 |
| I thought that the Burnelli "lifting body airplane" scam gave up the ghost during World War II, but, it turns out that Chuck Yeager's predecessor was still flogging it in the 1950s. |
R_.C._
Governor Hotel,
Portland, Oregon.
Dear Father:
First, thank you for your presents, which, per your instructions, have gone under the tree pending your revival, with the exception of the new(!) "king-sized" iron lung. It is not a very sentimental present, but it is something I very much wanted. I dare not ask how much it cost.
If, by some chance, you are wondering why you've received this at your hotel, it is because I have sent it in company with Wong Lee, who will be meeting you at the expected place. Sign, counter-sign, you know the drill. (I will explain the reason for all the fuss when you arrive.)
For discretion's sake, I suggest that you extend your reservation at the hotel over Christmas, and leave your car. If you choose to let Wong Lee drive you, now you have reading material.
If not, while a "deuce-and-a-half" Dodge is not your usual ride, Dr. Rivers has had it fitted up for skiing excursions in grand style. It has all-wheel-drive, tyre chains, and many other things that your daughter-in-law would never think of. Wong Lee has driven it many times, in worse conditions than you will meet on Mount Shasta (probably) on your way to us at Christmas.
You will be glad to know that your wife is here, having flown in from Vancouver on the 21st. Somewhat surprisingly, we have word that we are receiving the Earl on the 28th. He will be arriving by air, on the pretext of paying a visit to Mr. McCreery. I am not sure what the occasion might be, but I am too cynical to think that he has suddenly discovered a desire to see golden California. It is more likely to be a matter of money. I am hoping that the matter of Fontana remains off the table. If the other issue comes up, Bill, David and James are confident that our Russian friend. will make his new deadline, as long as we extend him the credit he has asked for, something that I hope you will press upon His Grace with your usual insider's technical flair.
I doubt that that it is a matter of magnetic recording machines, though. In fact, I am beside myself with nerves about what awful news might have inspired this flying visit. It does put a bit of a damper on the holidays.
"GRACE."
First, thank you for your presents, which, per your instructions, have gone under the tree pending your revival, with the exception of the new(!) "king-sized" iron lung. It is not a very sentimental present, but it is something I very much wanted. I dare not ask how much it cost.
 |
| It's not just that Grace is trying to find a face-saving excuse |
For discretion's sake, I suggest that you extend your reservation at the hotel over Christmas, and leave your car. If you choose to let Wong Lee drive you, now you have reading material.
If not, while a "deuce-and-a-half" Dodge is not your usual ride, Dr. Rivers has had it fitted up for skiing excursions in grand style. It has all-wheel-drive, tyre chains, and many other things that your daughter-in-law would never think of. Wong Lee has driven it many times, in worse conditions than you will meet on Mount Shasta (probably) on your way to us at Christmas.
You will be glad to know that your wife is here, having flown in from Vancouver on the 21st. Somewhat surprisingly, we have word that we are receiving the Earl on the 28th. He will be arriving by air, on the pretext of paying a visit to Mr. McCreery. I am not sure what the occasion might be, but I am too cynical to think that he has suddenly discovered a desire to see golden California. It is more likely to be a matter of money. I am hoping that the matter of Fontana remains off the table. If the other issue comes up, Bill, David and James are confident that our Russian friend. will make his new deadline, as long as we extend him the credit he has asked for, something that I hope you will press upon His Grace with your usual insider's technical flair.
I doubt that that it is a matter of magnetic recording machines, though. In fact, I am beside myself with nerves about what awful news might have inspired this flying visit. It does put a bit of a damper on the holidays.
"GRACE."
Time,
16 December 1946
Letters
Nominations for Man of the Year for
Bernard Baruch, John L. Lewis, Molotov, Senator Vandenberg, James F. Byrnes,
Henry Wallace, not Henry Wallace, all of our politicians who have failed to
cope with the new problems of science, and a distinctly enigmatic one for
Hermann Goering. “I could write an essay about why, but you would have to wait
20 or 30 years to read it.”) Jo Ann Moore, of Ohio State University, wants us
to have more faith in the Uno, and make fewer jokes and degrading comments
about it. Walter M. Hass, President of Empire Plow Co, objects to the company being called “moribund.” Several correspondents support the New York Physicians’ Committee for the
Legalisation of Voluntary Euthanasia. One is opposed, and implies that it
should be left to the doctor. The publisher’s letter is a tribute to the
paper’s first out-of-town bureau, the Chicago bureau, which is very colourful,
and has a specialist who regularly reads fifty medical and scientific
publications.
National
Affairs
“The Silent Struggle” The president saved
Christmas and defeated nasty labour forever by ending the coal strike. Also, it
was silent because he didn’t talk to the press much. Except that somehow the
paper knows exactly what was happening in the White House.
“Horatius and the Great Ham” Judge
Goldsborough’s decision to grant the Administration an injunction against the
coal strike, and levy fines against the UMW and John L. Lewis for defying it,
is a great victory. John L. Lewis is awful. The paper might come out later and
say that labour is awful, instead of just implying it.
“Her Week” Eleanor Roosevelt is
awful. She said mean things about Martin Niemoeller, and isn’t coming clean
about her health. She’s about to die of something, just like Josephine Marra, Hector
A. Orta, Alexander Cook, and Natalie Biro. Although Eleanor is going to die of a
nervous breakdown or cancer or something, while Josephine and Hector died of being shot, Miss Biro committed suicide by jumping off a building, and Mr. Cook died of being under Miss Biro; but she’s going to die. Otherwise,
why attach this tail to the Eleanor Roosevelt story? Unless, perhaps, you one
to make heavy insinuations about a woman you don’t like very much.
“Present Laughter” The Senate
Campaign Expenditures Committee heard testimony in Jackson, Mississippi, from
96 Coloured witnesses to the effect that they had been beaten, jailed, bribed (a
$5 bill is the going rate), or given “friendly advice” not to vote. Senator
Bilbo, recently quoted as saying that “The best way to keep a nigger from a white primary in Mississippi
is to see him the night before,” obviously had nothing to do with this, or the fact that only 1500 of Mississippi’s 100,000 Coloured voters
actually voted. This matter cleared up, Bilbo can resume his seat in the Senate
–except for the Senate War Investigating Committee’s case against Bilbo for
receiving $100,000 from Mississippi war contractors. Senator Taft is very eager
to hear about that. Perhaps he’ll
even hear that the $100,000 was broken down into $5 bills. In Chicago, Colonel McCormick’s Tribune is going as far
as to suggest that states that do not let all their citizens vote, should be
penalised under the 14th Amendment.
“Victory Dinner” The paper attended
a nice victory dinner for the GOP, with roast turkey, candied sweet potatoes
and lettuce salad, “licking their lips” while Carroll Reece told them that the
mid-terms were a popular verdict, that the President had to go along with the
new Congress. “Or else.” Other Congressmen are eager to get their hands on the
Interstate Commerce, Federal Trade, and Federal Communication Commissions.
“Weather Clear, Track Fast” The
Uno’s search for a new home is like a horse race, in that New York, San
Francisco, Flushing Meadows, Philadelphia and now midtown Manhattan are in the
race.
“Red Sky at Morning” The paper’s coverage of the Winecoff Hotel fire doesn’t have any pictures of bodies, but it does have one of the jumpers who leaped from the hotel’s seventh story, mostly missing or tearing through the firemen’s nets. One hundred and twenty dead in the 13 story, “fireproof” hotel.
 |
| Time notwithstanding, Daisy McCumber survived her fall, although she suffered multiple broken bones and eventually had a leg amputated, dying in 1992 at age 86, still embarrased at being photographed in her underwear. |
“Five Years After” The Army had a memorial
service to mark the fifth anniversary of the Pearl Harbour attack, but the Navy didn’t, as it “Wants to forget, not
to remember.”
 |
| "We want to forget." Wow. Times sure have changed. |
International
“Lucky 115th” The 115th
session of the Council of Foreign Ministers went quite well.
“No Relevance” Uno delegates like
disarmament. Russian delegates do not like American bomb secrecy. Further
bulletins as events warrant.
“It’s Official” Britain and America
are having discussions about arms standardisation, but deny that this is an
alliance against Russia. It is all about achieving full technical efficiency.
 |
| Anyone recognise this? |
Also, A following story about irritations and anxieties in Anglo-American
relations trails off in true Economist fashion.
What will happen? Who knows? But dark clouds are gathering! Following that is a story about how “the British
Empire and Commonwealth” is just so large and peculiar that it doesn’t really
make any sense, except that none of the colonies are ready for independence,
for one reason or another, even though they have people who want it, who are
probably all troublemaking collaborationists (U Aung San), communists (U ThanTun), or just too colourful to be trusted with self-government. (Nnamdi Azikiwe). A story following establishes, at great length, that the London talks
on Indian self-government got nowhere, except to perhaps establish that there
will be a “little Pakistan” in Bengal.
 |
| Mr. Gardiner |
“No Refuge” In Palestine, “moderate
Zionists” are thought to be turning against the terrorists of the Stern Gang.
In Zurich, the World Zionist Council is torn between two candidates to succeed
Weismann: David Ben-Gurion supports the partition plan as the basis for
negotiating, while Rabbi Silver, of Cleveland, opposes it as giving up too much
in advance.
“As the Ruhr Goes” The paper
summarises the Fortune story.
 |
| I wouldn't mention it, but it gives me an excuse to post another picture from the Fortune spread. |
“Nonstop Performance” The paper
thinks that the idea of the Soviet Union celebrating the tenth anniversary of
its constitution is silly, because it is a communist dictatorship.
“Journeyman Traitor” Father JosephTiso is on trial for treason in Slovakia, which is the half of Czechoslovakia
that it easiest to pronounce.
“Moonlight” Captain Kenichi Sonei has been sentenced to die for abusing prisoners in Batavia’s Tjideng prison
camp.
