Mrs. B. T.,
79 Av de Harmonia,
Macao,
Dear Jenny:
I know that as a proper English girl you don't really let your hair down for the Lunar New Year, and in my state it's hard for me to be any wilder; but, nevertheless, happy Year of the Pig! You will have received Arcadia's traditional New Year's gift, and a little something more in memory of last summer.
Also this! Which you may or may not think is anything like a gift. If you detect a subtle thread running through this letter, it is that people are just about fed up with air crashes this winter, and this "Instrument Landing System" thing might be just the ticket. Westinghouse seems to have the inside track, but Uncle George is not talking about anything so reasonable as increasing the family investment in that old New York Stock Exchange reliable. Nor Bell or General Electric, either. Rather, he wants to make a major investment in a Boston-area company which has already come to our attention, but which still seems like an outside chance --Uncle George's favourite.
So, if you do read this, you're supposed to end up thinking, "Why, you know what might stop all these air crashes? A big investment in Raytheon!" I'm not sure how you're to come to that conclusion, so I'm spoiling it a little.
I would say more about family matters,but I am pressed for time, and you have my recent post, anyway.
Again, best in the new year, Your Loving Cousin,
"GRACE."
Flight,
16 January 1947
Leaders
“Air Reconnaissance” Air Chief Marshall Leigh-Mallory’s report on the campaign in Northwestern Europe
emphasised the critical importance of aerial reconnaissance, including
photographic reconnaissance. One problem that came up during the campaign was a
lack of a low and intermediate level photographic reconnaissance type, which
led the RAF to rapidly convert some Mustang IIIs for the role. That shouldn’t
happen again, the paper says, and it points out that while the Americans have
developed prototype specialist reconnaissance types, the RAF hasn’t, and this
is bad.
“Ground Organisation” As of going to
press, it wasn’t clear how the BOAC Dakota that crashed near Lympne, Kent, on11 January, came to be there. It was flying to France, could not land atBordeaux, Le Bourget, or Cormeilles, was turned over to British air control,instructed to land at Manston, and crashed at Lympne, out of fuel. It looks as
though it should have been sent on to Marseilles, so it was the ground
controllers, probably the French, who were at fault –quite a strike against
ground control of approaches.
Hill of Stowting. Kathryn Pinker, imputed c. 2008 |
“Lightweight Canard: General Details
of an American Light Aircraft of Unorthodox Design” At the last meeting of the
San Diego branch of the U. S. Institute of Aeronautical Science and Society of
Automotive Engineers, Mr. B. F. Raynes, “tooling superintendent of the RohrAircraft Corporation” described a new, light aircraft with a two-control scheme
(no vertical surfaces), boundary control, and various other dubious
aeronautical advantages, including a tail-first variation in the “Midnight
Oiler” configuration. Mr. Raynes proposes to solve all problems with an engine
blower that controls boundary layer conditions over not only the wing, but the control surfaces and even the propeller! Having spent two pages on it, even the paper is out of patience by this point. “We shall await flight trial reports with great interest.”
This isn't even Raynes' version, which is tail-first. |
American
Newsletter
“Kibitizer,” “Too Much Emphasis on
Performance of Commercial Aircraft: New Jet-Propelled Fighters and Bombers”
These bobby soxers and teenagers of
today are all het up about “speed” and “size and “ceiling.” In my day, we cared
about “reliability” and “comfort” and “punctuality, and “safety,” and a good five-cent cigar. The current slump in Atlantic air travel isn’t just a matter
of Queen Elizabeth and America being there. They are taking
tickets away because they run on time and are comfortable. An ad I saw in the
paper the other day implied that we would all be flying above the speed of
sound in arrow-shaped aircraft with rocket propulsion in a few years; while the
articles talk about astrodomes flying off, depressurisation, aircraft coming to
pieces in mid-air, flying into hills, and “nosing into bedrooms.” If we even
bring up the “Sound Barrier,” John Q. Public will think that it is an
“ectoplasmic barrier." Instead of talking about it, we should have a coordinated advertising
campaign to persuade everyone that “air travel is a normal, everyday,
unexciting, but useful method of travel.” “Kibbitzer” is also grumpy about the
Bell XS-1, and its announced successor, the XS-2, which will have swept wings,
and the Douglas and Northrop high speed aircraft that will follow, but he
grudgingly grants that they will produce useful data.
A Bell X-2, on not exactly its best day. |
He also cannot wait to
see the new Lockheed, North American, Bell and Curtiss jet fighters. North
American, Glenn Martin, Consolidated and Curtiss are said to be working on four
jet-engined bombers in the 45,000lb class, with the Martin one already complete
but not flying due to lack of a suitable engine. It is thought that Boeing,
Consolidated, Northrop and Glenn Martin might be working on big jet bombers,
although in Northrop’s case it is not just speculation, as they are putting jets on the B-35. Exactly how they expect to keep the result stable without the rudder effect of the big airscrews is unclear.
Whizzing like a Sabre jet! CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=207921 And to answer "Kibitzer's" question, they're not. |
B. J. Hurren, “Behind the Scenes:
War Cabinet ‘Gen” Released in Graphic Form” Mr. Hurren reviews a picture book
for the paper. Which seems about right.
Here
and There
Airport staff at Ministry of Civil
Aviation-run airports will be issued blue battledress uniforms, free of charge,
only not, because they will cost clothing coupons.
These are obviously only a temporary measure, and “Will be replaced later by a more attractive uniform specially designed for M. of C.A. staff.” Mr. de Freitas’ office has issued a statement to the effect that he never cancelled his flight back to England due to weather, that he always planned to “return by the land and sea route used by men going on leave from Germany.” Sir Robert Watson-Watt has left his position as Vice-Controller of Communications Equipment at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and as Scientific Adviser on Telecommunications under the Air Ministry. He is going into unspecified private work, but will remain available for consulting. Ljungströms Steam Turbine Company has licensed its American patents to Wright Aeronautical Corporation.
Evert Van Dijk, Charles Kingsford-Smith’s co-pilot in the Southern Cross transatlantic flight of 1930, has given up professional flying at the age of 53, and will continue to serve at KLM in another capacity. BTH is proud of its new cordite cartridge starter for jet turbine engines. The Air League of the British Empire is providing 10 shillings a week of pocket money for each of the four cadets who will accompany the King’s Flight to South Africa. Four more British Standards, in the drawing office equipment and material series, have been released. They deal with tracing and drawing papers. The Scientific Instruments’ Manufacturers Association, which has a membership of 88 firms employing 60,000 people, has formed an “electronics” division with fourteen members. G/C Banditt has arrived at Truscott Field, near Darwin, completing his “first solo flight to Australia since the war” after a stay in India along the way.
Because exports! Also, bite it, Corelli Barnett! |
These are obviously only a temporary measure, and “Will be replaced later by a more attractive uniform specially designed for M. of C.A. staff.” Mr. de Freitas’ office has issued a statement to the effect that he never cancelled his flight back to England due to weather, that he always planned to “return by the land and sea route used by men going on leave from Germany.” Sir Robert Watson-Watt has left his position as Vice-Controller of Communications Equipment at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and as Scientific Adviser on Telecommunications under the Air Ministry. He is going into unspecified private work, but will remain available for consulting. Ljungströms Steam Turbine Company has licensed its American patents to Wright Aeronautical Corporation.
