Postblogging Technology, October 1952, II: Chess, Not Checkers

R_.C_.,

Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

So we are now very much in the middle of a genuine school year with class work and also my domestic obligations, and yet somehow these letters still reach you and you should be very grateful because there is nothing more fun than reading about exciting technological developments in the field of cataloguing chemicals and getting rid of vacuum tubes in magnetic amplifiers. Which is to say that I don't see anything too crazy or interesting in the science news this month.

I'm kidding! Obviously the most fun thing we could possibly read about is Richard Nixon crying on television. There is something off about that man, and it is not just because I disagree with his politics. As for the letter, I will admit that I have treated The Engineer lightly, but it is in there. For one thing, for reasons of timing of news stand dates, The Engineer, which is not the paper (as Uncle George would say) that I go to for breaking news, is the first of my magazines to cover the biggest "science and technology" story of the back end of the month at least, "Mr. Churchill's (GRRRR!) bomb." 

So I officially, finally, have all the magazines I had before my diphtheria quarantine, although don't expect me to start hitting myself on the head with Time again on a regular basis. Newsweek might not be a very good news magazine, but it has better pictures.

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

PS: Since I know you don't follow Hollywood gossip, especially gossip printed in Newsweek, which is not where you go for good gossip --if gossip can be good, come on, let me have this one-- but someone, probably  Linda Darnell, is dragging the College Man's boy into her attempts to land a movie. I know he's not our favourite or closest relative, but blood is blood, so maybe someone could have a polite but firm chat with Miss Darnell?

Letters

Jussi Kubikka of Finland is worried that Americans are making emotional decisions, especially letting Nixon off the hook. On the other hand, Leopold Heinemann of New York points out that the Democrats do it, too; which about covers the spread of reactions. Some union members think that Labour will vote Democrat, but Robert Swan of Philadelphia is one union man who likes Ike. Readers disagree about Governor Shivers of Texas, who says he can't vote for Stevenson. Cyril Clemens liked the article about his good friend, George Santayana, who was a great guy, and not a Fascist at all.  Our editor takes a moment to remind us that there's an election on, that your vote does matter, and to help you make your decision the entire magazine is hanging around either Ike or Governor Stevenson from dawn to dusk for the next month, after which other news may resume. 

The Periscope reports that the State Department is upset at George Kennan for opening his big mouth over there in Berlin, because it gave the Russians a good reason to kick him out of Moscow. Embarrassing from an ambassador! The networks have hired electronic brains to count the votes and spot the trends election night, with Remington Rand's UNIVAC going to CBS and the Monrobot to NBC. Everyone in the Administration is booking fall vacations in Europe because the election will be over, so why not? Adlai Stevenson is getting scads of love letters. Some UN officials are afraid of the McCarran commission, the Joint Chiefs of Staff might be reorganised, the Korean front won't be be turned over to the South Koreans this year, because they will only hit 700,000 men mobilised by then. "Top US planners" are upset with General Collins for his "atomic artillery gun" because it is far too big and clumsy and has a limited range. The US Navy's new atom bomb is 6ft long and a foot in diameter, weighs a bit more than a ton, and has tail fins. "For reasons still kept top secret, the Navy's light attack aircraft carriers are better suited to handle atomic weapons than the big flat tops." I'm not sure the Navy has its top men on the job, because the next bit is about the flying boat coming back with jet engines, because they are a cure for airport congestion. Meanwhile, the Air Force is looking to let out some aircraft testing and servicing to the aircraft companies. The National Guard is having morale problems again, and the British are looking at an atomic-powered passenger liner, while some British army officers are training with bows and arrows to develop their "combat alertness." MAINBRACE commanders were told to ignore any Soviet ships in the vicinity because otherwise they would have done something. I have no idea. Newsweek thinks it's a scandal. Rumours out of East Germany are that there is a conspiracy to keep West Germany disarmed and the Saar in French hands. Western intelligence "hands" think that Martin Bormann is alive and working for the Reds. An anti-Peron revolution might break out in Argentina soon. Norwegian whalers will use helicopters to spot whales and shoot rockets at them --to keep them afloat, it says here. Loretta Young is forming a company to make television shows about Loretta Young. A CBS interview show will interview lots of famous people, including Ralph Bunche. A Coloured man on television! Robert Sherwood is writing a movie for Rita Hayworth for Columbia, The Barretts of Wimpole Street is being remade as an opera, and Alfred Hitchcock has Cary Grant for Catch a Thief, and is working to get Ingrid Bergman, too.

I have no idea what is going on with atom bombs on aircraft carriers and can't ask Reggie over the phone, but Uncle George thinks that it might have to do with the armour deck on the big carriers, which he describes as a very complicated umbrella over the hangar deck with supports that might get in the way of moving very big munitions. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the Democrats are on the comeback trail! So like they say on the television, don't touch that dial! For a whole page. 

The Campaign leads off with "Ike Leads Entering Stretch, But Stevenson Is Coming Up" Don't touch that dial! (A box story quotes the latest polls which have Eisenhower steady at 51% since the beginning of the campaign, while Stevenson has gained one point from 43% to 44% as the Undecided vote has wavered between 5 and 7%. Meanwhile, Eisenhower runs ahead of the party at 53% and most people aren't paying much attention to the scandals. On the other hand, "Negro Editors Agrree Negroes Will Vote Democratic." (Nixon is campaigning successfully in Democratic strongholds like South Boston and Philadelphia, but "Significant, almost no Negroes turn out for him.")

I'm tempted to give the section on the Senate races a bit more coverage, since the Senate is in contest, and it is hard to see how Eisenhower could govern facing a Democratic House and Senate, but you know what? That's all "insider" stuff, and I don't have much faith in Newsweek making things up to keep it exciting. For one thing, it is saying that Oregon might elect a Democratic senator! I know Cain is a weak candidate, but let us just be serious, here! Although as Ernest Lindley points out, the correspondents following the Stevenson campaign seem much more likely to vote for him than for any Democratic candidate going back to 1928. I don't know what it says about American politics and American journalists that the campaign press preferred Hoover to Roosevelt (actually I do know what it says, I'm being polite!) but it makes it all that much of a new era when they prefer Stevenson to Eisenhower. 

Speaking of scandals, IRS man Denis Delaney is out of jail on a Court of Appeals ruling that being up before a Congressional investigation at the same time as his trial, prejudiced the outcome. The Court says that Congress shouldn't do that again, and now everyone is afraid that Congress' power to investigate is under threat from the courts. 

National Affairs

"Step Forward for Air Defence: Guided Missiles for Ack-Ack" The US Army is organising two antiaircraft batteries to operate the Nike missile, which has been in secret development for two years and which has reached the point where they can trial replace some 90mm heavy antiaircraft batteries. The Nikes can track planes to a height of 6 miles and a distance of 10, and can be prepared for firing faster than their radars and electronic tracking computers can be warmed up. There's also a story about the Martin jet-powered flying boat, which, of course, isn't news for us. The story lays out all the rationales that we've heard over the last year, and identifies the plane as a minelayer, rather than a strategic bomber, which is right.