In Latin America, Argentina is Fascist again, or possibly just crackpot. Mexico is
having land reform. In Canada, the Catholic Church in Quebec is upset that notenough French Canadians are settling on the land and raising good Catholics,
while Amy Kelsey, of Creston, British Columbia, won the title of “Wheat Queen
of North America” for turning in a sample measured at 66.5lbs of wheat to the
bushel, close to the all time record of 67.7lbs. In Toronto, Coloured whist
player, Leon Beard, fights the import of the American colour barrier, and taxi
driver Alfred Reddish, twice decorated for courage by the Toronto police for
fighting crime, is shot to death resisting a hijacker.
Business
“The Bill is Tendered” The coal
strike was very expensive.
“Down the Middle” The National
Association of Manufacturers has “broken out in a rash of anti-unionism”, for
which the paper thinks it “had a good right.” Averell Harriman is appalled that
the power of the unions has grown to the point where one man can defy the
Government and “recklessly tear down the life of the nation.” Averell.
Harriman. Averell Harriman is upset that John L. Lewis is too powerful. I could
just –but that wouldn’t be ladylike. For some reason, Field Marshal Smuts was
invited to say a few words, which were along the lines of “unions used to be
fine, but now they’re too powerful,” etc. Well, the Field-Marshal knows how to
deal with uppity workers, as long as they’re black of skin, and coal miners are
nothing if not black of skin. I’m sorry. I will hold further editorialising to
a minimum. Walter B. Weisenberger promised that the NAM will be very conscious
and active in solving social problems, just so long as the unions were brought
to heel. Or something like that. My resolution about not editorialising didn’t
last very long!
“Post-War Postponed” General Motors
last week postponed its plans for “real postwar cars,” the prospective 1948
models. The reason is that die production is so far behind schedule. 1948 will
be a “blank year” for low-priced cars, which will appear in 1949, instead. It doesn’t
hurt that new models are expensive (between $57 million and $75 million for the
changeover), and that America seems willing to pay for more expensive, older
cars. Nash and Ford still think that they can get their 1948 models out,
although Ford is thinking of skipping a 1947 model altogether, since even the
small cost of retooling to create a distinct 1947 look might not be worthwhile.
Packard already has its 1948 dies, and Studebaker is vaguely promising new
1948s, while Chrysler has nothing to say.
“Early Christmas” The 17.6% increase
in freight rates, effective 1 January, authorised by the ICC, is an early
Christmas present. The railroads are now expected to gross $1 billion next
year.
“Silent Salesmen” Chicago’s Bert E.
Mills Corporation unveiled an automatic coffee vendor this week. With automatic
vending machines that already sell golf balls, laundry, toilet seat covers, hot
dogs with mustard, and, soon, milk, butter, ice cream, and gasoline in
automatic stations, it is an idea whose time has come. Other companies make
cigarette candy, and other kinds of vending machines. Changemaking can be
difficult, as in the case of the 6 cent chocolate bar, and the National SlugRejectors, Inc., is making good money. National Slug is looking at a soft-drink
dispensing machine that will make change for a quarter and return 20 cents in
change.
“Gene Meyer Steps Down” The only
difference from The Economist’s coverage
is that, the paper says that it is “plausible” that Eugene Meyer has resigned
because he is 71 and needs a little rest. It may all be down to the Wisconsin
Banking Commission’s dislike of international entanglements. As James B. Mulva[!],
of same, says, foreign guarantees aren’t “Worth a hoot in hell.”
Science,
Medicine, Education
“Oil Rays” An article in MIT’s Technology Review suggests that the organic
material that eventually becomes petroleum is transformed by exposure to gamma ray activity from radioactive minerals over eons. The relevance is that thismight help geologists find more petroleum.
“Worlds to Conquer” Explorer Roy
Chapman Andrews told the New York Times
Magazine this week that the world “was not hopelessly over-explored.” For
example, pilots report a mountain higher than Everest in eastern Tibet, while
“stone-age fuzzy-wuzzies, ignorant of the outside world, live in [New Guinea’s]
high cool ‘white man’s country.’” However, to make real contributions, they
will have to make scientific observations about birds and people, and not just
go there.
“Twilight of the Elms” Dutch elm disease is spreading, and will kill most, if not all, American elm trees. For
that reason, towns should probably plant trees other than Dutch elms, such as
Siberian elms, or future, fungus-resistant hybrids.
“Matter Over Mind” In Boston last
week, at the Eastern Association of Electroencephalographers, William Gray Walter demonstrated his arrangement of an signal analyser in circuit with an
electroencephalograph. In the hands of a good electroencephalographer, the
device can diagnose brain tumours and epilepsy, but many brain activities are
much more complex, and the hope is that the analyser can extract information
that even a good electroencephalographer might miss. Unfortunately, at the end
of the day, knowing that the brain is producing prominent waves at five
distinct frequencies when the subject does something or other just makes things
more complicated.
 |
| We're going to here more about this dead-ender cybyerneticist. By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33634387 |
“The Need to Know” Gastric cancer is
the most hopeless of all cancers, killing some 80,000 Americans each year, 45% of
cancer deaths. By the time that it is diagnosed, only 8% of victims can be
treated, and 25% are beyond hope. The best protection is frequent X-rays of
every citizen, but the handful of US clinics already have six-month waiting
lists. At an extraordinary conference of gastric specialists in Chicago, Dr.Andrew Conway Ivy[!!!] of the University of Illinois Medical College recommended a
national publicity campaign like the ones for tuberculosis and other public
health menaces; and suggested that Congress increase the current $500,000
appropriation for cancer research.
At another Chicago conference, this
one of radiologists, Dr. Milton Friedman, of New York Hospital and the Army,
told about a fantastic case of intimate cancer, in which a soldier somehow
experienced the beginnings of a “virgin birth.” [pdf]
“More Women” American medical
schools are training more women to be doctors than ever before, with enrollment
up from 10 to 16%, well above the 6% reported two years ago.
Julian Huxley has been made Director
of UNESCO. Harvard has discontinued the S.B. degree it used to give out to
students who couldn’t master Latin. Dr. Everett Moore Baker is to be the new
director of MIT, despite being a minister, instead of a scientist. (Your
youngest gives out a raspberry at this.) Charles Ernest Bunnell continues to be
the President of the University of Alaska, as he has been for 25 years. Despite
record enrollment, the Fairbanks university has a small enrollment (the paper
forgets to say how many), increased by 215 ex-GIs and WACs who have had to go
to school in Fairbanks because there is no room in universities that are not on
the Arctic Circle, or because they like living there. At the other extreme,
Columbia has 1313 foreign students from 80 countries and colonies, including 13
from UN staff families.
 |
| Ranked 202nd in the 2015 Us News and World Report Survey. Anchorage is 79th. |
People
Ernest Hemingway is on a shooting
holiday. French Historian Bernard Fay, author of The Revolutionary Spirit in France and America: George Washington:
Republican Aristocrat, has been sentenced to imprisonment at hard labour [for life] for compiling a “giant list of French Freemasons,” which the Gestapo used as a
directory for arrests and executions. Elliott Roosevelt, travelling in Russia,
is in trouble again for incautious comments on the United States, apparently
reported by “[A]n Embassy secretary and ex-WAC named Ruth M. Briggs, who used
to be Elliott’s friend back in North Africa.” I’m sure the paper didn’t mean
that the way it sounded, because when has it ever been malicious towards the
Roosevelts in the last ten pages?
 |
| In his defence, he didn't just arrest almost a thousand French Freemasons, of whom almost 600 were shot. He also helped persuade Marcel Lefebvre to start the Society of Saint Pius X. |
Darryl Zanuck is in hospital, hand
injured “by a flying polo ball.” Tommy Manville asked the police to find his
eighth wife, last seen on the road with two suitcases. June Haver points out
that actresses don’t have to have suffered to be great. “Jennifer Jones played
a wonderful death scene in The Song of
Bernadette without ever having died.” Frank Sinatra is awful. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor aren’t awful this week.
General Eisenhower has taken a month’s leave of absence for hospital treatment of bursitis of the shoulder, while the
Admiral has been relieved of active duty after a hernia operation by his own request.
John Roosevelt has had his third
child, with Anne Clark Roosevelt assisting. Brother James has had
his fourth, with his second wife, Romelle Schneider Roosevelt. Ilka Chase has
married her personal physician, as has Norma Talmadge. Correspondent Alfred Kornfeld has died in a Jeep accident in Germany. Laurette Taylor has died, as has Mary Beard,
former director of the American Red Cross [pdf].
 |
| Glamour time! |
Press,
Radio, Art
The paper is pleased that the Philadelphia Record and Camden Courier-Post have kept publishing through a strike. Town and Country is America’s snootiest
paper. Its first editor “made European travel fashionable” and was assisted by
George P. Morris, author of Woodman,
Spare That Tree. Its first editorial assistant was Edgar Allan Poe, and
their first book review was of Longfellow’s Evangeline.
It also pirated European novels. For the last 21 years, it has been owned
by William Hearst, but he has never interfered with its staff of 13.
I'm pretty sure that Mad magazine made fun of this once. Fresh!
“Brave New Republic” the new version
of The New Republic has brighter
covers, twice the pages, and more ads, at a special “Henry Wallace rate” of
$5/year. A printing of 85,000 copies featured articles by Vincent Sheean and
Theodore White. The book reviews are expected to be more prompt and more
preppy.
“Master Radioman” Charles Ruthven
Denny, Jr., is the new chairman of the FCC. He is the man behind the “Blue
Book” and he is not budging. Well, maybe he is budging a bit. It’s supposed to
be a “two way street,” he says. Also, General Mills has revived Light of the World, because the churched
crowd likes it. (Leaving me to wonder whether they’re capable of truly “liking”
anything.)