Ljungströms steam turbine locomotive with preheater, 1925. |
Evert Van Dijk, Charles Kingsford-Smith’s co-pilot in the Southern Cross transatlantic flight of 1930, has given up professional flying at the age of 53, and will continue to serve at KLM in another capacity. BTH is proud of its new cordite cartridge starter for jet turbine engines. The Air League of the British Empire is providing 10 shillings a week of pocket money for each of the four cadets who will accompany the King’s Flight to South Africa. Four more British Standards, in the drawing office equipment and material series, have been released. They deal with tracing and drawing papers. The Scientific Instruments’ Manufacturers Association, which has a membership of 88 firms employing 60,000 people, has formed an “electronics” division with fourteen members. G/C Banditt has arrived at Truscott Field, near Darwin, completing his “first solo flight to Australia since the war” after a stay in India along the way.
“Interest in Gas Turbines: Flight Handbook on Jet Propulsion
Published in America and Holland” The North American edition has an
introduction by General Spaatz, and is to be used as a textbook in various
colleges and Air Force establishments. Six Martin Mariner PBM-5 flying boats
have been allocated to the Byrd Antarctic Expedition for aerial reconnaissance
and mapping.
First American dead in Antarctica. |
“Cirrus Activities: Some Details of
the New Series of Larger Engines” Blackburn Cirrus proposes to produce a 180hpfour-cylinder Bombardier, 265hp six-cylinder Musketeer, and “moderately
supercharged” 265hp Grenadier. The Bombardier is not likely to be in production
for at least eighteen months, and the other two will follow on after that.
“Britain’s Test Pilots, No. 18:
R.E.M.B. Milne, AFC, AFRAeS, FRGS” Robert Milne came to England from Canada in
1916 as a trumpeter in Lord Strathcona’s Horse. He was allowed to transfer to
the Royal Flying Corps, did fourteen hours of flying, more than enough to
qualify as an instructor in 1917, was ‘browned off’ by instructing quite
quickly, transferred to an active duty squadron, and managed to get in a month
of operational flying in Italy before the Armistice. He then did a spell of
naval flying from Furious, back when
the launching platform was a flying-off platform erected over its 18” guns,
takeoff consisted of a racecourse start off the platform, followed by a
sickening plummet to within ten feet of the sea, and the aircraft were returned
to the ship in pieces. (When it was done right.) With this ridiculous career in
jury-rigged flying behind him, it was only natural that his next campaign was
the intervention against the Bolsheviks, flying off Vindictive, followed by a five-year spell
as an instructor, followed by a tour in India flying
Bristol Fighters over the Northwest Frontier. He left the service in 1931,
became chief test pilot for Miles (then Philips and Powis) in 1933, and joined
Airspeed, after a spell back in the RAF, in 1940.
HMS Vindictive. Originallly named for Thomas Cavendish, who took the Manila Galleon. Note for boat enthusiasts: the Wiki article now includes a discussion that explains why the County class were so weird. |
In shorter news, Hunting Aviation
has called a conference of its four Dominion subsidiaries in London on February
10th-11th, which I mention because its main activity is aerial surveying, and one of the things that the Canadian division does, is
aerial timber cruising. That makes them one of my Father-in-Law’s competitors,
and while he is here to see the story and fume, he might be reviewing this
letter in years to come (Hi, Reggie!) and so I am reminding him. Also, TWA is
beginning a new, weekend air freight service from Washington to Lydda,
Palestine, via New York, Gander, Shannon, Paris, Geneva, Rome, Athens and
Cairo.
Civil
Aviation News
“Lack of Imagination?” The paper is
upset about a recent Notice to Airmen directing
that aircraft maintain as high an altitude as possible when passing overperimeter roads around airfields. I think that it is insulted?
“Aircraft Noise” The Technical
Development Service of the CAA in the United States is launching an
investigation into small aircraft noise around airfields in conjunction with
the Aircraft Owners and Pilots’ Association. Various things will be done, such
as investigating eight-bladed airscrews and perhaps banning some types at some
airfields. “There is no longer any excuse for the present high level of noise.”
“The Springbok Route” A parallel
BOAC/South African Airways service will start as soon as South African’s
Skymasters are delivered, with flying boat service to start in the summer. (South African winter, but I am sure you do
not want to hear me rant about that flight from Honolulu to San Francisco
again.)
“American Airlines’ New Equipment”
American and American Overseas have ordered 104 million dollars worth of new
aircraft, including a hundred CV 24s, 50 DC-6s and twenty Rainbows for domestic
service, while American Overseas is to get 8 Stratocruisers and 7 C 69s. AOA is
running thirty-two trans-Atlantic passages a week, will have 39 DC-4s and 80
DC-3s in its domestic fleet.
Douglas is running while everyone else is standing still. |
TCA reminds us that since the
beginning of its trans-Atlantic service in July of 1943, it has had only 3
cancellations out of 1064 schedules. Macao is to have an 800 meter runway! Air
France will from now on fly Constellations exclusively Paris-New York, taking
the DC-4 off the route and reassigning the fleet. Airworks is to run a Dakota
special service from Northolt to Samaden Airport, St. Moritz, for the
convenience of visitors staying at the Suvretta House, St. Moritz. A Viking has
joined the Central African Airways fleet, and a Bristol Wayfarer the Channel
Islands. Douglas is advertising its five-seat “Cloudster,” a small version of the Mixmaster.
Although it helps to make sure that you're running in the right direction. |
“AEAF Operations in North-West
Europe,” continued. This summary does not do justice to the original despatch,
although it is certainly interesting. The Air Marshal thinks that he could have
stopped the German retreat from Normandy entirely were it not for the
restrictive bomb lines established by the ground forces, for example, and it is
interesting that the entire fighter ground control for the Normandy landings
was done from two Fighter Direction Ships. Ships crammed full of radios and radars
seem to have a bright military future.
“Ingenious New Calculator: The Watts
B.B. Computor Described: An All-in-One Instrument for Air Navigation:
‘Stretchable’ Scale for Conversions” A nice adaptation of the fold-out slide
rule for air navigators. It’s not new technology of the kind we’re looking for,
but it is a cute little thing, even if it could stand some snazzing-up.
“Cheaper Light Engines: A Proposed
Two-stroke Design for Low Production and Running Costs” Mesrs. Oerhli and
Jandasek, of America, have proposed an opposed-piston two stroke that might be
suitable for a wing installation in a clean cowling.
“Short-Span Meteor: Rate of Roll
Improved: Performance Slightly Affected” Gloster has chopped off the final six
feet of the wings of some Meteors, giving it a span 3ft less than a Vampire’s,
at minor loss in performance.
Correspondence
Alliott Verdon-Roe thinks that
Langstone Harbour would make a fine permanent flying boat base. The base should
not be in Portsmouth, because it would attract a Russian atom bomb then. (The
Russians have no objection to a major Royal Navy base, but BOAC’s flying boat
terminus is just too much!) D. McClintock, of Air Contractors, advertises that
his charter service moves furniture. Various persons write in favour and against the Ministry of
Civil Aviation, the ATC, the RAF, and against the RAF cap, which is a “very
female hat.” “Clunk” Watson, Lieutenant Commander (P.), R.C.N., (R.), R.C.N.
Air Section, Dartmouth, N.S., writes to say that since they still have active
duty Swordfish at Dartmouth, no-one else can call any Swordfish the “last of
the many” yet.
