Postblogging Technology, May 1953, II: Astin, Hell's Gate, and John Foster Dulles, Or, How To Be the 34th Ranked President

R_.C_.,
The Mayflower,
Washington, DC

Dear Father:

In the week you have been gone, I have gone from mopy to tired to ready to spend such time as Jim-Jim and little Margaret have left me to get back on the horse. Okay, yes, I am a bit bored. I am also short my usual copyediting assistance, although I  hope to do something about that by my next letter. Here is wishing you the best of underhanded luck in getting the most out of the Snake River. I might not approve of the decision (we might need that power, and people certainly need the fish), but at least we'll make some money. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Letters

Some people like Joe McCarthy and other people don't. Name Withheld By Request of Gulfport,, Mississippi, has used his keen powers of observation to determine that a new Korean War is about to break out in Germany. Gladwyn Jebb writes to point out that Newsweek is a terrible newspaper. Our old neighbour, Rose McFayden, writes to point out that the dancers in the recent article about the San Francisco Ballet aren't named. Newsweek corrects the mistake, but I bet that's not going to be the last time! WOI-TV of Ames, Iowa is not the first non-profit educational television station beause it is mostly a network affiliate. Cyril Robinson of Los Angeles has opinions about rattlesnakes. Our Publisher takes all the credit for linking up Bob Hope and "Mrs. Shaw," of the Thanx Club, which sends letters to servicement in Korea. There is no word yet on whether with Bob Hope's help, Mrs. Shaw will someday have a first name of her own.  Maybe she'll get two, so she can donate one to a ballerina!

The Periscope reports that the Russians have responded to the American hundred-thousand-dollar bounty on MiGs by putting extra sentries on the runways. The USAF explains that the reason for the bounty is that they need to prove that the MiG-15 is actually inferior to the Sabre. General Bradley will go to an "important job in California" when he leaves the Pentagon in six months. The Civil Service has posted 21,000 names on its "Do Not Rehire" list for all to see, in case Senator McCArthy gets upset, while the FBI reports that it has done 4,650,000 loyalty investigations, and 500 Federal jobholders have "ultimately" been fired as a result.  The IRS is crackig down on expense account deductions. US forces think that the Communists have gained "top secret information" from the proximity fuzes they have captured in Korea, allowing them to fire those proximity "ground bursts" that were so lethal at the Battle of the Bulge. The Republican Congress wants the President to address the nation to explain why he can't balance the budget and cut taxes at the same time. It's because of the previous Administration! The Air Force will soon order the B-58. The "hush-hush" $250 million for "special weapons" in the Eisenhower Mutual Security request is for European guided missiles and the British atomic bomb project. 'Helicopter passenger service is now in the planning stage" for seeveral US cities, says someone at Piasecki ahead of the first Piasecki XH-16 flight. A network of jet fuel pipelines will connect the Western air bases in Europe next year, in an initiative led by the British Ministry of Defence. There are a reported 100,000 anti-communist guerillas active in Poland, which makes you wonder how they found the officers to go on reported tours of the Korean theatre. The Red Army is dissolving its antiaircraft divisions, the Russians want to host the 1960 Olymptics, the May Day parades in Moscow were very pacific compared with Paris. The Russians are also extending their peace offensive to Yugoslavia. 

James Stewart is going to be in a new Hitchcock, The Rear Window, while Joan Fontaine will be the female lead in a Bob Hope comedy, Mr. Casanova, while Hollywood is looking for an actress to play Babe Didrikson-Zaharias. Celeste Holm will lhave a "musical comedy telepix series, Really, Caroline. Joseph Cotten is getting a radio show based on Eric Ambler's Journey Into Fear. Patrice Munsel is getting a "musical-dramatic TV series" to be shot at a castle in Florence, Italy, and CBS is for sure about to give Will Rogers, Jr. a show, because that's the second time they've reported this rumour.

3/8 depending on how you count them. It would be nice if someone wrote in with a blast like Gladwyn Jebb, but most of these rumours were probably planted by agents. 

Washington Trends reports that "The big decision has been made. From now on, look for the President to make a more decisive, aggressive stand on key issues." Good to hear! Republicans who oppose White House policies "are going to find themselves under more vigorous White House pressure." Is he finally going to shut Joe McCarthy down? Don't be silly. He's cross about reciprocal trade and foreign aid. It's going to be a hot and explosive battle! Over tariffs! And foreign aid cuts! At least he can count on Democratic support. But certainly not General Spaatz, who is beside himself over the defence budget cuts in his Military Tides column. 

National Affairs

It says here that the White House is going to have a big fight with Republicans in Congress over the tariff increases and foreign aid cuts that they want even though they will scuttle the Administration's foreign policy. The President wants to give lots of money to lots of people, notably the French so that they can fight in Indo-China and to the Koumintang because they need more money. Newsweek has misplaced the title, but Artie Shaw, Jerome Robbins, Lionel Stander, Jay Gorney, Robert Rossen, and Lee Stobben have been up to Congress to explain how they actually aren't and in some cases never were Communists. The Tidelands Bill continues to wind its way through Congress,  the Aquatots murder trial continues. Congress has made Lieutenant George Ruckman good for the $250 out of pocket expenses he incurred getting his B-17 airborne again after he had to  make an emergency landing on an airfield in Russian-occupied Poland in 1945. General Twining is the new Chief of the Air Staff, and the Senate Small Business subcommittee is sorting out whether the Army was right to reject meat supplied by San Francisco contactor Alfred Ansara, who allegedly supplied hamburger patties that shrank 30% in cooking, oblong meatballs, and unsweetened sphagetti sauce. Speaking of, Fort Ord held a special event for parents at the cafeteria, where 200 GIs and family came down with food poisoning. A "queer one," a 63-year-old "private banker and money lender" named Marion Stembridge has gunned down two people in Milledgeville, Georgia and then killed himself,and would probably have killed more had he not had his .45 grabbed by the last victim. The main point of the story is that the residents of Milledgeville decided to hold their anniversary celebration anyway.  

Korean War

"Panmunjom Pattern of Hope: First It Falls, and Then Rises" Everyone is still arguing about some kind of compromise on holding POWs who don't want to be repatriated behind the Iron Curtain, although the next story, "Snafu at Valley Forge," is about the upset at Valley Forge Army Hospital, where the Army had sequestered "twenty-odd" of the initial release of 149 American POWs on the grounds that they had shown signs of succumbing to Red indoctrination, and needed to be counter-indoctrinated, which the men indignantly denied when the Press arrived to ask them just how Communist they actually were. The Army now denies that men like Master Sergeant Walter McCollum of Lake Charles, Louisiana were ever actually "in jail," or that there was a special de-brainwashing programme at all. There was a miscommunication! No-one is to blame! It just sort of happened! 

International

"Prompt Western Aid to Laos Halts 'New Act of Aggression'" The President has met with Prime Minister St. Laurent and they agree that it is bad when Communists invade Laos. Lancang should only be invaded by the Dai Viet, who weren't Communists because Communist hadn't been invented back then, or by the French, because they  aren't Communists mostly, and have those yummy baguettes and nice fashions. The Viet Minh have retreated back to Viet Nam under the lashing of the monsoon rains, and King Sisavang Vong is off to Vichy to take the waters. Secretary Dulles says that it is all because of the speed of the American airlift by 12 C-119s into Luang Prabang. The French have replaced "defensively minded" Raoul Salan with Henri Navarre as their commander-in-chief in Indo-China, granted Cambodia independence within the French Union, whatever that means, and devalued the Indo-Chinese piastre, but have refused to take the invasion to the United Nations, against American advice. "Fast action by the U.S., France, and Thailand --plus a helping hand from the weather-- has set back the grand Communist design for domination of Southeast Asia." American officials remain convinced that the real purpose of the invasion was to cause Thailand to collapse from the vapours, leading to a quick invasion and takeover.  Paris, on the other hand, believes that the invasion was called off by Peking and Moscow to further the peace offensive. Spoilsports point out that the threat to Laos has absorbed 16 French battalions ahead of the dry season campaign in the Red River delta.

