Postblogging Technology, May 1951, I: Yankee Air Pirate

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada.




Dear Dad:

I am going to take a minute away from the Chase Mission's advance party, which is currently trying to find accommodation for a now 600-strong MAG group around Taipei. On the one hand, I am jealous that they won't be stuck out in the sticks like me. On the other, Ronnie is always reminding me to mind my tongue around my future colleagues, and this way I won't have to. As much, anyway. The General seems to think that I'm some kind of master fixer because I speak Chinese, and is reportedly less than pleased about my paternity leave next month. 

Well, tough. I'm not even in his chain of command right now. I guess I will be as soon as the Navy sorts out its "Yankee air pirates" to suit the new, post-Congressional authorisation age, but it is all very sensitive as hopefully we can be folded in without anyone ever acknowledging that we were already here. 

In the mean time, here's a letter, with something for Mom under the cover and some postcards for you to show at the Arbutus Club now that I am officially in-country. One more of these from Taipei, and then I will be writing you from Macao.  

Your Loving Son,
Reggie

Time, 5 May 1951

Letters

Time starts out with the reaction to the MacArthur issue, and just about divides the letter column between those who don't like MacArthur, those who hate him, and those I can't make head or tail of. Seems there's a lot of "anti-" going on, because then it moves on to the Truman cover, and everyone hates him, too! Including someone named (Rev) Murray Smoot, which I would make fun of if it weren't stepping on my honey's toes. That's her joke! Except J. A. Reid, who likes him so much that he telegraphs in from Denver. People are also anti-Marshall. Never thought I'd see the day. Secretary Marshall said that Americans are getting complacent about the World Crisis, and people aren't having it for a second! Mildred Miller of California has no idea what the crisis is, and the (Rev) Alwin E. Gall --do they pick them for the  names, down bible college way?-- thinks that Washington is too corrupt to hold a Crisis. H. W. Claybaugh, down Texas way, twits Time about saying that the centre of an atom bomb is "hotter than a million degrees?" How much hotter, he asks? Our Editor answers that the original A-bomb was ten million degrees, the new ones are probably hotter, but none of them are as hot as the national debt, clocking in at $255 billion. Too funny! Caroll Mackey of Milford, Connecticut, complains that, while everyone is talking about private colleges and universities failing, no-one is talking about the real victims here, graduate students like her husband, who won't be able to get a job. Upton Sinclair is upset that radio announcers don't pronounce final "rs," while Time is in trouble for misspelling the name of Kinston, North Carolina. Correspondents are divided as to whether the death sentence handed down on the Rosenbergs was too harsh, on the one hand; or whether they should be slowly tortured to death, on the other. On the tenth anniversary of Time's Latin American edition, Our Publisher sends the Marines by to depose your regular epitomiser and replace her with a military strongman. (That's me!) 

National Affairs

"Clear and Present Danger" Time is super-duper upset that the draft call up has been cut by 40,000 men a month, that aircraft factories are still working 40 hour weeks, that aircraft production still won't have reached 15,000/month by the end of the year, even more than it already won't, and that Charlie Wilson is saying that the Russians will be "dead ducks" if they attack after 1953, because that's just an invitation for them to attack before then. In conclusion, everyone who supported smaller defence budgets two years ago is a very bad person, and that person was President Truman and also everyone in the Cabinet. If you remember differently, that's great. It's not Time's job to report on the actual state of play that long ago. 

In Korean news, US casualties for last week were 669, which does not include the casualties of the current Chinese offensive. Then Time checks in with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Senator Fullbright thinks that given that the US government and all of the other governments of the free world think that MacArthur is wrong, that MacArthur probably is wrong. Senator Burnett Rhett Maybank of South Carolina is more prickly, as you would be if you had had to go to the playground at recess with a name like that, and says that MacArthur is right, only he is wrong. Paul Douglas (sound of Time swooning) proves that he is an "independent Democrat" by disapproving of bombing China, but being eager to blockade and commando raid it. Senator Taft is tired of all these efforts to drag American politics off the scent of the real enemy, Dean Acheson, who is behind this mess somehow, somewhere, and he is the man to find out how, even if it involves starting a war with Russia by invading and bombing China. But not blockading it, which would be a step too far; also, he wants cut mobilisation by 500,000 men and cut the mobilisation budget by $20 billion, as he figures that the whole thing is demoralising and inflationary. The one thing everyone can agree on, Time says, and by which it means what they're allowed to think, according to Time, is that America wants the Administration to go all in for the Koumintang. That one general says so, and other generals figure that Koumintang troops would do all right, given American leadership, American training, and lots and lots of American guns. Dean Acheson says, no, that isn't happening, but on the other hand the mission is going to be increased from 116 to 600. 

"Men in Underwear" Senator Lodge popped in to the Senate to let his fellow Senators know that "the presumption of American air superiority in the great power struggle with Russia . . . is more myth than reality." By this he means that America doesn't have enough tactical air power, unlike the Russians, who have a "tactical air force" of "16,000 to 20,000 planes." I guess I don't have to point out to you that that's a 3 million man air force just in the squadrons, right there, give or take, but I'll say it for the benefit of any other readers. He compares that with "just nine fighter bomber wings," about 675 planes, available to support US troops overseas. The 95 group air force will have  18 tactical wings, enough for one for every American division, but, equipped with modern planes, at least, is 18 months away or more. As he wants America and our allies to have 18000 tactical planes in Europe, he thinks America needs a 150 wing air force. When asked if America could afford it, the Senator said that "it has to."

Question for the Senator: If the Reds actually have 18,000 planes, that means that they can afford it. Does that make socialism a superior economic system to capitalism?  

Then, since we haven't heard from the Great Men in several pages, it is off to check in with General MacArthur and the President. General MacArthur is still on tour, although as Time points out, he couldn't sell out Soldier Field, where he helpfully reminded the audience that losses in Korea, as a proportion of men committed, are "staggering. That's a sobering thought. I wonder who takes the blame here? His appearance at the New York Loyalty Day Parade was nearly derailed when the General wanted Cardinal Spellman to ride along in his car, which obviously wasn't on because the Cardinal is said to be some kind of Catholic. The Cardinal volunteered to walk with all the other clergymen, and everything went off smoothly except that his son would obviously rather be doing anything else. The President meanwhile had a press conference to take digs at the General and allow that he and the Administration were going to ride this thing out. (The President is not having the same luck with stonewalling Senate investigations of "5%" men around the Administration and the RFC, which, Marriner Eccles thinks, has outlived its usefulness considering the amount of private credit out there, looking for a home. Though Senator Fullbright disagrees, pointing out that businesses in states like his, still can't get bank loans, and so need the RFC.)
 