I got nothing. |
Time,
20 January 1947
Letters
Grace cast her first Democratic Presidential vote for Lyndon Johnson. |
I now return you to the opinions of
actual letter writers. Raymond C. Faller, of Philadelphia, is pro-sending
shoes. Russell Cranmer, of Wichita, is pro Harold Stassen. Dick Velz, a small-town
radio man, has no time for Mary Howard’s advice that stations be more careful
in fitting needles to grooves to get the best sound out of, for example, Bing
Crosby’s radio show. He points out, as do many other correspondents, that their
equipment comes with factory-made, standard needles. Keith Castelluccio, of Richmond, Indiana, writes to say that we shouldn’t judge German rocket
scientists for patriotically serving their country in time of war, because “not
all Germans were Nazis.” Nathan Levy, of Atlanta,
writes to support the letter writer. So an Italian is pro-Nazi, a Jew, anti-Nazi. Paul
St. Gaudens of Keene, N.H., thinks that we should be careful about permitting
things like the giant Churchill statue, since monstrous war memorials might be
difficult to take down in the future.
National
Affairs
“We Will Keep the Faith” At least
one of the papers I take is willing to cover General Marshall’s appointment as
news. He still doesn’t warrant anything so grand as a cover story (that honour
goes to Senator Taft). That covered, along with Jimmy Byrnes' illness, the paper can move on to what really matters,
which is finding a way to twist Marshall’s disgust at the Chinese situation
into a pro-Kuomintang position.
General Marshall, getting set to give hard-earned American taxpayers' money away to socialistically communistic Europeans including Englishmen with their oh-so superior accents. |
The paper also points out that
American policy in the “hot spots” of the global confrontation with communism
is now being set largely by generals. I honestly find it hard to tell if it
thinks that this is a good thing, or not. It’s also a bit of a stretch.
MacArthur, Clark, and Lucius Clay are in
the hot seat, but as commanders of occupying armies, reporting to the War
Department, not the State Department. There are several former generals in ambassadorial
appointments, but to turn this into a major point, you have to first concede
that Belgium and South Africa are important embassies. Which, I don’t think so.
Because Hoovers suck. |
“The Age of Taft” Senator Taft is a
great politician, and not at all the product of generations of nepotism. The
paper stretches the cover story with short bits, reporting that Henry Wallace
is now saying that he was double-crossed by the President in 1944; and that the
Democrats will nominate Truman in 1948, because a party has to stand or fall on
its record.
“Immortality” The paper attended
Forest Lawn Cemetery’s funeral for Carrie Jacob-Bonds, the second person, after
Gutzon Borglum to be granted the honour of a burial in its central court, which
Forest Lawn, in all modesty, hopes will be America’s Westminster Abbey. Helping
to make it a perfect Why Everyone Hates Southern California moment, the
disgraced Dr. KleinSmid gave the eulogy, and a poem by Kathleen Norris was
recited.
Everything about this is awful. Really, just layers and layers of awful all piled onto each other. The Wiki quotes an epitaph from Herbert Hoover! What did Ms. Jacob-Bonds ever do to deserve it?
“Vital Statistics: Less and Less”
American infant mortality reached an alltime low of 39.3 deaths per thousand
births in the first ten months of 1946. Now, whoever or whatever is responsible
for that deserves to be buried in Forest
Lawn’s central court!
“Help, Help, Help” “Young Bill
Keyes,” is the only survivor of the Eastern Airlines DC-3 crash near Galax, Virginia, hauled, seat and all, from the flaming wreckage by two rescuers. [Btw] While in Antarctica, one of Byrd’s Mariners crashed, killing three of the crew
and leaving the six survivors to huddle in the fuselage for shelter until
rescued from the nearest open water, ten miles away.
Since after those two stories,
everybody needs cheering up, the paper follows with a story about the Speaker
of the Iowa state legislature, a Republican named Gus Kuester, who is a
part-time politician, like the rest of the assembly, and is a farmer for the
rest of the year.
International
Two stories at the head leave me
wondering if Mr. Luce needs to see a doctor about his “communism" problem.
“Brr!” The Russians have asked for
an air base on the island of Spitsbergen, suggesting that it could be part of a
regional defence system. Norway has turned them down, as it has turned previous
Russian offers to take the island off their hands. This seems sinister to the
paper –and everyone else, to be fair.
“Crisis of Socialism” Socialists are terrible. For example, there is a trucker’s strike in England.
“Crisis of Socialism” Socialists are terrible. For example, there is a trucker’s strike in England.
“Basic Revolution” The paper thinks
that the Town and Country Planning Bill is communism in its purest form. It’s
bad and terrible and will cost too much. Also, talk of nationalising the
Marylebone Cricket Club is terrible, but isn’t likely to happen. In France, the
next President of the Fourth Republic will probably be Vincent Auriol, and not
“Serge Granier, 24, a sculptor,” who promises to abolish all government,
including anarchism. In Italy, (and France), the socialists are far too
communistic, under the leadership of Pietro Nenni, despite scoldings from
Angelica Balabanov and Matteo Matteotti.
“Retort” Returning Izvestia Uno correspondent, Victor
Poitoratsky, wrote something nasty about New York, so Drew Middleton wrote
something rude about Moscow, which the paper quotes at length, as any grownup
would.
“Goodbye” The paper’s China correspondent,
Fred Gruin, provides colourful local details from the scene of General
Marshall’s departure from China.
Latin Americans [pdf] are excitable. Canadians are so boring that they must
make up stories about headhunters in lost valleys of the Yukon, full of gold.
(Nahanni: since it is, apparently, not a howling Arctic wilderness due to hot
springs, why not go the whole hog and have dinosaurs and cannibals?
Business
and Finance
The news is a bit sparse, which is
why it leads off with a New York broker who commented that he couldn’t be on
professional gambler Alvin Paris’ jury, because he was a bit of a gambling man
himself. The news is that he was removed from the New York Stock Exchange for
making the comment, which doesn’t seem fair. The used-car business is seeing
crashing prices, which the paper celebrates (warns?) with an “End of the Boom”
title. Finality is so compelling that it moves on to housing and observes the
“Beginning of the End.” That is, of the housing shortage, since 1.2 million
homes will be built this year by an investment of some $13 billion in new
construction alone.
“Ghost on Skis” Aspen, Colorado, is
a former mining ghost town that Walter P. Paepcke, founder and board chairman
of Container Corporation of America, is trying to revive as a ski-ing resort. Coloradans seem quite
excited, but nothing ever happens there, anyway.
Closest I could come on Youtube to a vintage Warren Miller ski movie.
“Strickland Plan” Bob Strickland,
the man who brought contractor-owned heavy farm machinery to Georgia, has died.
In shorter news, the paper covers
TWA’s settlement with Howard Hughes as a “temporary truce,” notes that the CAA
cannot decide on whether more funding should go to big or small airports, and attends
the first postwar power boat show in Manhattan. (Prices are up, orders are up,
boats are nice.)
Science,
Medicine, Education
“A Robot’s Job” All the sciences,
(“even fleshy anthropology”) are full of numbers these days, and as science
takes off into “ever thinner abstractions,” the calculations get more and more
difficult, or something mathematical like that. Who knows? It’s all
“mind-wracking.” There’s thousands of “equations” to solve, bales of figures!
How can we boil all this down into useful conclusions that can go at the end of
a one-page story? With a “giant calculating machine . . . which eat[s] up
equations as quickly as small boys gobble peanuts.” Specifically, Harvard’s Computation
Laboratory now has a Mark I electronic calculator, and is making a Mark II for
the Navy. Dr. Howard Aitken, the Laboratory’s director, does not like hearing
his calculators described as “mechanical brains,” but they do have “memories,”
and “combines them into conclusions, as human brains try and often fail to do.
