R. C.,
_. Roxborough Crescent,
Vancouver, Canada
Dear Dad:
Based on the last package, this will get to you before an envelope, and, anyway, I'm kind of worried about what might happen with a postal letter, so I'll just say this. We (Tommy and me) have a brilliant plan that requires a blond bear cub and those sedatives. I understand that it's easy to overdose a bear and have it die on you, but it needs to be really quiet while we're moving it around, and we need it now. Half the Stanford is off on summer vacation, and the N.s took V. around to the University of Chicago to see about registering and transferring credits. Miss Ch. has arranged things so that her registration rolls over at Stanford, but her parents' cheque needs to be in the mail by the middle of next month. (I'm not even going to get into the idea of someone else paying. It would kill her parents.)
We could also use any files the family might have from the heist at Colville by return courier. It's even more urgent than the bear. We've been through the stuff that Bancroft got, and V.'s been through the library at Santa Clara and Coeur d'Alene, but we've never had a complete look at your stuff. Professor K. says that you can often reconstruct the missing parts of an archive from what you actually have. If we know what we're looking for, we can be in and out a lot faster. Maybe we won't even need the bear!
Your Loving Son,
Reggie
Flight, 21 August 1947
Leaders
“The First Step” British South American’s air refuelling trials off
the Azores are over. The next step is more refuelling trials, this time in the
North Atlantic, where weather happens.
“The Speed Record” Flight is
still upset that England isn’t going to make a speed record attempt this year,
but hopes that the Navy will take the crown from “the Army” with a Banshee or
the new Douglas D588.
“Future of the RAF” Lord Tedder had talks with everyone about the
future of the RAF last week. It was generally agreed that guided missiles would
be nice in the future, and that the shortage of skilled men is the problem
right now.
“The D.H. Chipmunk: A Canadian Primary Trainer of Great Promise:
Modern Airframe Ideas Combined with Well-tried Engine” Flight is upset that the new British primary trainer is a three-seater,
and points out that the RCAF’s Chipmunk is a two-seater. Flight thought it was perfectly nice.
 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Canada_DHC-1_Chipmunk |
“The Apollo: British Turbine-Driven Civil Aircraft with a High Safety
Factor” Armstrong Whitworth wants us to know that it has gone “all in” on
responsive units (with damping.) I guess that’s not very clear, and maybe some
day some smart aleck will invent jargon to describe what I’m getting at, like
“feedback,” or something. First, there is a “second rudder,” which floats on
the main rudder. The upshot is that the rudder will turn when the aircraft yaws
due to engine loss, compensating and reducing the swing. It is constrained by a
hydraulic damping unit so that it doesn’t swing in normal flight conditions,
but only in response to, and proportionate to, the yaw force. Second, the
ailerons are mounted in the same way. This isn’t for “safety,” but because they
will automatically respond to gusts, reducing the strain on the structure and
making flying more comfortable. Again, hydraulic damping units will keep them
in place when there is no turbulence, and prevent oscillation when they do
displace. Besides this stuff, it also wants us to know that the tricycle wheels
are doubled up so that the plane can take steep landings from blind approaches
better, and there’s good “housekeeping” from paraffin heaters and air
recirculation pumps in the passenger cabin.
“Winston’s Own” Churchill went to visit an Auxiliary Air Force summer
camp, and Flight took pictures. Flight can’t wait until he’s Prime
Minister again, because socialists hate flying boats, being “dehydrated” and
all.
“Rocketry at Westcott: A Visit to the Ministry of Supply
Rocket-propulsion Establishment” The Ministry of Supply Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott now has a plesiosaurus skeleton in its museum to go
with its German rockets and motors. It was recently dug up during excavations
on the site. The rocket motors were supposed to have made those holes, instead.
Soon, Westcott will be making holes in Russia (on purpose) or on their test
range in Australia (by accident.) W. R. Cook is Chief Superintendent, assisted
by F. Elstub and A. D. Baxter, who developed the bi-fuel rocket in the Vickers
transonic research models. The number of British scientists and technicians
employed is a secret, but Flight can
tell us that there is a team of twelve German scientists at Woolcott, led by
Dr. Johannes Schmidt, who developed the Walter rocket in the Me163. The Germans
are free to work on their own projects, and showed off the Walter rocket, which
is a very exciting thing to see in action, I can tell you, if you haven’t seen
the tricks they can do with concentrated hydrogen peroxide.
Here and There
Britain is selling the Czechs five squadrons of Spitfires, Mosquitos, Austers
and Ansons. A picture shows a test of the Martin-Baker ejection seat in
Philadelphia, which has been accepted as standard by the US Navy. Vickers has
bought the rights to make The High Speed Rotary Newspaper Print Press fromWalter Scott and Co., Plainsfield, New Jersey. The Air Ministry may start
keeping falcons on airfields to keep the wild bird population down. De
Havilland Canada’s Beaver has made its first flight. The US Coast Guard is
experimenting with a glider rescue lifeboat to replace the parachute ones. Ryan Aeronautical has bought the rights to build the Navion from North American.
Heathrow will be doing vaccinations at the departure terminal to satisfy
American immigration requirements. Captain Odom will be flying around the world
again in October, this time via the North and South Poles. A Russian
parachutist has set a record by jumping from 36,750 feet, taking twenty minutes
to reach the ground. Piasecki Helicopter, which has grown in seven years from
seven engineers in a garage to 500 employees, is moving its plant in Morton,
Pennsylvania. 
“For Empire Routes: Features of the Short Solent-class Flying Boats
for BOAC: Thirty Passengers by Day and twenty-four by Night” Flight is mad keen on these
slightly-enlarged Sunderlands with Hercules engines. They are double-decked,
like all the newest airliners, and have the usual lounges and bars and
cloakrooms and the like, since the one thing the Short boats aren’t short of
(get it?) is internal volume, due to the big old boat hulls. That doesn’t make
them any less slow, and Flight says
they’re going to be tried out on the “Great Lakes” route to South Africa. I
remember reading about that as a kid –the army ants building hills in the
middle of the runways, the porters carrying avgas on their heads across the
savannah, the executives in London scratching their heads and wondering how
they were talked into this b.s. by a bunch of out-of-their-skull planters. That
last part is the important part. The Atalantas they bought for that service
flew for what, two years? Then they were replaced by Empire boats along the
coast.
Heh. "Air monster."
Civil Aviation News
BEA is going to do a programme of gust research, since periods of
violent turbulence are turning out to be a real problem between 25,000 and
40,000ft. They’ll be using some surplus Mosquito PR types with additional
radio, radar and other instruments. There is talk that Prestwick will get a
third runway and reinforcement to the existing ones in advance of the
Stratocruiser entering service. Prestwick already handles about fifteen
departures and landings a day, mostly of heavy, four-engined trans-Atlantic types,
with 6700 passengers passing through in June and 28 tons of freight. If
upgrades are made, and runways are out of service, flights will switch to
Heathfield, nearby. Alitalia has begun Rome-Tripoli services, three flights a
week, with either Savoia-Marchetti 95s or Fiat G.12s depending on demand.
American Overseas Airline is installing GCA at Shannon. It will be operated by
AOA, and other airlines will pay for upkeep on a percentage basis. Irish crews
will be trained as operators. W. A. Patterson, of United Airlines, has laid out
five requirements for reaching air service reliability on par with surface
transportation within five years. They include better airport approach and
runway lights, ILS for all airports, ground radar for monitoring approaching aircraft,
and FIDO for dispersing fog. Airlines
should pay for these on a percentage basis, he thinks. Flight points out that navigation is not the biggest problem for reliable
service. That comes from serviceability. Congestion and stacking happens even
in good weather, because it has many causes, and passenger handling is still
slow and cumbersome. BEA will soon begin London-Glasgow and Glasgow-Copenhagen
services with Vikings. Decca Navigator Co., has sold a complete chain to the
Swedes. The CAA is going ahead with its plan to install 98 ILS sets in airports
around the country. It insists that it is “open-minded” about GCA, and will
install the three sets recently donated by the USAF, as well as the one it paid
for, but it won’t buy more, as Congress has cut its budget and it wants to
spend all its money on ILS. Argentina and Sweden are negotiating an air
agreement. The Australian Civil Aviation Department has announced the landing
fees it will be charging to cover navigation and other aids operated by the
Department. They depend on the size of the aircraft and the route they are
flying, with long-distance, low-volume routes getting a special discount, I
think because they serve remote communities, and Australia wants to do right by
the Diggers way out in the Outback wrestling wallabies and petting platypuses.
Prelude to Glory extracts conclude
with the tragedy, of Arnhem which was the fault of everyone else but the person being
asked. (It’s just like electrical engineering!)
Correspondence
“Contactors” thinks that modern airliners don’t have nearly enough
approach controllability, because designers are not doing enough to achieve
stable glide paths. “Ferrouste” points out that there were experiments with
hollow steel airscrew blades in the 20s. They failed at that time because of
fatigue, but he hopes that those problems have been fixed, since high-power
turboprops call for all the lightness that can be engineered in. The
Admiralty’s chief war time censor, Admiral G. P. Thomas, has his memoir, Blue-Pencil Admiral, out. Flight tells a story about one time when
he was completely hopeless.
 |
| HMS K6, one of many . . . ingenious British WWI submarine designs, and Thomson's command, 1923--6. |
Time, 18 August 1947
Letters
Professors Geo Barnes of Virginia Polytechnic and William Stokes of
Wells College in Ithaca, disagree on whether or not it is a good thing that
Eisenhower became President of Columbia, depending on where you come in on
universities being good for science, science being good for war, and war being
bad for universities. Hedda Hooper and Edith Lindeman, Amusement Editor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, have reactions
to the picture of Hedda with a typewriter on her head. Richard Bruni of Wheat
Ridge, Colorado, and Mother’s Name Withheld think that the article about
euthanasia for eugenics was terrible. Bruni points out that
most “inferior specimens” are just victims of easily-conquered childhood
diseases. The Publisher’s Letter was inspired by the David Lilienthal cover,
and the question of “whether atomic energy is purple or gold?” and is about the
art of Time covers.