"Rooting Them Out" Another thing the President did this week was toughen up the loyalty requirements for government employment, which brings us to the ongoing "work" of "clearing homosexuals out of [the State Department's] woodwork." Foggy Bottom is pleased to report that it has fired 146 men homosexuals and 2 of the women kind since 1947, and is currently investigating 15 more. Then it is off to the anti-inflation fight, where Eric Johnston blew through the pay ceiling h ole to keep the railroads happy, the President rolled back prices on the technical side of farm price parity, and Mike Di Salle started a fight with producers over beef prices. Over in the House, Goober Cox and his buddies have been so successful in bottling the relief bill for India up in Committee, that the church lobbies have rounded on his committee and given it a salvo, which seems to have inclined it to "a vote of confidence in Acheson," as Goober puts it, or, in other words, some wheat for the starving, only 2 and a half months since the President asked. 

"Death in Mid-Air" A B-36 crash in Oklahoma due to a mid-air collision with an F-51 is the fourth fatal B-36 crash since the aircraft went into service three years ago. One survivor of the crash, Sergeant Dick Thrasher, is a survivor of the B.C. crash at Princess Royal Island last year. Harlan County of Kentucky almost didn't have a murder on its monthly court docket this May, but then there were two murders in the same family right after another and everything is back to normal, except the country's consumption of chewing tobacco keeps falling and the CPUSA is in trouble for being too much in favour of peace, because that's a Moscow thing. The FBI wants all those pinko fellow travellers to know that it's got their number and will pick up 14,000 of them at the first hint of a national emergency. 

War in Asia

"The Strange War" Here comes the third Communist offensive! Time is very upset that the only UN plan in this "strange war" is to kill Communists when they attack and only maybe attack themselves a little bit. Where's the plan to win the war? At least Time notices that the Chinese offensive caught UN forces overextended again and that the UN stopped the Communist offensive north of Seoul, which means we won't have to attack very far to regain the 38th parallel.  Time then checks in with the "Glorious Glosters," the new commander of 1st Marine Division and the latest atrocity in Korea, the summary execution of 187 "alleged Communist collaborators" at Shin-won last month. President Rhee fired his Ministers of Defence, Justice and Home Affairs, so justice has been done.  

International 

Talking about talking about a Big Four meeting continues in Paris, but it is important to remember that it is all the Reds' fault because Andrei Gromyko is a boor. Indian peace activists are strange people is the lead story going into the cover article about Nehru, who is a "moralist" and a "socialist" and a "fence-sitter" and a "well-meaning intellectual" who is a "half-Western Oriental Socialist." Have I mentioned the socialism? He reminds Time of Stanley Clifford Weyman, who is a con man and sometimes journalist in New York that Time knows. You don't, and you didn't know you didn't know him and you still don't care. The important thing is that he's a jerk. Time says so. 

Foreign News

"Expropriation" Iran has expropriated the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's holdings in Iran. Time blames the Communists and predicts Communist rain with a chance of Communism. Also, Hungarian communism is terrible, Richard Rapier Stockes, Hartley Shawcross, FRank Soskice and Alfred Robens have replaced recent losses in the Atlee cabinet, which is "Tottering." Winston Churchill and "the rain queen of the Lovedu tribe of Transvaal" are not tottering. The French aircraft industry, which has spent $250 million without much to show for it, according to the Finance Committee of the French Senate, is. Tito, the Communist who is a capitalist, is not. The Red Terror continues in Canton. In Australia, the Menzies government has suffered a reduction in its majority and a stalemate in the Senate in the recent election, which counts as a Conservative victory(?), whereas the 80% majority won by the Japanese Liberal Democrats counts as a victory(!) A train accident in Tokyo kills 103 commuters, including 3 American soldiers. On this continent, a Guatemalan strike was clearly Communist troublemaking because it wasn't about wages or hours and inconvenienced rail travellers, the 150,000 "major ship" just passed through the Panama Canal, Argentina is still awful, and Lester B. Pearson is Canada's Dean Acheson, says one MP from Newfoundland who should know. 

Business

Fourteen companies, up from nine a decade ago, had annual sales of over $1 billion last year. Stock prices are going up, Sinclair Oil gets a profile, as does J. C. Penney and a branch of the rags trade, specifically, feather merchants(!) GM is to unveil a new engine with a 12-1 compression ratio that runs on 96 octane, well within reach of a refinery producing 90 octane with just a bit of added lead. (They say that lead is bad for the brain, but I'm around high-octane engines every day, and my think-thing is real good!) The ECA is improving the insurance it offers business to encourage more American investment abroad, Eoina Nudelman, inventor of the "Hungry Piggy," has had her patent infringement victory against various competitors reversed by the Supreme Court, which spared some time in its judgement to give the Patent Office a blast for allowing these patents in the first place. There's a bit of a stink in the Gulf of Mexico, where a collision between the Esso tankers Greensboro and Suez, which killed 38 of Greensboro's crew, led to the ship being left adrift and aflame while two other Esso tankers searched for survivors. In swept "rival tanker Virginia," whose crew boarded the derelict Greensboro, put out the fire, and brought it into Galveston as a prize, 100,000 barrels of oil still intact. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Lights for Landing" Time does us all a huge favour by explaining the ALPA approach light scheme in English so we can understand what the argument is about and why the ALPA is dragging it out. It is a system by airline pilots for airline pilots. The big thing that distinguishes the ALPA system is the "rabbit" of flashing white lights that are supposed to lead the pilot's attention down the runway and help him make out where it is when you pop below the ceiling at whatever heading and even pitch you're at. Time doesn't do a very good job of explaining what the rabbit is, and what it is for, but this is so much clearer than Aviation Week on the subject, that I give it a pass. Remembering the old Tunnel-of-Bunsen-Burners days, I guess I'm  just easy to please! (Don't tell Ronnie!)  

"Diggers" Time checks in with an archaeological dig at Ghar Hotu, northern Iran, where Carleton Coon is currently being an archaeologist instead of a physical anthropologist because those guys were a bunch of crazy Nazis, I guess. Though apples and trees, it turns out, because after digging through boring old Iron Age and Bronze Age and Neolithic levels, Coon finds some cavemen who were buried 75,000 years ago, and it turns out they have "reduced brain capacity" and "low-placed eyes, long teeth and perfectly human chins." Coon figures he has proof that modern man used to coexist with "more primitive forms elsewhere" and that modern man might turn out to be older than Neanderthal, and not descended from them, as is the theory. Unfortunately, the Communists will probably take over the "heartland of archaeology" next year and Coon won't be able to visit the fabled giant stone idol hidden in another cave higher up in the range. 