Unlike most human brains, it stops when it makes a mistake.” Returning to the point of the lab, the paper
notes that the physicists, mathematicians and engineers of Harvard all want to
use the Mark I for various things, and economist Wassily W. Leontif even wants
to use it for economic planning.
The idea behind the caption is that computers an't appreciate pretty girls, of course. What did you think it was trying to get across? |
“Tempest in the Cells” Drs. Sol
Spiegelman and Martin D. Kamen of Washington University, are in trouble this
week for “disputing the Divine right of Genes.” It’s all a bit confusing, but
they think that the “genes” in a cell, which I was brought up to think of as
sort-of a blueprint-plus-architect, are not solely responsible for a cell’s chemical
makeup. There are also “plasmagenes.” They believe that they have already
controlled the growth of yeast cells by “regulating competition among
plasmagenes,” and think that this breakthrough might lead towards fresh insights in curing cancer.
Although Kamen is first alphabetically, the first rule of mid-century science still holds true: The one with the biggest pipe is the smartest scientician. |
“Ferrets in Oilfields” Dr. Claude E.ZoBell is back to his ideas about bacteria and oil wells. He is almost ready to
start infecting exhausted oilsands to extract the residual oil.
“Search for a Virus” Hubert S.
Loring and C. E. Schwerdt, just up the road at Stanford, are on the trail of
the elusive infantile paralysis virus. They believe they have found it, by
centrifuging frozen samples. In New York, physiotherapising Doctor George Deaver is getting good results with older patients.
“No Place to Go” At least 60% of
doctors (the paper says) do not treat alcoholics in any shape or form. A A committee of the New York Academy of
Medicine gave them a scolding for it last week, recommending that the state
form long-term alcoholics colonies.
“Boost” New York has just raised
teacher’s pay to a minimum of $2000/year, which means a whopping 67% boost at
the bottom, and is still below California’s $2400/year.
Story title: "Why Teachers Quit" |
“The Gospel of Work” The paper
celebrates the work of Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, creator of the English
borstal system. In not entirely unrelated news, Admiral Holloway of the Navy’s
Bureau of Personnel has introduced a kind of naval officer reserve training
programme in American colleges, so that Annapolis boys can finally have people
to look down on who aren’t Marines. (It’s no fun being cutting to Marines,
because they don’t notice.)
Press,
Radio, Art
A full-page story on how JamesBarrett (“Scotty”) Reston broke the Marshall story; another story about Ep Hoyt
of the Denver Post, since it has been
months since the paper fluffed him up; and one about Sir Wilmott Harsant Lewis,
the retiring Washington correspondent of the Times of London. Fred Robbins, the impossibly handsome New Yorkdisc jockey, has been promoted to the national radio network, because he knows
a lot about jazz, and because he scats like a real hepcat.
I just learned that there was a television show called "Coke Time with Eddie Fisher."
The paper goes to Paris and looks at
paintings of nude ladies and ladies with strange noses, in case there are some
young French painters who are good as the old ones, and whether there is a new
school of painters with Important Ideas. (There are: for example, Gustave Singier, Andre Fougeron, Marcel Vertes, and they are “Surnaturalists.”) Glad
that was cleared up, and even gladder that it gave the paper an excuse to print
a “tasteful” female nude. In America, a painter named John Marin is much more
wholesome.
Vertes is better known as a "costume designer," but that seems to sell him short. This is from HouseofBamboo's page on Pinterest. |
People
Edmund Wilson is to be an honoraryeditor of something. Sinclair Lewis is in Hollywood writing a movie, Sax Rohmer is in New York to
spend the money he has earned by making up stories about Great-Uncle.
Richard Wright is coming back to America for a visit before going back to Europe, which is much nicer, socially. Hedy Lamar is trying to break her contract so that she can have a baby, Ingrid Bergman is enigmatic, Danish princesses are cute,Donald R. Richberg warned the nation that “unless labour is put in its place,” there would be a civil war. Art Mooney thinks that wild dancing to hot music is ruining the shapes of American girls “Piano legs, wide bottoms, thick waists and hefty bosoms” are on the way! Maria Romana de Gasperi thinks that American girls are nice, but shouldn’t try to dress up, while Adolphe Menjou offers advice on how men should dress. (He adores suspenders, and so do I!) Russel McKinley Crouse has had a baby, Jascha Heifetz and Ely Culbertson have married, and Eva Tanguay has died. So have some politicians: Anatole de Monzie, Lynn Joseph Frazier, and Navajo Chief Chee Dodge, who is sort of a politician. Charles Sumner Woolworth is also dead, but deserves his own sentence so that I can joke about a lay-away.
Sax Rohmer, not Fu Manchu |
Richard Wright is coming back to America for a visit before going back to Europe, which is much nicer, socially. Hedy Lamar is trying to break her contract so that she can have a baby, Ingrid Bergman is enigmatic, Danish princesses are cute,Donald R. Richberg warned the nation that “unless labour is put in its place,” there would be a civil war. Art Mooney thinks that wild dancing to hot music is ruining the shapes of American girls “Piano legs, wide bottoms, thick waists and hefty bosoms” are on the way! Maria Romana de Gasperi thinks that American girls are nice, but shouldn’t try to dress up, while Adolphe Menjou offers advice on how men should dress. (He adores suspenders, and so do I!) Russel McKinley Crouse has had a baby, Jascha Heifetz and Ely Culbertson have married, and Eva Tanguay has died. So have some politicians: Anatole de Monzie, Lynn Joseph Frazier, and Navajo Chief Chee Dodge, who is sort of a politician. Charles Sumner Woolworth is also dead, but deserves his own sentence so that I can joke about a lay-away.
The
New Pictures
This is the week of the annual movie
awards, which the paper thinks should be cancelled, because all of this year’s
movies were mediocre. Really mediocre
movies come out this week, and poor Ann Bythe and Sonny Tufts have to do their
best with Swell Guy, which is
apparently an excellent portrait of a neurotic psychopath.
Books
A review of a “stagey” war novel by
William Wister, Command Decision which is actually a thinly veiled account of Ira Eaker's relief, is followed by
a long review of a book about Henry Adams, who was something on about books or
philosophy or science, or, anyway, something terribly worthy. Like a bracket,
the back pages are closed with a juicy novel about the “Nazis last stand,”
George Millar’s My Past Was an Evil River. There is also a true life novel, Dulcimer Street, and a book about great explorers by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who
points out that Antarctica is the only continent that was actually discovered
by its discoverers.
I'm actually not sure that the novel and the movie have anything to do with each other,but whatever.
Flight,
23 January 1947
Leaders
“International Aeradio” The three
British carriers are founding “International Aeradio” to install and operate an
international system of radio aids to navigation.
“Looking Ahead” The Ministry of
Civil Aviation has announced that it will “make every effort” to ensure that
all essential air navigation facilities are installed at all major airports at
home, and, so far as was possible, overseas, by next winter. Heathrow will have
eight different systems, which may seem extravagant, but is necessary as there
has been no standardisation yet. Lord Nathan’s announcement also extended to
several new services and regulatory relief for private civil aviation.
“A Military Classic” Air MarshalHarris has a book out. He thinks that the atom bomb has made the Army and Navy
obsolete. Although, in fairness, he already thought they were obsolete.
“Light Aircraft” The Light Aircraft
Committee has been very quiet since it was struck, but now is holding a
demonstration at White Waltham.
“Light-Plane Parade: An Interesting
Informal Meeting of Many Aircraft Types” The Light Aircraft Committee meet at
White Waltham was very interesting.
