R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
Aviation Week, 2 February 1953
News Digest reports that Fairchild has received a contract to build a miniature submarine for the Navy, which raises some questions, so Aviation Week points out that the contract is going to the division that specialises in low-noise engines, and which has worked on hydrogen peroxide propulsion in the past. New York Airways is buying some more helicopters (S-55s) so that it can hand deliver letters from the airport for lots of Post Office money. A B-47 recently completed 47 missions, showing that they're not complete junk any more. General Twining says that the Soviets are expected to build some larger bombers soon. Prewitt Aircraft's adhesively-bonded steel helicopter blades are being tested by the Navy. TWA is buying something called "Curtiss Wright electronic flight duplicators" for its pilot training centres at LaGuardia, Kansas City, Detroit, LA and San Francisco.
Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup reports that Charles Wilson is in a difficult political position. He was nominated by the Eisenhower Administration to reward GM for its support, and pushed by GM because it supports the Eisenhower Administration's international position and is cool to Taft-style isolation. That leaves Taft cool to him, making the nomination fight more difficult. The Democrats, on the other hand, would like to see Wilson go through, given that he will be a weak link in the 1954 campaign to recover the House and Senate. Meanwhile, Republican senators find him, Johnsen gingerly begins, "inexperienced . . . [in his] key job . . .testifying before the Senate." Then she goes on to give example after example of Wilson being not so much inexperienced as unqualified, arrogant, and patronising.
Industry Observer reports Fairchild is putting its min-turbine in the C-119A as an emergency power and thrust generator. It is not a new idea, but it will be on top of the fuselage rather than under the wing, and will be retractable. The Air Force is going to recall some of its leased C-46s and C-54s to ease the unspecified problems that it is currently experiencing with MATS which are no fault of its own but rather due to all that increased activity due to that airlift that's going on. The CAA is mandating that Boeing 377s not operate their Hamilton Standard propellers below 1750rpm, except 1400rpm in cruise due to cracks. UAL will have a nationwide VHF ground-to-air communication network by the spring, and other airlines are interested in doing the same. The Navy is working to break its communication systems down into modular units for various good reasons. Convair's new Cincinnati Milling Machine high-speed miller is the bee's knees. Bell has a twin-turbine (Alison T-38s) big helicopter design to follow on the XHSL-1. The Navy doesn't like the new, mobile, one-man GCA unit because it takes twice as many maintenance hours as the old three-man unit.Aviation Week reports that Eastern and United are going head to head over air coach service, while the aircraft and aircraft parts backlog has reached $15 billion.
"Comet Lands Short of Runway in Africa" BOAC Comet G-Ally has landed short of of the runway at Entebbe, Uganda on 21 January, killing an African runway worker. Parts for the damaged undercarriage are being flown out from Britain.
"Defence Team Holdings Revealed" A long article amounting to a bit more than just the Defence and Army, Air Force and Navy Under-Secretaries' stock portfolios. Wilson will have to divest of 40,000 GM shares worth $2.5 million, although his wife can keep 10,000. Some future payments in money and stock have been clarified or modified, and he has resigned from a number of other directorships, although he is keeping those shares because those firms do not do business with the Defence Department. Roger Keys, the Under-Secretary, will similarly resign various directorships and divest of GM but not other shares, but comes under additional scrutiny because he began his career at Glenn L. Martin and is a distant relative of same. Harold Talbot, the Under-Secretary for Air, was scrutinised for his involvement in a WWI-era scandal delineated by am old Charles Evans Hughes report finding, as usual, malfeasance and double dealing at Wright-Patterson involving Dayton-area firms with connections going back to the Wright brothers. Investigations petered out during the Harding Administration, so Talbott gets a pass. The new Navy Secretary is a Texas attorney with no relevant stock holdings, while the Army Secretary's holdings, mainly in airlines, are modest but will be divested, anyway.A new scheme for prop reversal indicators is out from the Guggenheim, and the Air Force (more specifically Dolittle and Lieutenant General Laurence C. Craigie) is supporting the Aro, Incorporated's contract to operate the Arnold Engineering Development Centre against Congress' desire to specifically ban the company effective 31 March. Dolittle is in the reserves now, while Craigie is the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development. Aro is a nonprofit set up by several Air Force contactors who must have been keeping their noses clean, because I have never heard of them. The original contract was a brainstorm of Stuart Symington's. Various financial indications are advanced to show that Aro is not making book on its contract.
"Engine Failures Hit BOAC Stratocruiser" Well, at least it's not Northwestern again. BOAC grounded its ten ship 377 fleet last week to tear down the Wasp Major engines and root out the cause of repeated engine "difficulties." Engines were seizing on the ground and in the air, showing inadequate piston lubrication, and tear downs have revealed problems generally due to inadequate lubrication, including one that caused metal shavings that showed up in another inspection. The grounding has probably ended hopes of BOAC showing a profit this quarter, and seem to be due to gasoline diluting lubricant oil after evaporating during certain operating rpms and conditions.