Because that's what Communists do, that's why. 

Also in archaeology news, Professor James B. Pritchard of the Crozer Theological Seminary of Chester, Pennsylvania has dug up the winter palace of Herod the Great, near Jericho. 

Chemical Milestone" Cortisonal treatment for illness isn't going to be possible until we have a way of synthesising artificial cortisone instead of extracting it from dozens of head of cattle, so good news from Harvard, where Robert Woodward has turned 22lbs of orthotoluidine, an oily extract of coal tar, into 1/28 oz of steroid. That's probably confusing so I should probably back up and say that all steroids are centred on a core structure consisting of three six-carbon-five carbon rings and a five-carbon in "proper spacial arrangement." Which steroid you have is then determined by little tags of chemicals hanging off the core's attachment points. Which "active groups" are where, determines whether you have testosterone, androsterone, progesterone, cortisone, and so on. Making the core molecule is an achievement, and the next step is to attach the right active groups.

"18 Months of Betatron" The University of Illinoi's 26-million volt betatron has been operating at the College of Medicine for, well, 18 months now. What has it been up to? Shooting beta radiation at advanced cancers. Is it working? It seems to be. Radiation therapy can't be said to cure cancer, but it has checked the progress of some deadly and incurable tumors to the point that some patients are even going back to work. Then Time checks in with some teenage dope addicts, specifically one who recently founded Narcotics Anonymous on the same model as the AA. Also, being 41, he isn't exactly a teenaged dope fiend. But he was 25 years ago! 

"Uncommon Case" Dr. Clifford Frederick Bramer of Pueblo, Colorado, reports a case of a baby hernia. That is, a pregnancy that had slipped through the abdominal wall, pushing through a gall bladder incision operation. The patient, Irene Hawley, let the external pregnancy go to term before seeking medical help, which proved less than necessary, as the uterus (with baby inside) passed back through the abdominal wall, and a more-or-less normal delivery followed. That's a bit disturbing. 

"Rattle in the Throat" Eugene W. Fields of the Omaha fire department has been riding rescue trucks for twelve years, and has always been bothered by choking victims his men couldn't save because they couldn't find the obstruction in the throat, so he has splurged to equip his trucks with laryngoscopes, which they finally used on a baby this week. (Who was choking on a rattle ball.)

The Ford Foundation has announced a new set of scholarships and the fight to fire a bunch of faculty at Rollins College in Florida to balance the budget, has turned into a fight to fire the President who put the plan together, mainly because he ignored seniority. Catching us up with these sorts of things, Time moves on to Pasadena, where embattled school superintendent Willard Goslin is resigning. This one is about politics rather than money. As you'd guess considering it is Pasadena, a bunch of locals got it in their head that he was too progressive, and it's all a bit disgusting. On the other hand, Charles Taft, brother of the Senator and onetime President of the Federal Council of Churches, told the Warren (Ohio) Commission for the Public Schools that America needs religious instruction in the schools, for the usual reasons. 

Art, Press, Radio and Television, People

Lewis Mumford decided to complain about modern art this week, so he gets the lead in Art, because he is Lewis Mumford. Picasso and people like him are all about producing "dehumanised nightmares." Which is bad. On the other hand again, Italian sculpture is having a pleasant post-Fascist revival, because there are no shrill, hectoring busybodies poking their noses in to the studios of Pericle Fazzini, Giacomo Manzu and Marino Marini and bleating about moral instruction and maimed fantasies.

"The Light That Failed" Time is deeply upset with The Washington Post because its editor, Herbert Elliston, likes Dean Acheson and doesn't like Chiang Kai-Shek. How does such a generally "shrewd" newspaper get things so wrong? it really is a mystery.  But now Elliston is coming around to not liking Acheson due to the Administration's recent cozying up to the Koumintang, and Time can't contain its glee. Walter Winchell is fighting with King Features, the AP man in Praque has been arrested by Czech authorities and is likely to be put on a show trial, and AP's new teletypesetting systems will allow AP subscribing small-town papers to run AP stories direct off the wire, at the expense of giving up internal style guides and formatting, so that columns will fit AP copy.

A University of Cincinnati survey of high school teachers shows that they are widely in favour of using TV for educational purposes. ABC's Time for Defence is good war coverage thanks to the use of tape-recorders, "radio's most versatile, dramatic new device." Nice to hear that one of our investments is doing well! Now if only we could get back the money that Great Grandfather and Uncle George have sunk into Bill and Dave! Du Mont is trying out the same thing with Ed Thorgersen and the News, while ABC has Marines Pass in Review and is also trying out Concert of Europe, a show on the theme of "You should go to Europe on your next vacation!"

Margaret Truman, James Stewart, Sir Claude Auchinleck, Katherine Cornell, Bob Hope, Marilyn Maxwell, Gayelord Hauser, Greta Garbo, L. Ron Hubbard, Charles E. Wilson, a passel of British and Swedish royals, royals, Earl Carroll, and Amon Giles Carter are in the pages with no news  except that the Field-Marshal is opening a rug factory in Karachi, which is a weird thing for a former Field-Marshal. 

Stanley King, John Alden  Carpenter, General Alphonse Georges, Charles Keck, Hamilton Holt, Aladore Herman Woods and Charles Gates Dawes have died.

The New Pictures

After the excitement of Rita Hayward's divorce from the Aly Khan, and the new HUAC Hollywood hearings, On the Riviera  is a good follow-up, with dance, laughs, and Danny Kaye. Valentino is "fun --in the sense that watching the jerky charades of early movies is fun." Which I think translates as "it's a disaster." I Was A Communist for the FBI is an attempt to make anti-Communist propaganda that is so crude that even Time can't find it in itself to approve. 

Books

 James Stern's The Man Who Was Loved is a short story collection that Time liked. George Santayana, who is a famous philosopher and not at all a Fascist, all appearances to the contrary, has Dominations and Powers out, which finally explains why he used to seem to be a Fascist. He was only a reactionary Catholic! What a relief! The review takes an awful long time to get to the point, which takes a lot of space away from volumes I and II of The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, which were edited and published by Elting E. Morison, who, I am guessing, is related to Samuel Morrison (boo!). Just the thing for someone who wants to read Roosevelt's private correspondence. Liam O'Flaherty's Insurrection is a novel set in the Irish troubles and is good, not bad.  