In shorter news, Major H. R. Kilner,
of Vickers-Armstrong, announced on 17 January that the de-icing problems that
have resulted in the Viking being withdrawn from European services will be
overcome soon. The problem has been traced to buildup on the elevators, and
chances are that the solution will involved carrying more de-icing fluid
instead of fuel, and so cutting aircraft range. F. A. de V. Robertson the
paper’s long term military correspondent, died in Paris on the 14th.
He sounds as though he was a wonderful man in person, and that is probably as
much as I should say today. The Wright R-3350 engines on TWA’s Constellations
are now equipped with fuel injection.
Here
and There
Yet another Paris-London Meteor
speed record, this one 20 minutes, 11 seconds, and set by Sqdn Ldr. W. A.
Waterton. Metrovick has built a 2500hp gas turbine locomotive for thePaddington and West Country, Fishbourne, and Birkenhead service. Commander J.M. Keene-Miller is the new chief of Channel Islands Airways. Mr. Eric McIllree,
an Australian businessman, has bought 35 Anson aircraft there, and will be
flying them to England for sale. The first three are coming out in February.
One will be flown by Mcllree, and two by ex-RAAF pilots who will be paid £500
for the service. “An old pal of Franco’s” was able to secure the flight of a
Percival Proctor carrying a vital load of streptomycin from London to Paris in
a mere 2hr 15 minutes in order to treat his child’s meningitis. The US Navy is
expected to announce its own experimental supersonic aircraft, the Douglas“Skystreak,” although it will be some time before it makes an attempt on the sound
barrier. The fall-off in American air
bookings has not been matched in Europe, where services continue to expand.
United Airlines is conducting special training sessions ahead of the arrival of
their first DC-6s. Group Captain Banditt has arrived in his native Queensland.
Now that the Navy has its own supersonic test plane, shouldn't the Marines and the Coast Guard look into their own X-planes? |
“Soviet Aircraft Engines: Details of
Representative Operational Types” Russian piston aircraft engines are
derivatives of former designs, sometimes well-developed, but perhaps not that
well-finished.
There's another page to the table, but if anyone's really interested, it's all online. |
“Derwent V –100-Hour Test” Rolls-Royce
recently ran a Derwent on the bench for one hundred hours to test new turbine
blade materials and the effects of running on “neat” fuel (without added
lubricants). The result was to show a reduction in oil consumption from 5—5
gallons/hour at cruising thrust to 2.25 pints, the equivalent of a thousandth
of an ounce of oil an hour. There were also tests of heating, hot and cold
starts, and turbine overspeeds. Firms like Wright that are eager to get into
the turbine business will have to work very hard to catch up with Rolls Royce! As
for a company like Packard, which is just jumping in now, we shall have to see.
In shorter news, Westland has licensed the Sikorsky helicopter designs in
England, and British South American Airways has taken over British West Indies
in a share swap.
"An expendable jet turbine giving 4000lb thrust and weighing no more than 1000lbs." I wonder if it would be more interesting to know what Wright Field wanted to use it for. |
“Helicopter Operation: some Problems
and Their Effect on design Discussed: The Importance of Reducing Structure
Weight, a Precis of a Lecture Given by Wing Commander Reginald Brie to the Helicopter
Association” This is another Cierva veteran giving the “Autogiros make better
helicopters than helicopters” talk. The major concern is that helicopters
cannot land safely without power due to the weight loading on the disc (the
amount of weight dragging the plane down against the residual inertia of the
spinning helicopter blades), which makes it vital to reduce the structure
weight. He suggests getting rid of the conventional undercarriage in favour of
rubber pontoons, various kinds of tackle to help helicopters land on ships, and
twin motors for safety, since transport helicopters will probably operate
city-centre-to-city-centre.
A pictorial of the “Fairey Firefly Operational Trainer” follows, along with an explanation as to why it is vital
to call it an “operational trainer.” (It is used to teach navigation, and not
just to train Firefly pilots.)
“Indicator”
Discusses Topics of the Day “Tomorrow is Not Another Day: Some Implications
of Really High-speed Air Travel: Structure and Passenger Loadings: End of Guess
and God Technique” First, fast flying means terrifying turbulence. The high
speed Meteors experienced accelerations on the order of 6Gs flying through
clear air on their practice runs. No-one wants
to fly passengers through the kind of turbulence “Indicator” has experienced at
450mph, while at speeds over 500mph, even the lightest off-shore wind has
“quite shattering” effects. The obvious solution to this is to fly very high,
probably at 36,000ft or so, and perhaps not so fast, as 500mph corresponds to
Mach 0.75 at that altitude, which is awfully fast from the structural design point of view. High
speed aircraft are likely to have a short endurance, as their speed can only be
high for part of the trip. On the bright side, a five hour flight across the
Atlantic is a much smaller challenge to the weather forecaster. Meanwhile, the
“long hairs” will have four to five years to improve navigational and approach
facilities to meet the new speeds, as systems good enough for 150mph are
already obsolete for modern aircraft. An error in a millibar of correction, or
between inner and outer boundary marker can lead to disaster at these speeds. Most
recent accidents have been “navigational,” or simple mistakes in near
impossible conditions. “Indicator” likes FIDO, GCA, and imagines a
simple-to-use “fog-piercing vision.”
Britain's worst mid-air collision, next year, will be caused by a millibar error in pressure readings. |
“The Wren ‘Goldcrest:” Ultra-light
Single-seat with Flat-four Two-Stroke Engine: A Newcomer to Tempt the
Owner-Pilot” Yet small civil aircraft. And by small, I mean it looks like a
motorcycle, and has a motorcycle engine.
Albeit a very interesting motorcycle engine. |
Civil
Aviation News
“Spread of Disease by Air Travel: An
International Organisation Discussed” Writing in the British Medical Journal, Doctor G. M. Findlay, late consulting
physician to the British West African Command, points out the risks and
suggests an international organisation, to be placed under the World Health
Organisation and in close association with PICAO. It would in charge of
sanitary conditions at all airports, the disinsectification of all aircraft,
and to control various vaccination efforts. In shorter news, BOAC has
reintroduced airradiograms, which allow passengers to send messages up to 15
words long anywhere in the world. In shorter news, PICAO is still talking about
standardising navigational aids, American Overseas Airlines Stratocruisers will
have radar. The inquest
into the British European Airways Dakota accident on 7 August has concluded
that it resulted from the pilot’s unfamiliarity with the Radio Range equipment
at Oslo airport, and inadequate equipment on board plane, which led the pilot
to begin his approach too early. Two
Avro XIX’s (Ansons) are going to the Belgian C.F.L Company in Congo for aerial
survey and miner transport work.
“Air Operations in Greece: Air
Vice-Marshal D’Albiac’s Despatch on a Gallant Campaign” The English beat up the
Italians, and were then beat up by the Germans. Air Vice-Marshal d’Albiac
wanted to bomb behind the lines, the Greeks wanted him to directly support
their troops. So, pretty much every air campaign of the first half of the war.
“’Bomber’ Harris Tells His Story: A
Personalised Account of Bomber Command’s Offensive” Air Chief Marshal Harris
was clearly the right choice for the job, and he is right about everything!