In Russia, people are arguing about whether Communism is romantic, while the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya is turning from an "emergency" into a war, while some sheikh in Egypt is threatening the British with holy war unless they evacuate the Sinai, just as John Foster Dulles and Harold Stassen arrive for their twenty-day, twelve nation tour of the Middle East, where a Suez settlement, Palestinian peace, and a Middle Eastern defence organisation. Dulles has up to a hundred million dollars of foreign aid to sprinkle around. In Iran, the Shah has transferred crown lands to Parliament in his latest concession to Premier Mossadegh since the power struggle between them broke out in March. In France, de Gaulle continues to dismantle his political apparatus, "fading away" in response to the recent municipal elections debacle. And we hear about the Mad Major again. Then it is off to Berlin (which is strange,) Europe (which is bouyant and hopeful), the world (which is in a post-Stalin freeze), and France (which is against the EDC). This seems like pretty slim pickings for a cover story, so we stick a quote in the middle about how some unnamed experts are calling for "forceful action" against select Soviet satellites. In other words, we should invade Bulgaria  just to see what the Russians do. 

If you were wondering why the President was meeting with the Prime Minister, they were talking about the St. Lawrence Seaway and to hear MPs complain about proposed US tariffs against Canadian exports. Canada is pressing the President about the Federal Power Commission's foot-dragging over the licenses required before New York could collaborate with Canada in building the four hydroelectric projects along the International Rapids. The President says that the Administration is determined to be part of the Seaway and "hinted" that there might be an American federal Seaways corporation to administer the American side. Also, Canadians are very eager to see American tourits and are building more roads and accommodation to make it easier, with 96 motels opened in Ontario alone last year.

Business

 The Periscope Business Trends reports that "business activity now stands at peak volume in almost every area. A good bet is that it will continue at present levels for at least the next few months." That's despite more and more careless talk about deflation and warnings tht it will "taper off" later in the year, and warnings from businessmen and ordinary people writing Congress to say that higher interest rates may bring on a recession. But the President is on the job! Specifically, he will relax monetary policy if the economy softens, because Republicans can't afford to be associated with a "hard money recession," and people are tired of waiting for the local improvements funded by low interest municipal bonds, which cannot compete with higher-rate Treasury bonds. 

"Foreign Trade and the ICC: Free World Looks to Vienna" The upcoming world tariff talks in Vienna will be complicated by the continuing dollar shortage that leaves them reluctat to embrace convertibility. 

"Whirlwind Hiller" Stan Hiiller is just a happy-go-lucky Palo Alto boy who used to play with miniature racing cars and lawn mowers and somehow ended up selling aluminum castings out of his garage during the war and then switched to  helicopters because they are more fun and he is making just so much money everybody. Buy your helicopter today! I think I see why Stan used to get along with Uncle Henry so well. 

The National Industrial Conference Board reports that U. S. individuals have in excess of $800 billion in cash andholdings and debts of not more than $100 billion. The average family has $15,000 (about a fifth have more than $30,000), and less than a tenth of families have more debt than assets. More than half of families own homes, while 6% operate farms. The Administration may be has revisited the decision to put in a public, multi-use dam at Hell's Canyon on the Snake River instead of three smaller, power-generating dams to be built by a private utility, the Idaho Power Company, giving Idaho Power the go-ahead. Interior Secretary Douglas McKay denies that it is the start of  a new policy of giving it all away, except that it is. Also, Shell says that its new additive, tri cresyl phosphate, allows auto engines to give 15% more power and extends spark plug life by 150%. It is the product of joint research with the Navy and Air Force and has been used in the B-36.

Notes: Week in Business reports that the dollar is worth as much as the Canadian dollar for the first time in a year, that Penn Mutual has bought the Western Merchandise Mart, that Recordak, the microfilm division of Kodak, is twenty-five years old, that the Ford Motor Company Fund (it's like the Foundation, but different) is going in on an "intermediate nuclear power unit" at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to the tune of a million bucks. 

Products: What's New reports that you can now get weather reports for every part of the country by wire from Western Union, daily, three-day, or six months forecast. Frazar Company of New York is distributing genuine Irish stew in America. Crouse-Hinds' electric eye installation is an automatic fog detector for airports. GE's Electric Research Laboratory has developed flexible plastic containers that don't collapse n high heat so that they can be steam sterilised. 

Henry Hazlitt is very upset at all the "superspending" the Eisenhower Administration is doing. It's fair enough to say that the Administation is making far too much of its fiscal responsibility, a bit much for Hazlitt to announce that the American economy is crumbling under the weight of  high spending and high taxes and is about to take the world with it. Because at this point the "crumbling" has been going on invisibly for eight years since the end of the world while all superficial signs are that things are getting better. Of course, the question is whether the actual spending cuts (and tighter money) of the new Administration is what is causing some actual "crumbling," because that would be most embarrassing to Our Henry. 

   Science, Medicine, Education

"Games of Survival" The Rand Corporation, which is sort of like if they sold the Office of Scientific Research and Development to Douglas Aircraft because Douglas was just so patriotic, is doing important things like playing "war games" about atomic wars and also some science stuff that is so super-secret that all I can tell you is that their building seems really long in the photograph. They have all the top men, and none of them are "prima donnas"! Including Margaret Mead, who, I can tell you from brief personal acquaintance, is not, in fact, a "top man" at all. 

Science Notes of the Week reports that Professor Gilbet Plas has told the American Geophysical Union that industrial activity is creating a "greenhouse" effect, in which increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere preferentially blocks the reemission of solar heat, leading to the Earth heating up by about a degree-and-a-half per century, and possibly to a drier climate. Ernest J. Christie of the New York Weather Bureau says that atomic tests are not the cause of the East coast's abnormally wet spring.

"Touch and Scratch" George Waldblott's Contact Dermatitis explains all the various causes of contact dermatitis, how to detect it, and how to treat it. The AEC has a similar problem on its mind, treating radiation sickness, which they are still working on. They have got a sense of "opportunistic" diseases and syndromes related to radiation exposure. So, for example, radiation kills white blood cells, so victims often get raging infections, which can be treated with antibiotics. Spleen extract might promote the growth of new white blood cells, but this is less certain. 

Medical Notes reports that Dr. Geoffrey Zilboorg of New York has received the American Psychiatric Association's annual $1000 Ray award for his work on "medicolegal" problems related to the treatment of the mentally ill. Planned Parenthood has won its fight for a membership in the New York Health and Welfare Society against strong Catholic opposition. The General Assembly of Connecticut has killed a bill authorising doctors to give contraceptive advice to married women when their health was at risk after a public outcry 

Oliver Cromwell Carmichael (which is a real name) has left the Carnegie Foundation to be President of Alabama, and the University of Chicago is getting rid of the Hutchins scheme because it is ridiculous, it was always ridiculous, and it is not dealing with the university's real problem, which is that it is a horrible campus and no-one wants to go there except strange little boys who need protection from anyone who isn't a strange little boy. (Or the other way around.)

Radio and Television, Press, Newsmakers

The American Museum of Natural History has its own summer replacement show, "American Men of Science," which will not have naked natives on it, if you were wondering. Although it might have Margaret Mead, who is still not a man. TV Guide might be quite the thing, and Cecil B. DeMille is in trouble for taking narrator roles without being a member of AFTRA. 

Newsmakers that use American wire services aren't getting their newspaper allocations in Argentina, word to the wise. Collier's Magazine is going bi-weekly to stem its ongoing losses, adding a women's section, and made news itself by publishing the pictures of six other at-large German POWs, one of whome turned himself in in Atlanta when he saw the article. The Shanghai Review is closing, and it is the Communists' fault and not the imperialists,  as it says. That newspaper in that mining town in Nevada gets another puff piece. 

William Schuman's one-act opera, "The Mighty Casey," premiers in Hartford this week. Mary Martin, Albert Einstein, Martha Tilton, Curt Massey, "former 'world citizen'" Garry Davis, Harry Truman, Learned Hand, Jon Lindbergh, and Somerset Maugham are in the column on suspicion of being famous (or the son of someone famous), plus a new Korean jet fighter ace and a blind volunteer in the Ground Observer Corps. 
 