Aviation Week, 7 May 1951

News Digest reports that a Cuban airline DC-4 has been lost at Miami with 39 aboard after being hit by a twin-engined Navy Beechcraft just after takeoff. A UAL DC-3 has crashed near Ft. Wayne, Indiana, during a heavy electrical storm, killing all 8 passengers, 3 crew. Northwest made a big profit this year. Neville Duke is the new chief test pilot at Hawker, replacing Trevor Wade, killed in the crash of the P. 1081. 

Sidelights reports that people are resigning or retiring all over the place. Air Force generals, Administration officials, it's all too much.

Kathleen Johnson's Washington Roundup reports that Congress is all in for the 95 group air force, but the Air Force now thinks that a mere 95 groups isn't near enough. The Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committee joint session is just one voice in Washington for making the Air Force the "major arm" of American arms, instead of being behind the army in total budget atArmy, $20,8 billion, Air Force, $19.8, Navy $12.4 next year. Hey, we have an air force! Two of them!  That still leaves room for Henry Cabot Lodge to argue for a tactical air force ot defend Europe, while isolationist Senators back big bombers and strategic air power. Meanwhile the Navy reminds us that it is spending less on PR than the Air Force and Army these days. 

Industry Observer is just the diary of Aviation Week's correspondent at the American Helicopter Society forum and flight show in Washington, where we learn that Sikorsky's new anti-submarine helicopter will have the same lift as a DC-3 and be the closest Sikorsky installation yet to a tandem, that the small helicopter business are unhappy that the Army is giving all the contracts to the four companies with a track record of actually making helicopters, that Bell thinks that ultrathin, supersonic blades for helicopter rotors are dumb, that the Marines are thinking about reversing their decision of last year to go all-helicopters for liaison duties, that the Piasecki HUP-1 is losing its stabilising fins because it doesn't need them, especially when the autopilot is engaged, that the Piasecki XH-16 will be colossal, even though Sikorsky is the only firm to deliver big helicopters so far, that one reason the Marines are going back to fixed-wing liaison, at least for now, is that the Corps can't get helicopter flying up to the same level as fixed-wing, what with one thing and another. Since this isn't nearly enough AHS coverage, there is a story, below. 

Katherine Johnson reports for Aviation Week that "Revolt on USAF Budget Looms in Senate." The budget is too low for 95 groups, but now we're driving for 175(!) The rest of it we've heard from Time, but basically the Senate wants to make the world safe for democracy by drowning it in air forces appropriations money. Meanwhile the service is bracing itself for an "austerity" budget, meaning that it isn't getting everything it wanted. The new Research and Development organisation continues to take shape, and the USAF is activating 19 National Guard units.

George L. Christian reports that "ATA Group Finds Equipment Improving" The Air Transport Association engineering and maintenance conference is excited about ignition systems and spark plugs and the 6AK5 vacuum tube and improvements in hydraulic and vacuum systems. Baggage unloading is still a problem.  

Air ROTC training legislation is likely, Congress is still studying site locations for the Air Force Academy, the A-1 electronic computing gunsight has had its first combat use, the Air Force is set to announce the winner of the air freight competition for a plane that can carry 25,000lbs San Francisco-Hawai with a takeoff of 3000ft, 250kn minimum cruising speed and 13,000lbs single-axle loading. The National Air Races are set for Detroit. 

"Bristol Finishing Prototype 173 Copter"

 A twin-rotor, 10--14 passenger helicopter, the 173 is the latest fruit of the British ten-year helicopter development programme. It is powered by two Alvis Leonides, but can fly on one if the other fails. It can fly with 2500lbs cargo, and lift more in the flying crane role. Gross weight is 10,600lbs, up to 13,500 close to the ground, cruising speed is 105mph, maximum 142, ceiling 19,600ft. Rotors are driven off front and rear engines, interoperability being ensured by a drive shaft that connects the engines rather than the rotors. The rotors are composite with a compressed-wood leading edge, spruce ribs and a plywood cover, but an all-metal rotor is being developed. Control is by collective pitch.

"Engineer Supply Low, Going Lower" As Ronnie keeps reminding me, engineers are scarce and command a premium. "Almost every member of this graduating group has had from three to six job offers at starting salaries up to $400/month." And this year's enrollment is down 18%, so 1955 will be even worse. (Or better, from our perspective.) I keep telling her that it's a wave, so in fifteen years Navy Commanders with engineering degrees and connections will also be scarce, but I think she wants me to strike now. Well, tough, because we're getting her through law school first! I've got my degree, and it just makes sense to get through law school in a decade when Stanford is desperate for students. Not that I worry about Ronnie's grades, but she'll have the little one, and that's a big distraction! Remember two years ago when the BLS predicted that engineers would be a drug on the market by now? Another concern is that the students with lower standings are getting drafted -- no more civils!-- and those that do graduate will all be reserve officers and tainted by their service obligation, as far as industry is concerned. I don't really buy that, but that's what Aviation Week is saying. 

"Olympus: Wright's Ace-in-the-Hole" Bristol's big new Olympus jet engine, potentially a multiple-compressor engine, has been licensed by Wright and might just be a fast way into big jets for Wright, following on the Sapphire, which has many potential applications, being quite attractive by virtue of power and low fuel consumption. 

Avionics is obviously out to bore Ronnie to death this time round, missing the target but still delivering a double-trouble treat with "NBS Develops Tiny Range Receiver" it's an article about a National Bureau of Standards device in the Avionics pages!  It's a 12-tube low frequency receiver that[s about a fifth the size of a WWII aircraft radio. I don't know how cracked you have to be to want to put a miniaturised twelve-tube job in an airplane, even a modern one, but as engineering goes, it sounds like it beats all heck. 

"Stretch Brake Cuts Forming Cost 90%" Northrop is using its brand new hydraulic press to form leading edge skins. The article goes into a bit of detail about what specification of alloy is used, and the tools you need to keep from tearing the skin as it stretches, but it saves $4/manhour, and Northrop has licensed Pacific Industrial Manufacturing of Oakland to market the attachment. Boeing has named Arthur G. Carlsen as the project engineer for the B-52. 

Equipment has "New Lift Given Connie Speedpaks" Those are those external cargo carrying pods that conform to the fuselage of the Constellation. With the recent approved increase in all up weight, the packs are more necessary than ever. I know you could easily read the title as suggesting that the packs have been redesigned to be lower-drag, but that would be dumb, right? Pratt and Whitney wants you to know that airline turbosuperchargers are going longer between maintenance sessions, and the Carborundum Company is excited about its new abrasive wheel. AMC's new safety harness for airborne troops is the best ever, and Pachmayr Gun Works has a quick reverse aircraft motor with a 400Hz magnetic brake, allowing the motor to be stopped in 25 turns from its full rotation speed of 11,200rpm, running at 115v. Not surprisingly, we're told the maximum operating temperature is 250 degrees, so it might only actually be able to do that in the stratosphere and the Arctic! 

