theory under which
they were proceeding was wrong, even if the method works. Engineers! You can
see why when you see papers from groups who were spinning turbines for long
periods of time to see if they fail, and, if so, why. The same principle could
be applied to many of these papers. They heat up bits of steel and other
metals, and cool them down, and kick them and prod them, and, if they fail,
peer at x-rays and try to figure out why.
Eric Burgess, “German Guided and Rocket Missiles, V” Rheinmetal Borsag
also produced a guided missile to the ground-based anti-aircraft missile
specification, the Reintochter, in
two types. The R-1 was a radio controlled missile launched from a complicated
ramp with booster rockets for main thrust. It had the German “Kugelblitz” proximity fuze and a very large warhead, and control was via a gyro unit acting
on the elevators via servos. The later R-3 used liquid fuel with booster units.
The company intended to use radio and radar control, with two Mannheim radar
detectors, one for following the missiles, the other for tracking the aircraft.
The control bunker would contain a Siemens computer which would record the
signals from the Mannheims while the operator attempted to align the signals by
manual control. This would cause the rocket to converge with the target,
providing the 1200MHz control signal turned the missile appropriate and
“window” didn’t jam the Mannheims. If it did, the operator would take over
visual control, using a flare in the tail of the missile. The actual design as
completed to war’s end still had a radio-actuated fuze, the proximity fuze
being a work in progress. Burgess than moves on to the long range rockets –the
missile designs leading up to the V2. I think these are pretty much old news,
although I’d never heard of the supersonic winged missile (A9 with A10 booster,
which sounds very ambitious. I thought that wings still tended to tear off when
things go supersonic, and the V2s are very, very supersonic.) In conclusion,
Burgess points out, the Germans did so much work, so fast, in so many places,
that it will be years before it is all sorted out.
 |
| So, almost a documentary. |
“Physics Laboratory of the British Iron and Steel Research
Association” It is a very big, very impressive laboratory, with a math section,
an aerodynamics section, a heat and thermodynamics section and an instruments
section. The model side-loading convertor that was such a hit at Olympia is
still there, and the laboratory has good relations with Professor Hay at the
Royal Technical College, Glasgow, Professor J. H. Andrew at Sheffield, and H.V. A. Briscoe at Imperial[!]. The Association hopes that it will be able to take
the international lead from the Americans.
Metallurgical
Topics
This month’s installment is “Metallurgical Embrittlement of Steel” All
mild steels get brittle as they get older and are worked. Bessemer steels are
especially vulnerable. This used to be thought to be due to their high nitrogen
and phosphorus contents, but this has only been partly confirmed. Still, the
Germans, who had to make heavy use of the basic Bessemer (Thomas) process to
allow open hearth steels to be reserved for special purposes, did their best to
keep nitrogen content down, with good results, by careful control of lime
additions, by a vigorous boil, and by “killing with aluminum.” Besides that,
more careful annealing will also reduce strain-age embrittlement
Leaders
“Oil Engine Performance” A paper read to the Diesel Engine Users
Association by their president, Mr. Clifford Green lays out best practices for
getting highly reliable work out of the high speed diesel engines which are
more important now, during the coal shortage, than ever. A Dunswell machine
with a built-up crankshaft that permits the use of case-hardened journals and
crankpins has been particularly successful. High speed, heavy duty oil engines
are much more reliable than anyone ever expected them to be.
“The King’s Speech and Economics” Exports need to be up, and imports
down. You may have heard.
Obituaries Harold JohnAllcock, deputy production director of British Insulated Callender’s Cables has
died at the age of 50, and the Earl of Lytton, who, while not an engineer, was
the chairman of the London Power Company.
Lord Dudley Gordon, DSO, MIMechE, “Iron and Steel and Refrigeration,
I” This series should be very interesting when it gets past 1850, which is
where Lord Gordon leaves us today, with Mr. Whitworth using a hydraulic press
to test chilled iron.
“A Universal Worm Gear Testing Machine” David Brown Tool Company has
developed a machine which can quickly and accurately check all dimensions on a
worm gear.
“The Maple Lodge Sewage Disposal Works” The Engineer was recently invited to see the plant, which consists
of a series of tanks that gradually tame the unmentionable effluent, and burns
the methane gas produced in the power house to provide enough steam to run the
pumps and aeration paddles and all the other accessories. The sludge, after final treatment, can either
be sold as nitrogenous fertiliser or burnt in the furnaces. There is a neat
control device to shut things down if a fog plugs the air filters.
H. Eckersley, “Manufacture and Application of Sintered Carbides:
Application of Industry” Eckersley discusses the kind of cutting tools that
already exist, and suggests that there are many other applications where high
speed cutting tools would save manpower and increase productive capacity.
“The Whitehaven Colliery Disaster” The Chief Inspector of Mines has
turned in his report on the 15 August disaster that cost 104 lives. The
Inspector concludes that not enough thought has been put into the use of
shot-firing explosives in longwall mining, and recommends trying out several
proposed safety measures. The Engineer also
covers the Mamba-Lancaster and a “small grinding machine” by E. H. Jones
(Machine Tools) on this page, following up wth an opaque article about
“electrical traction machines in Holland.” It talks about pantographs. Those
are the antenna-things on trolleys? Little James is obsessed with the one on his toy streetcar.
American
Engineering News
The Fort Peck and Sardis dams have been acting up due to the high pH
content of the water corroding steel pipes, and because of seepage below the
predicted maximum depth, which was to be relieved by drain pipes, which
corroded too quickly, because. . . It is noted that improved mining methods
lead to better labour relations, especially using elevators instead of making
men climb “2000ft and more to their working places.” Northern and Western
Railway has introduced a new steam shunting locomotive that is as efficient as
the diesel shunts usually used in America thanks to a modified mechanical
stoker.
 |
| Fort Peck Lake is in Montana. |
Industrial and
Labour Notes
More Councils and committees, and strikes in the Scottish fields are
cutting into coal production.
French Engineering
Notes
Coal, gas and electricity production is up in the Saar. The locks at
Dunkirk are almost fully reconstructed. France aims to produce 15 million tons
of steel a year when its development plan is completed.
Notes and Memoranda
The London Transport Board is hiring 350 luxury coaches to supplement
the bus fleet. Southern Railway is experimenting with insulation around the
water pipes as a way of preventing freezing in water towers, instead of the
expensive old coal braziers. Mr. E. A. Forward, curator of the railway
collection at the Science Museum, has a book out on Railway Locomotives and Rolling Stock that is very interesting.
James Sim, chief draftsman of G. and J. Weir, has died. He joined the company
in 1909.
Das Rheingold: Prelude and Rhinemaidens
No comments:
Post a Comment