Patrice Munsel has had a baby, Bing Crosby has had a birthday, as well as Toots Shor. Bob Matthias is engaged, Armi Kuusela ("Miss Universe") is married, along with Robert Donat. Leo Paslovsky and Edward M. Sedgewick have died.

New Films

Twentieth Century Fox's Titanic is about some old passenger liner? I've never heard of it, and I'll be interested to know what happens to it! The ship is definitely the star of the movie. Universal has brought over I Believe in You, which is about how the directors and actors of some small country just keep on making movies until eventually they get it right and fill a swimming pool with Yankee dollars just in time for some fat old relic of the Dirty Thirties to take all the credit. Or maybe it is about Cecil Parker's retired civil servant turned youth probation officer.  The Juggler is a Stanley Kramer movie for Columbia about a former German music hall entertainer who emigrates to Israel because of the Nazis, more or less, and loves, laughs and grows while sometimes stepping on land mines. Newsweek really liked Milly Vitale. Rome 11 O'Clock is an interesting-sounding Italian import. 

Books

Allan Nevins' John Rockefeller: A Study in Power, is an authorised biography that finds that John Rockefeller was just a great guy, unfairly maligned by scads of critics. Even Newsweek thinks it is a bit much. A surprising number of Rockefeller's enemies died of suicide or suspicious strokes, it points out. Ethel Wilson's Lily's Story is a novel about tough times growing up in the slums of Vancouver, which weren't actually as bad as all that.   Lost Trails, Lost Cities is Brian Fawcett's account of his father's doomed(?) Amazon expedition that disappeared in the jungles of the Mato Groso of Brazil in 1925 looking for a lost city. It's something between silly and refreshing. In Other Books, Conrad Richter has a novel, Budd Schulberg a collection of short stories/

Raymond Moley explains that the Administration is adrift because the little people just won't cooperate with the President's heroic vision.

 

Aviation Week, 18 May 1953

News Digest reports that the Bell X-2 has exploded on launch from a B-29. Both crewmen are missing, and the accident was uncannily similar to the earlier loss of the X-1D. The Air Force has received its first production model Pratt and Whitney J57s. The House and Senate are fighting over airport money. New York Airways is "now" flying two parcel/mail/cargo flights daily between Trenton and New York, apologies to anyone confused enough to think that this was happening years ago. But don't worry, because passenger service on the same route is just around the corner. Any day now, in fact. Any day now. Any day. 

Industry Observer reports that McDonnell is flying various XF-88s with this and that engine, including the T38. Really! They'll in production and regular service any day now! New aircraft will likely have their engines stowed under the wing to fight "snaking." Fairey is showing off a model of a delta-wing fighter with vertical landing characteristics at Woomera. Italy is getting an undisclosed number of C-119s under MDAP, and Sikorsky is adding a fifth rotor to the S-56 so that one can get shot away without impairing operations. Douglas is looking at glas fibre-reinforced plastic for aircraft construction, while Republic is said to be building the F-103 out of 90% titanium, which means Republic is in charge of figuring out how to machine the stuff on an industrial scale. Piasecki is going to make a try on the world helicopter speed record, and the propellers for a turboprop version of the B-47 are almost ready for testing at Wright-Patterson. The Avon-powrered Comet 2 has establilshed an average speed of 476mph on the London-Cairo route, 32 minutes faster than the Ghost-powered Comet I's best speed.  

Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup reports that big cuts are coming at defence, with much of the money coming out of air power and General Vandenberg warning that the Air Force needs to protect SAC above all. As for who is behind all of this, the finger points at Wilson's undersecretary, Roger Kyes. And not, you know, the President or Congress. The Air Force and the AEC won't say so publicly, but atomic power for aircraft is going forward at a crawl, because it is completely insane, and the Air Force isn't allergic to money any more. The next inter-service fight is going to be over who gets to develop which missile. The dissolution of the Munitions Board is going to leave any number of projects as orphans, and someone should do something about that. 

William J. Coughlin reports that "Reds Fly Captured Sabres in Combat" for Aviation Week. Or so some fighter pilot says. And you know what that means! The Air Force's radar gunsight is compromised. Also, the Reds are crazy. The substance of this article is actually the Air Force's assessment of the MiG-15. It's a pretty good plane! 

India has grounded the Viking out of concerns over metal fatigue. Congress is stil fighting over air power cuts and aviation executives are meeting to discuss the cuts in airport subsidies.

Robert Hotz reports that "Transonic Data Demands Swamp NACA" (which also has some neat new fire-prevention equipment including an "Electrical wipe-out switch"that shuts down the entire aircraft electrical system, carbon dioxide injection into the engine manifold, and a water spray system.) NACA is looking forward to Skyrocket test flights to resolve a number of issues, and needs facilities upgrades. 

Jacqueline Cochrane is planning an attempt on the world speed record with an Orenda-powered CF-86, the CAA budget has been cut in committee, and the French Matra 04 missile is the bomb. ICAO is planning new transport standards that are likely to be embarrassing for American transports, which will not meet many of them. American aviation executives plan to push back. Pay raises and stock buys are breaking out all over the industry, the majority of new airmail contract rates have been set, and the Convair XP5Y-1 flying boat is almost ready for its new life as the R3Y-1 Tradewind.

David A. Anderton reports for Aeronautical Engineering about "The Case for Pod-Mounted Jet Engines," which is a precis of a paper given by Boeing engineer George Schairer and Convair's Ben Salmon to the national aeronautical meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers asserting that pod engines are safer, quieter, allow for thinner wings, and are easier to maintain, and that the resulting drag loss is overstated. In fact, Salmon presents performance curves suggesting that podded aircraft are faster. Also, they are cheaper. Salmon seems a lot more certain of himself than Schairer. 

By RuthAS

Thrust and Drag reports a hilarious conversation with an unnamed aircraft designer who thinks that the bounty for a MiG-15 is pretty dumb when the Russians are probably working on a replacement, and it's embarrassing that our propaganda isn't producing defectors left, right, and centre, and we have to pay money, instead. 

In foreign parts, "Avro Kills Orenda Test Noise," meaning that they've come up with a clever plan to deal with the noise from ground testing Orendas, which is to build them in Canada, where the only neighbours in earshot are a moose and a beaver lodge. Plus, "Bristol Offers a Bigger, Faster Britannia" which is about how, once the Britannia is actually flying, there'll be a stretched-out 200/300 series with a maximum all-up weight increased from 140,000 to 155,000lbs by installing the Proteus 750. German tool maker Schiess A.G. has set up an American office to service customers on this continent. 

"Making the Hydraulic System Reliable" Leo Morse Chattler of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics' flight control division gave the SAE National Aeronautical meeting a rundown on tips for increasing reliability that include hot points like "simplify" and "lighten." Okay, I'm not being fair. It also has points like ensuring bleeding, designing for maximum acceleration and temperature, which are more likely to be overlooked. He then went into some examples, such as a case where both the regular and emergency brakes on an aircraft used the same master cylinder, which is apparently an example of "complexity," so that catastrophic failures due to problems in the master cylinder could be fixed by "simplification." Call me unconviced by that one, even though it sure sounds like an example of bad design. He does discuss what seems like the main problem with hydraulic systems, which is that hydraulic fluid is annoying, but I guess if you go into that too much you're going to end up getting yourself fired and replaced by another electrical engineer. It's a really long article. 

Production has "Ryan Doubles C-97 Aft Fuselage Output" It does! Ryan Aircraft says so! I think we all join in congratulating the company on buying some new machine tools and building some fixtures. Also, "Plastic Tanks Will Save Aluminum," say "industry observers" and "reliable sources" who may or may not include someone at Admiral Corporation's Moulded Products Division. Chance Vought, meanwhile, is making the speed brakes of the F7U-3 out of magnesium castings now, and it hired a pretty secretary! 

Philip Klass reports for Avionics that "Teams Help Find the Right Tube" Teams. What aren't they good for? Studying for the bar? Playing baseball? Beating the Reds? Picking a good vacuum tube? The Research and Development Board's Panel on Electron Tubes is a team! And it is there to help military contractors find the right tube for their job, says L. S. Schwartz, of the team's secretariat, who describes a recent visit to a "medium-sized naval contactor," where they had a sit-down meeting with the plant's foremen. Went right to the top, they did. Anyway, the foremen and the Navy inspector all had tiresome criticisms about the team's recommendation, so now the team offers an "expanded field consultation service" for even more helpful suggestions! With bulletins! That will be reprinted if anyone wants them. 