John Rogers Cox’s “conservative,”
“bucolic” stylings have won the Carnegie Prize again. George Grosz is the kind
of social satirist the paper likes. He hates old Germany and Nazi Germany, but
is fine with living in an American suburb and making money by drawinglandscapes and nudes. There is to be an exhibition of Dutch paintings
“collected” by Hitler at the National Gallery to support worthy causes, since
most of the paintings were “collected” from a Jewish art house, and so the
owners have vanished into the National Socialist night.
 |
| "Robots, What's Keeping Them?" By George Grosz - studyblue, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46966132 |
The
New Pictures
Magnificent Doll is a “Hollywood history lesson about how Ginger Rogers created America
by being a lady named Dolly who married one President and was wooed by all the
other ones. And that’s it for this week, so the space is given over to a profile of John Grierson.
Ginger Rogers has a very strange online fandom.
Books
If there isn’t much to say about
movies, this is a big week for books, as it looks back over a year that saw The Egg and I, Josh Liebmans Peace of Mind, Victor Kravchenko’s I Chose Freedom, and best selling novels
by Taylor Caldwell, Daphne Du Maurier, Frank Yerby, Erich Maria Remarque,
Evelyn Waugh, Gladys Schmitt and Frederic Wakeman. Several books about generals that are nice (Eisenhower and Marshal) competed with the more scorching views of Ralph
Ingersoll and Theodore White. There were several books
about Lincoln. In the future, there will probably be as many books about Roosevelt as Lincoln. The paper doesn’t pay as much
attention to Albert Camus as some of my friends do. The Stranger’s rival in the field of books for smart ladies is
–well, I shan’t say, because it is not appropriate.
 |
| This is pretty rsique for Grace. She said later that she brought Memoirs of Hecate County up as an excuse to talk about The Stranger, a book she was still trying to sort out forty-five years later. |
Flight,
19 December 1946
Leaders
“Enterprise” The paper is very
pleased with the A.W. 52 experimental mail plane, even though it will probably
be a disaster.
 |
| Much safer to take pictures on the ground. |
“A.M.T.S.” There will be an Air
Member for Technical services on the Air Council now. This is a good thing, and
the paper is pleased that it will be Roderic Hill. James says that he’s better
than the average fly boy.
“Lightweight Automatics: More About
the Miles Co-Pilot: Possibilities and Impressions” Miles has carried over its
earlier work on a flying bomb automatic control into this new automatic pilot,
suitable for use on small commercial aircraft such as the Oxford or Miles
Aerovan. It weighs only 40lbs, is compact, and is expected to sell for £500,
although Miles intends to offer it strictly on lease-hire, as it doesn’t trust the
operator to do proper maintenance. It is “primarily electronic,” which means
that the inputs are photoelectric, and signals from the gyros are taken off
electrically and amplified to power aileron and elevator servos. It has only
two gyros, and is, strictly speaking, a two-axis machine, but there is enough
control in the third axis to suit all but military demands. There is “barely
noticeable” lag in fore-and-aft control, none in lateral, and a selsyn feeding
back control movement to a repeater motor in the control unit which readjusts
the pickoff arms so that “a recorrection signal is transmitted to the servo.” The
“stiffness” of the control unit can be adjusted “to suit different aircraft.”
The real issue here is whether it can be adjusted enough to prevent hunting in
a particular aircraft, but then the advantage of the lease-hire arrangement is
that you’re not out five hundred quid if the autopilot you just bought can’t
wrestle your plane into submission. It take about a minute to come into
operation, but may be shut off instantly.
“Anglo-American Angles: Mr.
Masefield Unravels Some of the Tangled Skeins Before the Royal Empire Society”
If the English don’t cooperate with the Americans now, they won’t buy the new
English planes when they start coming in after 1950.
 |
| Bristol Britannia. By RuthAS - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29471494 |
“Ambient Comfort: Developments in
Cabin Atmosphere Treatment for Complete Conditioning” Sir George Godfrey and
Partners have been manufacturing the Marshall cabin blowers specified for the
Tudor I and II, Hermes, Bristol 167, Ambassador, etc. They believe that they
have mastered the problem of conditioning cabin air to a comfortable range of
humidity with a mix of drying and humidifying units to be installed in common
caissons in the blower ducts. Drying caissons contain 20lb of dried alumina,
which will pick up the moisture in the air, while humidifiers have glass wool
wicks. The alumina can be blown dry, and the trays beneath the wicks refilled
with 15lbs of water from storage tanks, so the caissons have an indefinite
lifespan. There will also be cooler
caissons using solid carbon dioxide, although the design has not been
finalised. For a 7.5-hour flight from a tropical-summer zone to a temperate
one, the total drying load will be 4.1lb water, wetting load 74.6lb, cooling
load 65lb solid CO2. The total weight of installation at takeoff is 300lb.
Here
and There
The South Africans have bought four
Percival Mergansers outfitted as school rooms to be “school busses” for
children from outlying colonial districts. The BOAC is having an afternoon exhibit
at its offices, featuring the “tea-time practices” of the various countries
that BOAC serves around the world. The RCAF is back to focussing on aerial
surveying. (Nothing about timber-cruising,
so don't sell the Norseman yet.) Dunlop has a nice little movie out
about its war efforts in the field of rubber, starring Patricia Cutts, who
seems to be making a career out of airmindedness. Miles Aircraft has a
scheme to build houses for its employees; 70 have joined the scheme with the
local authority to provide houses near the miles works, and new employees are
welcome. James reaches over my shoulder to emphasise the story about the steam
refrigerating plant to be installed in the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers,
in order to cool the lower decks. They will be capable of producing 9 tons of
ice an hour. James says that it won’t be enough: “Double it, then square it,
then double that, just for good luck.” I think he’s quoting Lloyd George?
“De-Icing Today; Points of the
Thermal System: Induction System Problems: Resume of an R.Ae.S. Paper by Mr. J.K. Hardy” Mr. Hardy is pushing for thermal de-icing systems. The alternatives
are de-icing boots, only used on wings, and direct heating of inlet air, used
in engine induction passages where boots are highly impractical. He points out
that the modern thermal system was developed by NACA in the United States, and
was widely used in Germany. In experiments, ducting hot air through between 8
and 18% of the leading-edge chord has been sufficient, although more might be
needed in some cases. Because air mass declines with altitude, a thermal
de-icing system using air has a maximum altitude, and existing technology
should be good for up to 20,000ft in North Atlantic conditions, or perhaps even
30,000. Heat is from exhaust heat exchangers –a definite improvement on using
exhaust gas directly! The experiments Hardy cites used four heat exchangers to
keep the centre section, tail surfaces, cabin and two outer-wing sections of a
C-46 de-iced. Experiments with heating the surfaces of the induction inlets
continue, since pre-heating the air is a cause of major power loss. Although
there has not yet been much work on de-icing jet turbines, it would seem that
preheating the air is the only way to protect the compressor, and that this
will be especially necessary in axial engines. Fluid de-icing, used
satisfactorily on airscrews, ought to be replaced by the thermal method, Hardy
thinks.
 |
| If you followed the Bristol Britannia link, you'll see icing in its Bristol Proteus blamed for the plane's failure to catch on. So, relevance. |
“Twin-jet A.W. 52: Tailless
Experimental Mailplane with Two Rolls-Royce Nenes: Many Advanced Features” This
swept-back flying wing jet has much the same layout as the previous glider and
the same unusual control systems, employing correctors, controllers, tabs and
vertical wing tip rudders. Removal of the boundary layer out board, in front of
the controls, has already been tried on the glider, with two small fans on the
undercarriage legs driving vacuum pumps. The jet will use pumps powered
directly from the engines, which has required increasing their speed by
2000rpm, and the loss of 300lb thrust when the pumps are in full operation.
This delays the loss of control due to wing-tip stall, the main problem with
swept-back wings and the reason for experiments with forward swept
configurations. The wing is not thin, and so cannot achieve high Mach numbers
this way, as the thickness to chord ratio is 18%. The wing has, however, been
extensively designed for smoothness for laminar flow to 0.53 chord. Since there
is adequate fore-and-aft control, anti-stall devices can be used. A separate cockpit is still needed, as
accommodating the cabin in the wing at the current thickness would require a
200ft wingspan, which is far too much for existing structural practice. The correctors
allow a major improvement on past flying wings, in that the AW52 will have
stick-free stability. The correctors will provide trim control, synchronised
Hobson extractors will make sure that the boundary-layer suction pumps work
properly. If they don’t, the plane is fitted with a Martin-Baker ejection
seat. Armstrong Whitworth is very pleased with the structural method used to
maintain laminar smoothness, which is a development of the “box spar and thick
skin arrangement” used in the Whitley and Ensign.” (Probably best not to mention
the Ensign, I would have said, if they asked me.) It basically involves
fitting the wing structure to the preformed skin, instead of the other way
around. The cabin is slightly pressurised, and the undercarriage is by Dowty.
 |
| Not only does the article mention the Ensign, Armstrong-Whitworth placed an ad featuring it in this number. People say that it was very hard to persuade John Lord that he was wrong about something. |
Sir Ben Lockspeiser says that the AW
52 will be the test model for a future, large, all-wing aircraft with the
requisite 200ft wing span and passenger cabin within the wing. Whatever the
outcome of the experiment, he said, the AW 52 was a credit to Armstrong
Whitworth and its staff.
Civil
Air News
“Foundation For ICAO” The interim
council of the PICAO has called the first meeting of the assembly of the ICAO,
which will talk about navigational aids and other important things. It is also
working out arrangements for the Middle Eastern Flight Safety Region, which
will have centres at Cairo, Khartoum, Basra, Aden, Karachi and Bangalore, and a
control area in Cairo. It will coordinate all fixing and air-to-ground
communications facilities in the Middle east, in connection with air traffic
control, sear and rescue and meteorology.
Talks continue about Hong Kong’s new airport, which will perhaps take up
good land at Eastern Lantao, at Pingshan, or on reclaimed land inside Kowloon Bay, which might cost as little as £1.5 million. Kaitak meanwhile now has
six airlines operating regularly through it, including BOAC, China National
Airways and Cathay Pacific. Negotiations with Portugal over flying boat facilities
at Macao have now ceased. AOA will soon begin operating a Transatlantic freight
service using DC-4s. Helicopter Transport Company, a charter helicopter
service, has begun operating in New Jersey. British European Airways will have
a 70 aircraft fleet by the end of 1947.
 |
| Old Kai Tak |
Correspondence
R. W. Clegg thinks that the paper
did a great job of publicising ultra-light aircraft at the Paris show. J. S.