National Affairs
“No” An article about the President’s veto of 19 bills: including the
bill that authorised the National Science Foundation, as he thought it too
“complex and unwieldy.” He approved one freezing social security taxes for two
years, and the one dropping limits consumer credit, even though he thinks
that it is inflationary. Then he flew down to Rio.
“Duel Under Klieg Lights” Do you need to hear my take on Howard
Hughes’ testimony before the Brewster Committee? I don’t think so. Not
surprisingly, it dominates national coverage this week.
“Alas!” “Pundit Arthur Krock” thinks that the reason that Washington
was in such a tizzy over the Hughes testimony (you need a reason!?) is that
official Washington didn’t get treated to complimentary dinners with curvaceous
Hollywood starlets during the war, and is jealous.
 |
| Stooped, ill-fitting suit. Hughes is finding it increasingly hard to play Howard Stark |
“Bonus” Time runs down all
the goodies veterans have received from Congress, finishing up with recent
“Gold Star Lapel Button” issued free to all veterans. We deserve it! Some of us
spent months of the best months of
our lives fighting for freedom and democracy! Now it I just had a jacket to
wear it in –it would be pretty gauche to wear it on my Navy whites, and I can’t
find my suit, which probably won’t fit across the shoulders, anyway.
“Firing Line” Congress is very upset that, after it gave the President
the power to unleash the Cossacks on the unions and send them all to Siberia
under Taft-Hartley, the President turned around and appointed a bunch of
Trotskyites to the National Labour Relations Board. Fortunately, he has now
appointed Cyrus Ching to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services board,
and Time likes him, so that’s
alright, because some unions are about to launch the October Revolution, or
maybe a few strikes, it’s hard to tell the difference. [Portrait in People and
Style]
 |
| Let's see: Canadian, born on Prince Edward Island in 1870, so good luck finding records. Name Welsh, originally "Chynge." I assume they changed the spelling to the Chinese form so he'd be a diversity hire. By the way, don't go looking for other "Chings," because he was the only boy in the family, although he had eight sisters. Incidentally, the terrible scarring on his face is from a youthful industrial accident. I mean, what the hell? It's like he was inviting people to accuse him of passing. |
“All Out” All the 378,898 German, 51,455 Italian and 5,455 Japanese
POWs held in the United States on VJ Day are now repatriated, except 24 German
and Italian escapees still at large and 15 others in the stockades on
disciplinary charges.
“Towhead’s Ambition” Odom is getting oodles of press. He’s told
reporters that he fell asleep and almost flew into Mount Logan, and that his
autopilot failed as he was going over the Hump.
 |
| This whole "committing suicide by airplane" thing has just under two years to run. |
“Help Wanted” The Democratic National Committee chairmanship may be
coming open.
“New Tactic” Mississippi has a new way to stop Coloureds from voting in the Democratic primaries.
“Revolution” The American Girl look (broad shoulders, slim hips) is
out; the hourglass is back. So says Paris, and therefore so says New York. Next
up, the return of the corset!
“One More Step” Puerto Rico will elect its governor from now on, instead of having him appointed by Washington.
“One More Step” Puerto Rico will elect its governor from now on, instead of having him appointed by Washington.
International
“The Hollow Tree” Europe may be stiff with bureaucratic blight, and
the world still paralyzed by fear of itself, but in bombed Hiroshima, “postwar
hopes are alive with real sap.” With less poetry, that means that Hiroshima is
a boom town, virtually rebuilt with black market buildings, and that Time’s correspondent ran into three bomb
widows who had lost their families in the blast, and were living together in a
shack in a hollow tree while they rebuilt one of its cemeteries, because while
they had lost all hope, “hope was in the young,” for whom they now lived. Time thinks that we could all stand to
have a little “hollow tree” spirit.
“Negative Neanderthaler” Andrei Gromyko is this week’s cover story,
and he is always saying, “No.” The Neanderthal part is because he’s sometimes
very forceful, and Neanderthals like hitting people with clubs, and he might
give up on the UN and “go out the door for the last time,” because it is just a
silly and pro-American and laden with ineffectual, do-gooder committees.
“Morbid Fantasy” Gromyko says that the story about the Communist
International Brigades getting ready to intervene in the Greek civil war are
same. You know what else is morbid? This picture of Communist guerilla heads
collected by the Greek army in the fighting on the Albanian frontier!
“Austerity at Westminster” Time
covers Attlee’s national emergency speech, and follows The Economist in mocking the 80,000 person cut in the armed forces
and extra half-hour from the miners and the “Supplies and Services
(Transitional Powers) Bill” as too little, too late. It even quotes The Economist ridiculing Atlee as
“dehydrating everything he touches!” Yes, that’s The Economist criticizing Atlee for being boring. At least, the “Keep Left” faction of Labour rebels thought, this showed that
the Government wasn’t giving up on the “Socialism” thing.
 |
| Slackers! They still have the energy to smile. |
“Pathos at Blenheim” The Conservatives celebrated by throwing a party
at Blenheim Palace, where Churchill gave a speech that even Time thought was awful, especially when
Churchill made fun of the coal miners, standing beside his cousin, the Duke, in front of the palace where he grew up.
“Dark Tide” Time covers the
anti-semitic riots in England at much greater length than The Economist. Horrifying!
“We’re Just Targets” . . . But it also covers the latest outrage from
Jerusalem, a time bomb that blew up three British police, dwelling on the irony
that one of Ben Hecht’s books was found in the effects of Constable Bryan
Middleton, the policeman whose body was thrown clear of the blast and through a
barbed wire barricade into a building across the street. And the Arab attack on
a Jewish dance in Jerusalem, just before the comedian, “Jeep,” was to begin his
performance.
Stories from France, Ireland, Eastern Europe and India feature a policeman
who took a gangster’s wife as a mistress and was drawn into corruption; and a
party for Anglo-Irish aristocrats that disgusted regular Irish, Communists
being tyrannical and anti-American, and peasants keeping their children from
school for fear that roaming bands would kidnap them and sacrifice them to
assure the success of a dam on the Kosi River in Bihar Province.
“The Back of the Dinner Jacket” The Brits are out of India, and
Indians are taking some serious social revenge by invading various formerly
“European only” venues such as hotels and yacht clubs. Sometimes, they even
wear traditional Indian clothes instead of tuxedos!
Latin America
Various Administration officials have arrived in Rio, as has Eva
Peron. Peron himself probably won’t attend, because he wouldn’t be the centre
of attention. The plot to land a force of exiles in the Dominican Republic and
overthrow Trujillo is long on press conferences, short on D-Days. And Senator
Prestes, the Brazilian communist party leader, has emerged from hiding. In Paraguay,
the civil war is not going well for President Higinio Morinigo, because he has
loss control of the river.
Business
“Paychecks for 60,000,000” the Department of Commerce reported that
the nation’s personal incomes rose to an annual rate of $193 billion in June, a
record, no surprise and that employment had exceeded the magic number of sixty
million. Then, for some reason, it took a swing at Wallace, because he
predicted 60 million employed in 1950 thanks to planning. I don’t know if Newsweek is going to mention it, so I
should point out that the week after this, the Census Bureau released a five-year
update on the 1940 Census that shows that the American population is up 10
million, which makes it a lot easier to find sixty million for jobs then we
thought in ‘44.
“The Big Debate” You know that story about whether there’s not enough
steel, or whether we’re already over capacity once the boom ends? More! Also,
surprise surprise, Uncle Henry’s come out on the “we need more capacity side,”
so I guess I know who’s right!
“Figaro in Wonderland” Bert Oakley has opened a giant barbershop in
the Westwood area of Los Angeles that is the latest thing in cutting hair.
“Simmerings” On the excuse of steel shortages and high prices, the car
companies are raising prices, and so is Bendix, on new model home laundry
washers, even though they are so plentiful that retailers are offering them on
one-third down, 15 months to pay. Corn prices are up on the Chicago market,
driven by unfavourably hot weather this time, and Dun and Bradstreet’s
wholesale food price index is up to only 3% less than the all-time high, last
May.
 |
| Source. |
“Wishbone of Old Eli” Wishbone Harris, a Yale alumnus (’36) who played
tackle in 1933, ran into Earle “Greasy” Neale, a former playmate who, unlike
Harris, can get into Time. Upshot is,
Wishbone told Eli that he has been selling Toni brand home permanent wave kits,
and doing very well with curling hair at home. There has been some
controversy, since the kits use ammonium thioglycolate, which can be dangerous
in strong concentrations, although the FDA says that the concentration used in
the kits is safe, if directions are properly followed. Wishbone’s radio ads
feature crooner Mel Torme, whom Wishbone has christened “the Velvet Fog.”
State of Business Labour disputes,
shortages and absenteeism due to the heat have reduced weekly auto sales to
79,699 this week, compared with 97,112, and 108,472 at the postwar peak in
March. Preston Tucker has shown the first of his rear-engined, fuel-injector
Tucker ‘48s to 15,000 paying spectators at New York’s Museum of
Science and Technology. Tucker is on his way to Italy to negotiate a tie-in
with Isotta-Fraschini, and says that production will not begin before January
at the earliest. Lockheed, not wanting to put money into projects like iceboxes
and coffins, has bought Pacific Finance Corporation, which makes car loans, and
is making money hand over fist. The World Bank’s second round of “recovery
loans” include one of $250 million to France and $195 million to the
Netherlands. Denmark has received $50 million, and Luxembourg $10 million. Baby
Sparkle Plenty has gone from being another of Chester Gould’s improbable
inventions to a smash hit doll, selling 15,100 in the first ten days, and
expecting to hit one million sales for Ideal Novelty and Toy Co. Inc., by
Christmas. The Department of Commerce has published a list of 205 “Made in
Japan” items that will be available to buy when trade with Japan resumes next
month. They include frozen frog legs, squirrel skins, harmonicas, and beer bottles.
 |
| Tucker charged money for this. I know auto shows are kind of shady this way, but, seriously, man. |
“Cowboy in Clover” Gene Autry isn’t just a singing cowboy at the
movies, he is also a hustler who is in more lines of business than you can
swing a varmint at. (That’s “cowboy” talk! I’m sure it’s exactly how you and
Uncle George talked, back when you were riding the range back in the Gay
Nineties!)