"New Test Tools for Avionics Designers" Krohn-Hite, Metalcraft, Brown Electronic and Sierra Electronic have gone in for quarter shares for an ad disguised as a news story by putting in lots of words and some pictures to prove that their oscillator, band-pass filter, synchro "zero-er," impedance bridge, and wave analyser are the best. Also, "Converters Put Data in Useful Forms," say Consolidated Engineering and Telecomputing, Incorporated. These are actually "analog to digital" convertors, which turn instrument inputs (analog signals) into digital data for convenient representation on magnetic tape, punch tape, and electric typewriter output. DeJure and Monowatt have new connectors, which are cable plugs, on the market, while Filter Centre reports on expanded use of airborne digital computers, the expansion of the IRE's Avionics Group, which has tripled in two years, a GE ignition for the Allison J35, intercom troubles with the B-47, an urgent need for computers to handle booking and ticketing for the airlines, according to W. Allen of TWA, and a classified forum for avionics to be held by Westinghouse. 

New Aviation Products has a new giant broaching machine from Colonial Broaching, a transit for optical sighting (as opposed to all the other things you can do with a transit, like crack nuts, hammer nails, and weigh down papers), specifically for laying out jigs, from Warren-Knight of Philadelphia. Strux Corporation has yet another would-be aircraft plastic. American Helicoptr has a fifteen channel balancer for flight instrumentation. It is the cutest little balancer ever, ideal for guided missiles, planes, and anyone who wants to pay American Helicopter money. 

The McGraw-Hill Line Wide Editorial explains why the increased depreciation allowance that industry has been campaigning for in America and Britain is good for everyone, and not  just shareholders. It increases productivity and investment because companies can afford to replace their equipment sooner. 

Buried in Air Transport is "Wright Modifies Turbo Compound For Safety" It's an engineering fix for turbine blade failures consisting of an armoured cage, a failsafe hole drilled in the root so that they don't overspeed, and "improvement" to cooling passages. Geneva Airport is getting a new radar. Yes, that Geneva.

Captain Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint is about Exterior Lighting, appropriate for me, writing this in the predawn hours again with darkness and silence and several raccoons who might not realise I can see them, gamboling through Shaughnessy. Planes should have more, better lights, Captain Robson thinks. He has some specific suggestions, but the main point is that he is annoyed at manufacturers who say that this is hard. Get on it! 

Letters has a patent attorney sternly admonising Aviation Week against calling the Collins flight director a "zero reader," and an experience pilot writing in support of Captain Robson's position that experienced pilots are better than young pilots. Dan Foley of Mercury Aircraft Parts corrects the misapprehension that there are no Mercury aircraft parts in the C-123, while J.M points out that the recent fatal blowout on a Pan Am Stratocruiser over Rio underlines that CAB and Boeing aren't doing a good enough job on safety. 

 

Letters

Charles Welllington Furlong, (which is a real name) writes from Connecticut to warn Newsweek and the world of Russian mischief by quoting Kipling's Bear That Walks Like A Man, all 40 lines of it. Various correspondents have no problem with the relocation of Sitting Bull's body, which they don't think was graverobbing at all. Jean Harvey points out that the "peach fuzz" shave given female inmates of Georgia prisons in the Warner Brother's film, Caged, is true to life, and that George should be ashamed of itself. Following Gladwyn Jebbs is Ambassador Josef Winiewicz, who is very upset that The Periscope said that he was about to defect to America. Newsweek's apology is pretty facetious, too. "The Ambassador knows his own mind best." Various people have thoughts about the picture of released POWs that accompanied the "brain-washing" story. They're pretty restrained under the circumstances. Graham Smith of Engineering Research Associates, the division of Remington Rand, is very pleased with the article about the ERA bore-hole camera. For Your Information has the inside scoop about the cover story on new cancer treatments. It was tough meeting so many cancer patients! Admiral Radford is the new Chief of the Naval Staff. 

The Periscope reports that Eisenhower thinks that the Red peace offensive is "a complete phony," and is working on getting Senator Taft to make a speech supporting his foreign aid and trade programme to prevent its being "completely massacred" in Congress. The retirement age for federal judges might be reduced from 70 to 65, not just for patronage reasons, but because it is only fair when businessmen get to retire at 65. State career men are looking back with fondness at the Acheson days when they could get in touch with somebody back home at State. US military scientists are working on a "moron missile" that can be guided by a ground-side electronic brain while in not-at-all related news the Army continues to work on its Honest John atomic-tipped missile which can hit, "accurately," up to 50 miles behind enemy lines. US pilots are polishing their jets with car wax to keep up with Red jets. The Air Force is not amused. (Neither is Reggie. Although, he says, maybe North American is having trouble with its finishes?) General Gruenther wants French General Jean Etienne Valluy as his chief of staff, but Washington doesn't like it because he might get a load of some atomic secrets. Western diplomats say that the atmosphere in Moscow is pretty relaxed as far as they can tell. The remaining Japanese POWs maybe released from Russian prisons soon, and it is reported that a thousand Italians are being trained for espionage and sabotage in special schools on the outskirts of Moscow. Dag Hammerskjold wants his deputy, Konstantin Zinchenko, to come back from sick leave or wherever the hell he's been for the last year. It's probaby a Communist plot. London observers think that Clement Attlees recent "controversial speech" was an attempt to heal the breach with the Bevanites. Dr. Wilhelm Voss and Ernst Heinkel are working on a jet fighter factory for Egypt. Thailand probably won't be invaded by the Red hordes until the fall, but they will have Pridi Phanomyong with them when they return. Communist activities are on the rise in Malaya again, probably because the Red Chinese sent them some submarine loads of supplies. Hungary and Czechoslovakia are squabbling, Denmark and Russia are trading, opposition elements in Iran are "quietly predicting" that they will oust Mossadegh soon while Iranian Reds continue to infiltrate the country. 

Ed Wynn will return to the screen in an MGM comedy, Wonder Kid. Lili St. Cyr will lead in a 3D Technicolor adventure film, Son of Sinbad. Marge and Gower Champion have a Broadway revue coming, while Billie Burke will return to the stage in Concerning a Murder, while Margaret O'Brien will give Broadway another shot next season with Peg O' My Heart.Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell, Peggy Lee and Tony Martin will take turns as DJs on a weekly hour-long radio show. Henry Morgan will be the narrator of a series of newsreel shows about crazy news stories of the last few decades. Garroway at Large will be revived on NBC next fall, allowing Garroway to fade out his early-morning show, Today. 

2/8, but I'm pretty sure we've heard of Son of Sinbad around here before. 

 The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the defence budget is up for a fight when it gets to the floor of the Congress, but Eisenhower is going to win because he has enough Senators on his side and because his "stall boss," Sherman Adams, is smart as a whip and oh-so-good-looking, says a source close to Sherman Adams. As for Wilton B. Persons, he is a sad sack who got us into this mess in the first place can't measure up to Sherman Adams, whereas Robert Cutler, Bernard M. Stanley, and Gabriel Hange are great guys who laugh at all of Sherman Adams' jokes, says a source close to Sherman Adams. 

National Affairs

"Congress Roars at Commons: Blasts British Far East Stand" Eisenhower's peace offer is that the Reds need to surrender on all fronts; Churchill's is a Big Four meeting with no preconditions. Meanwhile, Clement Attlee made a speech that criticised US foreign policy and the US Constitution, which is bad! Terrible! He said it was "framed for an isolationist state." No, really! And he thinks that Communist China should be a member of "the Big Five." And that's when the exploding happened, which you can well imagine, as every Senate blowhard blew harder. As for Eisenhower, he is very much on the one hand but on the other hand about it all, and then he went to get an honorary degree from William and Mary and denounce the "15% patriots" who want to keep their contribution to the national income to 15%. They have no idea how terrible Communism really is! And in the Senate, various Senators are manoeuvring to keep Democratic-leaning Alaska from becoming a state, at the price of also exclusing Republican-leaning Hawaii, which they can do, because Southern Senators are afraid of a swarthy-pro civil rights Senator from Hawaii. So will the two territories miss their chance for statehood again? Not if the President has anything to say about it. 