Pole thinks that if the papers would should just stop talking about air
accidents for the next twenty years.
 |
| Flight 903 crash site near Cairo. All 55 on board were killed, including Dean Everett Moore Baker of MIT, when a TWA Lockheed Constellation made an emergency landing due to the No. 3 engine catching fire. From Pinterest. |
Time,
23 December 1946
Letters
Votes for Molotov, MacArthur,
Governor Arnall of Georgia, Henry Wallace, James Byrnes, Senator Vandenberg and
Senator Austin for Man of the Year. John F. Mullaney and Edward B. Finnegan, of
Scranton, Pa., think that Marshal Tito has a sinister plot to reduce the
American standard of living to that of the European peasant (I think because
relief for Europe will cost so much?), and thereby raise a Balkan army that
will fight World War III. Makes sense! Harry T. Mather and K. C. Norman, of Kansas, are
upset at the paper for confusing Kansas City with a place in Kansas. Mrs. C. F.
Ainsworth, of Hanna, Wyoming, disavows Wyoming’s involvement in the recent
blizzard, which was actually just passing through the state, and, besides, was much nicer and less assuming than a California blizzard.
The article on Stephens College is either too hard on it, or the opposite,
depending on whether you are a student there or at the University of Missouri
School of Medicine.
Also, medical students at the University of Missouri are awful. Margaret Hower Ohle, of St. Louis, disagrees with the psychiatrist who blamed shellshock on bad mothering. The 240-overseas staff of the paper write about their Christmas plans, which will be colourful and exotic and foreign, with raw fish in Japan, plum pudding in London and popcorn strings in Vienna. Interestingly, the paper’s correspondents in China and Japan live on estates, although the word is in quotation marks for Fred Gruin in Nanking because it is only 3 ½ acres.
 |
| In 1946, medical students thought that it was witty to suggest that a women's college wasn't selective because the girls who attended were ugly. |
Also, medical students at the University of Missouri are awful. Margaret Hower Ohle, of St. Louis, disagrees with the psychiatrist who blamed shellshock on bad mothering. The 240-overseas staff of the paper write about their Christmas plans, which will be colourful and exotic and foreign, with raw fish in Japan, plum pudding in London and popcorn strings in Vienna. Interestingly, the paper’s correspondents in China and Japan live on estates, although the word is in quotation marks for Fred Gruin in Nanking because it is only 3 ½ acres.
National
Affairs
“Round Two” The paper expands on the
CIO’s claim that industry could afford to pay higher wages without raising
prices, which is based on a report prepared for them by Robert W. Nathan,
formerly of OWMR, now consulting on business at Nathan Associates. He points
out that labour’s real wages are down nearly 20% since January of 1945 due to rising
prices and the elimination of overtime, while net profits are up 50% over the
war peak of 19443, and are approaching $15 billion, compared with $4 billion
annually in 1936—9. Industry disagrees. There might be shaky times in 1947,
and, anyway, cutting profits reduces risk capital and squeezes marginal
businesses. The paper also disagrees, and ropes in comments by Walter Reuther
and Phil Murray to the effect that rising wages mean rising prices.
“By Law and by Ball” Senator Ball,
of Minnesota, is the man who will draft the GOP’s response to labour. He is
relatively liberal, a friend of Harold Stassen, and internationalist, so it is
perfectly reasonable that he wants to modify the Wagner Act, end the closed
shop, and bring back the right to fire employees in long-running strikes. Also
in labour news, the CIO continues to try to edge out the Communist leadership
of some of its unions.
“Happy Days” The paper is pleased
with the President’s decision to “stand up to John Lewis.” Because he did so,
all sorts of people have dropped by the White House to congratulate him,
including Alf Landon, the Duke of Windsor, and Harry Woodring, who predicts
that the President will be re-elected in 1948 with a Democratic Congress.
“1947 Model” The Administration’s
1947 housing plan throws out the veterans’ priority, the $10,000 cap, and
probably raw materials controls after the end of the first quarter, at which
point there will also be “some increase” in non-residential construction. There
will be subsidies for residential builders.
“First Avenue, New York” Bill
Zeckendorf, who bought up the slaughterhouse neighbourhood and adjacent
tenements on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with plans to redevelop it, now wants
to move the United Nations into it. Mayor O’Dwyer is backing the plan, and so
are the Rockefellers. (Something I look forward to hearing about from some
fellow members of the county Republicans.)
The paper wants to remind us that it is, like Fortune, so very much part of the New York scene, and takes some
time to mention all the famous people who live there; and even its best crimes.
 |
| For all that I complain, it was Time's editorial that went with this juxtaposition. Also, compare the complete absence of coverage of this anonymous disaster with the attention paid to the annual Christmas train accident. |
Another Christmas train crash, thisone of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s GoldenTriangle; 19 killed, 50 injured. Thank Heavens that they had already
arrived, or I would have been up all night worrying about Reggie. “A.,” and Mr.
and Mrs. “C.” Do not take that as approval of your plan to motor down!
“What Comes Naturally” The paper
scoops Flight with coverage of the first
flight by the Bell XS-1, piloted by Chalmers “Slick” Goodlin. Top speed is
currently limited to 0.82 Mach, which, at the 27,000ft altitude of the test,
corresponded to 550mph. Goodlin believes that it will reach 1000mph this
summer, with a pilot.
 |
| Bell XS-1; Chalmers Goodlin |
“Americana” the paper notes that the
Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco and Firearms caught 86 moonshiners in North Carolina in October. Altman’s Department Store, in Manhattan, is offering a collection of sequinned aprons ($35 each)
and pot-holders ($5.) Ensign Flohr, of Banana River, Florida, gets the paper
hep to the latest lingo by describing Rita Hayworth in a sheer nightgown as
“Mellow-Rooney, Viddle-de-vop.” You can tell that “Miss V.C.” is growing into a
lady because when I read that out to her, instead of rolling her eyes and
walking away, as she would have done four years ago, she just started laughing.
“Author’s Day” Dr. John Dewey,
married Mrs. Robert Grant this week. He is 87, she is 42. Edmund Wilson, 51,
also got married this week. The author of Memoirs
of Hecate County then got into a fight with a reporter on the train at
Reno, was kicked in the pants, chased through half a dozen cars, and refused to
do interviews in San Francisco. Now this is
news!
“99% Sure” 79% of the electorate
think that a Republican will win in 1948, while Republicans are 99% sure. The paper
also mentions the Fortune poll that
shows that only 16% of ex-servicemen will vote for MacArthur, 30$ for Ike
Eisenhower.
International
“Nice;” “My Dear Friends;” Uno delegates
like to play to the crowd for a while before settling the easy stuff.
“By Acclamation” Most Uno delegates are dumber
than Ambassador Vishinsky. Especially Sir Hartley Shawcross.
 |
| In the course of a debate over disarmament, Shawcross let himself be boxed into opposing American atomic secrecy. It was quite the scandal, apparently. By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use (Old-50), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50409159 |
“Other Business” Uno delegates like
being outraged, don’t like opening their wallets. Further bulletins. .
“On the Bum” Due to housing shortages, currency restrictions, and, in one case, Socialist ardour, various
ambassadors in eastern Europe are in as difficult a position as Al Capp’s
Slobovian ambassador in Washington. (Who has a part-time job at an all-night
diner to make ends meet, if you are too old and stuffy to read the funnies.)
“Conscience of the Community” Henry Stimson has written a defence of the Nuremberg Trials in the January number of Foreign Affairs. The paper is not
convinced.
“Travel Note” Ernest Bevin once told
a diplomat that his foreign policy was to “go down to Victoria Station, get a
railway ticket, and go where the hell I like without a passport or anything
else.” As of this week, he has France on side; the Netherlands and Belgium will
come next.
“The Succession” Stalin has laid out
a succession plan. Molotov with be Premier; Beria the Vice-Premier; Mikoyan,
Foreign Minister; Party Secretary, Zhdanov; Second Secretary, Malenkov; Defence
Minister, Voroshilov. Stalin’s old allies, then, except Zhdanov, whom Eric
Johnston quite liked –to mention one of the paper’s yesterday’s men.
“Indonesia” Indonesia’s “President”
Soekarno, as the paper deploys the quotation marks, is this week’s cover story,
and very unflattering cover it is.
The paper’s correspondent, Robert Sherrod, says that the white man’s name is so black in Asia that “I am inclined to doubt whether whites and coloured will work together in this generation.” Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, “middle of the road Dutch businessman Pieter de Jong” says that, having lost the German trade, if the Netherlands lose Indonesia as well, the Netherlands “Will become one of the poorest countries on the Continent.” The Dutch are upset that the Indonesians are so ungrateful for all that the Dutch have done for them.
 |
| I'd be harsher here if there weren't a major WTF, Time, moment coming. |
The paper’s correspondent, Robert Sherrod, says that the white man’s name is so black in Asia that “I am inclined to doubt whether whites and coloured will work together in this generation.” Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, “middle of the road Dutch businessman Pieter de Jong” says that, having lost the German trade, if the Netherlands lose Indonesia as well, the Netherlands “Will become one of the poorest countries on the Continent.” The Dutch are upset that the Indonesians are so ungrateful for all that the Dutch have done for them.
“Chop-chop!” Before he reconquers
China, the Gissimo will oversee the new constitution. He has ordered the
National Assembly to make it very democratic.
Latins are even more exciting than usual, Canadians even more boring, as fifty
disappointed, returning English war brides complain, among other things, about
not having kippered herring for breakfast.
 |
| Romulo Betancourt voting in the Constituent Assembly elections, 1946 |
Business
“Share the Wealth” This week, four of the largest American oil companies joined to buy into Arabian-American,
which has the Saudi Arabian oil concession. They will develop the concession,
transport and sell up to 20 billion barrels of oil under a 278-million-acre concession.