Korean War

"Truce Talks Indefinitely Off,  Bloody Fighting Again Rages" The truce talks are off, it's all the Reds' fault, and the Reds have launched a massive attack on ROK 9th Division positions on White Horse Mountain, which overlooks the valley corridor stretching from Chorwon to Seoul. Newsweek tells us not to worry. The Reds can't build up the necessary two-to-one advantage over reinforced UN troops (although how reinforced is a secret), and they are taking heavier casualties due to attacking fortified positions, and because UN troops now have the new protective vest.

International

Look over there!

"Germany Rocked by Scandal of US Arming Storm Troops" Newsweek reported in July that a "foreign power" was recruiting a Heimatschutze, or "home guard" in Germany, but the concern was that they were being armed and organised to fight as partisans in the event of a Red occupation, and that for this reason the force was attracting dangerous elements. That foreign power was, of course, the Untied States, and now the story has reached the German parliament via the legislature of the state of Hesse, which is one of the nice German states, where it was reported that the Americans had been recruiting from the German Youth Federation, a right wing which was found to have an extensive death list of Social Democrat politicians when its leaders were arrested last month. American authorities have issued a denial/apology and posted the responsible officers, Lieutenant Generals Manton Eddy, commander of US troops in Germany and Lucian Truscott, who headed the CIA in Germany, back to the United States. Now Social Democrats warn that similar things might happen in other American-backed groups, public or secret. Also, the French are being offensively anti-American over this and that, all Tories agree that Churchill isn't a doddering dotard even if he looks like one, and this is obviously true because he said something the other day about how the American presidential system works because both major party candidates are pretty good. Since Dr. Forbes-Sempill is now a man, he has married his housekeeper. Another B-29 has been lost near or in Soviet air space on  a trans-Pacific flight to Japan. The All-Union Congress is very boring but if work at it you can summarise the proceedings as showing that Communism is bad. The ex-King of Egypt might be getting divorced from the most recent ex-Queen of Egypt. Saudi Arabia is upset that Britain is sending troops to Oman because the two countries have a beef. Mau Mau terrorists shot and killed an anti-Mau Mau Kikuyu chief near Nairobi this week. Newsweek helpfully explains that the Mau Mau are terrible and have an initiation oath where they have to drink (goat's) blood. News!

Newsweek's Special Report explores the question: "Is the US Running a Giant Gravy Train Abroad?" The answer, which is obvious to any American who was in Europe last summer (so most of us), is "Yes." However, it's a scandal if it's the State Department doing it, and not your average American naval officer and his wife gorging on pate and Belgian ale and steak and French fries. (Only they don't call it that there.) There's pictures of the embassies in Paris and London that seem to go to show that they're pretty swank, and a chart and a discussion of money for this and that, for those who prefer numbers. 

In Canada, it is now revealed that the reason that Brigadier Allan Connolly was quietly sacked last year is that he is a meat-headed engineer who shouldn't have been put in a diplomatic position in the first place, while other Canadians are doing some navel-gazing about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I bet Canadians will be pleased when that's over!

Business

The Excess Profits Tax probably isn't going away any time soon, business is "boiling" over tight price ceilings, the oil industry is uneasy about the future of Iranian oil, considering the beating that oil prices have taken lately. The British are selling off their Anglo-Iranian bonds and the fear is that Mossadegh will agree to a price cut to get Iranian oil on the market. Both candidates have committed to "restudying" Social Security to get everyone on it, including farmers and the self-employed, possibly by putting it on a pay-as-you-go basis. Unions aren't getting into business, despite appearances. Embezzlement and petty theft are up. The most likely embezzler is a minor supervisor or clerk with three years on the job. The least likely to embezzle are married people, the more dependents the better.
 

"Farms and Factories Prosper, But Inflation's In the Wind" In a strange page layout, a big headline accompanies a tiny story about iron and steel production and the Agriculture Department's price index being up, and more money in circulation than ever. Most of the page is made up with inset stories about "Cash Up, Income Down," which is actually about farm incomes and prices; and "Economic Medicine," which is a summary of the proceedings of the 37th Annual Convention of the National Consumer Finance Association. In Atlantic City this year, delegates heard that government spending and debt is too high and that we should go back on the gold standard, limit federal spending to a percentage of the national income, amortise the debt over the next twenty-five to fifty years, prohibit Federal bond issues, decontrol interest rates, cut taxes on rich people, get rid of "free rides" on government spending, give the tidelands back to the states, and change the tax code so it is easier to understand. Then they all stuffed dollar bills in the burlesque dancer's stockings. 

Uncle Henry's 1953 models have 6-cylinder engines boosted from 115 to 120hp and new rear bumpers and splash shields that push the length of the Corsair to 181 inches, and price by $18. GM will bring out a limited number of Skylarks to celebrate its Golden Anniversary, Chrysler promises drastic style and engineering changes when its line is introduced next week, including a new V-8 engine, while Dodge promises to "hold the price line."

Chemical manufacturer W. R. Grace and Company gets a profile on the occasion of its new plant in Memphis, while Business Notes reports that world newsprint supplies have recovered enough that the Canadian government has removed them from its essential materials list. The International Harvester strike is over. Moran Supply has established an emergency helicopter air delivery service for plants within 150 miles of Chicago. Sylvania Electrics has opened the "most modern electronics plant in the world" at Woburn, Massachusetts, with 850 employees. "Owner's Problems" checks in with the American Trucking Association's annual convention in the Waldorf in New York City. Northwest Airlines has finally hired a new president, General Harold R. Harris, taking over from Croll Hunter.

Products: What's New reports that Squeezeit is distributing a plastic hip flask with dispensing control. Kalamazoo Sled Company has a baby stroller that converts from wheels to sled runners with a kick of the toe lever. Ames Aromatic has a paint preservative additive that keeps paint from forming a "skin" for months. General Baking's high-protein, low calorie vegetable bread is made with flavour ingredients including celery. pumpkin, carrots, spinach and sesame seed, no fats added. 

"Boy's Town Test" The toothpaste industry is finally getting a field test to prove the efficacy or not of chlorophyll toothpaste by making the six hundred boys at the Omaha Boy's Town use it for nine months, which is definitely long enough for a medical experiment, wink wink.

Henry Hazlitt's column is a review of the memorandum on economics that Joseph Stalin has sent to the All-Union Congress that, he says, shows that even Stalin admits that "socialism/communism" doesn't work. 

Science, Medicine

"Newborn Oil" Geological science agrees that petroleum takes millions of years to form in organic sediments, but the oil wildcatters have always asked, "But what if--?" This week, Dr. Paul Smith, employed by Standard Oil to give a better answer, claimed to find petroleum in recent sediments in a New Jersey lake. He then sent samples to Professor Lawrence Kulp of Columbia, who found Carbon-14 in the samples. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon that is breathed in by organisms when they are alive, and slowly breaks down in their bodies after they die. So finding Carbon-14 in these petroleum samples shows that it was formed recently. Smith credits his discovery to the use of chromatography, which was invented in 1906 but has only become popular in the last decade. However, Smith hasn't found the mother lode of petroleum strikes, because it is only a small proportion of petroleum to sediment, so it still might take millions of years for it all to convert. The real excitement is that it suggests new places to look for oil. Also, Dr. Lewis Sarrett of Merck reports the first artificial synthesis of cortisone this week, a 30 step process which is not commercially practical, but might point the way to one that is. 