New Aviation Products has a big new miller from Farnham Utility Mill, a cheap 12-crystal VHF for economy-minded fixed base operators from National Aeronautical Corporation (11 tubes, standard microphone output jack and loudspeaker). Prestole Corporation has a sheet metal locknut. 

Aviation Week checks in with the growing pains of air taxi and the state of Oregon's agricultural spraying contracts. The President of Philippine Air Lines has resigned, alleging that the board is interfering with operations. The inquiry into the Regina Cargo Airlines C-46 crash at Teterboro, NJ on 27 May 1950 re-0rts taht the plane was grossly overloaded, had flown 5000 hours over specified maintenance period, that the engines, ignition and propellers were inadequately maintained, and the cause of the crash that killed both crew was that the plane couldn't fly. BEA is starting its helicopter service. Again. The Northwest 2-0-2 crash at Almolund, Minnesota was probably due to unwanted prop reversal in flight. Cause is unknown, but electrical faults and pilot error are both possibilities. 

Selig Altschul and Air France make war in the letters column about who is subsidised by whom and how much. 
What's New is looking forward to its weekend reading, Frederick Teichmann, Airplane Design Manual (third edition) and Technical Report A-9C-4, "Current Aircraft Engine and Ignition Systems."

At the Editorial desk, Robert Wood makes war on the railroads in the name of the "bargain airlines,"  lately slandered by Cornet Magazine, which Wood also takes aim at. Then, to show that he is even-handed, he takes on the airlines for the late decline in customer service. 

Time, 14 May 1951

Letters

No-one has said anything mean about the President or the Administration yet this issue, and we're already the cover (General Van Fleet) and a couple ads in, so it's about time for Raymond Grant to do that thing where on the one hand the Administration is sending troops to Europe because that won't provoke the Russians, and on the other it won't bomb the airfields in Manchuria, because it will; and that's a contradiction and the Administration is dumb. Well, no, and Time should be embarrassed for leading with that, but it isn't because then Mrs. Millard Barton of Texas says that "niffle" is the perfect word for the President and she likes it because she can say it and be ladylike. It turns out that the source for the claim that MacArthur was the sole vote to acquit at General Mitchell's court martial was, wh at a surprise, MacArthur. Faith Baldwin wants Time to know that bad review didn't  hurt her feelings. James T. McNally of Pasadena thinks that there would be world peace if only French and Germans were required to intermarry. Hodding Carter is very happy about how much white folk in his neighbourhood tolerate other white folk. Several correspondents with historical minds remind us of other Presidents who disagreed with other generals. a college in Parkville reminds us that the Reverend Paik was a foreign student there, and it is miffed it wasn't mentioned. Edward Ryan, of North American Aviation's public relations department, tears Time a new one for suggesting that the US should freeze designs to maximise production. Time does the only honest thing and rewrites the past so it didn't say that. All the people who read Time's Business section love it and think all the great articles about great business are great, except L. W. Keller of Kroehler Manufacturing, Naperville, Illinois, who reminds us that while it is nice that two of its competitors have merged, notwithstanding the story, Kroehler is still the biggest furniture maker in the world. I didn't know that! Our Publisher just met with a whole bunch of journalists from the South and more from New York and they talked about stuff and he learned stuff. For example, he learned that Southern journalists think that lynching is bad, but . . . Also, farm incomes are rising. That sure is a lot of news for just one page. (I'm being sarcastic!)

The MacArthur Hearing

i) Oh God; ii) Blah. Blah blah blah. iii) PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! The Defence Department reported another 1055 US casualties in Korea this week, with returns still not current to the start of the new offensive. General MacArthur's closed hearings lasted a full three days in front of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. I don't like Dugout Doug, but I am pretty impressed by his reported focus on casualties. In particular, he doesn't just talk about 65,000 US casualties, but also Korean and Communist, probably amounting to a million in total.  Where he goes wrong is in thinking that UN and even Red casualties will continue at the same, horrifying rate. The Ridgeway/Van Fleet strategy is to hold the line the UN wants as the postwar border. Unless that line falls (and it seems it hasn't), casualties will be determined by how hard the Chinese can attack, and the world can relax and leave that in the hands of us flyboys. Unless we see a lot more MiG-15s, the Chinese are just not going to be able to pile up enough supplies for a substantial attack as far south as the 38th Parallel. General MacArthur doesn't think that the Russians will intervene in Korea because they can't send more troops to the Far East over the Trans-Siberian Railway. Will they start WWIII instead? It's not General MacArthur's job to say. How would he defend America in WWIII? Not his job to say. Is Russia behind the Korean War? Not his job to say. On the other hand, the President is pretty sure that we can win the Cold War if we  just hold on. 

National Affairs

Congress has confirmed the 90% cut in the Voice of America appropriation because it doesn't think the money isn't being spent well. You know who does get the money? The Marines, who are going to be doubled to 400,000 men (four divisions with supporting air wings) and a place on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Indian food aid has been put on hold again because Congress is upset at Nehru's uppity mouth. Congressman Walter Brehn might still get sent to jail for extorting campaign donations from his office staff. Time is going absolutely over the Moon over the way that Communists are insouciantly defending the (late) Willie McGee, going to show that the only thing worse than a legal lynching is Communist lawyers going to court to defend the victim of a legal lynching. The Kefauver Committee thinks that New York is a corrupt, crime-ridden hellhole and that it is mainly Mayor O'Dwyer's fault. It turns out that Philadelphia police railroaded an innocent man that one time.  The Ritz-Carlton is going to be knocked down, a so they auctioned off all the furnishings, and the whole thing was so swell Time has to tell you all about it. 

International

Time wants unspecified but vigorous action to resolve the Iran "mess" before the Russians invade and the Arabs get ideas. Time is confident that the State Department has no plan or means to do anything about it, because the State Department is weak like a girl. Time hopes that the British will do something about it, hopefully involving severely punishing Communists for being Communists. The UN has sternly condemned Red China for being the aggressor in the Korean War. General Ridgway has sent some captured documents that Time thinks are "additional proof" that North Korea planned the Korean War. Radio Free Europe has a new station, and the US just landed some troops in Iceland to build a new air base there.