Current production, at 200,000bbl a day, is being held back by the limits of
the Middle Eastern market, and King Saud is eager to sell more and expand his
royalties of 22 cents a barrel.
“Executive Wanted” The World Bank is
finding it hard to replace Eugene Meyer. James Forrestal, William L. Clayton and
Lewis Douglas have ben offered the job and turned it down, and it is said that
Averill Harriman has been offered it as well.
“Marie and Charlie vs. David” David Selznick is out at United Artists. The paper puts the blame on Mary Pickford.
“K.F. Takes Over” Kaiser-Frazier is
buying out Graham-Paige, leaving the rest of Detroit to continue wondering just
how long Uncle Henry and Mr. Frazier’s money can hold out.
“Trouble at Jahco” Bill Jack is out
of the former Jack and Heintz Precision Industries on a “year’s leave of
absence” that everyone in Cincinnati expects will go on indefinitely. Speaking of bailing out in time, William
A. Coulter is out of Western Air Lines.
“Mr. Kilroy’s House” A house for $70 a month, says the ad. Well, eight houses at $70/month, so far. Built at Westbury, Long Island, by developer William Levitt with various production shortcuts, they are selling at $9,990, well ahead of anything similar, and there will be more of them. Another successful developer is J. Myer Schine.
“Mr. Kilroy’s House” A house for $70 a month, says the ad. Well, eight houses at $70/month, so far. Built at Westbury, Long Island, by developer William Levitt with various production shortcuts, they are selling at $9,990, well ahead of anything similar, and there will be more of them. Another successful developer is J. Myer Schine.
 |
| Levittown, Pennsylvania' not Levittown, New York. Am I the only person around here who is old enough to hear "Levittown" and think Gladiator-at-Law? |
Science,
Medicine, Technology, Education
“Fair Prospect” The worst thing that
scientists can imagine happening, the paper says, is for government research
funding being restricted to “short-range, ‘practical’ projects.” This week, Dr.
Vannevar Bush promised that this was not to be, that the government was well
aware that it was due to lack of support that “many branches of [American] science
. . . lagged behind Europe.” They will, however, have to sit down and shut up
about it coming as military funding.
“Childhood of Man” The first volume of the
Smithsonian’s Handbook of South AmericanIndians is devoted to “The Marginal Tribes.” Some are legends, others
“fossil cultures,” but none are the “’carefree savages’ idealised by
civilisation-haters.” Lacking agriculture, they pick tiny seeds, “break hard
nuts with stones, eat skunks, grasshoppers, alligators, armadillos.” They also
have odd and colourful ways.
“Mysteries of Antarctica” Admiral
Byrd’s expedition to Antarctica is revealing that the continent, the combined
size of Europe and the United States, is mostly boring icecap, albeit with bare
peaks up to 15,000ft thrusting out. Only a few million years ago, it was
tropical, as a seam of coal only 180 miles from the South Pole shows. I would like to know more about how that could possibly be, but the paper is more interested in the oil, minerals and uranium that might be there. The expedition is also hoping to
find out more about the Antarctic “weather factory,” which affects the climate
of South America, Australia, and Africa; and find the geomagnetic South Pole.
“Not for Children” The Army’s new
flu vaccine causes serious reactions in children.
“Recharged Babies” Alexander S.Wiener, of Adelphi Hospital, Brooklyn, treats erythoblastosis in newborns by a
highly efficient total transfusion.
“Kill or Cure” Louis Lipschutz,
clinical director of psychiatry at Wayne County Hospital, is publicising a
“psychosurgery” in which the frontal lobes of the brain are slashed across to
cut the nerve connections of the thalamus. This “prefrontal lobotomy” was
invented by Egas Moniz in 1935, but used to be treated as a “desperate last
resort” in 2000 cases of intractable psychological problems. In England, doctors are excitable about the Health
Act.
Because the University of Berlin is
in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the Americans are starting their own. The paper
notices a plan to exchange 148 American and English primary school teachers for
a year. In New York, 1000 teachers left in the last school year citing low pay.
A teacher named Philip Lynch, earning $51.25/week, pointed out that he had just
been offered $60 by a war buddy to tend bar.
 |
| This appears to be at variance with the official history of the Free University of Berlin, which assigns the original ins;piration to student anti-communist activism at the end of 1947. |
Press,
Art, Radio
Damon Runyon has died at 66. David
Charnay[?] isn’t, which means that he could cover a story about a brawl over Peggy Joyce’s affections: a story about a story that's probably a story. Hap Arnold is writing for the local
paper in retirement.
“Sitting or Standing” A controversy
has broken out in London over whether the memorial statue of FDR should show
him heroically standing, or heroically sitting. As Augustus John (Future First
Lord Caspar John’s father, James points out, not at all bitter at being
squeezed out of the race for Engineer Vice-Admiral, and wouldn’t that have been
a scandal?) says, showing him standing would be an “intolerable solecism,
dishonouring a great and unvanquished spirit. . . “Which seems a little much.
It is not as though future generations will come to believe that there was some
kind of Catholic-Rockefeller-Zionist-Communist-Internationalist conspiracy to
keep the President’s handicap a secret!
Nat Cole’s King Cole Trio is the
winner of Metronome’s annual poll of
best small band acts, while June Christy is best girl singer. Record sales are
up tenfold over last year.
“Esthetic Ads” Paul Rand has
published his best ads in Thoughts on Design, where he argues that they are actually art. The paper is not impressed.
People
Henry Mencken’s Christmas book has
been dropped by its Canadian publisher for being too rude, while Leora Thompson
describes Eugene O’Neil as a brooding angel of sanctified sex appeal(!) RobertH. Best and Douglas Chandler will finally go on trial for treason. Elliott
Roosevelt isn’t treasonous, but he is loose-lipped. Joseph Stalin doesn’t think
that Eric Johnston isn’t a real Republican. James Mason says that he gets so
many gangster roles because “there is a taste for sadism, especially in the
post-war period.” George Raft isn’t just being pilloried by Westbrook Pegler.
He is also being sued for beating up an attorney named Edward Raiden[!]. Ray Bolger and Eugene Goossens are ill. Lord Burghley, Roscoe Turner and Dr. Chengting T. Wang have married.
William “Big Bill” Dwyer, Lewis J. Valentine and Senator Josiah Bailey have
died.
Books
E. E. Cummings has a book about Santa Claus out. He’s the poet who doesn’t use capital letters, isn’t he? Elias Zacharias has a book out, too. It's about him, so I imagine that it's odd, too. I have had
great fun teasing ‘Mr. A.” about it. I did not tease him about Jean-Paul
Sartre’s new Portrait of the Anti-Semite,
which seems like useful reading, given some of the people gathering around the new central intelligence
agency, at least per Mrs. Chow. Also, the paper’s neighbour, Granville Hicks, has written Small Town, which I imagine is about how
funny hicks are. Intentionally, or not.
The
New Pictures
It’s
a Wonderful Life “is a pretty wonderful movie,” and probably “Hollywood’s
best picture of the year.” Jimmy Stewart, back from being an Air Force colonel
in the war, plays the hero, while Lionel Barrymore is a villainous banker –and
by now I’ve given you about twice as many words as I’ve spent on most new movies. Because while the house was dragged to see it on the grounds that it had Grant in it, it is a wonderful movie, and I highly
recommend it. Perhaps you could stop in Portland and see it, if the weather closes in on Mount Shasta? The one controversial matter is that the movie is an independent
production by Frank Capra, distributed by Liberty through RKO, and the studios
aren’t likely to be happy that it is taking screen time from their offerings.
It's surprising that more of the Air Force's postwar big bombers haven't been named "the Hustler."
Flight,
26 December 1946
Leaders
“The New Aviation Centre” Lord
Londonderry is giving the Royal Aero Club a 21-year lease on Londonderry House
at a nominal rent as a public service, since he used to be an Air Minister
before he was a full-time Fascist.
 |
| I take it that its "Piccadilly clubhouse" was Londonderry House. |
“Spitfire Saga” Joe Smith gave a
nice talk to the Royal Aero Society about how wonderful the Spitfire is. The
paper summarises it briefly before it summarises it less briefly later.
 |
| I'm a little surprised that I can't find a copy of the original Joseph Smith article online, but I'm still not going to spend any time summarising the summary, much less the summary of the summary. There's quite enough out there already. |
“Prospects and Portents: Resume of a
Lecture by Dr. A. M. Spueffing, Professor of Aerodynamics at the Montgolfier Institute:
Interesting All-Wing Research: ‘Boomerang’ Airliner Project” The Professor
Doctor’s paper shows that in the future, airliner speeds will rise, until at
last they need to build all-wing sweptback airplanes. They will be so stable at
transonic speeds that that it will need stability-spoilers to turn. It would be
best if it were launched from a catapult, however. If that is not practical, he
proposes a boomerang plane instead, which would require a gyrostabilised cabin
–at which point it finally occurs to me that “Spueffing” is probably meant to
be pronounced “Spoofing.”
 |
| The article had me going for a moment. It wouldn't be the craziest thing said seriously about flying wings in this year of Our Lord. |
C. B. Bailey-Watson, “Duplex Airscrews: Power for the Brabazon I: Coaxial and Contra-rotating Airscrew
Arrangements” The Brabazon I powerplant will consist of four pairs of Centaurus
engines, with individual units of each pair being angularly disposed to one
another with their crankshafts converging at 64 degrees, each driving torsion
shafts that drive co-axial airscrew shafts, with the outer shaft driving the
rearward airscrew, the inner shaft, the forward one. This is the simplest
possible arrangement, since it only requires a single pair of gears on ear
engine/airscrew drive, giving a very high mechanical efficiency. David Brown,
of Huddlesfield, will do the manufacturing. The engines are completely
conventional, except that they are only supported from one side. The bevel
drive is also only supported from one side, and requires its own cooling
system, drawing 300 gallons an hour, plus 30lbs for lubrication. The outer
power shaft is assembled of three components, and the airscrews have complete
constant speed arrangements, including reversed pitch, with additional airscrew
controllers, as the demand on the airscrews is greater than in normal c.s.
installations.