Science Notes of the Week reports that Dr. R. Goldacre of the University of London Hospital has found that some algae have red tails, something previously ignored by zoologists. Professor Clarence Palmer has linked tropical storms to "fiery upheavals on the surface of the Sun." The United States Weather Bureau has set itself the target of 95% accurate weather forecasts around airports. 

"True or False" Dr. Richard Fischer, a research associate at the Doctor's Hospital in Washington, D.C., has reviewed the various modern pregnancy tests and test aids and has concluded that they are far too inaccurate to replace the elaborate existing tests that involve the doctor saying that "The rabbit died." Also, Dr. Wendell Meredith Stanley, the virus researcher who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1946 for crystallising the tobacco mosaic virus, is now the head of an entire research institute built around him at Berkeley, "the first of its kind built by a university anywhere in the world." He will have sixty researchers and an even larger staff under him, so look out viruses! 

Medical Notes reports that Dr. Herald Cox of the Lederle Laboratories has come up with a new way to grow the polio virus, in chicken embryos, which might also produce a less virulent strain of the virus, more suitable for a vaccine. Dr. Benjamin Sieve of Boston reports successful use of phosphorylated hesperidin pills for family planning[!]. The pills are taken in a regular regime, become effective within ten days of taking them, can be used indefinitely without adverse effects, including on future fertility. There are more women than men in America this year for the first time in history. The Journal of the American Medical Association warns that there is not enough proof that betasyamine is
effective against heart disease, arthritis and poliomyelitis, as advertised. And it might have toxic effects. Dr. Frederick Panico of the University of Maryland reports success with using a balloon inflated in the stomach to recover stomach lining cells to test for cancer, compared with existing methods, which use "stomach scrapings." Two doctors at McGill report that the best treatment for frostbite is fast thawing, which, since it is painful, should be accompanied by sedatives. Dr. Rudolph Blythe of Smith, Kline and French Laboratories has announced a "time bomb capsule" for the slow and steady release of medicine into the body. It consists of bits of medicine in a coating of different thickness that dissolves at different rates, inside a capsule that also dissolves. That's a lot of dissolving! The first available drug is dextroamphetamine sulfate, which suppresses the appetite, fights overweight, and "combat[s] depression by stimulating the central nervous system." In other words, it is "speed," but is only available by prescription, and that's how you know your doctor hasn't turned into a pusher. 

Art, Press, Radio and Television, Newsmakers ("People")

Henri Cartier-Besson's new art book sure is something, Newsweek says!

The Minneapolis Tribune says that Stevenson supporters can get along with Eisenhower supporters. Marshall Field is backing Stevenson! The New York Times squeezes "Eisenhower" into the space for "Ike" by using a "specially condensed print." That car in the Truman junket train that says "Carroll Linkins" on it is the Western Union wire car, manned by Carroll S. Linkins, who does all the telegraphing for the campaign. Newsweek thought you might want to know. Robert L. Smith of the Los Angeles Daily News is bringing out the latest thing in Sunday editions, a really thin paper that you will actually have time to read. 

Tallulah Bankhead's television debut on the All Star Review was so bad that Newsweek takes a page and a half to dwell on it. Walter Winchell's television show has a 50 person staff, which means he has to shoot in New York, which means that he can't go to Miami this year, which is big news because it is Walter Winchell. 

Senator Taft got stuck in an elevator this week. Nancy Kefauver is back from Europe (like her husband) and will start campaigning for Stevenson and Sparkman very soon now. (Like her husband.) Did I mention that Kefauver is still married to his actual wife, and on good terms with his in-laws? Zsa Zsa Gabor, Yogi Berra, Ann Baxter, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner are in the column. So are Nina Foch and Renato Rascel, but it's different because no-one's heard of them. College students at one college are worried that they're drinking too much, and have finally admitted that the one-way windows in the girl's dorms were installed the wrong way around. Lana Turner is still getting divorced, but not remarried. Mrs. Bayard Ewing (which is a real name) is also in the column, taking another swing at Stevenson. The Harvard Lampoon actually, literally, kidnapped the Governor of Massachusetts lat week, but because it was a joke, no harm done. The maternity ward at the Ohio State University's hospital has taken to signalling doctors at the games by hanging sheets in the windows. Barbara Scott and Sonja Henie have taken to staging rival shows and making cutting remarks. Eleanor Roosevelt is 68, Daniel Arnstein got an award from the Koumintang, which is giving them out now, Deems Taylor is getting his marriage annulled, Martha Raye is sick, Bobby Jones is recovering, Frank Gerber, Louis Tompkin Wright and Alvin Anthony ("Shipwreck") Kelly have died.

New Films

Columbia's The Fourposter  is based on Jan Hertog's hit play that seems to  need more sex. Flowers of st. Francis is an "arrestingly quiet religious" movie from Roberto Rossellini. MGM's Holiday for Sinners is  much better than its production, with Keenan Wynn giving a great performance. United Artist's The Thief is the first American movie to be made without dialogue, it says here, and "deserves the extra box office wallop" it will get form that, considering that if it had dialogue it would be a "pretty regulation kind of melodrama," and Rita Gam, the much-talked-about "sex without words" girl does nothing of the kind in the movie. 

Books 

I don't usually come to Newsweek for the tediously middlebrow, but the feature starts out with a title, "Waugh Revisited," and buries the actual book to be reviewed (Men at Arms) a few lines deep. Is it a meditation on Evelyn Waugh and all of the ways that he is a Waugh? It is! Guenther Reinhardt's Crime Without Punishment is an attempt to discover how the mysterious deaths of various anti-communists were caused by "sinister international figures" and not, say, booze. Newsweek is sympathetic, but since he doesn't have any actual facts to impart in spite of years with the FBI, it all comes off a bit far-fetched. E. B. White's children's book, Charlotte's Web, is great. Mika Waltari's A Stranger Comes to the Farm, is short and set in modern times, and sounds like it has a plot I could write from the title, but is apparently another great novel from Finland's greatest living novelist. Stuart Cloete's The Curve and the Tusk is yet another modern American novel modelled on Melville, which sounds pretentious, and evidently is. 

Raymond Moley explains that Americans should vote for the President based on character and not all the boring issues and deep thoughts that Stevenson is the master of. And so because Stevenson is a "dilettante, a drifter, a player with words," you shouldn't vote for him. Eisenhower might not be able to talk, but he talks badly in a reassuring way, and what with the war in Korea flaring up, he's the man. Eisenhower-Nixon in '52. The issue is character! And not Kay Summersby! 

Aviation Week, 20 October 1952

News Digest reports that Donald Nyrop has resigned as head of the CAB. Convertawings of Amityville has "started construction" of a "small prototype" of its "'four-rotor'" helicopter, which will eventually be available as everything from a 40-passenger type to a cargo copter. Pan Am is having its R4360-TSB3G engines rebuilt to the B6 standard by Pacific Airmotive. More than 300 B-47s hae been built for the Air Force by Boeing. 