I might, might have been distracted by new motherhood and described Admiral Radford as the new CNO. He is not, he is the new Chief of the Joint Chiefs. Admiral Robert Carney is the CNO, with Ridgeway at Army and Twining at Air Force, per Senator Taft's desire for a complete new team, and sweeping out Admiral Fechteler, who had two years to run in his appointment as CNO. Radford gets a biographical sketch and a note that he was a leader in the "Revolt of the Admirals." Newsweek assures us that the Eisenhower Defence Department will not be some radical new look, and Radford's appointment does not mean a naval blockade of China. The armed forces will be more flexible, and a tactical atomic weapon will be developed. Outgoing Joint Chief Bradley warns in his final address that the current defence budget is inadequate on spending, manpower (3,356,000 men instead of 3,500,000 dueto a reduction in the draft), 120 wings instead of 143. However, Secretary Wilson points out that there will still be 20 Army divisions and 18 regimental combat teams, 3 Marine divisions, 3 Marine air wings and 408 ships. That doesn't mean that the critics of the Air Force reductions (which are still in target, not actual, strength) won't be upset. Or that some House Republicans still don't see it as out of control spending. 

"The March of the Negro" Things are getting better for the Coloureds in the South.

Ernest K. Lindley puts in a full day's work at Washington Tides by actually reading Clement Attlee's speech and telling us what it says, which is mostly a recap of Bryce's American Commonwealth and a reminder that British policy differs from American, and that some Americans really do have pretty wild opinions about the propler American foreign policy. Also, it would be "suicide" for Western troops to leave Suez. Also, there are some mobsters hanging around Palm Springs, and you know where that leads, and a high school teacher in Detroit successfully hypnotised his class into wild hysteria, but essentially no harm done, just a funny story, but don't do it again, says one Board of Education member, because he heard about how a six-year-old was taught to hypnotise one time, and ended up hypnotising his own mother. Also, tornadoes and Great Lakes shipwrecks. 

Korean War has "Truce Talks Stalled Once More Over POW Repatriation Issue" Nehru says we're close, while "some Washington officials" say that the latest Red offer is "complete nonsense." I hope Nehru is right! Also, UN jet fighter pilots like Captains Joe McConnell of Apple Valley, California, and Martin Fernandez of Miami are racking up the score against Red MiG-15s, including possibly Russian and Chinese-piloted ones.

International

"New Trouble in Suez Dispute: Will U.S. Have to Mediate?" It turns out that Dulles' visit to Cairo was scheduled for Ramadan, so he got to see General Naguib call Churchill "an imperialist," and Churchill call Naguib "a dictator" whle the holy month went on. Fighting, or rioting, or demonstrations, continue in the Canal Zone, with 8 dead Egyptians and the British claiming 30 "documented terrorist incidents." Dulles says that a Western presence has to continue in the $1.5 billion dollar Suez Canal Zone installatoins, and that British withdrawal will have to be "phased." The Egyptians are not impressed. Mrs. Luce is winning hearts all over Italy with her kind words and American dollars. Leon Vollkov's column seems to be predicting that fears of a resurgent Germany and the Marshal's personal prestige are propelling him, and the Red Army, towards the summit of power in the Kremlin. And Newsweek has an exclusive interview with Polish Air Force defector Francis Jareki, who explains that "The MiG is Wonderful." However, other aspects of the Polish Air Force are a mixed bag. Runways are good, aircraft supply is good, with a Polish MiG factory opening soon, but radar, antiaircraft defences, and supports like firefighting equipment are not so good. 

"Moscow: A Gay Day in May" Are things actualy different in Moscow these days? Well, our photographer was out for May Day and it sure seems that way, but it's probably some kind of Communist trick.

"Sir Winston Tells Them" Everyone loved Churchill's speech over there, because he is in favour of peace (take that, Labour platform  of 1951!), told the U.S. to mind its own business in the Middle East, "tick[ed] off" John Foster Dulles for "knock[ing] down" the portions of the President's speech on peace with the Reds, reasserted the "Big 4" (or "Big 5," or even "Big 6") principle, and reminded everyone that he's in charge of British foreign policy. The French were themselves ticked off at being slighted in the speech, the Germans were just happy to be included, and tde Gaspieri was supportive because the Italian Communist Party was, an election is coming, allowing for a "Big 8." It is getting to be a pretty big "Big"! 

The Chinese Communist Party apparatus is fighting publicly over the disappointing statistics from the first year of the Five Year Plan., that Finnish tanker that was on its way to Red China with a load of kerosene has been bought by the U.S. government, so that story is over,  and the Philipine ambassador to the United States has resigned to run in the next presidential election. 

On this continent, Peron seems to have arrested practically everyone who could be arrested in connection with the terrorist bombing campaign of the last five weeks, and seems to be ready to move on to his next target in his battle against the "conservative-oligarchic plot," presumably the U.S. press. From Mexico comes a "Wetback Flood," as Mexicans line up by the thousands to work as braceros due to the Mexican flood. They are, however, a fraction of the Mexicans who just come over the barely--guarded 1500 mile border to work, perhaps as many as 876,000, which seems pretty specific. "Last year, 618,000 were caught." Mexican labour is  hugely important to both American agriculture and the Mexican balance of payments, with braceros remitting $70 million to Mexico and "wetbacks" perhaps another $100,000,000, which, although I am just a girl and "maths" are foreign to me, would seem to suggest that braceros get paid a lot more than "wetbacks." Hmm. HMM. Mexico is certainly making that point, demanding better pay and working conditions on pain of its cancelling the bracero programme, not least because Mexico would like to keep the labour for its own farms.

There is also a special section, Pictorial Report with some nice shots of Caracas, Venezuela, which is just finishing up a major urban renewal project. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that we shouldn't be fooled by gloomy business forecasts, because everything is coming up roses! Notwithstanding protests by business and farmers. Even more on the bright side, the Treasury is reversing course on tight money and once the Republicans have finished filling the vacancies at the FTC, it will go easier on business, and that will be good! 

It is so important to know that the economy is "doing nicely" that we get another story to that effect. Park Forest, Illinois, is a nice new subdivision built by the best developer ever. Sherman Fairchild, inventor of the synchronised flash and the once and current president of Fairchild Aircraft, is in the news again with the C-119, so here is a profile. 

Products: What's New has a false tire that mounts on the back of a car to give it that Continental look, from Stylecraft Automotive of Los Angeles. Pittsburgh Plate Glass has double-pane glass with fused rather than bonded edges. Gustav Bacon Manufacturing of Kansas City has flexible glass-fiber pipe insulation that won't bend out of shape or become soft when wet. General Corrugated Machine Corporation has a method of sealing cartons for shipping with tape that can be removed with tabs rather than cut. International Register Corporation of Chicago has an automatic timer that turns household appliances on and off day after day without resetting. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that layoffs and production cuts are coming to the auto industry due to supplier strikes, that Westinghouse Air Brakes has bought a competitor, that Eastman Kodak is building a plastics plant in Texas, that Firestone and Goodrich are slashing the price of tires.

Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides warns that more inflation is coming unless the Federal budget is slashed drasticallly, and he is very upset that isn't happening. 
 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Dishonest Sweat" Minneapolis Honeywell is making "synthetic superperspiration" by the bucketful to test the finishes of various instruments that people sweat on when they handle them, which when you put it like that is a lot more boring than other possible explanations. Some guy is breeding Hereford cattles (yawn), and the British are going to put on an assault on Mt. Everest to go with the coronation, led by Colonel John Hunt, with all modern conveniences such as aluminum camping equipment, "microcellular rubber" assault boots and a lightweight avalanche gun. 