I like the performance, but Autry seems . . . creepy. A different age, and all that.
“Box Office Doldrums” This is under “cinema,” but it is about how
ticket sales are down, except over the July 4th long weekend.
Science, Medicine,
Education
“Depth Ship” Auguste Piccard, the man who broke the ascent record in a
balloon in 1932, is going to try to break the depth record in a “bathyscaphe”
now being made in Belgium. It is like a bathysphere, only better.
“The General Was Neurotic” A debate in the letter pages of Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics establishes
that General Custer was probably psychoneurotic, and that generals shouldn’t be
psychoneurotics. Neurotic is okay, but psychoneurotics ruin armies and get
people killed.
“Dentist’s Progress” An international convention of 15,000 dentists
heard about progress in dentistry, in the form of fluoridation of drinking
water, fluoride pastes for teeth, both of which reduce caries significantly,
formulas of zinc chloride and potassium ferrocyanide that plug cracks in teeth
and arrest deterioration, a topical anaesthetic for drilling teeth, called
topocaine, and a kind of gold crown for front teeth contrived, by Washington’s
Dr. Arthur Schultz, so that it doesn’t show.
“Gremlin Court” Episcopalian priest Father Swartsfager has come up
with a new way of reaching teen gangsters: Form your own gang! Isn’t that what
Great-Grandfather did? Because I’m not sure that Father Swartsfager would
approve. Although he sounds like a bit of a hard case, so he might.
“Mass vs. Merit” The Philadelphia School District’s “mass promotion”
policy is under assault by high school teachers and the public. The
Superintendent thinks that it is the right thing to do, because he has seen many
boys and girls “wrecked” by being held back, but many parents disagree.
Press, Art, People
“The Stylocrats” Edna Woolman Chase (mother of Ilka), of Vogue, and Carmel Snow, of Harper’s Bazaar, are the “stylocrats”
who dictate what American womanhood will be wearing in September. Although I
think that the point is that they can now fly over to Paris whenever they want,
and that’s bound to change fashion.
“Follow That Spoor” The Daily
Worker ran a spoof piece about “How to Detect Capitalists in Your Industry”
(For example, instead of looking on the shop floor, try a golf club) I have it
on good authority that when this line was laid on to Mr. N., he said that he
should read the article, because as far he was aware, there wasn’t a single
capitalist in his industry or his golf clubs.
“So Young to Die” Many of the magazines that were going to launch
after the war, aren’t, and some that did, like Pageant and Liberty, are
closing.
“Art Fair” The Springfield, Illinois Farm Fair had a special exhibit
of recent art. Most Illinois farmers don’t know art, but know what they liked,
which was Ivan le Lorraine Albright’s portrait of Dorian Gray for the MGM
movie. In Mexico, since everyone else is getting into the art scene, 20 “young
proletarian artists” recruited artists from Mexican prisons. Calling
themselves, “the Wedge,” they invaded the cellblocks, left canvasses and paint,
and are now exhibiting the results.
“At This Same Time Tomorrow” JackArmstrong, the All American Boy, and Sky
King are going from fifteen minutes to a half hour, and will be heard on
ABC on alternate days. Radio writer Abe Burrows now has his own comedy show on
CBS, which is still trying to line up sponsors. Candid Microphone is a new show that allows listeners to eavesdrop
on conversations recorded by producer Alan Funt.
Margaret Truman is going to make her public debut at the Hollywood
Bowl. Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., and his wife, are both up on driving charges for
drag racing. Princess Ashraf Pahlevi is visiting America. Erich Maria Remarque
is taking a road trip to see America, now that he’s lived here for twelve
years. Maurice Maeterlinck is going in the other direction, returning to Europe
because he is upset at his publisher. Igor Cassini is getting a divorce. Gene Tunny reviewed a boxing novel for the Saturday
Review of Literature. Don Ameche got into a bar fight, and Virginia Hill is
a pill. She also has police protection, and is going to be living in a
protected estate in Biscayne Bay. Probably not a bad idea. Asked what kind of
shakeup could get rid of bookmaking, Mayor O’Dwyer said, “I see very hopeful
signs of that in the atom bomb.” Illinois Governor Dwight H. Green vetoed a
bill banning snapshots in night clubs, saying that if you don’t want to be
photographed with the wrong person, go with the right person. Bob Taft can’t
even have fun golfing.
Anita Louise has had a baby. Eleuthere Irinie DuPont has married.
James Hilton has divorced, as has Eugene Ormandy. Peter Aitken, son of Max, has
died of a heart attack. Mayor McGeer has died, making Time on the strength of his latest stupid comment. (“[T]he
Northwest will be the Belgium of the future.” You know, it’s where WWIII will
be fought.) General Denikin has died, as has Gipsy Rodney Smith.
 |
| Where were his publicists? (If you've followed the links above, you may be thinking that they all had heart attacks. We've made a lot of progress on cardiac disease in the last forty years. . |
The New Pictures
 |
| This ad appeared opposite the fashion news, but I couldn't fit it there. Irony, etc. |
Books
Two books about the last days of the Nazi regime are out. Bernd Gisevius wants us to know that all the right sort of Germans were constantly
plotting to assassinate Hitler and remove the Nazis, but never quite got around
to it until the end of the war, while H. R. Trevor-Roper, a British historian,
has an official history of Hitler’s last days in the bunker, out. Budd
Schulberg’s The Harder They Fall is
the boxing novel that Gene Tunny reviewed. Time
liked it too, although the ending was contrived, and it had too much
tough-guy jargon. S. J. Perelman’s Acres and Pains is funny, and Helen MacInnes, best known for putting feminine
curves on international espionage, has a romance novel out, Friends and Lovers.
The Engineer, 22 August 1947
Seven-Day Journal
“G.W.R. Works at Port Talbot” The Great Western Railway is building a
railway engineering works at Port Talbot and improving its Docks there with
five hydraulic pumps to provide power and impounding pumps to maintain water
level in the docks.
“River Lee By-Pass Scheme” The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
will construct a bypass on the Lee from Hackney to Totenham as part of the
flood relief works. It will extend across some marshes and joing the Lee
diversion near Chalk Bridge, Edmonton.
“The Gidea Park Railway Accident Report” The driver did not see, or
ignored some signals, but had been told that the signals might be wrong.
Colonel Woodhouse’s report concludes that either better signals, or automatic
train control apparatus would have prevented the accident. In other railway
news, the Manchester-Sheffield line is to be electrified for 300 track miles,
including sidings. The route is very densely worked, and six out of ten trains
carry coal. It has a steep gradient, and a 3-mile tunnel through the Pennines.
It will use main line overhead conductors working at 1500v DC, and locomotives
will be built with electric boilers to provide steam heat to passenger cars.
Southern Railway is ordering 3 express diesel electric locomotives from its
Brighton workshop, with the electrical equipment to be supplied by English
Electric. It is hoped that using oil fuel instead of coal will result in a
considerable saving over steam locomotives of similar size.
 |
| River Lee Relief Channel (not completed until 1974), below the B194 at Nazeing. |
“The Whitehaven Colliery Disaster” The 15 August explosion at the
William coal mine, Whitehaven, Cumberland, has cost the lives of 104 men.
Looks like a good week to come out against coal miners!
R. Marriner and W. O. Jennings, “Testing of Flatness by the Beam
Comparator Method” The beam comparator is a gadget that can be laid against a
surface, allowing its flatness to be measured against a pre-selected reference
surface. The rest of the article has some math that is part of an entire field
called metrology of which I knew nothing (or thought I did, until I looked it up), mere moments ago.
“Powder Metallurgy, Part VI” This is still the questions and comments
on an article about using powdered iron to make sintered components, of which
the only thing relevant for me is that they can make permanent magnets to any
size and shape. The commenters are very smart, and some of them are not very
nice to the authors. Mr. L. J. Brice, of the Ministry of Supply, says that they
are basically discussing German work, here, because it is all public. British
work cannot be discussed in public, but “introductions could be made.” It’s a
secret! From the number of scientists from the Armament Research Department who
commented, I suppose it might have something to do with guns, armour, or
shells?
At this point, Dr. Maurice Cook presented four papers on the manufacture and properties of sintered non-ferrous components, such as plain bearings and thrust washers and “aluminum components.” Most plain bearings are made of porous metal following the American method, developed in 1916. Newer ones are of solid metal, and several newer developments “were not yet commercially available,” such as steel-backed porous bronze bearings and oil well porous bushes. Another paper showed that 90/10 bronze alloy bearings can be made by compressing powder. Flake aluminum is another example of powder metallurgy that can be used in armaments but also in heating elements in electric stoves. The commenters on this section include industrialists and a fellow from RAE. The industrialists don’t explain why they care, and R. L. Bickerdike of RAE can’t, so it is like they swooped in from outer space. Oh, well, I’m sure that it is all vital to the world of tomorrow.
 |
| Fort Halstead, site of the RARDE, was built in 1892 as part of a complete system of ring forts around London that was then torn down to make way for rail commuter suburbs. Has anyone written the history of this? Google Image Search not turning up anything vaguely contemporary, here's the Iron Age hillfort at Wandlebury near Stapleford that comes up in the Google Image search field for some reason. |
At this point, Dr. Maurice Cook presented four papers on the manufacture and properties of sintered non-ferrous components, such as plain bearings and thrust washers and “aluminum components.” Most plain bearings are made of porous metal following the American method, developed in 1916. Newer ones are of solid metal, and several newer developments “were not yet commercially available,” such as steel-backed porous bronze bearings and oil well porous bushes. Another paper showed that 90/10 bronze alloy bearings can be made by compressing powder. Flake aluminum is another example of powder metallurgy that can be used in armaments but also in heating elements in electric stoves. The commenters on this section include industrialists and a fellow from RAE. The industrialists don’t explain why they care, and R. L. Bickerdike of RAE can’t, so it is like they swooped in from outer space. Oh, well, I’m sure that it is all vital to the world of tomorrow.