Here
and There
The paper notes that Mr. de Freitas,
the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Air, refused to fly back from Paris due to
the weather, that occasional correspondent James Bridges set a new record by
flying a Meteor IV Le Breguet-Croydon in 23 min 37 sec this week. The paper
went to a double feature at the British Council Theatre this week and saw Tomorrow by Air and A Single Point Fuel Injector. The paper’s date’s chaperone briefly removed herself to go for popcorn when the main feature reached the bit about
inlet injectors. Justice Morris held for the Government against the
shareholders in in the suit over the Short Brothers nationalisation. KLM is now flying Dutch flowers to London for sale. A 90mph
gale, the worst ever recorded in Brisbane, severely damaged five Douglas
airliners, valued at £100,000. Qantas had them parked outside their hangars and
was negotiating their purchase.
J. Laurence Pritchard, “Birds Can
Fly: Perfect View and Control: No Engine Failures: Vertical Landings” Captain
Pritchard, the secretary of the Royal Aero Club, studies birds and supplies
many pictures of birds flying, landing, etc. I am not sure who he is arguing with,
or why the paper published this, but they are nice pictures.
Civil
Aviation News
“Atlantic Dilemma” The dilemma is,
who should operate Gander, and how much should they spend on giving it the
latest generation of radio aids, when the day is probably not far off when New
York-London is the normal route.
In shorter news, the paper notices
the Electropult, is pleased that the United States Army and Navy are investing
in a new approach aid for Gander and will allow PAA to operate it. The British
Travel Association has launched a “Come-to-Britain” campaign in America, and
some of the people who come, may fly there. There are new services in India and
Northern Ireland.
“For Naval Needs: Latest Firefly IVs
on Test at Heston”
Correspondence
“Obstruction Unlimited” thinks that
air license examinations are being BUNGLED. Philip D. Trevor agrees with Miss
Ferguson that they should bring the Civil Air Guard back. J. A. Allan is upset
that the Ministry continues to try to prevent him from committing suicide with
ultra-light aircraft.
“Spitfire and Seafire: Their
Development Described by Supermarine Chief Designer” Fascinating as all of this
is, I am not going to summarise this article for two very good reasons. The
first is that it is old news by now. The second is that your youngest spirited
it off, then lent it to “Mr. A.,” who promptly spilled hot chocolate with
liberal lashings of marshmallows and brandy all over it. If you want to know
what is in it, you can either see if you can find a copy on the newsstand, or
ask your son, who has it memorised it.
Foreign
Service News
Swarthy foreign air forces are
lining up to look at the Percival. The French are looking at the Derwent as the
power plant for their Nord 1000 tandem two-seater with swept-back wing. The
Americans have decided that, between the Ordnance Department, War Department
and Army Air Force, guided missile development will be done by the Air Force,
with a “referee" to decide what constitutes a guided
missile in a given case. The Russians are interested in German jets.
 |
| General Aurand was a bright guy with good intentions, but stripping "guided missiles" away from teh Army is just going to cause it to focus on "ballistic missiles" instead, and recruit some morally dubious German scientists to replace the experts who go to the Air Force. (And Navy, but that's another story.) Redstone missile. |
Time,
30 December 1946
Letters
Henry H. Butler, of Minneapolis, is
crying with disgust at the news that German rocket scientists have been brought
over to help the Army make rockets.
Several correspondents are on about grouse season and the paper’s “If Salvador Dali wrote a Shakespeare play.” Suggestions for preventing the next Winecoff Hotel disaster range from having ropes in every room to sprinklers and fire alarms. John McNulty kids the paper about being dropped from the Social Register. T. Mallin, 1st Lieutenant, Air Corps, expects the Fourth Reich any day now. Several correspondents scold George Orwell for being nasty about women and fashion magazines. Edward James Smythe[*], of the Protestant War Veterans of the U.S., is upset that he is being called a bigot merely for saying that there is “an unholy alliance between the Roman Catholic-controlled political machine of New York. . . and the Jew-Communist-controlled political machine of Governor Thomas E. Dewey.” For some reason, the letter of the publisher hands some free publicity to that godawful John Towers, pardon my French.
 |
| "Karel Jan Bossart [1] (February 9, 1904 – August 3, 1975) was a pioneering rocket designer and creator of the Atlas ICBM. His achievements rank alongside those of Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev but as most of his work was for the United States Air Force and therefore was classified he remains relatively little known." Per Wikipedia. |
Several correspondents are on about grouse season and the paper’s “If Salvador Dali wrote a Shakespeare play.” Suggestions for preventing the next Winecoff Hotel disaster range from having ropes in every room to sprinklers and fire alarms. John McNulty kids the paper about being dropped from the Social Register. T. Mallin, 1st Lieutenant, Air Corps, expects the Fourth Reich any day now. Several correspondents scold George Orwell for being nasty about women and fashion magazines. Edward James Smythe[*], of the Protestant War Veterans of the U.S., is upset that he is being called a bigot merely for saying that there is “an unholy alliance between the Roman Catholic-controlled political machine of New York. . . and the Jew-Communist-controlled political machine of Governor Thomas E. Dewey.” For some reason, the letter of the publisher hands some free publicity to that godawful John Towers, pardon my French.
 |
| Edward James Smythe |
National
Affairs
“New Shoes” The American Red Cross
gave out new shoes to Viennese children for Christmas. News!
“Again, Plenty” The 1946 crop broke
the wartime peak of 1942 by 2%, with corn at 3.3 billion bushels (against a 2.6
billion average), 1.6 billion bushels of wheat, 37% above average, and new
highs in rice, soybeans, cherries, potatoes, tobacco, peaches, pears, plums and
truck crops. Only cotton and rye were down by wide margins –but we still
haven’t decided what to do about the famine in the rest of the world. I take it
back: the lead story wasn’t news, but it was an excuse to run that photo. I’m
going to sound hypocritical, but I approve of the paper’s insinuating ways when
it is trying to get my opinion
across!
 |
| Sly editorial interventions are only okay if I agree with them! |
“Home for Christmas” The President
can only spend 24 hours in Independence before flying back to the White House
due to various concerns such as Karl Compton’s draft plan for selective service
and the slow pace of transporting “qualified European refugees” to America.
“Shortcomings” The paper is reminded
that it doesn’t like the President when he says something mean about Chiang.
“Back to the Senate” Senators
Vandenberg and Connally are coming back to the Senate from the UN. Who will
replace them? Or, rather, replace Vandenberg, since Connally won’t be missed?
It will probably be John Foster Dulles.
“The New Refrain” The CIO’s Big Three sound a
lot more conciliatory about labour action next year.
“Roll Call” Since November of 1948
is practically tomorrow, Harold Stassen has announced his candidacy, which is
totally unprecedented. Arthur Vandenberg, John Bricker, Earl Warren and Tom
Dewey all responded by implying their candidacy, or allowing others to imply
it, which is completely precedented.
“Good Enough to Marry” The US
Occupation in Germany finally gave way and allowed marriage to Germans,
providing the marriage license is signed by their commanding officer and the
mayor of the German girl’s town, and that the groom is about to leave the ETO.
(Obviously no American girl would
marry a German.)
“Cougar in the Caucus Room” The
Senate War Investigating Committee has been interviewing Senator Bilbo for
three days. A story is told about how Vicksburg contractor Michal T. Morrissey
happened to be passing by Senator Bilbo’s 27-room brick mansion near Poplar,
Mississippi, and saw that the Senator was “trying to build a lake with a mule,
a one-armed Negro, and two boys.” Touched, he fetched a bulldozer, dug the
lake, and accidentally charged the $3672.91 cost to Keesler Army Air Field. It
remains to be seen whether Bilbo will be ejected from the Senate because his election
was irregular, or because of moral turpitude, as the Senate would prefer. It
would take two-thirds of the Senate to stock moral turpitude, and there
probably aren’t the votes, whereas the “irregular election” charge requires
only a majority.
Because irony is an overachiever, the Tuskegee airmen trained at Keesler.
“No Dog in the Manger” Martin Kennelly will be the new Democratic candidate for mayor of Chicago, charge with being “the king-cog of a ruthless machine which kept Democrats in power in Chicago and Washington.”
“The Potters” Lou Reese, the hobo
who came to Scio, Ohio, in 1933 and started a pottery, gave a very nice bonus
and pay raise to his 827 employees to celebrate the pottery’s fifteenth
anniversary and the fact that it made $3.5 million last year.
“Escape in Mid-Air” A mid-air
collision between a Universal Airlines DC-3 and an Eastern Air Lines DC-4 that
could have killed 85 people and become the worst disaster in aviation history,
fortunately instead ended with both planes landing safely.
“Death of a Wild Man” Governor Talmadge of Georgia died last week of hemolytic jaundice and cirrhosis of the
liver, although the paper blames a final meal of fried chicken, ham and grits,
red gravy, and hot biscuits. An exciting constitutional crisis has ensued,
while the Governor’s body lies in state beside a nice floral tribute from the
Klan.
“To Each His Own” At Christmas,
National Park Ranger Bill Butler will rest up from a fall taken while looking
for a lost Marine Corps transport plane high on Mount Rainier. His wife will
cook a 19lb turkey in their snug cabin.