War in Asia

The Chinese offensive is over. Time is awfully eager to get Eighth Army attacking again. Eighth Army says it has no plans for anything more than raids like a recent attack by a tank battalion of 45 Pattons into  Uijoonghui, which is just, as we say in the service, "stir it up." Okay, that's not exactly what we say. The stirring, it turns out, mainly involved us as three Pattons got stuck in the mud, and one hit a mine, leading to the loss of two tanks, although on the other hand the Chinese couldn't bring up antitank weapons powerful enough to kill the Pattons in spite of controlling the high ground around the target all afternoon. General Van Fleet's cover story, follows.

"The Navy in the Hills" Navy Skyraiders from Princeton used some torpedoes to blow a breach through the floodgates of the Hwachon Dam to improve the UN lines. Everyone thinks it's just the coolest thing. (Except maybe the people downstream? It's pretty bad that the only person who seems to care about them is General MacArthur!) Korea has a nice Children's Day, except for the part where Seoul is jam packed with orphans. 

International

"Joyful for a Season" The Festival of Britain is the coming thing, complete with a three-dimensional television/film cinema with stereophonic sound. Just great, Time mutters, obviously dying to be asked why it isn't more excited about it. (Labour. The answer is "Labour.")  

"What Price Bevan?" The Atlee government didn't fall over the vote to introduce a fee for eyeglasses and dentures. Drat! It looks as though the "Glorious Glosters" are going to be a real thing in Britain, what with one independent Labour MP demanding to know why Britain is trading with Red China considering, and Shinwell and Atlee bobbling the question. France is having elections soon, albania, whic his Communist, isn't, Japan had an election and is now getting a constitution. Time is very excited to see Japanese police beating up "anti-U.S. union bullyboys." A "famous" Irish writer is very upset about "autoantiamericanism," so that's definitely worth a full page article, not like some Saudi Arabian prince building a palace, King Farouk getting married and introducing social security (in that order) and a fight between Israel and Syria over their "disputed border." (Israel moved out onto the marshy bottom of nearly dry Lake Hulu and kicked out 800 Arabs to make way for a future 40,000 Israelis. Syria finds this to be outrageous for some reason that Time can't be bothered to really explain. Now they're having a border war. 

"Which Half of Buddha?" Time tries to explain how Tibet is run. It is a happy dual monarchy under the Panchen Lama ("the Buddha's spiritual reincarnation") and the Dalai Lama ('the temporal reincarnation.") But considering that the Panchen Lama was expelled to China in 1934, it isn't, really. Time would really, really like to back the Panchen Lama, but unfortunately he's gone Communist, so, you know how it is. Now, a bright light on the horizon, as it looks like the Dalai Lama is cozying up to Communism, too. Which reincarnate doe the Communists love more? Still the Panchen. Sigh. In South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Church has denounced Santa Claus for some reason.

Business

Blah blah mobilisation blah. Too much steel, too little steel, too much steel control, all three at once? Who knows? The important things are that Eric Johnston is an idiot, which we always knew, but which it is now important that everyone learn and that the Administration has No Plan. 

"Waterlogged" This year's Lloyd's Register has United States merchant shipbuilding at seventh place (270,284t), just ahead of Germany. Britain is at first place, with 2,072,723 tons under construction, ahead of leadrs France, Japan, Italy, Sweden and Holland. 

"The Brother Act Retires" The three Warner brothers are selling out their shares of Warner Brothers for $25 million, which should be enough for a comfortable retirement if they're not extravagant. Time then looks in at what the syndicate that bought them out is planning to do, and back at 48(!) years of Warner moviemaking. 

"The Hell With It" The Office of Price Stabilisation wants hardware stores to start keeping records of their inventory, so one hardware store owner in Lynden, Washington, decided to retire. It's probably a national trend, Time figures. Well, except for no other hardware store owners retiring. But they probably want to, and that's the important thing, besides the OPS being mean. Way down at the bottom of the article Time points out that the OPS is probably going to exempt hardware stores from the inventory reporting requirements, but then it's off to the Peewee Decision, in which the Supreme Court finds taht the government can't just raise wages at companies it takes over unless the feds, and not the owners, are responsible. 

"Canned Fresh Milk" Unlike last month's miracle of "concentrated milk," this month's canned fresh milk, from Med-o-Milk Dairy of East Stanwood, Washington, requires no refrigeration and tastes just like fresh milk. It is vacuum treated, flash-sterilised, and sealed in cans, "completely free of bacteria." At 31 cents a quart, it is no challenge to fresh milk, but is just the thing for places where fresh milk is unobtainable, like all Alaska. 

New Ideas "Long Distance Dialling," which is an experimental offering by Bell at Englewood, New Jersey, which will be able to dial direct long distance calls to eleven cities around the country. Bell  has divided the country into 80 areas, and plans that eventually you will be able to dial anywhere in the country by dialling the area code ahead of the number. But right now it is just San Francisco and ten other cities. "Drum Beater" describes US Rubber Company's collapsible rubber and cloth drum for shipping "petroleum, acid or other liquids." More than 2500 collapsed containers take up the same weight and space as 300 steel drums, the standard rail car load. GE's "Helmsman's Helper" is an electric device that allows a ship to be steered from multiple stations around the ship, and would be especially handy when the helmsman wants to do something like refuel at sea, because he can mosey on down to the deck, take a seat, and drive the ship by turning a knob while taking in the view. 

"Money in the Ground" Prices are good, so the price of farmland is up per acre to as much as $400/acre in Iowa. It looks like the winter wheat crop is going to be down 10-20% this year, and the USDA might have to restrict wheat supplies to whiskey distillers if this keeps up. 

"Picking Up" Fork-lift trucks are booming because they save labour and space. Yale and Towne thinks that if everyone bought forklifts for everything, the US could save a million men in labour; RCA's Indianapolis plant cut its size in half because fork lifts allow it to stack inventory higher. Ford dropped fifty grand on forklifts and other things just the other day. One plant in Cleveland cut the cost of loading freight cars from $2 to $1.88 per car. Another plant is building a $2-and-a-half million dollar overhead "railroad," which doesn't have anything to do with forklifts but is a material handling industry development, which is probably what this article was about back when it was a long Fortune feature. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Revolution in the Desert" Peter Duisberg, an agricultural chemist at New Mexico Agricultural and Mechanical, told the Southwest Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last week that even though the Southwest is currently in the grips of the worst drought in its history, agriculture still has a bright future there, because there are many useful plants that grow in the area and don't need any water, for example his favourite, creosote, which yields stock feed and now also through a distillation process, nordihydroguaiaretic acid, which is worth $35/lb as a preservative and may hve other uses. Canaigre, or wild rhubarb, is a fine source of tannic acids, bear grass makes good broom straw,  and century plants produce alcohol. And there's others!