Correspondence
O. Poulsen, late of the RAF, thinks
that bureaucracy is hindering former RAF men who want to fly. J. Wychman, of
the Netherlands, wishes that the paper would use the Metric system of
measurement as well as the Imperial. J. S. Stoneman, chief statistician of
British European Airways, disagrees with Mr. Blondin about how best to measure
fatality rates, and uses statistics to show that British European Airways is
safe. In fact, he implies that it is safer than taking the train. (Allowing
that you would have to take the train twenty times over to go as far as you do
on a single flight.) Ex-Fighter Boy points out that just having a “B” license
is no guarantee of a flying job on a multi-engine type. J. Cecil Rice, of the Leicestershire
Gilding Club, points out that gliding is not being as BUNGLED as all that.
Time,
27 January 1947
Letters
J. J. Burnside, of Lewiston,
Montana, is hoping for a MacArthur/Eisenhower ticket in 1948. Merold Westphal[sad face emoji -pdf],
of the Kendall Community Presbyterian Church of Portland, Oregon, is appalled
by all the immorality that’s about, these days. Several writers agree with the
English exchange teacher who was appalled by American education. There is a
more even division of opinion on Jimmy Byrnes being Man of the Year. Edgar
Brookes writes to remind Americans thinking of going on vacation in Haiti that
they can only catch yaws in small, rural areas that they would never visit,
anyway. Several correspondents are upset at the “Justice for Germany” call
raised by “former Members of the Reichstag.” The publisher writes that he was
impressed by all the bright young things who turned out to hear Senator Arthur
Vandenberg talk about “the World” in Cleveland.
(It was the subject of an entire insert in last week’s paper that I
decided not to trouble you with.
“Changed Direction” The paper reads
tea leaves and concludes that price increases and wage demands are moderating
together in Detroit.
“Put Up or Shut Up” Is John Foster Dulles’ prescription for dealing with Soviet Communist Doctrines and
communism-friendly nationalism.
“Better Late” General Marshall’s
flight from Honolulu was grounded in St. Louis by weather, making him late for
his own swearing-in. In other cold-related news, there is talk of the United
States buying Greenland from Denmark to be another bastion of its Arctic
defence. The paper broadly implies that it can be seized to settled Denmark’s
$70 million debt to the United States. The Russians, predictably, are
suggesting that there is something imperialistic about this.
Yes, that is what Time says. |
“Yond Cassius” The President
received various visitors this week, among them, Gene Tunney, who thought that
the President was in fighting shape, and then got confused quoting Shakespeare.
Opinions differ on whether the President is a contender in 1948, or a palooka to take the fall.
“Congress’ Week” With a new, mainly
conservative leadership, House Committees set out to find ways of actually
taking the promised savings out of the budget, while Democrats settled into the
role of opposition with “surprising zest.” In one, amazing turn, the President
was blamed for Congress’s slow start, because he failed to put a full
legislative programme before it in the State of the Union Address.
Representative Shafer, the Communist
Party, the American Veterans Committee, William Tatem Tilden II, Georgians and
Oklahomans (Roy Turner) are excitable.
“The Enemy” A Mine explosion in the Nottingham Colliery of Plymouth, Pennsylvania, killed fifteen men last week,
leaving thirteen widows and 31 children.
“Cure for Crashes?” “The only
perfectly safe airplane is one on the ground,” the paper leads off, pointing
out that this year saw the American industry have its best safety record in
history, 1.24 passengers killed per 100 million passenger-miles flown. But that
doesn’t impress anyone as much as the 74 men, women and children killed in air
crashes in the last four months.
Called to account by the Senate Commerce Committee, Civil Aeronautics Administration chairman James M. Landis pointed out that they asked for $90 million to improve passenger safety last year, got $64 million. This year’s budget has already been pared down from 113 million to 92.7. The CAA has had to close 55 air communications stations and three airport control towers for lack of funds this year. The CAA agrees with Flight: the main problem is landing in poor visibility conditions. Everyone is hearing about GCA, which is no longer secret, nor experimental, but requires round-the-clock work by crews of five, far too expensive for the CAA, and not foolproof, as shown by the recent Navy crash at Oakland. New equipment, which has cut the crew to two, makes GCA practical “as a check to other landing methods,” and it has ordered experimental units for Washington, Chicago and LaGuardia; but the system it is betting on is the Instrument Landing System. And, hopefully, some relief from the current, desperate competition between airlines that might be leading to corners being cut.
Called to account by the Senate Commerce Committee, Civil Aeronautics Administration chairman James M. Landis pointed out that they asked for $90 million to improve passenger safety last year, got $64 million. This year’s budget has already been pared down from 113 million to 92.7. The CAA has had to close 55 air communications stations and three airport control towers for lack of funds this year. The CAA agrees with Flight: the main problem is landing in poor visibility conditions. Everyone is hearing about GCA, which is no longer secret, nor experimental, but requires round-the-clock work by crews of five, far too expensive for the CAA, and not foolproof, as shown by the recent Navy crash at Oakland. New equipment, which has cut the crew to two, makes GCA practical “as a check to other landing methods,” and it has ordered experimental units for Washington, Chicago and LaGuardia; but the system it is betting on is the Instrument Landing System. And, hopefully, some relief from the current, desperate competition between airlines that might be leading to corners being cut.
Another postwar Transport Command crash. |
“Peace on the Potomac” A plan for
amalgamating the Army and Navy into a common Department of Defence has been
reached. There will also be an independent air force, making three Secretaries
under a Secretary of National Defence. The Navy gets to keep the maritime
reconnaissance air force, which is good news for the family, if a bit illogical; and
the Marines get their own private air force, for obvious, logical reasons thatI do not even have to explain to you.
International
“Warm Up” Kurt Schumacher, the
German Socialist leader, gave a talk in Munich the other day. He’s a socialist,
so it was awful, although not as awful as it could have been, because the
Russians didn’t like it.
This is for Henry Luce.
“Freshman” United Nations delegateslike good Greek. Further bulletins as events warrant.
I was hoping that Warren Austin's hapless maiden speech to the General Assembly had made a stir, but, apparently, he obliterated it with subsequent stupid comments. |
“Menace of the Seas” A Greek
transport, the Chimara, was sunk by a
floating mine off the Attic coast of Greece this week, with four dead out of 87
crew and 548 passengers.
It's actually the Heimara. Details, details.
“Operation Eatables” “Last week the
Labour Government wiggled out from under
its worst labour scare yet.” The truckers’ trike nearly starved Londoners, who
were down to half-rations as the wildcat strike and sympathy strikes continued.
Then there was a settlement, and no violence on the picket lines as soldiers
“blacklegged” it. Disappointing all around, but there’s still hope that a wave
of imitation wildcat strikes will bring England’s economy down, and it will be
the Socialists’ fault.
“Pieces of Hate” Speaking of things
falling apart, the paper puts an Indian politician on the front cover as it
discusses he intractable problem of ethnic, regional, and political division
within India.
“A View of Russia” The paper puts a
“view of Russia” in a box. The view is that the Russians have an awful
government, but are nice people at heart, so if they are treated with “friendly
firmness,” they will eventually come around. Intransigent, non-provocative,
friendly, patient, understanding firmness. In this new spirit of
non-provocative friendliness, it goes on to make fun of Soviet critics’
reaction to Admiral Nakhimov, a
recent movie that was probably intended to be read politically.
“UNRRA’s Sorrow” the UNRRA (or Unrra
in The Economist) has a programmeworking on the Yellow River dike defences. The Communists hate it, because they are awful.
Business
“Shot in the Arm” Marriner Eccles
said this week that the war against inflation has been won, and it is time for
a “shot in the arm” against deflation in a falling market. (In a story below,
the paper covers the recent and rapid reduction in prices, beginning with Ford
cars, but extending to commodities and now meat.)