Industry Observer reports that the F-80 is using refuelling to extend its range in Korea. (News Digest reported that the F-84 is using refuelling. Organise yourself, Aviation Week!) The Navy is going to release new data about the atmosphere and cosmic rays gathered for it and the Atomic Energy Commission by its stratosphere balloon experiments. The "renaissance" in seaplanes going on is due to hull metal strengths increasing to the point where seaplanes don't have to be heavier than equivalent landplanes. Rolls Royce has now built 11,500 jet engines, including its licensees, which is a lot, for jet engines. Gloster thinks that the Javelin will cost the same to build, per unit weight, as the Meteor, due to the thick delta wing allowing for conventional construction methods. It will cost more, but because of all those avionics.   British airlines are very excited about turboprops.

Katherine Johnsen reports for Washington Roundup that the "Air Army" is gaining ground at the expense of the Air Force, mainly due to all those helicopters in Korea, and air trooping on chartered airliners, which is apparently something that the Army is in charge of, because it is more solders than airmen who fly? I don't understand. Also, there are guided missiles, which will reduce the role of manned airplanes over the battlefield. The current expansion of the aircraft industry is almost over, with only $900 million remaining to be obligated of $4.5 billion granted. Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Air) John Floberg will be kept on after the election notwithstanding the outcome, if the Navy has anything to say about it. 

"Split Compressors Usher in New Jet Era" For a change the lead news story is a technical one, bylined to Robert Hotz and describing the two-spool turbojet, which allows air to be compressed at the most efficient turbine blade speed at different stages of compression, allowing for more fuel efficiency and engine power, in the range of 15,000lb thrust. Engines identified as twin-spool include the Bristol Olympus and J57, which is said to be ahead of British counterparts and in limited production.  (A year ahead, the article says, later, but the Olympus is more efficient.) De Havilland and Rolls-Royce are identified as working on twin-spool designs, but the engines are not named. Westinghouse is said to be improving its J40 into a twin-spool design, while GE and Allison are exploring their options. Then for no particular reason the article goes on to discuss ducted fans and rockets and British efforts to increase Avon and Sapphire production.

Next, Aviation Week lets itself be scooped on the F-102 (on General Harris being the new President of Northwest, it gets in the vital information, missed by Newsweek, that he was the charter member of the Caterpillar Club, which should come in handy if he ever has to fly Northwest), which isn't the dumbest thing on this page, since "Supersonic Props Tested on Model," follows. I will happily eat my words of supersonic propellers turn out to be easier to develop than supersonic wings, and 15,000hp turboprops prove easier to develop than the 5000hp ones. More than a thousand entries have been made in the Canterbury International Air Race, including KLM and Qantas. There's a race on to equip the new Lufthansa, which will probably start out with Vickers Vikings, because they're cheap and available. (I will not make a sorority girl joke!!!)

"Complexity [is super duper bad]: A Precis of a Talk Given to the Washington Chapter of the Institute for Aeronautical Science by E. H. Heinemann" It is! Some things are heavier than other things and cost more than the same things! We should buckle down and sharpen our pencils and think before we speak and measure twice before we cut and look before we leap! Then our planes won't be so heavy! Honestly, Heinemann is a great engineer and I am sure he has a point, but boiling it down to a single column makes for a waste of paper. 

"Coach Future [Is the Stars!]: Precis of a Talk Given to the 1952 Conference on Airport Management and Operations" Donald Nyrop says that coach fling may eventually dominate air travel because it is cheap and people like money.

"F-89 Grounded, Plane Under Study" Northrop has managed what seemed to be impossible, building a jet fighter that is too dangerous for an air force to fly. It seems to have to do with the plane falling apart in the air, which is not okay, whereas crashing uncontrolled into the ground is fine.

US Airlines is shaking up its board, and Seaboard is not going to get early approval for its Atlantic service. Aerojet has a new plant, the NACA supersonic windtunnel at Ames is doing ballistic tests on bullets, the SAE is going to discuss supersonic flight at its next meeting along with new production methods like Lockheed's new shot-peening mmethod and North American's die-quenching. 

David Anderton reports for Aeronautical Engineering, "Why Gloster Gave Javelin a Delta Wing" Because it was the best choice, it says here. The rest of the article has a general discussion of the design and is a bit more insightful. For example, all controls are power-boosted hydraulically and the landing gear is the liquid spring type developed by Dowty. Afterburners are not yet installed because, it says here, the British don't like them for some reason. (There has not been much discussion over here of the articles in Flight that seem to show that the early afterburners weren't very efficient even given their enormous fuel consumption, which would be a good reason to hold off installing them until they are better matched to the engine.)  The article finishes up with a short visit to Gloster Hucclecote, which is building three types of Meteor for the RAF already and is a bit cramped, short of heavy, specialised machine tools by American standards, and short of labour.

Thrust and Drag checks out the model airplane business.

Production has "Canada Aviation Expands to Make Orenda" By "Canada" is meant "A. V. Roe," which will make the Orenda axial turbojet at its new Malton plant. The article describes the plant at length.

"Metalbond Wing for Super Connie"  Lockheed is going to use the new adhesive methods to fix the wing panels of the Super Constellation. It's because it will allow lighter, stronger wings that are also safe and don't fall apart at the seams, cross the company's fingers, hope to die!

William J. Coughlin reports for Production that "S-55 Proving Run a Success, LAA Says" Of course LAA says that. LAA is always saying that its contract to helicopter air mail loads from LA Airport to the post office is a success, no matter how many times the helicopter crashes and how little of the time they're actually operating a helicopter. What else would they say? "Hey, Post Office, please cancel our contract,, we're tired of being paid helicopter rates to truck the  mail into town?" The reason they haven't flown an S-55 since the last crash in September is due to some perfectly normal adjustments and changes to the design that are 100% because military and civilian  needs are different, and not because --you know what, lots of it was because the ship was falling apart in mid-air, but that's normal! Teething problems! The kind of thing that operating airlines are supposed to fix!

New Aviation Products has a Stratos refrigeration unit for the F-86 cockpit, an "accurate drill for jet engine housings" form Modern Industrial Engineering, a  new, quieter aircraft hydraulic unloading valve from Vickers, and a new dynamometer that can be set between 0 and 100,000lbs for static load tests of aircraft structures and other things, from W. C. Dillon and Company. 

Philip Klein reports for Avionics that "New-Type A.C. Regulator Shown," which is a rewrite of a Westinghouse piece about a mag-amplifier voltage regulator unit that uses no tubes, unlike the earlier GE mag-amplifier, which still had a cold-cathode tube. The article is a tight-lipped at the exact workings of the unit, how it actually compares the input voltage to the reference voltage and adjusts the output voltage, but even an outline description shows that it is quite the gadget, complete with a feedback loop to ensure smoothness. Although it hasn't been flight tested yet, it is light, compact, and probably more reliable than earlier, conventional voltage regulators.

Follows the CAB accident report on the 11 February 1952 Elizabeth DC-6 crash, concluding that it was probably caused by the spontaneous reversal of the Number 3 engine's propeller in flight due to a maintenance failure.  