Science Notes of the Week reports striking confirmation of Harold Urey's contention that live on Earth could have arisen from simple chemical reactions, as an electric discharge into a tank of ammonia, methane, and water vapour (plausibly the ancient atmosphere of the Earth) causes amiino acids to precipitate out, these being organic molecules. Geneticist Edward Novitski of the University of Missouri has proven that younger women do not, in fact, have a larger share of sons. Two professors at UCLA have found that liquid insecticides work longer, but emulsified ones work faster.
 

"Cancer Research Forges Ahead: Lives Lengthened and Pain Cut" Cancer is many diseases, with many causes and likely many cures, in spite of all the talk of miracle cures. The most deadly form of cancer for men is lung cancer, which has had a 148% increase in mortality since 1938. Late diagnosis preventing surgical intervention is an important cause of this high mortality, but the major reason is the "carcinogenic effect of cigarette smoking," meaning that prevention by not smoking is the most important cause for hope. That's going to be an uphill battle! Stomach cancer is also treated by surgery, and there is progress in not rendering the patient a "nutritional cripple." There are promising new surgeries for thyroid and breast cancer. Dr. Robert C. Heath, head of the department of psychiatry and neurology at Tulane, has even come up with a surgery for reducing the pain of the final stages of cancer, by sending electric current through the deep parts of the brain via two small holes bored in the base of the skull, which kills pain for up to a week without morphine. Radiation, as we've heard, is promising, and scientists at M. D. Anderson Hospital for Cancer Research in Houston, Texas, are working on a radiation "probe" for using it more effectively, while Harold H. Pattee of Stanford has an "X-ray scanning microscope" that shows its results on a TV screen, with magnification comparable to an electron microscope. Many new drug treatments have been developed for cancer in the last ten years.  Many more potential chemotherapeutic drugs are being tested, including a "mysterious chemical" that appears in the blood of young, menstruating women, according to Dr. J. B. Trunnell of the same Anderson Hospital, which sounds to me like the same old witchcraft. Fractionating blood so finely as to show up cancer cells is promising, as are radio waves to detect bladder cancer  and the potential of antipepsins, as high levels of this natural digestive enzyme seem to promote cancer growth. Behaviour is important, too, with personal histories being collected at California hospitals to find factors that predispose people to various cancers, while University of Texas, Houston, psychologist Beatrice Cobb is doing a sociopsychological investigation people's reaction to cancer. Why do some seek treatment while others delay? Who goes to cancer quacks? Interesting questions all.

Allen C. Jacobs is the new President of Trinity College, Hartford, and UNC Chapel Hill's School of Government is celebrating an important anniversary. 

Press, Radio and Television, Newsmakers

The Reds have let some American journalists out of prison over there. American papers and wire services are getting very excited about the coronation. The American Weekly has been doing so well for the Hearst Press that its editor (and former Ethel Merman husband), Robert D. Levitt, has been promoted to publisher, which is basically the same job with a nicer title. I hope he gets a raise, too! 

Arthur Godfrey is in hospital for major surgery to treat long term pain from hip problems. He is getting artificial hip joints. Some radio shows are rebounding in the ratings,showing that it is not all gloom and doom in the Television Age. They include the Mickey Spillane Mystery Hour, but this article is a puff piece celebrating Elliott and Cathy Lewis and vaguely mentioning their new show. 

The Better Business Bureau warns television owners to wait until there is actually a UHF station in their town before converting their televisions, as otherwise they might be out $50. Du Mont has bought the Central Music Hall to be their new broadcast headquarters. 

Ambassador George Allen went to a shrine to Gandhi and was respectful, which is quite the story. I hope he's ready to face Senator McCarthy! General Collins, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Burns and Gracie Allan, Joan Bennett and Walter Wanger, Sonja Henie, Perle Mesta, and Dennis King are in the column for being famous, and Jeanette Janvrin for winning Britain's "Perfect Secretary" contest, although to be honest she looks a bit young to be the best secretary at being a secretary. Ahem. 

Dorothy McGuire has had a baby, Sara Delano Roosevelt is engaged, Princess Ragnhild is married, Jean Adair, Hans J. Isbrandtsen, Kuniyoshi Yasuo, Django Reinhardt and Merlin Hill have died. 

 

New Films 

Fanfan the Tulip is a "sometimes raucous French burlesque" set in the times of Louis XIV and featuring the charms of Gerard Philips and Gina Lollabrigida. The Seven Deadly Sins is the same from Italy, only it has a different (or seven different) plots. Twentieth Century Fox goes to the Western Desert for The Desert Rats, so that Richard Burton can take on Rommel. Newsweek thinks the characters and situations are too cliched. RKO's Split Second is a thriller vehicle for Dick Powell, who honestly has a name made for a "noir" thriller. Newsweek found it to be too melodramatic, and that setting the climax against an atom bomb test was just plain bad taste. These things are serious!

Books

Richard Bissell's 7 1/2 Cents is so wacky it is a Book of the Month Club selection. Harold Nicolson's King George V is a good biography of a hard-luck king. Or so it says here. And Albert Moravia's early novel, The Time of Indifference, is finally published in an English translation and is pretty disappointing. 

Raymond Moley's Perspectives explains that Douglas McKay is the best Secretary of the Interior ever because he cancelled the "fantastic" Hell's Gate Dam and "sacked" 1322 Bureau of Reclamation experts, who were really just a bunch of "Federal propagandists and uplifters." (Which is bad.) Because "government power" and reclamation is terible, that's why, and it could come back under a future Democratic Administration or even if an already passed bill is implemented, allowing "the Collbran formula" to come into  effect. What that might be is not precisely clear, although it clearly involves the disgraceful use of government money to pay for reclamation of individual farms.

  

Aviation Week, 25 May 1953

News Digest reports that Jacqueline Cochran has definitely set a new woman's speed record flying the only Canadair Sabre 3. Aviation Week hears about another Polish MiG-15 defection. The Delta-Chicago and Southern DC-3 crash and the Braniff runway accident in Dallas are reported. Boeing's jet transport will have Pratt and Whitney J57s. 

Industry Observer reports that a Boeing B-47 on display at Lovett Field in Texas had vortex generators over about half the span of its wings. Military sources say that the pod nacelle for the B-47C is the best yet. Piasecki is working on a "hot rotor" helicopter design like the Hughes XH-17. Doman is installing two of those little Boeing turbines in its new helicopter, generating 250hp each. Anti-icing measures on Prewitt helicopter rotor blades are a smashing success,says Prewitt. Bell also has a new anti-icing system, Doman says that its YH-31 will be ready for Army evaluation in October, and ATO operating cost reports show a range of 58 cents per operating mile for the Martin 4-0-4 to $1.37 for the Stratocruiser. 

Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup reports that effectively budget cuts just mean more contract stretch out. The Defence Department has been tasked with finding $4.5 billion in savings, and the services have offerend a range of plans to cover the savings. Congress is going to have to sort them out. Congress is also upset that while some incoming Administration officials have divested of aviation stocks, others, specifically K. T. Keller, director of guided missiles since 1951, hasn't sold his Chrysler shares. CAB's submissions to the hearings on irregular airlines now amounts to a very tall stack of paper, which seems to prove something besides that the CAB is being very mean and cruel. 

  Hughes Aircraft Company reports for Aviation Week that "Hughes Takes Wraps Off Avionics Giant" Just a second, Philip Klass has a byline buried in the middle of the page. Hughes was taking what it could from the Air Force, and got the order for the Falcon missile, which gave it the experience to bid for the APG-33 radar for all-weather fighters, an improved versionof GE's APG-3, leading to a contract to modify the Sperry computing gunsight to work with the APG-33, leading to the E-1 fire control, and the rest is history, or at least a giant new factory in Culver City and a reported $70 million offer for the company from Lockheed. Hughes has 4000 employees, of whom 1200 have advanced degrees, one in ten with PhDs, making it practically the "Bell Labs of the West Coast." Most of the rest of the article is devoted to enumerating the management team that does the actual work, including General Ira Eaker. 