“Settle out of Court?” The scale of
the portal-to-portal suits, which have rapidly bloomed into claims on billions
in back wages, seems to have scared the labour movement, which is now looking
to settle out of court before Congress acts.
Leo Corrigan has bought the FederalDefence Homes Corporation, responsible for Fairlington and McLean Gardens in Washington and a much smaller
development in Bremerton, Washington.
In news that may or may not come to
anything, there is movement on the railrwayair front, and Joe Moran, of MoranCorporation is trying to get Government support to move into the European
tugboat business.
Science,
Medicine
“Diggers” The paper takes a tour of
the world to profile an assortment of archaeologists working in Egypt and
Palestine, where an American has found a royal servant’s tomb, and Father Vaux has traced Jerusalem’s history back to 4000AD. In the Soviet Union, an
archaeological dig ahead of a new hydroelectric dam in Azerbaijan has
discovered “1500 objects.” The cliché is that archaeologists excavate with
brushes, but this excavation apparently involves Red Army tanks doubling as
bulldozers, which doesn’t sound very scientific! Also, Pavel Schulze is working
on a “Neapolis of the Scythians,” discovered in the Crimea. In England, a prehistoric “punt” boat has been
found in a mudbank in the mouth of the Humber river, and at Ponape in the South
Seas, Americans are the latest to investigate the enigmatic ruins of “Nanmatol.”
“Last Resort” The paper covers Dr. Lester Samuel’s drastic solution to chronic hiccups –cutting the phrenic nerve. Last time the story came up, I think it was being used to treat ulcers?
“Last Resort” The paper covers Dr. Lester Samuel’s drastic solution to chronic hiccups –cutting the phrenic nerve. Last time the story came up, I think it was being used to treat ulcers?
“Pestilence Stoppers” It is now safe
to say that the end of World War II won’t lead to a global epidemic of any
kind, even flu. The UNRRA steps forward to take credit on the strength of 7.5
million pounds of DDT powder, 550 million units of penicillin, on million
pounds of sulfa drugs, six million cc of diphtheria toxoid, 5.67 million units
of antitoxin.
“Bounding Main” The Gripsholm, with 1,248 passengers, ran into the worst of Atlantic weather on its way to New York last week, spending
elven stormy days at sea, in which ship’s physician Hans Ribbling dispensed
10,000 seasickness pills. These wonders of modern medicine, made of a mix of
scopolamine and a mild barbiturate, don’t really seasickness so much as prevent
it. Science isn’t sure why.
Press,
Art
Louis Adamic has lost a libel case
he defended against Winston Churchill for reprinting a Drew Pearson claim that
England’s Greece policy was motivated by Churchill's private interest in the Hambro Bank of London. Mrs. Ogden Reid
has inherited controls of the New York
Herald Tribune.
“Shadows on the Rock” Australia
House put on a show of Aboriginal art, copies of paintings found in the
Kimberley district of northwest Australia, this week. They might be the oldest
paintings in the world, although they are redaubed each year, so I can’t see
how they could possibly say that.
Also no reference to lost white tribes, which was apparently a thing in Australia for a while. |
“Millennium Regained” Boston
Archaeologist Thomas Whittemore was permitted by the Turkish government to
excavate under the whitewash of St. Sophia’s in Istanbul, and found that the
Muslim conquerors had only concealed the extraordinary mosaics underneath.
People
Jacob Epstein can’t get his best
sculpture into the Tate Gallery, Alfred Cortot can’t go back to making music,
Eleanor Roosevelt can’t drive any more, Randolph Churchill has paid $105 in
speeding fines already this year in America. Speaking of drunken boors, LiamO’Flaherty and James Thurber both think that the world would be a better place
without women, and Louis Untermeyer thinks that they are just not funny, and so
can’t be comedic writers. Diana Barrymore has married, and Elizabeth Brooke (“PrincessPearl”) has divorced, along with Lord Ashley, heir to the Earldom of
Shaftesbury. Lieutenant-General Sultan has died.
In his defence, James Thurber seems to be joking. Untermeyer definitely isn't.
The
New Pictures
Last week I made fun of a movie for
being released during awards season. It stood to reason that it was a weak
offering, I thought. Well, this week, here comes Lady in the Lake, a Raymond Chandler novel turned into a movie with
Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter. But the reason for the “B movie” cast is
that it was apparently shot in a revolutionary style. I guess the studio is
expecting it to bomb, but be a worthy bomb? ThePerfect Marriage is an Anglo-American farce with David Niven and Loretta
Young. Bedelia is a failed “noir”
movie with no suspense. Stone Flower is
an odd fable of a Russian movie, that will be compelling to younger audiences.
Books
Sir Samuel Hoare’s memoir of his
ambassadorship to Spain is out. H. G. Wells described him as “a blinkered,
pleasant, gossipy, gullible snob,” but it was Hoare who was the smart one, and
Franco who was the “complacent dictator.” James Cain has a reputation of
writing novels about awful people doing awful things, but his new novel, The Butterfly is a terrible
disappointment on the awfulness front. The paper doesn’t like Holger Cahill’s Look South to the Polar Star, a thriller
set in wartime China, whose title recalls the flatterer’s favourite nickname
for Chiang. I might have to read this! (If the paper doesn’t like it, I shall
have to at least buy it.) Booth Tarkington, who writes worthy novels, has a new
worthy novel out, even though he’s dead.
Flight,
30 January 1947
Leaders
“The Case for the Flying-boat” Flight is mad for the flying-boat, and
correctly suspects that no-one else is, which makes its tone on the subject a
little frantic, although not quite as lunatic as that zeppelin booster.
“Three Crashes” Three recent Dakota
crashes: an engine failure at Croydon during takeoff; probably an inaccurate
petrol gauge reading at Stowting; and elevator trouble at Gastrup, perhaps due
to an gust lock being left on, do not give much support to the idea that the
allowable takeoff weight of the Dakota should be reduced.
Grace Moore in performance. Dead along with he thanks to a member of the ground crew forgetting to remove a gust lock, the Crown Prince of Sweden. Note that this is a completely fatuous argument, because it neglects the military and freighting crashes, which continued on a weekly basis for the rest of 1947.
“Ambassadorial Ingenuity:
Interesting Features of the Airspeed AS-57: Aerodynamic Cleanliness Without
loss of Accessibility: Designing to an Ideal” Flight is very taken with the
Ambassador, even though it hasn’t even flown yet. It is the first English
airliner with a Bristol Centaurus motor, in a nice power egg layout, a
steerable nosewheel, reversible airscrews, thermal de-icing with hot gas ducted
through the double walled skin, and, in general, a whole host of standard
technologies that were utopian fantasies when I started reading this paper in
1941.
“Londonderry House: Royal Aero
Club’s New Quarters in Park Lane: Luxurious Annexe for Associate Members” It
turns out that there are plenty of private flyers in England, that they are
flying, and that when they come to London, they can stay at a very nice club.
Lord Londonderry has kept the top floor as his town flat, the ballroom has a
newly cleaned and polished floor, and negotiations with the GPO for telephone
service are ongoing. However, the Ministry of Works still won’t let three rooms
be used.
Here
and There
The paper congratulates 17 year-old
apprentice steward, Arthur J. Hagan, for his courage during the Stowting crash.
“Rainmakers” The RAAF and the
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research may or may not be carrying out
rain-making experiments near Sydney.