C. F. B. Lemaire, “Belgian Railway Bridge Reconstruction” [Battle
Scenes] By the end of December 1944, 395 Belgian railway bridges and 71 road
overpasses needed reconstruction or major repairs. Today, 141 have been
permanently repaired and 242 temporarily rebuilt. Two more years will be
required to get the rest done. They might include some of the really big jobs,
but the rest of the article discusses some amazing work that has already been
done, including sinking a complete set of new footings in one of those Belgian
rivers that I always confuse with each other. (Maybe the Meuse?) They even
tried to make them beautiful!
“An Air Operated Automatic Controller” George Kent, Ltd., of Luton,
has developed a pneumatic controller that can do proportional, floating,
floating proportional, proportional and first derivative, and floating plus
proportional plus first derivative control operations by causing pressure
changes in control valves. It has an accuracy of 0.2%. A particularly neat bit is that a defective unit can
be exchanged for repairs by undoing two screws, and without affecting the
measurements!
 |
| Analog computing had some pretty impenetrable jargon. |
“65-BHP Mines Diesel Locomotive” It’s by Hunslet and sounds like any other mine locomotive.
Leaders
“Load Shedding” Load shedding is what the electrical industry calls
blackouts. During the coal shortage, blackouts had to go into effect the moment
that loads went above danger lines, notwithstanding anything that industry or
power stations might have done to forestall a general blackout. The CEB is
gathering statistics on usage now, so that next winter, it will hopefully be
able to make better decisions.
Obituary
Dr. Foster King (1862—1947), for many years the Chief Surveyor of theBritish Corporation Register of Shipping, has died.
Letters
J. W. Butler writes to say that the famous Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale is falling down, and that the younger generation should be
ashamed of itself. G. A. Felton has a letter about democracy and mass
production and dehumanisation and all the troubles we are having with something
these days. And if someone wants to come out to Hawaii and make me read the whole thing, they’re welcome. We of the younger
generation are like that. D. S. Anderson writes to suggest that if staggered
working hours are needed, would it not be more practical to stagger then by
region so that communities are disrupted less? The Engineer replies that the idea has been studied, but that the
grid isn’t up to it.
Literature
The Presentation of
Engineering Evidence, by Lord Macmillan of Aberfield, is a good guide to engineers giving
expert testimony in the courts, and is even “witty.” R. H. Parsons, The Steam Turbine and Other Inventions ofSir Charles Parsons, O.M. is a worthy tribute.
“A 12-ton Diesel Shuttle Dumper” Aveling-Barford has built an
industrial dump truck with nice high clearance and independent suspension for mines
and construction sites. It has a hydraulically operated mechanical
transmission, four forward, four in reverse, each pair of gears with its own
double clutch.
T. F. Thomas, “The Air Cycle Heat Pump” This article starts from outer
space, but, as the title suggests, it cycles atmospheric heat through a space
that is to be either heat or cooled, and is compressed or expanded as required
to make that happen. It looks as though Thomas is reporting on the work of the
Warm Air Heating Research Residence at Urbana, Illinois. Humidifying the dried
air produced by expansion is addressed.
 |
| In 1924, the University of Illinois built a house to research coziness. |
“Marine Barking Unit” Bowater’s Newfoundland Pulp and Paper Mills,
Ltd, has put its second marine barking unit into operation. This consists of a drum
that floats in the water at the protected-water log holding facility. Logs are
inserted into it, and the drum rotates, peeling bark off by friction with the
walls of the drum and other logs. It can produce 400 cords of clean wood per
day, was built by the Horton Steel Works of Fort Erie, Ontario, and designed by
Fletcher and Sons, Montreal.
 |
| Bowater pulp mill, Corner Brook, "1950s" |
“Mechanical Road Sweepers” Those little road sweeping cars articles,
too! Paris is testing them, along with some other designs to save on street
sweeping labour.
“River Mud Clearance by Jet Engine” Same story as in Flight.
“Experiments with Roller Bearings on LMS Locomotives” Twenty-five of
150 new LMS locomotives are being fitted with roller bearings in place of the
usual plain bearings, and twenty with Caprotti poppet valves in place of the
usual Walschaerts. The Caprotti valves are being supplied by AssociatedLocomotive Equipment Company, and the roller bearings by British Timkins.
South African
Engineering Notes: Mines; railways; a rail station
Industrial and Labour
Notes
More coverage of the Control of Engagement and Longer Working Hours
orders, with emphasis on staggered working hours to reduce load shedding next
winter. British ironmaking was at 7.5 million tons annual rate last month. The
annual rate for steel was 13.2 million tons of steel, up from 11.76 million
last year at this time. To meet government targets, the annual rate will have
to rise to 13.5 million tons in the last five months of the year. The Committee of Public Accounts has some
concerns with some of the sales of Government Factories last year. The Iron and
Steel Board is clamping down on the export of used steel tubes, as some can be
re-used, especially locomotive boiler tubes. Coal production in July was down
due to holidays, but loss due to labour action was down; voluntary absenteeism
was up compared with June, although down dramatically from last July at 6.93%.
Total distributed coal stocks in the week ending 9 August was 11,858,400 tons,
2.4 million tons ahead of last year.
Notes and Memoranda
Employment in American railways is up 3.43% over the year at
1,375,825. A scheme to put autos on trains over the Severn Railway Bridge
cannot make enough of a difference to drivers to make the loading facilities
worthwhile, the Ministry of Transport has concluded. Ford (England) has a new
V8 auto, the “Pilot.” It comes complete with a heater, a radio accommodation,
and a built-in jacking system. Chicago is to get a new water treatment plant to
serve its North Side, and the Caledonian Canal has been closer to through
traffic until further notice by an embankment failure at Fort Augustus. Strikes
are down in the U.S. 97%(!) of British electric power was generated by coal
last year, with water power coming in second at a princely 2.75%.
 |
| CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1389720 |
 |
| You're putting together the Newsweek for the week of 18--25 August 1947. Can you think of any news more important than Jinx Falkenburg being on TV? No? I didn't think so! |
Letters
Victor Kravchenko doesn’t like Andrei Gromyko. Johnnie Best, of
Chicago, points out that the $3000 cap on tuition under the GI Bill will not
cover medical school, which can charge up to $700/year for seven years of
academic training, and that even the four-year B.S. can amount to more than the
cap.
The Periscope
We still don’t know who the new head of the DNC will be. President
Truman’s 1949 budget memo to Congress calls for another economy budget, with a
request for between 32 and 34 billion, compared with $34 billion last year.
Some VA hospitals have taken more than two years to build, and that is much too
long and needs investigating, some in Congress think. In the wake of the Hughes
fiasco, Senator Brewster is definitely not
going to advance his “chosen instrument” bill, Senator Ferguson is bitterly
critical of his staff work, and everyone else is critical of Ferguson for not
calling on Don Nelson, who offered a whole file of documents on the Hughescargo plane project in 1944, and was turned down. People are being seen in ’48
campaign buttons, mainly Dewey. The navy is refitting old submarines to test
the German-style breather device, rather than completing unfinished hulls,
which would be less expensive, but cut into its new-ship funds. The Army has
sent out instructions to bring back any GI stationed overseas who can prove
that he was told by a recruiter that he would do his tour in the United States.
American diplomats think that Russia will seize any opportunity that comes up
to regain the initiative in world affairs. Peron might be in trouble at home. The Russians have released Albert Schultz, the Mayor of Rostock, after
arresting him earlier. Brazil is throwing a parade for President Truman. Poland
is operating prison camps in southern East Prussia which are effectively
Poland’s Siberia, for captured Ukrainian guerrillas even the Poles don’t want to
turn over to the Russians. The Nationalists intend to build a new northern port
at Tangku, 30 miles from Tientsin, where the Japanese had a similar project.
Russia is building an expressway from Moscow to the Crimea. The 75% British tax
on U.S. movie earnings is thought to be a bargaining chip in British attempts
to get the Americans to agree to the end of pound-dollar convertibility. The
price of farmland continues to inflate. Car prices are expected to continue to
go up. Bob Hope is going to have a musical comedy chorus in his show this fall,
in his “anxiety to find something new,” while the Eddie Albert Show, and
Arthur’s Place have both been cancelled. Not cancelled at all is the Harold Stassen boom, now being fanned on by a book, Where I Stand. General Chennault has memoirs coming out, Rosamond Marshall is writing a biography of Stephen Austin, Carson McCullers, author of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, is in
Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship, writing a new book. Chicago-area unions are
calling for a boycott of Little Orphan
Annie, on grounds that recent strips have advocated for child labour. West
Point is changing the title of its sports director from Master of the Sword to
Director of Physical Education.
Washington Trends
Republicans still intend to push for tax reductions in the next
session. Since European aid will cut into the amount of money they can hand
back to rich families (one of the provisions is for “income splitting” between
husbands and wives for tax purposes), they are expected to push skepticism
about how much money Europe really needs.