We hear that the Administration is saying that air power will get 60% of the Defence budget amd that the PO is trying to cut airmail rates and particularly the money it is throwing away on helicopters, which has provoked some comment that helicopter air mail would be useful in an atomic war. Definitely a thought! Tiger and Slick are talking merger, John Hopkins replaces Floyd Odlum as chairman of Convair, Ryan wants to build a jet trainer, the CAA is merging its Establisment Engineering and Maintenance Engineering Divisions, and a B-47  has flown 12,000 miles nonstop with three aerial refuellings, demonstrating its "intercontinental bomber" status. So do the tankers fly with the B-47s to Moscow? Where do they get their fuel?

Alexander McSurely reports that "Army Aim: More Reliable Helicopters" That is, the Army (and Navy) are putting new requirements on helicopter contracts, including more accurate listings of engine horsepower at cruising power. 

William J. Coughlin reports on "The Air Lessons of Korea" Which are mainly that the Air Force is really annoyed by the Yalu "sanctuary." Due to the depleted state of the Air Force and Navy at the beginning of the war, there was very little opportunity to employ new aircraft or techniques in the war, which instead just used WWII surplus. Even the F-86 might not have been deployed if the Reds had not brought in the MiG-15. The war proved that the F-84 wasn't much, and that the F3D had excessive opeational losses, mainly flying from carriers, and that the Reds make good planes and AA batteries, and that the administrative arrangements around self-contained wings weren't up to snuff, and, well, that's about it. 

Nathan Farragut Twining gets a profile, while the new British height record is acknowledged in the tiniest little tucked-away photo blurb I've ever seen. 

David A. Anderton reports for Aeronautical Engineering that "NACA Charts Our Spheres of Ignorance," which is illustrated by pictures of the new NACA wind tunnels, its small fleet of test aircraft and the Gas Dynamics Laboratory. However, the substance of the article seems to be a report on current work at NACA including fire abatement, web-flange structures, aerodynamic heating, high-speed flutter, and undercarriages. 

Thrust and Drag thinks that the fuss raised by various newspapers about two Russian officers attending the National Aeronautical Meeting of the SAE is a bit much. And people are confused about the difference between drones and guided missiles. Thrust and Drag joins the club. Plus, the Chase C-123 gets a pictorial. 

Production asks "Why Do Modern Aircraft Cost So Much?" I don't know, because they're expensive? Anyway, Boeing's chief cost accountant, James W. Barton, has done a study and found that it is not just that they're getting bigger and better; Buyers accounts are an issue, too. Which is an arcane way of saying that the more expensive an aircraft becomes to make, the more that first costs (tooling, etc) are added to the cost of the plane. This means that longer production runs are needed to offset these costs and bring the modern plane closer to the plane of 1939, or what have you. This is a very long article, and I am only skimming the extensive discussion of factors driving costs up, including, and this is interesting for us, electronics. The weight of electronics components has increased 37% from the B-29 to the B-47. That doesn't really tell you about costs, but figure that they go up in proportion, and commercial aircraft don't get quite the break you might expect, since they're carrying ever more electronics these days, too. Also, Solar Aircraft has a "Rollerwelder" that is really cutting costs. 

George L. Christian reports for Equipment that "LSI Tells Pilot Best Airspeed" Safe Flying Instrument  Corporation has come up with the Landing Speed Indicator system, which is being tested on a Beechcraft for Pan Am. A vane measures airflow at the leading edge and opeates the indicator by a transducer that produces a signal that passes through a "node" where the instrument is calibratd to the display, which that onvenient for takeoffs, since you just pull back when the needle reaches the centre. There's not much indication of what makes this better than an airspeed indicator. 

Douglas has a "powerful cooler" in its X-3, and BCPA is finding that exhaust analysers improve spark plug life on its DC-6s. The Air Force's AN/APQ-T1 training simulator gets a pictorial. Filter Centre reports that the Honeywell E-11 autopilot is going into the CF-100 and F-101. Westinghouse is buildling the tail turret for the Douglas A3D. Boeing is asking for something a bit more explosion-resistant from its avionics suppliers after the recent B-47 loss in Wichita.  

New Aviation Products has a 360-channel airline receiver for air-to-ground coummunications from 118 to 135.9 mHz, with channel separation of 50 kHz, half previous practice and variation held within 75db. It will duplex (send and receive on the same channel) to airline standards and is fairlly light at 17lbs. Technical details of sensitivity, noise tolerance, and output power is provided. Lok Fast Incorpporated has new locking bolts, while Pastushin Industries has a self-sealing rivet and Conneticut Hard Rubber has a shock and vibration isolator. 

A page-long bit on potential helicopter lines "setting up operator specs" is buried after the employment ads and ahead of Air Transport, which has a nice article about the CAB suddenly killing its investigation of airline profits, because that's now how the Eisenhower Administration does things. The Douglas DC-7 has made its maiden flight. It is surprisingly quiet for a turbo-compound and has that nose radar everyone has been asking for. More details can wait for a proper design analysis. 

Robert H. Wood's Editorial asks "What Happens to Aircraft Profits" and cites Boeing President William Allen's explanation to the shareholders, which is that they are all plowed back into the business, except the ones used to fill his swimming pool with money. And British parliamentarians who are complaining about the American bounty for MiG-15s are just a bunch of wet willies.

Three issues of The Engineer were published in the last half of May, on the 15th, 22nd, and 29th. 

The 15 May (Not) The Seven-Day Journal reports on the conclusions of the gas industry report of the British Productivity Council, which is that coal gas is a dying industry so who cares. (But the Americans do it better.) A number of British locomotives are up for export; The London Association of Engineers had their annual dinner; Birmingham Aluminum Casting had a gold jubilee dinner, and the Commons debated atmospheric pollution. Dennis Ryley's "The Growth of Small Water Droplets in Steam Nozzles" is this week's contribution to publishing scientific literature, while the Institution of Mechanical Engineers heard J. Reeman and D. G. Ainsley describe "An Experimental Air-Cooled Turbine" and ensuing discussion, which tended towards the negative. Clearly a high-temperature turbine was a tricky thing to build and operate economically. Just to be confusing, the actual article (part II) follows at the end of the issue. More will follow in the next issues. 

The Engineer's visit to the Hanover Industrial Fair continues, the main focus being the big machiner in the open-air exhibit this week, especiallly mining, construction, and agricultural equipment.  

The Iron and Steel Institute heard papers on the economics and logistics of railway delivery to steel works, and developments in the rolling of broad flange beams at the Cargo Fleet Iron Company. And in a separate section for some reason, a discussion of H. B. Knowlton, of International Harvesters, paper on "American Applications of Boron and Other Low-Alloy Steels," with discussion, which is mainly the audience jumping all over heat treatment issues. Londoners seem grumpy this week! 

"North Sea Liner Leda" The Bergen Line's new 6670t passenger liner does 21kn on twin screws using two double-reduction turbines at 450lbs and 800 degrees, has electrically-powered steering, Walter-Kidde fire suppression, just like an aeroplane. Auxiliaries are by Weir except the extensive electrical ones, which are powered at 350kW, 220v dc by a turbine alternator fed by exhaust steam. The Engineer also visits the Brighton B Power Station this week. 

Arthur Lyon wants us to know about its self-regulating alternator, Merryweather and Sons a "Hydraulic Self-Supporting Wheeled Escape," which is actually a fire evacuation ladder, and Priestman Brothers a universal excavator. Much later, Messier has a fluid flow synchroniser for aircraft hydraulic systems. Anglo-Iranian deems the "unusual design" of its new flare stacks worthy of a full page advertorial. The Institution of Electrical Engineers heard an exhausting amount of administrative detail at its annual meeting, unlike the Water Engineers, who hear papers, with a small-print syllabus attached, no details, perhaps because we only have so much appetite for water treatment. South Africa's economy is doing quite well, The Engineer read in the newspapers. 

The Electrical Research Association invites everyone out to field trials of assorted plug-in tractors and the like at their new field station in Shinfield. (Also drying, warming, ventilating and all that boring stuff that's actually practical.) 

Leaders 

We check in with the Professional Engineers Appointment Bureau; Lots of engineers have been hired to good jobs thanks to the worthy efforts of same. The Engineer explains the point of high temperature gas turbines to those it eluded in the main article. At higher temperatures, a gas turbine can achieve the kind of thermal efficiencies and economies that only diesels currently enjoy. Initially it was hoped that ceramic blades would accomplish this, but currently work is focussed on blade cooling, but there are all sorts of problems with that, too. A. R. Smith writes in withyet another letter on "library service to industry." 