In shorter news, there is now a
charter airline service Prestwick-Portugal, allowing Scottish tourists fourteen
days in the Portuguese sun. The Flying Doctor service now covers half of
Australia, Flight continues to be
upset at all the coverage that air accidents and near-accidents are getting in
the press. KLM is beginning a
civil service to the East Indies, postal rates are being reduced, another
Turkish airline has started, TWA pilots have been granted an increase in pay by
an arbitrator, and Sir Claude Gibbs says that the future of the gas turbine in
English industry will be secured as soon as they start burning English coal
instead of foreign petrol.
“Studying Safety” Base visits under
the Anglo-American Officer Exchange Plan
are common, but Colonel John Persons and Captain W. R. Saunders of the USAAF
are at RAF Odiham to study safety, and that’s new. Disappointingly, it hasn’t
to do with radios and radars in the air and on the ground. Odiham is a Vampire
squadron base, and it turns out that jet fighters have a reputation for being
less safe than airscrew machines, for aerodynamic and structural reasons. It is
very hard to escape the plane under heavy “gs.” The P-80 has a particular
problem, in that its power-boosted ailerons mean that the pilot must bail out
if the electrics fail, while Vampires are apparently being lost when the
pilot’s seat collapses under g stress! In shorter news, A. W. Martyn, one of
the founders of Gloster Aircraft, has died at 76 in a London nursing home. This
is particularly interesting to me because it shows that founders of aircraft
builders are now old enough to die peacefully of old age, and because his
biography notes that after retiring from Gloster in 1927 (that might be when
Hawker Siddeley took it over, but I don’t have that number off the top of my
head, and don’t care to take a trip to the university library to confirm it),
he became a director of Dowty Equipment a year before it went public. Dowty has
grown very quickly into a major player in the aviation accessory business, and
the names of its early directors is obviously quite interesting –although,
again, I could just go look them up.
“Symbol of Power” As war’s end rolls
back the veils of secrecy, we get a look at all the silly ways that the big war
manufacturers wasted the public’s money on unlikely projects. I’ve been very
critical of Northrop’s various engine projects, so it is only fair to note that
this week, we hear that Rolls-Royce was doing it, too. Not content to cancel a
whole series of engine projects in 1940, it began new ones in the mid war
years, with similar results. In this case, it was a massive, 24 cylinder,sleeve-valve 3500hp “H” engine. I suppose that it was sold to the directors as
a potential competitor to the Sabre, if it took off, and, just to ensure that
it didn’t, the lab boys decided to
put a two-stage, two-speed supercharger, fuel injection and reduction gearing
for an eight-blade Rotol, contra-rotating airscrew into it.
“Echoes of White Waltham” Even more
pictures from the Light Aircraft Committee meet at White Waltham on 25 January.
“His Majesty’s Vikings: King’s
Flight Aircraft to be Used by Royal Family in South Africa” The Vikings to be
used to ferry the Royal Family around South Africa will have very posh
interiors and very senior crews. Radio equipment will include Command R/T; a
VHF TR 1430 with high frequency air-to-ground-control communication; an MHF
Marconi 1154/55 for low frequency air-to-ground communications; a radio
compass; a radio altimeter; a GEE Mk II; Loran; a Rebecca Mk III to provide a
homing beam. This (along with hotelling) requires the addition of two 6kw
generators. So it is a standard 21 seat Viking with about half the passenger
capacity due to the furniture and all
the electrics. I do not see what reason there would be to leave any of this
equipment off the new BOAC Stratocruisers, but as these Vikings show, smaller
airliners are still being built without the weight allowance and generating
capacity to use the full range of available electronic navigation aids. Plenty
of room for the industry to grow!
It's time for an ad! Also, it fits the theme because things are getting better? |
In shorter news, the Bristol Theseus
has passed a 127 hour type test, KLM has opened up a new engine maintenance
workshop at Schiphol, and South Africa is working on expanding its internal
routes.
American
Newsletter
“Kibitizer,” “Outstanding Flights in
1946; Timing Troubles at Record Attempt; Comparative British Efforts” The
USAAF’s New Years list of outstanding flights in 1946 include the American
speed record set by an XP-84; the first flight of the Republic XF-12; the first
flight of the Douglas XB-43; the development of the Northrop “flying ram”;
Development of the Consolidated-Vultee B-13, or flying jeep; the first flight
of the XB-36; the development of the General Electric and Allison J-35 jet
engines; development of the world’s largest reciprocating engine; and the first
flight of the Bell XS-1. It is thought that the XP-84 had made enough runs at
speed to qualify for the world speed record, but that the timing cameras
failed, so that the flight had to settle for the American record. The XF-12
continues to be exciting, but the XB-43 has disappeared from the horizon due to
the prototype crashing. No-one is really clear what the “flying ram” is or how
it qualifies, although Northrop ran a flying wing scale model test aircraft for
a few years, and even less is known of the Consolidated-Vultee L-13 and why it might belong on this
list. Putting the General Electric and Westinghouse engines on the list
reflects American sensititivity about allegedly being two years behind the
English in jet development. “Kibitzer” then goes on to list all the things
that would go on an equivalent English list, showing that it would be much more
impressive than the American one.
The Air Force probably means the L-13, and not the B-13 basic trainer. It's still not clear why it is an outstanding flight, |
“Belfair in the Air” The subtitle
says that M. E. O. Tips, of Belgian Fairey, has revived the two-seat sporting
type with the Belfair. This is part Avions Fairey advertising, part nostalgia
for the old Tipsy, which I remember as a fun and exciting plane (although not
nearly as exciting as landing a Lysander!) in in the days when we all flew
without a care in the world.
“Future Prospects” The paper sent a
correspondent to the Portsmouth branch of the R.Ae.S to cover a very depressing
session in which important people like Frederick Handley Page, N. E. Rowe, and
W. Tye, head surveyor of the Air Registration Board, agreed that there wasn’t
much to look forward to in English civil aviation in the next five years except
more crashes, since while safety was very important, no-one could think of a
way of improving it quickly, as it was due to all sorts of unfixable factors,
such as the shortage of good aircrew. After that, it was uncertain, since it
was so hard to forecast what types might be successful.
In shorter news, Lord Londonderry is
organising a charter company in Ulster, Huntings Aerosurveys is sending an
expedition to the Persian Gulf, the South Pacific Council met to talk about
routes between Australia, New Zealand and Fiji; Ethiopia is buying planes in
Sweden; and BOAC is buying more equipment for its synthetic training
establishment in Montreal for Atlantic R/T operators. KLM is surveying in the
West Indies, there are more new routes, and Pan-American wants us to know that
it, too, is completing almost all of its planned schedules. (It is 93% for
1946, including the Constellation grounding.)
Correspondence
“Sotonian” thinks that the beginningof the V-1 bombardment should be pushed back a month before D-Day, because he
has heard of various “sighting shots.”
“474” replies to his critics on the subject of . . . something. Pilots’ licenses? Peter Hill and O. Grugeon both quote old poems from a hundred years ago that tend to show that people used to be worried about railway safety in the same way that they worry about air safety now. Splendid! Everyone in the family has my permission to book flights for anywhere in the world on or after 29 January, 2047!
A V-1 conspiracy theory! Nothing's sadder than a forgotten conspiracy theory. |
“474” replies to his critics on the subject of . . . something. Pilots’ licenses? Peter Hill and O. Grugeon both quote old poems from a hundred years ago that tend to show that people used to be worried about railway safety in the same way that they worry about air safety now. Splendid! Everyone in the family has my permission to book flights for anywhere in the world on or after 29 January, 2047!
. . . And, much to my
disappointment, I am at the end of the paper without reading a single technical
article about how the flying boat really is the coming thing.
Princess! |
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