That also means Britain, expected to come to the table for revisions of the old
loan terms. Congress will want to know exactly what the Brits have been buying
with their borrowed dollars. The US may be prepared to take over British
purchases of American food for Germany, but Secretary Snyder is taking over the
talks and is expected to be tougher than State. The high cost of living may be
a tricky thing to run on in ’48 if prices come down. Truman’s loyalty
committee, which is expected to put as many as 2 million civil servants through
the wringer, is getting off slowly. There will be a full FBI investigation of
everyone on whom “derogatory information” has been filed, but there will be
meticulous respect for civil rights in this “thorough housecleaning of Communists
and fellow travelers.” Democratic members will insist on the abolition of the
Brewster Committee and the transfer of its investigation to the Senate
Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments. Whether it will survive the
Hughes investigation will depend on its handling of its next investigation, the
wartime pro-Democratic advertising of the International Latex Corporation. A
joint House-Senate Committee may also take its place. The impact of the
Taft-Hartley Act has still to be fully felt, and the new National Labour
Relations Board will proceed cautiously.
National Affairs
 |
| Art with boobies makes you go Communist! |
“Law or Outlaw” The National Labour Relations Board threatened that
any union that refused to clean out Communists would lose their collective
bargaining privileges under Taft-Hartley. This could be very difficult for many
unions, especially since they are already in bargaining, and have no easy way
to remove Communists, and it is not even clear who those are. For example,
union executives involved in Progressive Citizens of America might be targeted,
since the PCA allows communist members, and the “communist cooties” principle
applies.
“Apply Here” The Army and Navy are having trouble finding recruits,
and only 1800 of 3000 Congressional appointments to the service colleges have
been filled this year.
“Gold Baloney” There was talk this week of the price of gold being
raised to $50/oz., which would give Britain some relief by raising the value
Treasury gold holdings by $100 million and boost dividends on South African
mining stocks. This is, the Treasury Secretary said, pure hooey, and probably
British wishful thinking.
“Plenty to Talk About” The heatwave hitting the United States has made
this the hottest August on record.
Workers are walking out of factories, New York tenement dwellers are
sleeping on their fire escapes, Baltimore was snarled by police trying to get a
buck naked three-year-old out of a fountain, and air conditioned movie theatres
are a reason to go to the most awful movie. Hot in a different way is Atlanta,
awash in unsolved murders, crime sprees by gangs of juvenile delinquents, and,
specifically, the Refoule and Jeanette Rayman murders. Even though the South is
like that, this is
something exceptional.
 |
| Newsweek plays hilarious prank! |
“Red Scenario” The Dies Committee’s attempts to expose communism in
Hollywood “expired in ridicule,” but the HUAC is hoping to do better. It
already has boffo material, such as a visa granted to Hanns Eisler, and
communistic plot elements in Best Years of Our Lives. Newsweek is a bit
skeptical that a hard-hearted banker in a movie is evidence of communistic
influence, pointing out that hard bankers are American folklore, just like
corrupt Congressmen, like the one recently convicted of bribery and conspiracy
while serving as chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee.
Ernest K. Lindley is on vacation.
United Nations
The situation in Greece is thought to be moving towards a showdown
between the Americans and the Russians. Egypt is taking its campaign to get the
British to leave Egypt and Sudan to
the United Nations. The Security Council-brokered truce in Indonesia has
failed, but the Dutch attempt to get the UN to refuse to seat the Indonesian
delegation failed with an 8—3 vote in the Security Council, with the US and
Russia voting on the same side, and France and Britain voting with the
Netherlands but not using their vetoes. Now it is the Arabs’ turn to petition
the UN.
“Green Baize and the Red Tide”
Sweltering in the hottest August in history, European delegates to the
conference at the Grand Palais on the Champs-Elysees were trying to turn away
what would otherwise be its hardest winter, and leased to a “Red tide” sweeping
over Europe. Which is a fancy way of saying that the dollar shortage is
standing in the way of getting Ruhr coal production up. The Conference is in
charge of deciding how many dollars are needed, and for what. The British have
just had to draw another $150 million of the $1 billion remaining of their
$3.75 billion line of credit. At this rate, the money will run out in October,
and who knows what will happen then. Ruhr coal production, even with the
incentive plan, is at 230,000 tons a day, compared with a prewar average of
410,000. Everyone agrees that more requires more food and better housing for
German miners, and more cars and locomotives for German railways, since even at
this rate coal is piling up at the pitheads faster than it can be moved. The
British point out that new cables and equipment for the mines will cost $200
million, and that the full bill for rehabilitating the Ruhr will come to $2
billion to $4 billion. The British are talking about “public ownership” of the
mines, since nationalisation might lead to communism, and private ownership
might mean Nazi owners, or foreign owners –which would lead to “a disastrous
drop in coal output and serious defections among the miners to Communism.”
Europe also needs steel, and the Ruhr mills, which produced 16 million tons
before the war, now produce only 2 million. This is still an issue because,
while the British want to raise the quota to 11 million tons and have the
Americans going along with them, the French consider this to be a security
threat.
 |
| It's nice, but there's a reason everyone goes away in August |
“If Atlee Goes” The “Keep Left” faction in the Labour Party are
thought to be pushing Aneurin Bevan towards the premiership following on a
party vote of non-confidence by sitting members on the grounds that he has been
going slow on steel nationalisation. Of other possible candidates to replace
Atlee, Bevin is showing “signs of strain,” A. V. Alexander has been scuppered
by the Conscription Bill, Stafford Cripps is too aloof, and Herbert Morrison
has lost all ambition since his recent illness.
“Happy Holiday” The House of Lords is coming back into session early,
right after grouse season, so that it can keep an eye on the government; Churchill
has given his first national radio speech since the war, on the subject of
socialists being awful, and all the MPs are squabbling and need a rest. In
other eccentrically British news, Newsweek
joins The Engineer and Flight in being very impressed by the
“fiery cross” summons to the Edinburgh Festival of cultural and industrial
events to be held 24 August—11 September.
“Mixed-Up Grill” There was talk last week that the British would
impose new restrictions on hotel meals. Instead, it is talking about collecting
more coupons. As a result, some West End restaurants are starting to serve
whale meat, which is best, the headwaiter says, when properly spiced with
onions and garlic, and served by an automatic waiter. In other colourful English news, import
statistics released in the House of Commons showed that the British have
imported 2,379 bath tubs from France and another 4000 from Hungary. They’re
cheaper than in England. (The real question being whether the $50 (France) and
$32 (Hungary) price was then converted into dollars.) In the Sebkhas District of the Sahara Desert part of West Africa, no native moves in July and August,
so when the Foreign Legion heard about a dust plume headed south, they turned
out and detained two trucks and a trailer filled with English veterans on their
way to South Africa for new jobs and less austerity.
 |
| Whale steak, as served in Iceland. |
“You’re Welcome” The State Department announced that it was cancelling
a billion dollars in Italian debt owed mainly for supplies and occupation
costs. The Italian Communist press “practically ignored” it.
 |
| The "Kingdom of God" turns out to be Jehovah Witness schismatics, although Sayerce was in schism rom them |
And India is independent, which, to be fair, Newsweek doesn’t treat as minor
news, but I am so amazed by finding it this far into the magazine that I am
pretending that it does. Jesus. They
have Jinx Falkenberg on the cover of the issue in which India becomes independent.
“With or Without Peace” State Department, and now General MacArthur,
are pushing forward towards peace with Japan.
“What Business Do You Have Here?” A delegation of foreign businessmen was
amazed by the welcome they were given by the Japanese, and the indifference and
near-contempt shown by American occupation authorities. In related news, the
British Commonwealth Representative to the Allied Council for Japan resigned
this week because he couldn’t take working under Australian External Affairs
Minister Herbert V. Evatt for another day. And on the site of the vanished
former daimyo’s castle at the centre of Hiroshima, rebuilt city of wood and tarpaper, the city this week announced that it would build a replica of the Statueof Liberty.
Foreign Tides, with
Joseph B. Phillips
“Uncle Shylock: 1947 Edition” Phillips summarises the “party line”
indictment of America by the French communist paper, Cahiers du Communisme, so that Americans can see what sensible
European communists think. The indictment goes as follows: America’s entry into
the war was essential and beneficent, and a victory for progressive forces.
However, America’s economic rise over the last thirty years has been tied to
the expansion of war industry, and American productive capacity doubled during
the last war. Since then, the objective has been to maintain as much of this as
war production as possible, which is why the anti-communist hysteria. This is
because if that production were turned over to domestic consumption, there
would be overproduction and falling prices, and a new depression. Since that
can’t be put off forever, it is essential to conquer new markets, and that
conquest has taken the form of gigantic investments in countries impoverished
by war and prey to the difficulties of rehabilitation. This offensive is
further camouflaged in anti-communism, since national communist parties are the
best defenders of national freedom, and because the Soviet Union is immune to
the penetration of foreign capital. In Latin America, American penetration has
taken the form of the worst kind of imperialism. Allowed to run unchecked in
Europe, it will do the same, with Germany and Japan built up as local gendarmes
and France and Britain weakened because of their independence.
Phillips is sharing this because he thinks that the French Communist
line is independent of Moscow and worth taking into account. The French party
thinks that the solution is European union, normal commercial relations, and
independence for all nations. The Communists got 5,351,000 votes in the last
election, and they should be listened to, he says. (He leaves it to us to reads
between the lines and see that the French Communists are right!)
In Canadian news, forest fires are bad this year, Commissioner Howard Kennedy’s report on the Ontario forest industry calls for a major shakeup of
the industry, and Mayor McGeer gets a half-column obituary that notes his
“flamboyance.”
In Latin American news, we hear about the Rio conference some more,
and then, for some real excitement, the civil war in Paraguay, which has turned
into a bloody street battle for Asuncion, the capital city.
Business
“Spiralling Ever Up” Prices, that is!