   Captain Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint has "Miracle in New York," which miracle is a newspaper story about an airline that isn't about a crash, but, instead, the retirement of Captain Walt Shaffer of Eastern after a 2 million mile flying career going back to 1915 with no accidents. Not only that, but it hit Page 1!

What's New is going to be reading a 25 page catalog of thin, self-locking nuts from Standard Pressed Steel, an analysis of plant layouts from Visual Equipment Planning, and Catalogue 16 of set screws from Setco and Zip-Grip, plus the Fletcher Standard Aircraft Workers Manual, 8th Edition, this Christmas.

Robert H. Wood's Editorial is upset at the Air Force's "spineless pussyfooting" over the two B-29 incidents over the Kurile islands,  CAB's stalling tactics resisting inquiries about lobbying in Washington, and is happy that Alexander McSurely has been apponted the Aviation Safety Editor, since it turns out that some of the more nervous types care about that stuff. 

Letters

"Minutes from the Sandusky River"

A. C. Camp points out that there wouldn't be a shortage of engineers if society treated engineers better. Ken Eyman of American Motel Magazine really liked the article on motels. William Olp, of Great Lakes Motel, Fremont, Ohio, didn't, but Brian Shortel of California, who might have stayed there, did. Everyone liked the portrait of Mamie Eisenhower. Richard Carvel liked the article about "Mass in a Bunker." Writers disagree about the problem of voter turnout. One thinks that more advertising is the solution, another wants better candidates, and one lady reminds us that compulsory voting is un-American. Our Editor points to the fluster in Europe caused by Newsweek stories about NATO defence strategy and alleged American overspending on embassies and the occupation in Germany. 

The Periscope reports that neighbours have never seen Nixon and Chequers together, but everyone is giving up on the story because if they push it, Nixon will just go on television and cry again. If Stevenson wins, Alben Barkley will be Secretary of Agriculture. Chicago Democrats are worried about a crime report due to come out just before the election. Adam Clayton Powell begged off his Florida campaign tour because the Stevenson campaign was worried that he would alienate more Whites than he would bring in Coloured votes. Democratic leaders are writing off Nevada because McCarran would rather his Republican buddy win the Senate seat. Ike is sore at Truman but fine with Stevenson. Richard Russell is headlining a "Save the South for Stevenson" push. Talk is that Americans and British will settle their differences over a standardised rifle next year. US prisoners of war may be succumbing to all that Red propaganda they're getting. The Air Force is going to escort all unarmed planes flying near Soviet territory, and in Korea the UN is keen to find the mobile Red radar stations that are bringing their artillery uncomfortably close to planes and ship, with little success so far. The British say that they are going ahead of the US in the rush to produce commercial atomic energy. British Centurions, and not American tanks, will go to the European powers, because of the complicated mechanisms of American tanks and the Centurion's battle-tested prowess. London observers are convinced that all that British fussing up north is going to lead to an Arctic atom bomb test soon. Prime Minister Churchill isn't a dotard, he just doesn't like his hearing aid. Marshal Juin is hinting that France will pull out of NATO if its allies keep criticising France over North Africa. More accusations of US association with anti-Communist saboteur groups in Germany are going to come out. Russian deserters are forming resistance groups in the Polish forests. Most of the twenty American citizens who went to the recent peace conference in Peking falsified their passports and are unlikely to return. All those pretty Italian movie stars are going to be in an anthology movie, We Women. NBC is coming out with a Sunday news show to compete with Edward Murrow's CBS show, Alec Guinness is doing a show for NBC's American Inventory. Bea Little and Clifton Webb may co-star in a Twentieth Century Fox film originally intended for Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar. Walter Wanger's first movie after getting out of jail will be Mysteries of the Harem, with no stars but lots of girls. Linda Darnell and Ronald Reagan will star in Blue Dahlia, based on the Black Dahlia murders and written by Vera Caspary. 

 The Periscope's Washington Trends reports that the Eisenhower campaign is worried that Stevenson still might come back and win. 

The Campaign reports that even though all the polls show that the Republicans are well ahead, 1948 shows that all the polls might be wrong and that's why you, the reader, should pay attention to our pages and pages of campaign coverage. Come on, everybody, we spent a million dollars on this! Our advertisers need your attention! How anyone could want to draw attention to the campaign when Hoover is out defending isolationism on the implied grounds that Nazis are better than Communists, I do not know. Ernest Lindley's column hammers home the point that the insiders actually paying attention to the campaign all back Stevenson, including the ones who used to back Eisenhower. 

"Are U.S. Reds at Work in the UN? Senate Inquiry Seeks Answers" Herbert O'Conor says that the UN is "honeycombed" with American Communists. As proof, his committee hauled thirteen American UN employees in front of it and made them plead the Fifth. What more could you want? Only Communists pay attention to the Constitution! Also, Ambassador O'Grady says that the Communists are on the brink of taking over in Iran due to Acheson backing the British too much. 

"Secret Weapons Leaks" Speaking of Red atom spies sapping American moral fibre, budget time means news of secret weapons oozing out through every crack. The Air Force has a supersonic fighter, the delta-winged F-102; the Army  has its atomic "Big Bertha;" the Marines have body armour. Meanwhile the Joint Chiefs have told the services that all this leaking has to stop. Here on the west coast, the California Supreme Court says that Berkeley couldn't fire eighteen professors for refusing to take a university loyalty oath, but found the Levering Act constitutional, so that the professors will have to take the state loyalty oath as a precondition for reemployment. Not the worst news out of California this week. Meanwhile, legless veteran James Kutcher's firing as a VA clerk on grounds of his belonging to a subversive organisation, to wit, the Socialist Workers' Party, was illegal under the rules for firing civil servants, but that his suspension remained valid until such time as the VA loyalty board considered his individual case. 

Korean War

"U.N. Answers Red Assaults By Opening Its Own Offensive" UN forces, are conducting offensives along the mountainous centre of the current front line, with US 7th Infantry Division getting the most coverage. But never mind that, what do front-line veterans think of the election, ,Newsweek asks? It even goes as far as to ask some Coloured soldiers, and even take their pictures, which makes the second time in two weeks that Coloured people have appeared in news photographs in Newsweek. Soldiers, even pro-Eisenhower ones, are not taken with having a military man as President, and are unimpressed with Eisenhower's idea to replace American forces with Korean, since they don't see how it's exactly possible. On the other hand, the story that Eisenhower wants to cut GI pay is causing significant movement to Stevenson. Newsweek then gives us a potted history of the Korean War so far. Everyone can agree that it started, that the Administration did things about Korea before it started and then decided to fight when it started, and that's about as far as we go. There's lots of things we could do to expand the war, but t hat's not the same thing as ending it. We don't know how to end it, and the Eisenhower/Dulles solution of making it a Korean affair isn't promising.
 

International

"U.S. And Russia Transfer War to U.N. Assembly's New Home" The new UN building is very swank and the argument about the Korean War was very tedious. Next up, the Afro-Asian bloc takes on North Africa and South African apartheid!