"The Glory of the Orrery" Princeton University recently refurbished its 1771 orrery after years of neglect. However, the asttomers that refurbished it, can't get it working again, so they just put it on display in some hall in Princeton because it is pretty. 

700 people are currently studying psychoanalysis, compared with only 578 accredited analysts in the United States today. Dr. Robert Strauss and Selden D. Bacon, sociologists at the Yale Centre of Alcoholic Studies, have determined that most alcoholics are just like me and you, except they drink too much.
 

"The Nation's Oldest" The Pennsylvania Hospital is 200 years old this week.

Supporters supported the Clear Creek Mountain Preachers Bible School this week by holding a cabin-raising and building it 19 four-room cabins to provide married accommodation. 

Henry Van Dusen, of the Manhattan Union's Theological Seminary, has a book out about God in Education. It says that America is going to Hell because there's not enough God in schools, what with the Truth and the Morality and all. Van Dusen is pretty sure that all that stuff in the Constitution about separation of church and state is just being taken too far. Some Oxford students are running a bus tour from London to Oxford for tourists, but mainly so the tourists can see Oxford students being Oxford students, which is to say, hilariously eccentric. There's a lot of competition for that in Britain these days. The University of San Francisco is set to have a very controversial course on Communism next year. 

 

Art, Press, Radio and Television, People

"Britain Goes All Out" The British are showing lots of British Art at the British Festival of Britain. Edgard Tytgat is a very old Belgian artist, so whip on over to Brussels and take in his latest show before he's dead, because there's nudes! The reconstruction of Rouen's bombed out cathedral is about half done or so. 

 Journalists who covered Korea have a dinner in New York and give each other prizes for being so brave. Okay, it's the Pulitzers, and you have to cover them, and they really were brave. I just question the headline, "Distinction Under Fire," because the whole way Pulitzers are awarded means that they were voting for themselves. Works a lot better for best picture than "bravest under fire." MacArthur BLAH BLAH. 

"Colour Riddle" New York area viewers watching NBC early morning the other week, and was surprised to see that the usual test pattern had been replaced by some still pictures of this and that. Then the screen said that it was a  test of the new RCA "compatible all-electronic colour television system." Which goes to show that RCA is going ahead with its system, even though the FCC approved the CBS system, and that the fight is still on. Which we knew, so I guess the news here is that Time turns the TV on to NBC when it gets up in the morning, and that Time gets up really early, because it is a peevish old man and needs to pee. (Kind of like Hartley Shawcross with his "women have too many clothes these days" moment in the Times, below) One Man's Family is Time's kind of radio, and now television show. 

"In Defence of Monopolies" In the last forty years, the number of US daily papers has gone from 2600 to 1772, and an increasing number of cities (1300!) just have one, making them "monopoly" cities. Is this bad? The family that owns the Des Moines Register and Minneapolis Tribune say, "No!"  "Everybody thinks what we want them to think, and since we're right, Truth marches on!" You can tell this is a convincing argument, because the Minneapolis School of Journalism gave the family a plaque to say so. Leonard Lyons is in court fighting a court order to reveal his sources, which is ironic because he was a lawyer before he became a columnist. 

Father Divine, Robert Vogeler, Alben Barkley, Hartley Shawcross, David Ben-Gurion, Margaret Truman, Hans Hauser, Virginia Hill, Gertrude Lawrence, Leopold Stokowski, Red Skelton, Marlene Dietrich, Marian Anderson, Luis Munoz Martin, Hedy Lamar, Esther Williams, Gertrude Moran, Gloria Vanderbilt, Pat Di Cicco, Anita Loos, Marie Wilson and Glenn McCarthy are in an extra-long two page edition of the page. The news is that Glenn McCarthy is a jerk, Hartley Shawcross is either a horrible old man or, to give him the benefit, going senile. And starlets are pretty.  

King Farouk and Patricia "Honeychile" Wilder de Cernadas are married. Prince Mansour Ibn Abdul Aziz, Dr. Takashi Naga and Osman Bator have died.

The New Pictures

Time  didn't like The Thing very much in spite of the efforst of "a sweater-bulging secretary (Margaret Sheridan), and the titular eight-foot-tall man-eating vegetable from another world that attacks an isolated air force base at the North Pole and the bad scientist who dresses like a Russian and wants to learn from the evil alien. Unfortunately, brute xenophobia triumphs and cast and movie are not put out of the viewers' misery. My Forbidden Past is about bad people being sordid down New Orleans way, with sex and murder and Melvyn Douglas having fun, which is all to be had in the movie. Oliver Twist is a "brilliant, fascinating movie." They can't all be duds, even though the duds make for better reviewing!

Books

I miss Ronnie. Here's more George Bernard Shaw reaching for us from beyond the grave (never mind carrots from another planet!), and she's not here to make fun of "Last Plays of GBS." Which, since they weren't very good in the first place, are just what you'd expect from a collected editin. Ethan Ayer's The Enclosure is yet another worthy novel, just like the ones that had already tired Ronnie out. Don't look at me! If I went to The Thing without Time to warn me about how awful it was, I'd probably like it! I'm the last person you should ask about a novel about dramatic things being done by and too moneyed people from Boston's North Shore! James Agate's The Later Ego is --I thought I read something from Ronnie about this? Basically it is some incomprehensibly famous English drama critic who was writing a diary that he hoped would be published and make him famous, only he died suddenly at 69 of a heart attack four years ago, only (some more), it was published anyway? Oh, okay, it is being published volume by volume so we can savor it.  Finally, a portrait of a "Victorian-conservative-at-bay" appears in the pages of Time. It's been almost a quarter of an issue since we heard from Hartley Shawcross! Brooks Atkinson's Once Around the Sun is a book from a critic, as opposed to a diary, which makes it completely different.  

Aviation Week, 14 May 1951

News Digest reports that American is adding an air coach service New York-Dallas-Los Angeles with 70 seat DC-6s, one-way fare, $110. The Royal Navy has ordered the DH Sea Venom two-seater as its new all-weather fighter. 

Sidelights reports that 3rd Air Division in Britain has been raised to the status of an Air Force, Roosevelt Field will close on 31 May, and the Army and Navy are working together to make sure that future jet engine power rating announcements are standardised as between official figures and manufacturers' estimates. Eugene Warner is the new VP and GM of McGraw-Hill. The RAeS has elected Major Halford as its new president. The British have unveiled their first compound engine, the Napier Nomad. Chase is no longer planning a turboprop version of the XC-123A, and has no plans to offer it commercially. 