“Fight on Freight” Robert Young, chairman of the board of the
Chesapeake and Ohio, has launched a publicity campaign, charging the big
transcontinental railroads of running a cartel, and contributing to the freight
car shortage by keeping timetables slow, so as to increase profits. The
Department of Commerce thinks that there is something to the cartel talk, but
it is not clear that busting it would do anything about the car shortage. In
other rail news, the Pennsylvania Central’s Vista-Dome cars are the best way to
see the country, after flying across it at 300ft in a B-24, not that I’d know,
because the times I’ve done it, you can’t see the ground from 300ft, anyway.
 |
| Elsie the Borden cow is the best known advertising campaign ever. As of now. |
“Bumper Holdout” Kansas wheat farmers are said to be holding back
their bumper crops to sell in the spring, in case prices go up or income taxes
go down. Didn’t this same story run last year? What’s wrong with Kansans?
“Battle for Business” Uncle Henry is practically reading over my
shoulder. Noticing that he hasn’t been in the story for paragraphs and paragraphs,he announces a massive cut in aluminum prices. He’s not really starting a pricewar, which is already on, so much as getting, yes, more publicity.
“Drought in the Tanks” On August 12, Detroit is so short of gasoline
that the police department is on the verge of seizing gas from private cars to
keep going. The busses and fire department were in a similar situation. Detroit
City Council stepped in to put pressure on dealers and producers, and the
problem was solved, but only for Detroit, and only temporarily. Other
Midwestern cities are facing similar problems, and top oil-industry officials
and government representatives recently met in Washington to discuss solutions,
and the Army and Navy’s urgent difficulties keeping up training flights. With
the nation’s proven crude oil reserves at a record high 20.8 billion barrels,
and refineries operating at 90.8% of capacity, there ought to be more than
enough supply to meet demand of 2 billion barrels in 1947, 7% greater than peak
war demand of 1945. The problem is insufficient facilities for gathering,
transporting and distributing oil, which in turn goes back to shortages of
steel and electrical equipment for barges, pipelines and tank cars. The API
believes that temporary shortages will persist in the Midwest, while the East
will be okay unless it is a cold winter; anyway, there is no shortage of coal
for fuel. The Gulf and West Coast have no cause for worry.
“Talk as You Travel” The railroads are now offering telephone service
from moving trains. It’s only on a few trains, and for all the science fiction
of it, they are old-fashioned party lines. Anyone within 25 miles can
eavesdrop.
“Paying for Fontana” Uncle Henry isn’t going to get his excess profits
tax back, after all. It was worth a shot!
In shorter news, stock dividends are up to $1.157 billion in the
latest quarter, from the previous record of $999 million in the second quarter
of 1946. The leather and fur industries have recovered from an eight-month
slump in New York. Pan Am promises its New York-London service will be cut to
14 hours when it starts flying directly to London, cutting out Newfoundland and
Eire. Sugar-exporting Cuba is the only country to register a trade surplus with
the United States.
Products
Frank Charmel, Inc, of New York[?], has a new ball-point lipstick in a
leakproof, refillable container. Mercury Industrial Company has a four-part toy
truck that flies apart when it bumps the bumper. It is easy and fun to
reassemble. A gadget that allows fork lift loads to be shifted up to 7 inches
will save much tedium. Charles Hardy, Inc., has a stainless-steel paint
that increases the life of surfaces exposed to corrosion by up to four times.
Business Tides with
Henry Hazlitt
“The Bankruptcy of Planning” Economic planning doesn’t work! Long live
the free market! Mr. Atlee is dunderheaded when he talks about a world shortage
of dollars. What there is, is a shortage of world exports to America. (Or
import substitutions.)
Science, Medicine
“Meteors by Radar” Dr. A. C. B. Lovell, of the University of
Manchester, discovered a “persistent meteor shower” never seen by human eye,
because it happens from the direction of the sun, making them invisible. The
title gives away the thrilling ending. I guess that the showers are a cluster
of small asteroids orbiting Sunward of Earth, which are overtaken each year in
the summer? I suppose that since they are overtaken rather than overtaking,
they would be slower to fall, but that probably –no, cancel that, I do have a
slide rule—I can see that that makes no difference whatsoever.
“From Raft to Reef” Thor Heyerdahl and his friends, the six young men
from Norway and Sweden who decided to raft across the Pacific from Peru on a
reed boat, have arrived on Baroia Atoll in the Tuamotus near Tahiti, proving
that Polynesia could have been settled from South America. Although weren’t
they going to Easter Island, because of the stone heads?
“Fresh out of Weeds” 2,4-D is very effective against weeds and has
brought a lot of benefit in aerial spraying, but the Department of Agriculture
reminds everyone that it should be mixed with oil or water and sprayed
carefully, in case it drifts onto crops like cotton.
“Expanding for the Atom” The Army’s Manhattan District has been
dissolved and its assets turned over to the Atomic Energy Commission, including
the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, the Hanford Engineer Works
that produces plutonium, the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, and the ArgonneLaboratory, with its working reactor. The only reactor known besides Oak Ridge,
and the Canadian one at Chalk River; plus, the two to be built at Harwell and
one on the Cumberland coast, as announced by the British last week. In related
news, Dr. Robert J. Moon, former nuclear scientist, is reluctant to take the
position of head of the physics department at McMaster University in Canada
because under the Atomic Energy Act, it is treason to share confidential
information with foreigners like Canadians, and the Atomic Energy Commission
hasn’t decided what that confidential information is going to be, and refuses
to give him some kind of retroactive blanket pardon, in case he does tell the
Canadians how to make an atom bomb, leading to a sneak attack on Fort Detroit
and the atomic burning of the White House.  |
| I actually found this following up on Harwell's Atomic Hair salon, but their 'dos would blow Forties minds, so let's look at civil servants doing atomic stuff, instead. |
“Flourescent Diagnosis” Dr. George Moore of the University of
Minnesota Medical School, has demonstrated a new way of diagnosing tumours.
Patients are injected with sodium fluorescein, and then, eight hours later or
so, exposed to ultraviolet light. Since the compound fluoresces under
ultraviolet, the only question was whether tumours show up with different
colours, which they do, allowing him to diagnose them. Brain tumours were the
easiest to detect, stomach, colon and breast cancers hardest.
“Woman with a Scalpel” Eighty-four-year old Dr. Beth Van Hoosen, a
University of Michigan graduate, has a memoir out, Petticoat Surgeon, which gives Newsweek
a page-and-a-half of great copy about being an old time doctor, racing
across early morning Chicago to emergency surgeries in a horse and buggy with a
greyhound running alongside.
“Choosing a Psychiatrist” The Meninger Institute has been studying
ways of picking people to train as psychiatrists for some years, and has ideas.
Since their practical insight is that you should pick someone highly rated by
fellow students and patients, I’m not sure it was worth the effort.
“Mushrooms versus Molds” In the long list of potential rivals of
penicillin, scientists added two new compounds of the Basidiomycetes group,
found in wild mushrooms, pleurotin and biformin. Biformin is effective against
tuberculosis, which is good news after the disappointing results from
penicillin.
“Niacin in Diabetes” It has long been known that diabetes can be
induced in animals by administering alloxan. It has now been discovered, by Dr.
S. Banerjee of the School of Tropical Medicine at Calcutta, that niacin
injections will arrest the chemically-induced disease, and he is cautiously
hopeful that the vitamin might be effective in preventing diabetes by in humans
by checking the development of alloxan and purines.
“A Yankee at LSU” Huey Long gave LSU enough money to be a real
university, but, up till now, the problem has been that it is in Louisiana.
Since President James Monroe Smith went to jail in 1939, it has had eight
presidents, and just as much trouble. This week, Dr. Harold Stoke, President of
the University of New Hampshire, took the job. Missouri-born, Stoke isn’t quite a Yankee, and he is a good
President, but there was trouble, perhaps because there were charges that he
was going to admit Coloured students, charges which he has refuted, for now.
“Last Resort” E. T. Behrens, a childless widower Ozark property owner,
has deeded his land to the Missouri State Teachers Association as a summer
resort, since this will be good for teachers, leading to more democracy in a
time when it is under siege, hence “last resort.” Drat! I was hoping that this
was going to be one of those crazy stories about atom-bomb refuges!
 |
| Apart from the Kingdom of God, it looks like the world has moved on from atomic refuges to flying saucers and Jinx Falkenburg. |
Press, Radio, Transition
“Setting Star” The deal to sell the Seattle Star to David Stern III has fallen through, and Sheldon
Sackett has sold it to the Times instead.
“Prewi Predicament” The Press Wireless, Inc., did roaring business
during the war years, but when its war correspondents returned to America,
business collapsed. It is now all but bankrupt, and President A. Warren Norton
has successfully manoeuvred to extract the manufacturing subsidiary, Press
Wireless Manufacturing Corporation, from the grip of the courts. Now he just
has to pay of Prewi debts with Prewi Manufacturing revenues, and he’s set.
“Ruark’s Rage” Robert Ruark, Scripps-Howard columnist, usually hangs
around New York attacking women’s styles and Frank Sinatra. But he took a
summer vacation to Europe this year, where he added a new target, Lt. GeneralJohn C. H. Lee, who has risen from being Eisenhower’s deputy theatre commander
to being commander of US forces in Italy.
Now Lee is in trouble, and Eisenhower, fresh back from his Alaskan tour,
is promising an investigation to clear his name.
 |
| Eisenhower visits Alaska, though as President, not general. |
The cover story, as I’ve already noticed, is that Jinx Falkenberg is
pretty, and that her husband is also pretty, and that their baby is cute, and
they are going to be on television, even though this story is under radio.
Imagine if India had Jinx’s agent! The Mughals would have conquered England,
instead of the other way round!