(Not) The Seven-Day Journal for 22 May notes a talk on the relationship between research and productivity. Someone better tell us now if it is negative! Someone, somewhere, is still working on underground gasification, that is, setting coal on fire in the mines and sucking off the gas. An American visit to the 'British pressed metal industry had some choice criticisms, the letters of Sir William Siemens are being published, the P and O liner Arcadia has been launched, and the Institution of Engineers-in-Charge has had its annual general meeting, to the terror of waiters everywhere. 

T. R. Robinson visits the new clock tower at Nailsworth, and the Orient liner Orsova is launched. Professor Ewen M'Ewen's talk to the North-Eastern Branch of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on "The Training of Engineering Designers" is abstracted at length, and this week's installment of the report on the Hanover Technical Fair focusses on some other engineering exhibits we haven't gotten to yet, including the Volkswagen industrial engine, a rotary disc loader from the saltworks in Austria, several cranes and a  mobile air compressor from Demag. 

The Iron and Steel Institute had another meeting this week, but it is an important one (annual?) and there were lots of papers. I am assuming that no-one cares about the details of steel plant work, but there was an entire session on the age-quenching of iron, which we've done since forever, but now we can look at it with electron microscopes and see what is happening, which, I admit, is blah-blah crystallisation, but it is important to industry! Also, we can test out new tricks to improve hardness on ageing. Iron, Dr. Pfeil points out in his address below, is getting better. As recentlly as 1928 there were only two recognised grades of cast iron giving 9 and 11 tons per square inch tensile strengths. In 1941, we reached a 23 ton grade! 

The Engineer visits the APV factory at Crawley and later the open day at the National Physical Laboratory, where it sees a wind tunnel and a digital computer, among other things. Out to the Group Research Laboratory for Guest, Keen and Nettlefowork, it sees wire drawing and tool and dies, invovling testing same with all sorts of equipment. In South Africa, prospectors are looking for columbite, while Nife Batteries has emergency lights for small buildings, and the wire-drawing section of the British Iron and Steel Institute a wire-measuring device, the profiloscope.G. W. B. Electric Furnaces has a water heater, Supplies and Services Company a tube clamp, and William and Sons a rubber door. 

By Karl Baron from Lund, Sweden -
Vacuum tube computer :o
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The Coal Board ran a deficit this year for various reasons, which is disappointing. (Labour problems, mostly, leading to a higher cost per ton of coal.) The Engineer chimes in on the importance of education for engineering design. Literature reviews R. B. Heywood, Designing by Photoelasticity, at some length, and Harry Ricardo, The High-Speed Internal Combustion Engine. Heywood has written a good book, marred by a quixotic attack on the unified thread. (Photoelasticity, is, of course, the way that you measure the stresses on things like the edges of screw threads, but Heywood's methods here are questionable.) Ricardo, we know, will explain why slightly kooky engines like the Sabre and Nomad and components like the sleeve valve are actually good ideas. 

Dr. L. B. Pfeil's Presidential Address to the Institution of Metallurgists is abstracted as "A Review of Metallurgical Developments." See, this is why industry needs library service. Someone's got to index this! Or not, because it is a breakneck hurdle through the entire field. How do you summarise epigrams? He finishes up with powder metal metallurgy, leading into an advertorial for GEC's iron powder magnets. L. G. Brazier, et al, "An Assessment of the Impregnated Pressure Cable" ends the issue less French Engineering Notes (dams, a new tractor, France made half a million motor vehicles this year) and Launches and Trial Trips, this week covering six motor ships, two steam ships; three cargo liners, two cargo ships, one coaster, two tankers.

(Not) The Seven-Day Journal for 29 May notes personnel changes at the Iron and Steel Board, the annual report of the Institute of Seaweed Research, an "exhibition of transport relics," the Incorporated Plant Engineers' conference, which heard papers on heat exchangers and lubrication, and a joint R.Ae.S/Acoustics Group (of the Physical Society) meeting on jet noise.

O. S. Nock rides the Thompson and Peppercorn "Pacifics" of the former LNER for The Engineer. They are making stranded board in South Africa now. 

This week the Iron and Steel Institute heard B. C. Woodfine on "Temper-Brittleness: A Critical Review of the Literature," followed by Preece and Carter on Temper-Brittleness in high purity iron alloys, Austen et al on the effects of arsenic. The next section heard five papers on bainite, which is one of the physical forms of iron.

"Development of the Columbia River Basin" by An American Correspondent, is timely with the cancellation of the Hell's Gate dam and its replacement by the smaller Idaho Power development with no fish ladders or reservoirs. I don't think the article bears summarising, with the exception of the author's concern for the lack of flood storage, which will be exacerbated by the Hell's Gate cancellation, but check out the issue for the lovely map. 

"Pametrada: Progress Report for 1952" It's time for a visit to the Parsons/Engineering Branch facility where they play with superheated steam! Work on the Y100 continues, as well as contract work for everyone from foreign license holders to the Britannia, and on a high-temperature turbine, these being all the rage these days. 

Dunlop has a tubeless tire, GEC a contraption that links two cameras for filming 3D movies. South Africa has a dam now. And David Brown has a vertical pinion hobbing machine. 

"The Astin Case" The Engineer is understandably upset about the firing of the head of the Bureau of Standards (the President has since unfired him) for sticking up for standards.It explains why with painful clarity. Apparently, twenty-four Senators wrote the Bureau of Standards asking it to find favourably on AD-X2, and an independent report from MIT was commissioned, which I haven't heard about in the American press, although it was apparently a one-week wonder. (The perils of following weekly newsmagazines instead of keeping up with the papers, but honestly who has time?) 

American Engineering News has the annual report of the Bureau of Shipping, a report on the suspension bridge over the Straits of Mackinac, and the latest on industrial participation at the AEC. .

Metallurgical Notes looks at high pressure technique, the European zinc industry, and fatigue testing.

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"Pressure-Charged Diesel Engines" That is, for merchant shipping. The Engineer-in-Chief, Sir Denys Maxwell, says that much lighter steam turbines are possible, but the Merchant Navy doesn't care. Turbocharged diesels are the wave of the future. "Guided Bombs for New Aircraft" is a note on how these are good ideas and will address the aircraft shortages made obvious by JUNGLE KING, and maybe the veil of secrecy could be lifted so we can find out just what the RAF has up its sleeve, as otherwise all the press from America will make us lose hope and have a long lie down. Literature reviews W. J. Duncan, Physical Similarity and Dimensional Analysis, which for the first time gives a theoretical grounding for dimensional analysis outside "being an end in itself." Which is a nice discussion of the theoretical side of engineering, and so is a free-standing article later, D. B. Welbourn, "Notes on Euler's Centrifugal Pump Theory," which corrects Euler's theory so that it actually agrees with reality by taking "breakaway" into account. 

M. L. Meyer explains why research beats trial and error. The Engineer's visit to the Hanover Technical Fair continues (as opposed to "concludes", as I might have said for last week's number) with a look at giant mixers and tiny pumps. W. F. Stanley, Ltd, is a century old, and the Brush Electrical Company has exciting new square path self-regulating alternators. Coming out of that A. Ae.S./Acoustic Society meeting is F. R. Greatrix, "Aero-Engine Noise," which seems like quibbling. We don't care about the bits that might be quieter. They're too loud! Unless all this science and measuring leads to abatement, which would be okay, I guess. 

Cranes (Dareham) have an enormous 120 ton trailer for transporting heavy equipment for the Snowy Mountain hydroelectric scheme in Australia. It's quite something. And speaking of hydroelectric schemes, The Engineer reviews the Nechako-Kemano scheme up the coast. There's another very nice map.

Ending notes include the monthly review of Britain's foreign trade, which is going well, but you can't fool me again! European steel exports are increasing, and there is a note about engineering wages, which I assume are too high and rising too quickly, as usual. Launches and Trial Trips has four motor ships and one steam; a passenger liner, a refrigerated cargo ship and three oil tankers, one of which is the steamship.