"The Partisan Scandal" The German papers are all over the Americans' "Pinkerton methods," for "corrupting German youth" and promoting "vigilante type actions." American intelligence agencies were "irresponsible," but the real question is how close the Adenauer government was to the American initiative. Also, Buckingham Palace has announced the royal tour of Australia for the fourth and hopefully final time, and the French are fighting over German rearmament again. The All-Union Congress has decided to drop the label "Bolshevik," and the Chinese celebrated Red Takeover Day with parades and speeches while Newsweek figures out what it can call the celebrations without being called a pinko rag. In breaking news, Iran is fighting with Britain and the General Naguib has dissolved the Regency Council. I'm beginning to wonder if the Egyptian monarchy will really be restored, after all!

Way down yonder Central America way, El Salvador has uncovered yet another Communist plot to overthrow its oligarchy. It seized lots of guns, arrested a bunch of people,  made heavy-handed references to the massacre of a previous Red uprising in 1932, and pointed fingers of blame across the border at Guatemala. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the cost of living will hit new highs this fall and winter, although food prices will hold constant. The FTC is likely to investigate whether there is gouging going on, depending on who wins. That's just dumb. Eisenhower's going to win. There's not going to be an investigation. The banks are fighting with the internal revenue. Corning Glass is renting out lab space to smaller firms. The Administration is "suddenly alarmed" at the  "growing dollar shortage abroad," which will get worse as current aid programmes expire. Obvious solutions like reducing tariffs being out, we're left with increasing American investment abroad, which Washington will be doing more to encourage. And by "more," I mean getting Eric Johnston involved and saying very supportive things, as opposed to, say, tax incentives. 

"WSB Upsets New Mine Contract: Hands Rebuff to John L. Lewis" The UMW has endorsed Stevenson and Sparkman, and the Wage Stabilisation Board has rejected the new UMW contract. Will there be a strike? Will UMW members react by voting against Stevenson? Who knows! We do know that there are three months of coal above ground. 

"Jets for Pan Am" It is official. Pan Am is buying 3 Comets for delivery in 1956 and taking an option on 7 more in 1957. They will probably cost more than current Comets ($1.5 million), which in turn cost more than DC-6Bs ($1.25 million), and do not mean that Pan Am, which has 30 DC-6s on order, is turning away from the piston engine, for now. For one thing, Comets burn 20.4lbs of fuel per mile compared with a DC-6B's 8.9. But jets are coming, and Pan Am continues to support efforts to build an American jet. 

"The Atom: Private Plans" The AEC continues to support private atomic power, even though the British have an atomic power plant almost ready to go and companies like Commonwealth Edison are just talking. 

Business Notes of the Week reports that Daniel Tobin has retired as President of the Teamsters after 45 years, that American corporate earnings are up 1% over last year, but defence contractors like Douglas and GE are doing much better. Parker Pens and Chlorophyll and Chemical have new plants going up. The New York Curb Exchange has changed its name to the American Stock Exchange. 

"Dodges for '53" The Dodge division at Chrysler is offering new stylings, not new models, and even the new Chrysler V-8 is only going into a new model of the Coronet. 

Products; What's New reports that Handy Hose's new plastic garden hose weighs a pound-and-a-half per fifty feet,, while Pyrene's new air foam fire extinguisher is the best ever. Dewy and Almy Chemicals have a gasket maker which involves using the part as the mold, with a plastic fluid that can be coated on the piece and then dried to make the gasket. Date-Lite has a girl's broach with three lights (green, amber, red), which can be lit up --well, you see the name of the company, right?

Henry Hazlitt is on about "The Dilemmas of Foreign Aid," in which he explains how he was actually right when he predicted in 1947 that American foreign aid to Europe would be disastrous. It is just that the disaster didn't take the form of a socialistic collapse of the European economy, but rather, even worse, some French politicians getting upset at us. 

Special Report: "The Nation's Railroads Modernise to Survive" A mindboggling number of numbers are rolled out to show how the railroads are modernising in various ways. Our interests are generally in the area of "traffic control," so I checked that part of the article out. The railroads are going to "cab signalling," in which the  engineer can tell at a glance at his panel what the condition of the track is, no matter what the weather. In the event the engineer doesn't notice a stop on the board, an automatic controller will stop the train. The Milwaukee Road is installing a "push button" switching yard in Milwaukee, and related to traffic control is improvements in communication which include radio, radar and television. Book-keeping is also being modernised. So even if the most interesting aspect of railroad research is improving rail strength and durability, electronics are making their impact on railroading, too.
 

Science, Medicine, Education

Newsweek checks in with the Chemical-Biological Coordination Council, hard at work since the war revealed a shortage of coordination work between various organisations in charge of classifying chemicals. Fascinatingly, once they  have a full description of the chemical's properties, they convert it into a "machine language" and put the code onto an index card using an IBM machine, so that the card can be mechanically read and sorted. 

And there is a "quicker than quick" process for freezing food, developed in Denmark by the Bland Food Processing Corporation (No! I did not make that up!!!), which freezes food faster in an ethylene glycol bath and preserves its qualities better. Expect better frozen food soon!

Science Notes of the Week reports that Dr. J. R. Anderson of Bell Labs has told the American Institute of Electric Engineers meeting in New Orleans that computers may soon get their instructions from "crystals of prodigious memories," since a 1" square of barium titanate can be divided into 2500 parts, each containing an independent and distinguishable electric charge representing a number. Ethyl Corporation and Battelle have discovered a chemical that slows the ripening of tomatoes and flowers. 

"Anti-Cancer Atoms" The Memorial Centre for Cancer and Allied Diseases has a brand-new Allis-Chalmers betatron for shooting electrons (not "atoms") at cancerous tumours, which is worth a breathless story because, as I mentioned below (but wrote first, and believe me it is a chore to keep the paper open to insert the stories this way!), it seems to be 1946 again. 

"Fatal Shock" Russell Nelson[?], a doctor on the Surgeon General's research team in Korea, reports discouraging news of the effects of shock on the  human body, which are holding back the gains from rapid surgery and blood transfusions. "Shock" can easily set in and kill the patient in spite of all the blood in the world. Dr. Nelson believes that the cause of this shock is bacterial poison, and is trying to prove this by shocking dogs with botulism toxin after bleeding them. The hypothetical source of this toxin would be intestinal bacteria, which pose no threat to healthy people, but presumably get out of control in sick ones. The solution might be antibiotics, although they have not proven of use so far because the actual cause of fatal shock would be the toxins, rather than the bacteria themselves. The right antitoxin, in combination with antibiotics, would be a solution. 

Medical Notes of the Week reports that Dr. Howard Howe of Johns Hopkins has a polio vaccine, which he is testing on some imbecile children. The vaccine is so far not ready for use. Randolph Field is working on cures for airsickness better than existing treatments like Dramamine, Benadryl, and scopolamine hydrobromide, which tend to cause drowsiness. Dexedrine is showing promise. Well, it certainly won't cause drowsiness! The AMA Journal reports the first known case of a patient surviving through use of an artificial heart-lung machine, when Drs. Forrest Dodrill, Edward Hill, and Robert Gerisch of Harper Hospital undertook a 50 minute exploratory surgery on a (relatively healthy) patient. Specially treated cartilage from young cattle is being used by plastic surgeons to make chins, foreheads, and other  human features. 