Tim McCoy (55) has had a baby boy with Inga Arvard (29). Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr., says that his secretary, Melvin Roberts, 27, found dead “at a
nearby dude ranch,” was the sixth member of his group of former Japanese POWs
to follow through on a suicide pact, “if they did not find happiness after the
war.” He was used for medical experiments by the Japanese, and is an “honourable
war casualty.” Ilona Massey is engaged to Jay Kurtz, son of Representative
Kurtz of Pennsylvania. Helene Costello, who once made $3000/week in silent
movies, has been declared destitute by a Los Angeles court, which has ordered
hier husband, George La Blanc, a studio artist, to pay her $200/month in
maintenance. Teruki Kurusu, 21, daughter
of Japan’s special envoy to Washington before Pearl Harbour, has married Frank
White, former Army lieutenant. Her parents did not attend. Serge Koussevitsky,
the 73-year-old conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has married his
46-year-old secretary, niece of his late wife. Stefan Hero went to jail on
charges of abducting his two daughters from his father-in-law, Jose Iturbi.
Sort-of-retired General of the Air Force Arnold has found the energy to harvest
two crops of vegetables on his 50 acre farm in Sonoma, California. GeorgeAtchison, chairman of the Allied Control Commission in Japan and chief
political adviser to General MacArthur, is among 10 still missing and presumed
drowned when a B-17 ran out of gas and
crashed near Honolulu. Army flyers! I shake my head. Elliott Carr Cutler, first
surgeon to operate on the valves of the human heart, has died at 59, hopefullynot of heart trouble.
Movies
Black Narcissus is an “affront to
religion and religious life.” I hope it’s still playing at Thanksgiving. . . Forty Years of Roosevelt is a
documentary. Time’s review was so angry
it was funny. Newsweek, not so much.
Rita Hayworth is the Greek goddess Terpsichore in the lavish musical, Down to Earth. Not to mention God’s gift
to men, a joke I can’t make first, because Newsweek
is already there. Green for Danger
is an average British murder mystery, except for the detective, played by
Alastair Sims, who is “refreshing and human.” Frieda is an English movie that explores whether it is still okay
to hate all Germans.
A fake ad in the Saturday Review
of Literature advertises the new Prentice-Hall novel, Pamela Fox. Gerald Warner Brace’s new novel, The Garretson Chronicles is a worthy
novel, but doesn’t sound like the kind of worthy novel I’m going to find myself
reading to keep up with the Juniors. Newsweek
reviews Hans Gisevius’s To the Bitter
End with perhaps a little bit less of a tongue-in-cheek skepticism than Time managed. On the other hand, Newsweek finds it necessary to point out
that the picture of a ridiculously incompetent Nazi inner circle in
Trevor-Roper’s Last Days of Hitler is
officially certified as true by Lord Tedder. That’s that, then! Wallace Stegner’s
Look at America: The Central Northwest has
lots of nice pictures. Tell you what, like what you see, and very large tracts
of vacation property can be yours at a very reasonable rate!
Perspective,
with Raymond Moley
“Hollywood’s War with England” Raymond Moley
says everything that Time has already
said, but at much greater length.
Flight, 28 August 1947
Leaders
“To Start You Thinking” Sir Roy Fedden is over the failure of his
latest business and ready to drum up another one, so he has an article in this
issue about an “executive aircraft” businessman that is an upside down flying
saucer pancake, or jazz like that. Flight
says it published the article to start everyone thinking.
“Home Orders” Flight is worried that there won’t be
enough orders to sustain the Ambassador, and demands that BEA, BOAC, BSAA, the
FAA, the RAF, or the ABC order some.
“The Tudor Tragedy” The prototype Tudor II has been lost in whatshould have been a routine test flight, which is even worse than the Bahrain
BOAC Hythe accident.
Captain S. R. Jeffrey, “Flying Petrol Station: The Flight Refuelling
Operation from the Tanker Pilot’s Point of View” They flew up, they intercepted
the incoming airliner with Rebecca, they refuelled it, the airliner proceeded
to London, with a load of passengers desperately wishing that the refuelling
had failed, so that they could land in Santa Maria and get off the flying
torture chamber.
“The Aeronautical Conference” Flight
lists some of the very exciting talks to be given at the shared
Anglo-American Aeronautical Conference that I might have suggested was going to
be in Cairo last time, due to not reading carefully enough. It will be in
London. In shorter news, E. R. Corporation corrects Flight. It is keeping its Ercoupe in limited production, and
proceeding with flight testing of the Airsedan.
 |
| There's an article in the January 1945 issue of Flying about experimenting with JATO-assisted takeoff. I have no idea what beame of the Airsedan, unless it was the "Aeronca 12AC Chum." |
“Island Base: Visit to Darrell’s Island: future of BOAC
Bermuda-Baltimore” Bermuda is the one place I can think of where a flying boat
absolutely makes sense, since there isn’t room there for a colony and an
airport. Darrell’s Island is the BOAC base. The problem is at the other end,
where BOAC’s flying boats have been turned out of New York for “security”
considerations and have to fly from Baltimore, instead.
 |
| A BOAC Boeing 314 at Darnell Island. They will be replaced by Constellations in January. |
“The Avro Athena” The Avro Athena is a twin-Merlin engined advanced
trainer to be offered to the RAF. It is designed to be big enough to
accommodate Blind Approach or Rebecca IV and an 1143a transmitter. In shorter
news, the last of the Short “G” boats, the Golden Hind, is retiring.
Sir Roy Fedden, MBE, DSc, FRAeS, EGRESS, “A New Ideal: What are the
Prospects of a Good British Executive Aircraft?” Fedden is available to design
the entirely new 500hp engine his executive aircraft would need.)
 |
| It'll happen. Eventually. By Dyvroeth - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4079666 |
Here and There
The Reynolds Bombshell is up for sale. The first atomic pile in
Britain, the “Gleep” (graphite low energy experimental pile) is to be built at
Harwell for experimental work in nuclear physics. It was designed by a group of
New Zealand scientists, although British scientists helped with the production
of the pure graphite and uranium, and designed the instruments needed to
control the pile. It was built by the Ministry of Works, with E. W. Chivers and
Sons, and Matthew Hall and Co. as contractors, and was finished in fifteen
months. Two New Yorkers completed a test flight of the “first Canadian
helicopter” at Dorval Montreal Airport last month. The RAAF has completed its
two year aerial search of New Guinea, finding six Australian, one Dutch, one
American and 70 Japanese plane wrecks. The Admiralty has announced that it is now working on two gas turbine engines for marine work, one for a coastal craft, the other large enough for an escort vessel. It is looking for lightness
and fuel efficiency, not greater speed. Meanwhile, the National Gas Turbine
Establishment is working on jets for marine dredging. The Belgians are working
on rocket mail, the Australians on recording radio conversations between
airfields and pilots. The Swedes and various others are working on
“hydrofoils,” which I do not think are new, but are definitely
science-fictional. Douglas seems to have abandoned the Cloudster.
“Miles Merchantman: Four-Engined Pantechnicon with Two-ton Payload:
Robust Simplicity” The Merchantman, described.
“New Speed Record: U.S. Navy Research Aircraft Achieves 650mph” We’re
only a little over the moon about this out here in our tropical paradise (where
it rains a lot.) The article mostly describes the Skystreak, a Douglas hot ship
–hopefully not literally, since it’s made from magnesium.
“Soviet Aviation: Military Aviation Day” Flight publishes photographic enlargements of telescopic
photographs, because that is all the press gets. No B-29ski yet!
American
Newsletter, with “Kibitzer”
“Accident Investigations: First Flight of Four New Aircraft Types” The
new types are the B-50, which is just a B-29 with Wasp Majors, but the Air
Force thinks it is getting one over Congress, and, who knows, maybe they are.
The Kellett twin-engine twin-rotor also flew, but I guess “Kibitzer” sent in
his copy before it crashed when the blades crashed, which tells you all you
need to know about Kellett. Other twin types, still in development, are the
McDonnell XHJD-1 and the Piasecki XHRP-1. Two engines means perhaps 10-12
passengers, ideal for a feeder type. That is, if they weren’t helicopters! The
fourth new type to fly is the Martin 3-0-3. Have I missed one? I don’t think
so! The repercussions of the 3 DC-4 accidents continue. You’ve already heard
that the President’s special board of inquiry wants longer runways, landing
aids, better regulation of takeoff weights, and a greater height requirement
for airliners crossing high ground. The landing aids issue has led to a fight
with Congress. The Board has recommended installations costing $13.4 million,
while Congress has approved $5.9 million, and the Senate, only $571,000! The
Pennsylvania Central crash has revealed “startling information” about altimeter
errors, and the Special Board has recommended that “terrain proximity
indicators” be mandatory by 1 January 1949. The Maryland accident was
structural failure, probably brought on by a trim-tab snapping off. “Kibitzer”
points out that multiple committees are investigating all of these, as is the American
way, and speculates that this is because Americans prefer to hear what the
people involved have to say about something, as opposed to the facts of what
actually occurred. Which is kind of an interesting observation! If he’s saying
that Americans love to hear each other talk, then I don’t think it’s just
America. That’s the only justification for the words between the tables in The Economist, sometimes. If it means
that Americans treat everything like it is a political debate, then, hmm.
Civil Aviation News
Air charter operators think that there should be an air chartersection on the Baltic Exchange. I have no idea what that means. I’ll look it up for you. A third
Canadian Anson V has been delivered to a European customer, Loftleider H/F inIceland. There is a fuller account of the Tudor II accident in which Roy
Chadwick and S. A. Thorn of Avro lost their lives, and of the BOACPlymouth-class that crashed in the Persian Gulf on its way from Hong Kong to Poole with the loss of seven passengers and three crew, although the rest are safe,
and the majority “unburnt or not seriously injured.” A brief review of the Ambassador
is buried in here for some reason. GEC showed off its Air Circulation Oven for
airliner galleys and a miniature airborne VHF transponder designed for private
owner planes. BOAC wants everyone to know that its flying boats are getting
“impressive utilisation” considering the routes they have operating. Aeradio,Ltd., recently met with the board of the IATA to discuss its plans for IATA to
pay it to install air navigational aids in airports around the world. IATA said
that it might make a decision in November, at which point the board turned on its director, Whitney Straight, and tore him apart, feeding gobs of
raw flesh into their desperate mouths, so as to sustain themselves till then.