Lana Turner will give out 500 very expensive presents, because she is a Hollywood star. Seventeen-year old Park College freshman Richard C. Rowe is looking forward to banana cream pie at home. Ham Fisher will get up late, play golf, host an eggnog party at the Lord Tarleton, then have a crowd of cronies over for a dinner party at the Copacabana. Walter Reuther will surprise his daughter with a tiny electric phonograph, and have sour cream pancakes for breakfast. One-legged, whiskery, Charles Miller doesn’t like Christmas carols, because they remind him of his childhood, and will instead spend the day, like every day, at the “grim, Lysol-haunted Municipal Lodging House,” rousing himself from his nest of tattered newspapers to have a chicken fricassee dinner. Like most Americans, William Dampier, of Indianapolis, will have five children playing with presents in the front room of his frame house, enjoy a vast meal, and look forward to a long holiday between Christmas and New Years.
 |
| Time is selling Bill Butler's efforts a little short, it turns out. |
Lana Turner will give out 500 very expensive presents, because she is a Hollywood star. Seventeen-year old Park College freshman Richard C. Rowe is looking forward to banana cream pie at home. Ham Fisher will get up late, play golf, host an eggnog party at the Lord Tarleton, then have a crowd of cronies over for a dinner party at the Copacabana. Walter Reuther will surprise his daughter with a tiny electric phonograph, and have sour cream pancakes for breakfast. One-legged, whiskery, Charles Miller doesn’t like Christmas carols, because they remind him of his childhood, and will instead spend the day, like every day, at the “grim, Lysol-haunted Municipal Lodging House,” rousing himself from his nest of tattered newspapers to have a chicken fricassee dinner. Like most Americans, William Dampier, of Indianapolis, will have five children playing with presents in the front room of his frame house, enjoy a vast meal, and look forward to a long holiday between Christmas and New Years.
International
“The Inflexibles” Uno delegates like
compromise. Further bulletins as events warrant.
“Motion Carried” The Security
Council has established a commission to investigate border violations in the
Balkans.
“A Christmas Hope” All England is
following the progress of Highland
Monarch, which is carrying a consignment of 250,000 turkeys from Argentina.
Or some of them are: the rest have to be content with an extra ration of a
pound and a half of sugar, and half pound of candy for children and over-70s.
(though stores are well-stocked with tangerines, pineapples and other fruits.)
Cape Cod eccentric Charles Davis
wants to build an 80ft tall memorial to Winston Churchill at Dover, England.
For peace.
“Behind the Windbreaks” Spain may be
on its way to bankruptcy, but the wind won’t blow General Franco away. It has
been months since there has been a political execution, there are a lot of
police, and the army can buy food in government stores. No-one can afford to
eat, and the country is short of capital investment, but the Uno hates it, and xenophobia is always a political winner. Franco's critics want an economic blockade, but then who would fight international communism?
“The Chiffoniers” A Paris police edict forbidding rag-, and garbage
picking in Paris streets has met stiff opposition.
“Euthanasia in the Otoros” The paper
tells a colourful story about witch-murders in the Otoro Hills, which I only
repeat because it gives the paper an excuse to make snide comments abouteugenicists in the West. I guess the tide has turned.
 |
| Mary, daughter of William J. Averell, married a young man of breeding, who was promptly given a seat on her father's railway's board. From this eminence, he participated in the Oregon Land Scandal with Governor Stanford, and got even richer. Her son, Averell, sat on many boards, blundered through public service, ending up by doing a fine job of escalating the Vietnam war. Naturally, Mary was a major supporter of the Eugenics Record Office in its noble work of forceably sterilising the "sociably inadequate." |
Diehards’ Defeat”
Ever-Victorious-Marshal Chiang has turned against “ideological reactionaries” in
his own party.
“Decline and Fall” The English are
out of Burma more. Winston Churchill is not impressed.
“Ripsnorter” 650 Japanese werekilled, and 40,000 homes destroyed or damaged, by seismic waves of water thisweek. But since they are only Japanese, it is appropriate for “famed Fordham
seismologist Father Joseph J. Lynch” to call it a “ripsnorter.”
Business
“January in December” Dramatic price
cuts in December that helped make Christmas merry are due to business
overestimating the impact of the removal of price controls. But cocoa, steel
and lead are all up, and with steel. There might be price rises in durable
goods soon.
“GM Files a Brief” GM gets in on the
anti-labour action.
“Big Steel Buys Again” Columbia
Steel offered to buy Consolidated Steel, of Los Angeles, for $8,293,379 in cash
this week. The stock, worthless only a decade ago, went from $19 to $27 on the
Los Angeles Stock Exchange on the news, and is still going up. It is shocking
news, in that Alden Roach has long preached the need for West Coast steel
companies to compete with Big Steel, but the offer was too sweet for
principles, I guess, and it leaves Uncle Henry out on his own, the last big
West Coast producer.
“End of the Boom” The fur industry
is frightened by a sudden fall in the market, as an auctin of 25,000
ranch-raised mink brought prices 30% below last December, and only 60% of pelts
were sold, while Manhattan’s Motty Eitingon declared bankruptcy, asking for a six-month
moratorium on its obligations. Their ambitious expansion into “Bomouton,” a
method of making beaver-like fur by plasticising sheep pelts, had gone astray.
With seven plants built, and talk of selling 15 million mouton coats foundering
on a failure of the processing process. With prices already falling, the
industry couldn’t let Eitingon go to the wall, and so rallied round to make a
$250,000 loan through Irving Trust.
“The Ballroom King Expands” William Karzas, of the “wonder ballrooms” of Chicago, which can earn a band $4000/week,
is expanding, buying three Midwestern ballrooms and aiming for a coast-to-coast
chain.
“The Fund Kicks Off” The IMF is
under way, but the World Bank isn’t. The latest word is that Dean Acheson may
be drafted in to head it.
“Peace, It’s Wonderful” S. Buchsbaumand Co, of Chicago, used to be known as a staunchly anti-union firm that busted
a union in 1919 and beat another in a 16-week strike in 1935, and was known to
fire employees who were related to a union member. But in 1941, it welcomed
Local 241, International Chemical Workers’ Union, and has labour peace ever
since. A consultant has been brought in
to find out why, and he has concluded that belligerent confrontation is not good
for business.
Science,
Medicine, Education
“Coldest Cold” Science reporting is
boring, so the paper points out that the USSR, “which, like California,” is always
boasting, claims to have the coldest place on Earth, in Siberia, where the
temperature was recently measured at -70.2 degrees Centigrade. The coldest spot
in North America is in the Mackenzie Valley in Canada, where the temperature at
Fort Good Hope has been known to fall to a mere -79 F. Once done making fun of
the Russians (for being right), the paper can move on to the point, which is
that the world has three cold-air producing regions: northern Canada and
Siberia are well-known, Antarctica not so much. Admiral Byrd believes that he
will encounter temperatures in the range of -100F on the Antarctic’s polar
plateau, but there is still much to learn (the paper said last week) about how
that effects the weather in the rest of the Southern Hemisphere. This week it
points out that the atmospheric layer of the “troposphere” is lower over the
Poles than at the equator, I guess because of temperatures, and for this
reason, the lowest temperatures on Earth are high above the Equator, while
above the North Pole it probably only falls to -45F, good news for atomic
bombers and transpolar airliners. (The paper does not say, but I will.)
“Simplest Life” In a recent
experiment, English-born biologist Professor Kenneth Vivian Thimman of Harvard
showed that, when he cultivated the cells of the coleoptiles of oats in
isolation, idioacetic acid will stop them from growing, and that malic acid
will restart growth. “It was not an important discovery, but, jotted down in a
book with a thousand others, it might help eventually to explain what life is.”
“Surgeon’s Report” This week, the
first postwar conference of the American College of Surgeons caught up with the
wartime improvements that managed to save 96% of the wounded. They included a
dramatic plastic surgical reconstruction of a hand shattered by a grenade
explosion, an aortal artery patch using lucite tubing, the use of blood accelerant
tetraethyl ammonium, which dilates blood vessels and relieves Buergers disease;
and radioactive treatment of deafening caused by abnormal growth of lymphatic
tissue in the Eustachian tube.
“Hope for Lepers” Three sulfa drugs
(streptomycin also looks promising) are having good effects on leprosy. This
year, the Carville, Louisiana leprosarium was able to release 37 patients, and
hopes to release 40 more next year. In spite of being highly uncontagious, the
law in every state but New York requires that lepers be segregated. It is
estimated that there are 2000 lepers at large in the United States, unaware
that they have the disease, or concealing it because of the stigma. It is
endemic in Texas, Louisiana, California and Florida, is hard to diagnose, and
may well be treated in a much more liberal way soon, thanks to the wonders of
modern medicine.
“Light Flu” So far, the expected
post-war influenza epidemic has not shown up, and, in fact, the rate is down
this year. Experts think that this might be because of less travel, fewer mass
meetings, more staying at home, fewer swing shifts.
Ohio’s Antioch College places its
students in educational jobs for half of their curriculum. Dictionaries of “the
American language” were bestsellers in Japan and Denmark this week.
Bobby-soxers are flappers; drizzles are boys who “always walk with the same
girl;” “acorn” means “to experience adversity;” “agazed” is “astonished”;
“acceptress” is “a girl who always says ‘yes;’” “eujifferous” means
“impressive”; and “to chew a long Nabisco” is to “go stag.” The only way that
“chic” can be defined is to use it in a sentence. “You have to be a chic before
you are heck to flying.”
I didn’t know half this stuff, and
after checking with the younger set around the house, I still don’t.
The new Cardigan Mountain School in New Hampshire charges $1100 a term, and still makes the boarders do chores. “Bring ‘one dustpan, one mop, one broom.’”
The new Cardigan Mountain School in New Hampshire charges $1100 a term, and still makes the boarders do chores. “Bring ‘one dustpan, one mop, one broom.’”
 |
| Tuition's up a bit since 1946. |
“Wanted: Woodsheds?” A trend of
school strikes is spreading across America.
People
The Admiral is in the column, this time for forgetting his wallet in a cab. John L. Lewis beat up a
photographer who tried to interrupt his shave. Prince Chichibu, younger brother
of Hirohito, likes Blondie, doesn’t
find Dick Tracy or Moon Mullins funny, has no idea what to
make of Li’l Abner, and thinks that Terry and the Pirates is a children’s
story. Ingrid Bergman and Frank Sinatra are this year’s least cooperative
stars. Marian Carr is the Insomnia Girl, Betty Grable the dream girl (these are
the same; not opposites).