Industry Observer reports that BOAC is going to stop using the manufacturer-installed humidifier system in the hope that it will reverse the 1000lb increase in empty weight, presumably due to the upholstery getting soaked. The Air Force estimates that it is going to need $363 million for photogaphic equipment in the current programme, when all is said and done. The first McDonnell F3H sweptwing fighter has rolled out, but it has returned seven Fairchild R4Qs (C-119s) so Fairchild can beef up the tailfins. The Italian Macchi MB. 324  is reported to have made 900km/h. NRL's new large-capacity fire extinguishing foam system for aircraft carriers works by pushbutton remote control and comes into operation in 12 seconds, and has been "battle-proven" in Korea. Did a flyboy flick a cigarette into the wrong pile of greasy rockets? The Navy's first F-86 will be ready in a few months, and the airlines are thinking of buying fuel by weight instead of volume. 

Katherine Johnson's Washington Roundup reports that the Air Force budget is probably going to get boosted by $14 billion, mostly for tactical planes for Europe. MACARTHUR BLAH BLAH. The Joint Chiefs are sticking by "mid-1952" as the war readiness deadline. It would be convenient if we had an election about then! The Navy is very sad about "Navy Air's Decline," which predictably translates as they are only getting one giant aircraft carrier in this year's budget, which is totally unfair. Just because Nature made it insanely dangerous to fly a jet off an aircraft carrier, the Navy has to pay the price of not having more giant warships!

F. Lee Moore reports "NPA Threatens Civil Planes" for Aviation Week. It is a pretty detailed blow-by-blow of what is happening to risk the supply and who might be the bad people responsible. I'm not going to get into it until it actually  happens,  because it doesn't affect me much, so I don't have to care! (Somewhat related, the CAA is moving to limit small planes and the House Finance Committee has slashed NACA's budget by $3 million below the 1951 appropriation because it isn't doing a very good job of spending all the money it has in its accounts now.

Aviation Week lets us know that next week it is going to be looking at the apparently quite feasible idea of atomic airplanes. 

"US, Canada Behind Air Defence Efforts" Canada will buy surplus P-51s for pilot training if the US does the heavy lifting on the radar alert line is, I think, the idea. 

"J-35-A-23 Work Continues at Allison" Someone said that the J-35 has been cancelled, but it hasn't, because it is still working on some A-23s for a B-47C prototype, even though the B-47C might or might not be cancelled. (It's definitely deferred.) The Chevrolet plant at Tonawanda will make R--3350s for the Navy, instead. 

George L. Christian is still reporting on the ATA Maintenance Group conference, this week on "Cabin Problems" such as heating and ventilation.

Everyone is talking about how to make the National Air Races safer. 

Production Engineering reports that they've built a "toy plant" at Willow Run to speed plant layout changes to produce the C-119. Ronnie is convinced that Fairchild will wreak epic revenge on Uncle Henry for stealing the C-119 contract, especially if Truman loses in November, which looks likely. (Wallace would never have lost the farmers!)

"New Fairey Process for Integral Tanks" Interesting that a British story isn't credited to the McGraw-Hill International wire. It's just  a new way of sealing a wet wing, which is a lot easier with jet fuel, anyway, because all the benzene in avgas dissolves rubber and dope. 

"A Look at Foreign Military Trainers" Boring! On the other hand I guess if foreigners experiment with low wings, side-by-side seating and so on, we don't have to until they're proven. 

"Cockpit View vs. Screen Image" A group at the University of Illinois is experimenting with replacing a plane's windscreen with a viewing screen on the panel. Short of an actual "imaging" system, they used a periscope for the test trials and found that an 8" low magnification screen gave about the same ease of  use as a windscreen. The study author suggests that the concept can be expanded for blind flying, where the image would be entirely created from a "pre-arranged colour picture," a slideshow operated from an air position indicator. I don't think so. 

Avro Canada has an inlet stage turbojet compressor blade with anti-icing, achieved by putting a blade  heating element in a mica form, and casting the blade up on it. 

"Adapting Cyclones for Copter Use" I don't know, I figure that by the time we've exhausted the potential of the new internal combustion engines for the under-10,000lb helicopters, we'll have moved on to turbines, and the fact that Wright Aero is involved just makes it more chancy. But if they can do it it would be a great use of surplus engines! Once they've been completely redesigned to run on the tilt, I mean!

"Flight Data Recorded For Immediate Use" Instead of filming the instruments, they read out on a six-pencil recording tape. This works on ships and in the Boeing labs, I'm sure, but it isn't going to go into a plane any time soon! 

Equipment has "Kidde's Electronic Fire Detector," which is a thermocouple alarm with no moving parts, a horn and a light. It is connected to up to 100ft of "continuous sensing element," which seems like a fancy way of saying heat conducting wire, and it can be reset, so it doesn't have to be replaced every time it triggers. It has been tested experimentally, is about to go into flight trials on a Convairliner,  costs only $400--500 per installation, and is rugged. Well, except that it depends on two vacuum tubes, a thyratron and a triode, and like all aircraft tube installations, is pitting thin glass and high vacuum against constant vibrations. 

New Aviation Products has, funny enough, vibration mounts from T. R. Finn, lightweight nuts from Elastic Stop Nut Corporation, a new primer for silicon-rubber-to-metal contacts from the Chemical Department of GE, and a jet vacuum cleaner for aircraft production from Patterson Products, Detroit.  Synchromount's tiny potentiometer is ideal for space-limited installation on guided missiles and airplanes. 

"Navigation Experts See Computer Tests" This opaque title covers the Air Navigation Development Board's sponsored Pictorial Computer flight test demonstration for assorted civil and military air n avigation experts in Indianapolis last month. "The new Pictorial Computer navigation system will revolutionise military and civil navigation within two years, many avionics experts say." I will  happily eat a hat if that happens within two years, but I sure wouldn't say five, even if it isn't the ANDB's machine that wins out. It is a great way of displaying information in the control tower and could easily lead into an automatic flight navigation system run off a punch card, and the pictorial cockpit map display is well known. But it isn't ANDB but rather DECCA that is making most of the running in installed systems. 

Tahiti-Hawaii Airways has gone out of business without ever getting into business. Pan-Am will reluctantly take over the Tahiti connection, it volunteers. 

According to the ads, everyone wants engineers. 

"DAA" has relief duties on Editorial this week, too bad since it isn't just another anti-railroad rant, and I have to pay attention to "Ten Years of the Jet Era." Or, no, I don't, because it is just some potted history of the first British jets, no mention of anyone else's.