Correspondence
Donald S. McKay thinks that the Chipmunk is a better initial trainer
than the Prentice, because the simplest type is best. R. T. Townson writes to
say that he hopes that automatic landing will be a reaility in Europe before
1951. T. Neville Stack takes up the rest of the page with yet another letter,
this time about flying boats.
The Engineer, 29 August 1947
Seven-Day Journal
“Prototype Avro Tudor II Wrecked” As in Flight, which also covered the announcement of the “Enterprise
Scotland 1947 Exhibition,” although I may not have mentioned it. New
appointments have been made to the British Electricity Authority and under the
Transport Act.
“Report on the Collision at Hallen Marsh” The crash injured all six
members of both trains involved in the collision. The report concludes that an
error by a signalman led to the crash, but the driver of the
Avonmouth-Salisbury train should have noticed that the signals were crossed.
“A Durham Colliery Explosion” The second major coal mine disaster in
just over a week happened on Friday the 22nd. Twenty men were
killed, and four recovered, injured, by rescue teams working in difficult
conditions. The pit is one of the oldest in Durham, and casualties would have
been serious if there had been a working shift in the mine at the time.
“Engineering and Marine Exhibition at Olympia, No. 1” Four hundred
firms showed up to show off diesel engines, more diesel engines, and, for
variety, a petrol engine. I shouldn’t exaggerate, though, since the petrol
engine was attached to an arc welder by Quasi Arc Company, Ltd.
Philips Lamps also had a spot welding machine on display, Murex brought an arc welder, Reyrolle brought both, and C.A.V., Ltd of Acton, London, must be the only fuel injector company that hasn’t got itself into jet engines. Accurate Recording Instrument Company has tank depth gauges and recorders.
 |
| Two major accidents in two weeks. If I were to draw a conclusion . . . |
Philips Lamps also had a spot welding machine on display, Murex brought an arc welder, Reyrolle brought both, and C.A.V., Ltd of Acton, London, must be the only fuel injector company that hasn’t got itself into jet engines. Accurate Recording Instrument Company has tank depth gauges and recorders.
Rolt Hammond, “An Engineer Looks at Chile, No. 1” Copper mining.
“Launch of RMS Pretoria Castle”
A Harland and Wolf reefer mixed passenger liner. It can
accommodate 250 first-class passengers, has seven holds, all of which can be
refrigerated.
 |
| SS Transvaal Castle, an enlarged sister ship, in her second career as a 1970s cruise ship. |
“Retirement of Mr. J. C. Martin from London Transport” Martin designed
escalators, tubes, flying junctions, stations, a stockyard and the deep-level
shelter for the LMS station at Euston.
“A Sleepr Tamping Machine on the LNER” A “Matisa” (Scheuchzer) tamping
machine posed for pictures last week. As it takes fifteen seconds to tamp a
sleeper without opening the ballast, it saves a great deal of shovel work.
 |
| Robots are taking our jobs! |
“World Fuel Economy Conference” Will be happening at The Hague
starting 2 September and continuing through the 10th.
Metallurgical
Topics
“Grain Boundaries in Metals” Professor C. Zener, of the University of
Chicago, has established that the theory that the areas of grain boundaries in
metals act as amorphous materials, with viscosity related to temperature, holds
for at least zinc, some brass, some iron, and aluminum.
“The Notched-Bar Impact Test” The
Engineer reviews articles that argue for various kinds of competing notched
bar impact tests, including the Schnadt and the Charpy. One paper seems to
prove that keyhole notches are better than "v" notches. I’m not even going to
comment. What would be the point? I will look
these things up in an engineering dictionary when I get back to the Institute,
but I have enough on my plate with electrical engineering without getting into
metallurgical.
Leaders
“’Convertibility’ and Coal” The
Engineer’s publication schedule means that it, of all papers, is the one
that covers the end of convertibility on Wednesday. So dollars will no longer
drain out of England to cover other countries’ American imports. A month late,
but it was coming. That’s not the issue to The
Engineer, though. The Engineer wants
to remind us, once again, that miners are a bunch of slackers, and that if only
they would work harder, everything would be better, although everything would
be even better if everyone worked
harder. Perhaps not so hard that
journalists are suddenly asked to explain “Charpy” and “Schnadt,” but hard.
Obituary
Walter Pollock, a marine engineer, has died, and so has Roy Chadwick,
as we’ve heard.
“British Association, Number 1” The 109th Annual meeting of
the British Association took place in Dundee this week, the first since the
war. The theme of the President’s Address was “Science in Peace and War,” and
it was about how there was all of this scientific progress in the war, but also
we learned that scientific research has to be conducted in the most colossally
organised and well-funded way, or we will lose WWIII even more than everyone
else does. The Presidential Address to
the Engineering Section followed on Thursday Morning. Sir William Halcrow spoke
on “Progress in Modern Engineering,” and The
Engineer prints “the latter part of his address.” It covers civil engineering
and model work, especially in naval architecture, so I will leave it be.
“A Large Horizontal Boring and Milling Machine” A French design being
built by George Fischer, Ltd., Schaffhouse, Switzerland, it has many
interesting features, including complete control from a single electrical box,
although the actual working is by hydraulics, so that it is an electrohydraulic
design. Like many recent machine tools, a great deal of emphasis is placed on
accurate control across a wide range of working powers and controls, and I was
struck by the way that the spindle head can be used as a datum point to control
the cutting head, so that shapes on the head can be cut into the workpiece, I
suppose without fiddling with the control box. (If I understand what the article
is talking about.)
 |
| A modern horizontal boring machine, from Parksons |
Thomas’s “Air Cycle Heat Pump” article continues. I’ll admit that I
gave it short shift last week, and I’m going to continue to do so here. It
would be a lot easier to get my head around the discussion if Thomas would just
explain what was going on with thermodynamics. He’s certainly not afraid of
theory –aerodynamics shows up towards the end! If he doesn’t have any training in thermodynamics, he might
have picked some up before he wrote the article! After my complaining, I should
at least point out that this article is all about humidifying and drying the
air in the cycle.
Canadian
Engineering Notes
The National Research Council is looking at using radars at harbour
entrances, particularly at Halifax. They can be used to instruct incoming
vessels, which are often not yet equipped with radar. The pulp mill at Kenora,
Ontario, is being expanded, as is Malton Airport, 18 miles outside Toronto,
which will be reconstructed to be one of the most modern airports in North
America. Runways have already been
extended to 5000ft. A new hydroelectric plant is to be built on the Mississauga
River in the Algoma district, 50 miles east of Sault Ste. Marie. It will serve
the Inco works and the Falconbridge Mine at Sudbury. The CN is building a
signal repair shop at its Point St. Charles Works in Montreal. Previously, this
work had been done in the United States. It will have a modern machine shop, a
battery room, dark rom, relay room and stores room. The Manitoba Paper Company
is expanding its Pine Falls Mill, in Pine Falls, Manitoba. Canadian Industries,
Ltd. is building a million-dollar sulphuric acid plant in Hamilton, Ontario.
“A Knurling tool” H. W. Marley and Co., of London, has developed a
special tool that alleviates the strain on the lathe cross feed screw during
knurling.
“Electronic Motor Control” Philips Lamps, Ltd. Century House,
Shaftesbury, has developed an electronic control unit for variable speed
electrical motors. It consists of a grid-controlled dc current output from a
hot cathode mercury rectifier, which supplies the armature and field control of
the shunt motor. Thus, varying the current across the grid at the control unit
allows the speed of the motor to be controlled irrespective of load. I’m sort
of quoting the article here instead of putting it in my own words, so let’s
see. The current across the armature runs the motor; it the motor is, for
example, running a saw that hits a knot, it will start to slow the motor down;
that will cause a back voltage in the armature that will increase the voltage
drop in the grid, leading to more electrons boiling off the gun, bringing the
motor back up to speed. The control unit also allows for rapid reversal, which is
usually a problem in electrical control units, but doesn’t explain how; basically,
just says that there’s a button, and you punch it.
Industrial and
Labour Notes
Lord Morrison resumed his weekly press conferences on Britain’s
economic situation this week. He points out that the coal mines are actually
only a week behind, and still have time to catch up. He did scold the miners
for not keeping up their end by cutting absenteeism. He says that coal
stockpiles continue to rise faster than targets, but electricity generating
stations are behind, with only 3 weeks stockpiled compared with five weeks this
time last year. This is because the Government’s ambitious 14-million-ton steel
target depends on having enough coking coal on hand, and so I guess that’s
where the coal is going. There are
various bits about the TUC working out the details for bargaining in several
industries. British exports were at £110 million in July, an increase of £17
million over June, and the highest total recorded since November 1920.
Unfortunately, imports were at £179 million, up £25 million over June and an all-time
record. Export volumes are estimated to be 25% up over June of 1938.
French Engineering
News
Automobile production is down, but the first locomotive built in
French shops since liberation has just left the Franco-Belge workshops in Raismes. A modernisation of the Audincourt Forges has been authorised [pdf]. It will
cost 200 million francs, and require mechanised rolling mills from the United
States. The Monnet Plan calls for extensive improvements of the French canals in
the north. Cement plants are idle for lack of fuel. Natural gas consumption is
rising constantly in the mining regions.
Notes and Memoranda
The Cheptow Bridge is getting new spans, while the tracks in the Severn Tunnel are being relaid.
The GWR is building twenty-five special cement trucks to carry cement directly from the plant to worksites under cover and dumped by cranes. Argentina’s first jet fighter, powered by a Rolls-Royce Derwent, has made its first flight. Iron production is up again.
The GWR is building twenty-five special cement trucks to carry cement directly from the plant to worksites under cover and dumped by cranes. Argentina’s first jet fighter, powered by a Rolls-Royce Derwent, has made its first flight. Iron production is up again.
Eighteen years from now.
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