Art
“Nudes Out of Place” Speaking of,
Belgian painter Paul Delvaux likes to paint nudes, “mysteriously out of place,”
which has given him “a growing reputation as one of Europe’s finest
fantasists.” And he had an exhibit in Manhattan, sponsored by Henri Spaak,
President of the General Assembly. Sculptor Henry Moore makes odd things and is
very famous.
If you are missing the press news,
it is: first, the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer’s sports editor earns $12,000/year, because he
supplements his newspaper work with a radio feature; and, second, a prewar
Paris newspaper for expatriate Americans is starting up again. On the bright
side, I’ve probably wasted less of your time reading this than I did of mine, writing it.
“Brrr” In London this week, six BBC
staffers were put to sleep by hypnotist Peter Casson. Hypnotic acts are now
banned at the BBC until further notice, because putting people to sleep is the
Beeb’s job.
 |
| Same joke, different station. |
“By a Thread” Radio stations live or
die by the ratings produced by C. E. Hooper, Inc. This week, their methods were
criticised by Joel Murcott, radio editor of the Hollywood Reporter, and then his opinions were blasted by Charles
Ernest Hooper. At issue is how many households the Hooper researchers have to
call to build up a valid picture of a show’s popularity.
“Perfectionist” As radio recordings
spread, the radio recording engineer is becoming an ever more vital member of
the studio. Mary Howard, of NBC, is one
of the best. She also has opinions about the quality of Uncle George’s friend’s
show. It is not that recording quality is ruining his voice. It is that the
radio stations aren’t replaying it with the right equipment. The grooves of a
record are cut at varying angles and depths, and must be played with the right
needles. “Until radio stations learn that, these big, nighttime transcribed
shows are going to flop.” Which is very interesting because the first tape
recording machine will be delivered at Philco in July, now. I hope we’re not in
a race with cancellation!
In case you were wondering about
this week’s cover feature, it is in the Religion
section, which I never cover, even though it is about Marian Anderson.
The
New Pictures
Stairway to Heaven is a very self-conscious English attempt to be the Movie of the
Year. The paper thinks that it would like it more if it weren’t trying so hard.
It features David Niven and Kim Hunter, because when you are trying to be
Great, regular heart-throbs won’t do, so sorry Miss Turner, Miss Bergman, Mr.
Powers. It’s in Technicolour, too.
Abie’s Irish Rose was financed by Uncle George’s friend, so I suppose we have to
be up for a family outing to see it after Christmas. I’m told that it is one of
those things that everyone hates because everyone loves it, and that it “Will
go on making money for another 25 years.” What the paper doesn’t like is that
“jokes about racial and religious groups, and those just aren’t good clean fun
at all in this modern day of 1946.”
 |
| No more jokes about skinflint Jews and belligerent Irish! |
Books
Rexford Guy Tugwell, former New
Dealer and Governor of Puerto Rico, has The
Stricken Land out. It is about his time in Puerto Rico, and explains why
it’s not his fault that it hasn’t turned into a model commonwealth. It’s the
Puerto Ricans’ fault!
Adventures by Sea of Edward Coxere is a reissue of the memoirs of an old-time sailor
man that amused the paper. Arturo Barea, The
Forging of a Rebel: An Autobiography, is a look back ten years ago to the
horrible winter of the siege of Madrid, which even this girl, her mind then
full of, by turns, things feminine and things mathematical, remembers. What the paper likes is the portrait of a
sick Spain and the way that it implies that the Republicans were wrong, and
that Franco was, if not right, then less wrong.
 |
| A worker on the Hallicrafter production line in New York City. |
Radio
News, December 1946
For
the Record
Radio servicemen may also find work
in the new field of electronic “gadgets” such as photoelectric-operated burglar
alarms, garage door openers, automatic radio controls, and “electronic devices
for playing tricks.” Since, in general, there exist no ready-made devices for
these tasks, the serviceman can build something to meet the customer’s need.
For example, automatic garage door openers aren’t really burglar-proof, but
could be made so by introducing a coding device. This just leaves the job of
telling the customer what they need, which, of course, requires advertising in Radio News so that it doesn’t have to
rely on endless pages of shortwave listings to fill out its editorial pages.
 |
| Still funnier than Aviation. |
Grote Reber, of Wheaton, Illinois,
reports that he has picked up radio signals “from the Milky Way,” using a sheet
metal mirror 31.4ft in diameter and 20 ft in focal length to pick up long-wave
radiation. It turns out that the cosmos is very active at 160mc, although the
message is only cosmic static.
Another area where radiomen may find
work is in the job of radiological protection, operating Geiger counters in the
“decontamination” of ships and personnel who have been affected by A-bomb
blasts.
There is word from the FCC that
service allocations for marine navigation and radars will be coming this fall.
The Facsimile Committee of the NAB has agreed on standards for facsimile transmissions
that it will recommend to the FCC.
Walter B. Ford, “Mobile –On Ten
Meters” Amateur radio enthusiast Walter B. Ford was able to build a 10 meter
transmitter and converter that he could put into the bed of his Ford truck,
providing communication servies to archaeologists out in the Mohave and
California deserts.
 |
| One representative circuit diagram. I can't remember which article it is from. |
Paul H. Wender, “Striking Displays
Can Sell Radio Service” The paper really is desperate for copy.
Lt. Colonel M. J. Luichinger, “The ‘Spindle Eye’: This Floating ‘Radio City’
Was Used to Send Press Dispatches, Radiophotos and Broadcasts, as well as the
August Radio News story, to the
Mainland” There was a radio ship at Operation Crossroads. Successor to the
famous Apache, it had an RCA 7.5kW
high frequency voice transmitter, a Hallicrafters BC610 transmitter, a master,
sound-treated broadcast studio, an auxiliary broadcast studio, a recording
laboratory with Presto recording and
playback tables, and a bank of RCA recording, mixing, and patching equipment.
It had another bank of Hammerlund Super-Pro receivers, RCA AD-88s, and National
receivers, Acme transceiver units in its radio photo laboratory with associated
receiving amplifiers, oscillators and level control apparatus. It had teletype
facilities,
“Unusual Phone Transmitter: A New
Commercially Designed Modulation System Permits Cost and Size of Over-all
Transmitter to be Reduced Considerably” Taylor Western Transmitters, of Los
Angeles, California, is proud to bring you this neat bit of engineering.
Jordan McQuay, “Sound Amplification
by Air-Stream Modulation: High Sound Levels May be Obtained at Low Power by the
Use of This New System of Sound Reproduction” Sound amplification is normally done
by electronic amplification after the sound has been recorded by a
piezoelectric mike. For outside broadcast, however, the heavy amplifiers make
the loudspeaker horns unnecessarily bulky, because of the attenuating effect of
weather. Working with Dilks, Incorporated, the Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories
came up with a novel solution, air-stream amplification, which applies
amplification directly to the sound output of the piezoelectric component.
(It’s not a microphone at the bullhorn end, because it is the opposite of a
microphone. I think?)
William G. Routh, “Electric
Developments in the Rubber Industry” Goodyear uses dielectric heating and some
electronic switches in a number of processes that involve having pretty
secretaries that the paper likes to photograph. Thanks to electricity, “Joe
Citizen” will have better coats, boots and mattresses soon.
 |
| Honey shots work; the number of them in recent issues of Radio News probably points to editorial desperation, but they're so artless that I'm fine with reproducing them. |
Communication
Operators QTC
Marine operators, including Alcoa, airlines,
the Navy, and Todd shipyards are all hiring radiomen. A number of shipyards are
ordering bulk freighters that will need communications operators.
R. L. Parmentier, “Designing an
Auto-Transformer” A good ham can build this from scraps; J. C. Hoadly, “Simple
Square-Wave Generator,” ditto. Didn’t this exact story run a few months ago?
George Lichterman, “Autotune
Transmiiter” I can think of a few musicians who could use one of these! Jokes
aside, this is just a navy-built channel pre-selector.
L. M. Dezettel, Engineer, Allied
Radio Corporation, Chicago “Build Your Own High Speed Flash” I guess this is
one of those electronic “gadgets” the editor was mentioning.
C. H. Parker, “Are You Qualified?”
Many who apply for radio jobs are underqualified, while some who don’t are
overqualified. This could be fixed by a combination of tests and mandatory
courses for radiomens’ licences, which would also keep out an anticipated flood
of veterans who would take all the work from deserving readers.
Letters
J. Wenser, of St. Louis, takes
exception to the idea that Service-trained radiomen are no good. David P.
MacArthur and Joe Tisdale, of Tisdale’s Radio Service, Benton, Arkansas, are
very interested in the idea of an
easy-to-get D license that would allow operation of a low-powered vhf
equipment, or possibly even no license operation. E. B. Cullin, of the British Sound Recording Association, is very interested in new sound-recording methods
being tried in America for possible licensed production in England. M. D.
Stahl, of North Canton, Ohio, is an antique vacuum tube collector, who is
interested in hearing from long-term readers. John Bender, a geophysical
engineer in Houston, Texas, writes to say that there is no scientific basis for
using treasure finders to look for oil, although he does point out some
indirect evidence for the possible presence of oil which can be detected.
 |
| The Zuni-Bandera vocanic field is a small geological province explored back in the old Texas wildcatting days. The odd thing is that it is sometimes called the "Zuni-Benders" Field, something I found by googling John Bender, geophysical engineer. My theory, of course, is Bandera>Banders> White American ethnogenesis. But one man's theory is another man's crackpottery. |
“Now You Can Build a Television: To
Stimulate its Radio and Television Training Programme, the New York Technical
Institute of new Jersey is Offering Men Interested in Television This Unusual
Opportunity; A school Particularly Suited to War Veterans” And their guaranteed
tuition loans., as the article points out.
 |
| The New York Institute of Technology in New Jersey is now offering courses on building televisions. The Institute wants you to know that its tuition can be paid for out of the G.I. Bill. |
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