"Scanning the Schools" Last fall, eight out of ten universities and four year colleges reported enrollment declines. This year, the enrollment situation is bette due to an unexpected increase in first year enrollment, resulting in only four out of ten reporting declining enrollment and another two out of ten reporting no change. Business, technology, and teacher training have all seen registration increases in line with Selective Service preferences. That is, you are less likely to be drafted if you go into engineering. 

"Art Books on the Road" Sydney Verecker is touring the country in an air-conditioned ten ton truck selling art books in far-flung but likely locations such as the University of Utah and Texas Southern, where impoverished Coloured students swapped a rare 29 volume series by the English Historical Society for art books. It seems like quite the career, and he isn't quitting, notwithstanding already being almost killed by winter roads near Racine last year. 

Press, Newsmakers

Ed Stone of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer gets a pointless profile, and Newsweek rounds up the press endorsements, not that it will make any difference. A funny story out of The Baltimore Sun about how the state made it wait two years for a routine report on ground water, so the paper decided to make a big story out of it. 

George Marshall and Bernard Baruch are in the paper because it is apparently 1946 again. British royalty is in the column because when isn't it? Another Chinese typewriter has been patented. Arlene Dahl is divorced. The Coast Guard was recently involved in a 17 hour search for a trawler that docked an hour overdue in Portland, Oregon, and has no comment. Mitzi Gaynor supplies a nice picture. Dwight Eisenhower is 62, boxer Chuck Davey is married, as is Irving Berlin's daughter. David Smart, Keisuke Okada, Francis P. Matthews, Leonard K. Nicholson and Raymond J. Morfa are dead.  

New Films

Limelight (United Artists) is the first  movie Charlie Chaplin has made in five years. It's pretty good, as you'd expect, but the story is really that Chaplin has made a movie. The Magic Box is a British import, about some old photographer, but "very colourful and touching." Warner Brother's Springfield Rifle is a solid, fast Western starring Gary Cooper, but no High Noon. Columbia's Assignment Paris is a spy thriller that falls down a bit at the thrilling part. 

Books

Gladys Schmitt's Confessors of the Name is a historical novel about Christians in ancient Rome in the times of Emperor Decius. The Emperor feeds them all to the lions (poor lions!) without saving Rome, which just goes to show that conservative politicians are hopeless. Newsweek disapproves. Isabel Bolton's Many Mansions is about how the old days were even worse than Edith Wharton made them out to be, if that's possible. But now it is now and the heroine gets back some of her own and Newsweek liked it. Edmund Wilson's The Shores of Light is a collection of his essays, reviewed because, well, it's Edmund Wilson. Calder Willingham's third published novel is The Natural Child, and it leaves Newsweek bewildered, so it got revenge by writing a bewildering review about how the book is either too funny or not funny enough, you decide. Sidney Perelman's The Ill-Tempered Clavichord is also a collection, reviewed because honestly you can't miss this!

Raymond Moley always manages to write in a way that even Sidney Perelman can't make fun  of, because Moley has already done it. His point is that Eisenhower will lay the King's Touch on America and the Republican Party and cure all of their ills.

. 

Aviation Week, 27 October 1952

News Digest reports that the Douglas X-3 has made its first flight, and there has been a first shakeup at the Northwest board, with the vice-president, sales, resigning. Another production contract has been signed for the McDonnell F3H, Japan Air Line is in the red in its first year of oepration, Canada spent $80 million on aircraft equipment and airport construction in the first two weeks of September, it says here. The RCAF will receive its first jet transport from De Havilland before Christmas. N.Y. Airways has started a copter mail service. 

Industry Observer reports that  the supply of titanium is running ahead of demand, with 100t in stockpiles. Pentagon security policy  has prevented American manufacturers from profiting fully from the $400 million offshore aircraft procurement programme. For example, two Italian firms wanted to build Lockheed and Republic night fighters, but had to settle for the Venom because the American types weren't cleared for export. BuAer is also delaying release of the Pratt and Whitney J48 and T34. Which is all very well, but the T34 doesn't actually work yet, and the J48 is a licensed Rolls Royce engine. Can we even export it? The Navy is set to publish a design competition for a "stripped-down, high performance jet attack plane." Cessna is going to fly a turbopop in its L-19 soon. Piasecki is almost done its XH-16, which will be done any day now. Hughes and Bell have "producability" contracts on the Falcon and Rascal missiles, which means they are doing engineering work ahead of production. The army is building its first "heliport" at Fort Eustis next year. The latest model of the R-3350 gives 3700hp with water injection. Firestone has a contract to build the Corporal E guided missile. Republic is looking into the J73 as a replacement of its current J65 in the F84F. Wright Patterson is looking into procurement practices again. Boeing is working on ways to eliminate Rato takeoffs in the B-47. 

Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup reports on increasing pressure from Congress on the armed services to evaluate their procurement programmes and decide which ones are worth spending money on. The rest of the column looks at the election races of various pro-air politicians. 

"PAA Signs Firm Contract for Comet 3" Newsweek didn't quite scoop Aviation Week because Newsweek doesn't know the difference between the Comet 1 and the Comet 3. We speculate that it will fly on the highly competitive New York-Buenos Aires route, where Venezuela's LAV will already be operating Comet 2s. It is the first American airline order for a foreign plane since the Fokker trimotor. The stages will be New York-San Juan-Belem-Rio-Buenos Aires. The Comet 3 is guaranteed to give 2700 statute mile range against a 50mph headwind with reserves for diversion to an alternate airport 200 miles away and 45 minutes stacking time. It will carry 9700US gallons of fuel and have a full cabin load (at these numbers) of 14,500lbs, allowing it to carry 58 passengers, or 78 in high-density operations. PAA promises not to exercise its option for 7 more Comets if there is an American jet airliner available in 1957, but it will keep buying piston types. In the UK, the Comet 3 will get much larger subsidies than the 1 and 2, which received approximately $4.2 million, although the article doesn't say how much. 

"Red Air Buildup" Word of increased Communist air forces in Korea means that they might take the offensive to gain air superiority, Secretary Finletter said last week. About 1300 Soviet jet fighters are now in Manchuria, and a new Red twin-engine jet bomber is likely to follow. 

"O'Konski Opens New Fight on Kaiser" While Aviation Week don't talk good, it is right that Alvin O'Konski is after Uncle Henry again. I honestly don't know why everyone isn't after Uncle Henry, but as the Representative points out, the customer is paying far too much for pretty much everything that comes out of Willow Run and we really should do something about it instead of giving him even more money through the RFC, as seems to be in the air.

Alexander McSurely's first article in the editor's chair is "CAB Gets New Safety Proposals," mainly about getting rid of prop reversal, but also about aft-facing seats again. (Also lights, ventilation and humidity, fire protection, and helicopter operations.

"Sand Spit Crash: Pilots, NWA Officials Dispute CAB Findings" You might remember this as one of the Northwestern crashes that no-one cares about because it didn't involve a 2-0-2 and not everyone died. Back in January, a DC-4 bounced off the runway in an emergency landing and dunked the passengers in freezing water, where many people died. Northwest's position is that it was the plane's fault, somehow, and not the pilot's. Apart from it being NWA's fault because the engine that failed was grossly overdue for an overhaul due to a clerical error. Or maybe it was the airport's, because it didn't have enough lighting. Also, West Germany is going to start building planes again at the Focke Wulf works, with Wily Messerschmitt running things. 

David A. Anderton has "Britain Gets Set to Produce Its Aces" for Production Engineering. It's an article about upcoming production of the Supermarine Swift and Hawker Hunter. The big deal at Sueprmarine is the extreme care that must be taken with the new high-strength alloys uesd in the Swit's wing surfaces, the lack of Cincinnati Tools Hydrotel planers at the plant, and the less elaborate production methods to be used on the Hunter, with its more conventional structure, which doesn't require tapered or milled skin. There are some interesting details about the main Kingston-upon-Thames plant, which is on soft ground, so that jigs are set up on steel platforms that can be moved around the plant, for example. Supermarine will probably be able to out-produce Hawker, it looks right now. 

"Telescoping Tubes Spotwelded Faster" Rohr Aircraft has come up with a new spotwelding tool. Also, "Foam Plastic is Lightweight Stiffener,"  which must be great stuff, since it is a five page article about a new plastic being used in the usual parts (fuel tanks, radomes, etc.) Solar has built a plant to do ceramic coats for GE's J79's hotter parts, like combustion chambers, while Dow has a magnesium press good for 3000lb, built by Hydropress of New York.

Philip Klass has "Radar Plumbing Can Be Lightened" for Avionics. Farranti is cutting weight by milling waveguides in blocks.

George L. Christian really gets to travel this week, as he heads off to Hong Kong for Equipment to report on "Hong Kong Aviation Trio Serves Orient" Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering does maintenance for Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airways, and also Civil Air Transport of Formosa. It also does radio work for BOAC and Pan Am, plus several airlines from Indochina. Cathay now has a DC-4 and two DC-3s, and the shop is the most complete maintenance facility for 3000 miles around. Kai Tak's nearest diversionary airport is Tainan in Formosa.

New Aviation Products reports that "EAL Super Connies Use Fenwal Fire Units" which are overheat and fire indicators, with several new features to reduce false alarms. Lear's new automatic direction finder is for small planes. Precision Rubber Product's new O-rings are for jets because they are impervious to attack from all the new hydraulic fluids and lubricants. 

So They Tell Us reports that the Manchester Guardian says that Aviation Week's 3 October scoop on the Pan Am Comet buy was "not wholly accurate." A "responsible air officer at Fontainebleu" says that there is nothing in Europe to match the MiG until a Canadian F-86 wing arrives. Someone has hired a private detective to look into a CAB member, says the detective. In the latest security foul-up, Look has published a picture of the Sperry Sparrow missile, which is still secret, sys the Navy, even though the picture was cleared for publication in 1949. The Joint Chiefs are worried that we are building a larger stockpile of weapons than we really need, and the Bell X-2 has been delayed again after the much-delayed Curtiss Propeller rocket engine was sent back for reworking. Newark Airport is going to reopen, but public opinion is explosive, with allegations that key facts have been omitted from the CAB reports. Work continues on an optical indicator to warn if the wheels are down before landing, a lightweight radar beacon for ditched aviation personnel, and a method purging fuel tanks with "completely burned-out exhaust gas."  

What's New didn't get any new catalogues this week, but it did get John Kukuski's Theory and Technique of Soaring and two bulletins. Bulletin 263 describes 10,000 and 20,000t hydraulic press elevating sheet feeding tables, from Raymond Corporation and Heat Resistant and Corrosion Resistant Alloy Castings in Industry comes to us from International Nickel Corporation. 

Robert Wood's Editorial is only one  item this week, "The Reversible Prop Controversy"  It turns out that after months of kicking this around the CAA and CAB, Donald Keyhoe has a story in True magazine, and now it is time to cover our rears!  CAB sent a nasty letter, but there has been no request for a retraction from CAB, the airlines, or manufacturers, so the details of some 29 serious propeller reversal incidents are not in contest, only niggling issues like the existence or non-existence of a manual lock on the propeller pitch reversal mechanism. Alexander McSurely and CAB agree that reversing pitch is so important for safety that some small risk of propeller reversal must be accepted. The question, then, is "how much." 

 So how is The Engineer coming this week? Well, first and above all there are the machine tool exhibitions, in Olympia at the beginning of the month, and then a European one in Germany at the end of the month. If you get the impression from the American press that America is the only place where they have machine tools, well, there's lots of pictures to the contrary in The Engineer. And to show that the engineering business is big and diverse and complicated, it follows the 17 October story about the European Machine Tool Exhibit in Hanover with a story about potato harvesting machinery. Also a continuing feature through the back end of the month is summaries of papers presented to the annual meeting of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, which at least in October are all boring hydrodynamics papers. And at the end of the month they start coverage of the motor show at Olympia. And a "Public Works Exhibition!"

In comparison the annual report on the "Work of the Atomic Energy Commission" fits into a single issue. I don't see anything we haven't heard before (come on, come on, we all want to know about the hydrogen bomb!), but it is surprisingly strident in defending the radiation risks to public health of "nationwide atomic testing," by which it means that the fallout gets everywhere, but it is fine because the radiation exposure is so low and we can use it to track the weather. 

The Engineer has the same pictures, and not much more to say, about the Harrow and Wealdstone accident, which, for me, at least, leads into a story about French railway electrification because of a neat picture of great big boxes of electronics at the "centralised traffic control panel for Dijon."

Next and not unrelated a story about the latest hydroelectric "scheme" in the Scottish Highlands, Glen Affric, and the opening of the Claerwen dam the next week, and a new dry dock on the Northeast coast, which is not very interesting compared to a story in the next issue about the use of prestressed concrete in new BOAC hangars at London Airport. (There are also an assortment of big water works in India.) 

The editorials in the 17 October issue are nothing much. The magazine is upset that not enough is being done about transportation policy in the United Kingdom, which is the subject of the presidential address of some mighty nabob of transportation engineering later in the issue, continuing in the next one, but I don't seem much more than platitudes and a gentle shifting of the blame to "cargo handling." It's all down to those lazy dockers and their ilk! In contrast, we get quite salty about the British motor industry week of the 24th. I get the impression that the biggest problem the industry faces is that it can't produce anywhere enough cars to meet the domestic demand due to all that  "balance of trade" stuff. Next week they're on about how helicopters might operate off merchant vessels to fight submarines better in the next war, which, sure, why not, how about super submarines looking for Atlantis, while we're at it? I mean, how does an aircraft find a submarine? There's the distinct possibility of dipping sonars (I have to kill you now that I've told you that), but they can only go so deep, which is also a problem. (Kill you twice, I do!) 

On the other hand, there's some giant articulated locomotives for the New South Wales Rails, courtesy of Beyer Peackock of Manchester which are quite lovely. The Lincoln tunnel is geting a third tube, GE has a new elecrically conducting aluminum alloy, and no doubt I've missed something important with all the stuff I've skipped, but that's The Engineer for October.