"First Details of Boeing GAPA Project" The Ground-to-Air-Pilotless-Aircraft is a supersonic, rocket and ramjet-propelled aircraft with control surfaces, presumably meaning that it can turn and bank.
"IAS Papers Reflect Complexity" It is hard to summarise the papers given at the IAS Meeting in New York last week because they cover so many topics because air power is complicated. The summary proceeds with groupable papers and sessions because other wise we'd be here all night talking about sail planes and space. There were three papers on turbine blade stall, four on structures, and three on analysing the results of flight test data (including one on structural considerations of tail load).
Avionics has a description of the Federal Telecommunications Laboratory (an ITT affiliate) "Microstrip," a way of reducing the weight and volume of circuits. Filter Centre reports that the F-84F will get the new Westinghouse E-9 autopilot. Westinghouse is also in the news for buying several Boeing analogue computers to help design aircraft voltage regulators. Douglas is looking at a mounting rack to improve electronic component cooling. Arinc has issued a specification for crystals to meet a military specification for new radios. Aerovox has bought Acme, a wave filter manufacturer. Sperry is substituting mag-amps for vacuum tubes in its A-12 autopilot to see how it goes. The Honeywell E-11 autopilot, to go into the Douglas B-66, has a noteworthy gyro, available caged and uncaged.
Safety has a series of articles about ALPA's approach to ensuring safety, most of which is procedural, although right at the bottom of the section there is an official Airline Pilots Association blast at the way that allowed aircraft all up weights keep creeping upwards without anyone consulting them.
Equipment has a bizarre piece from George L. Christian on Claire Chennault's floating base for his Civil Air Transport line. It is a 2000t barge built on an LST hull and it is somewhere in the Formosa or Philippine waters supporting the completely legitimate, legal, and not at all WWIII-risking activities of the CAT. The LST "will allow the airline to move back into China as quickly as it retreated from the communists." It even has a photography lab and a parachute packing facility, because the airline needs to make microfilms and expects its civil air transports to suddenly fall out of the sky for undisclosed reasons such as an accidental mid-air collision with 30mm rounds coming out of a MiG-15's guns. A full description of CAT's operations follows.
The Economist, 7 February 1953
Leaders
"Climax in Central Africa" It looks like the Central African Federation is going to go through if it passes a referendum amongst the white settlers of Southern Rhodesia. Protections for Africans have been weakened to improve its chances, which looks bad. On the other hand, two British governments think that only federation will protect native Africans and white Souithern Rhodesians from South African influence, which is good for both. On the other hand again, if the native Africans don't like it, what was the point of trying? Put that way, I am willing to give The Economist just a tiny bit of benefit of the doubt.
Notes of the Week
Mr. Dulles is in Paris, where the French are getting anti-American vapours just because he said some bad things about the French specifically in Life and because he seems to want to start WWIII over Formosa, which is bad. On the other hand, the French are also fighting a crazy war in Indochina, so they have that to form a bond over. Moscow hasn't commented on the Dulles tour yet, perhaps because they don't want to fight WWIII, perhaps because they're getting ready for a big purge, and the mood over there is weird and strange, with the latest being a fight between Pravda and Radio Moscow about Radio Moscow being too posh these days. Parliament has been a very strange place over Formosa, because the Tories and Labour are agreed that the American policy is insane, so the main fight is over whether Bevan or one of the Labour front benchers gets to ask the most questions about how terrible the whole Straits thing is. Everyone agrees that the Commonwealth is nice. The Liberal party in Britain wants some kind of electoral reform so that they can get 20% of the seats to go with the 20% of British voters who can't bear to vote for either Labour or Tory and so vote for the Liberals because they're harmless. Is it only me who wonders if they would change, or the Liberals would change, if they stopped being harmless?
"Europe's Northern Fronts" So Moscow is upset about Nato airbase building in northern Norway, and aren't giving the Norwegians any credit for refusing to accept a Nato garrison in peacetime. Meanwhile the Norwegians are withdrawing the brigade they formerly maintained in Schleswig, and the Danes are thinking about increasing their force there by a battalion to strengthen their southern flanks, only the Germans think that the Danes are eyeing Schleswig again; and the Danish Social Democrats think that the other main objective of the plan, which is to open up barracks space to allow the extension of national service to eighteen months, is actually meant to increase the strength of the Danish army at home, and not the country's southern defences in Germany. So much about the affairs of northern Europe I didn't know!
"Revised Plan for Technology" The Government rejected the Labour plan for a Royal College of Technology (something like the College of Physicians, rather than the Institute) in June. Instead, it is going to double the Imperial College of Science and Technology, which is like the Institute, except without making it a university. The Economist is not impressed. The English are also now arguing about Sunday closing again, while Turkey, Jugoslavia and Greece are negotiating some kind of entente directed at Russia. Jugoslavia doesn't particularly want to be allied to Italy if that means Italian troops in the Balkans.
From The Economist of 1853 comes "Preservation of Peace," which finds that forty years of peace have been so nice that probably Europe should go on with that. As often with the magazine then and now, this is probably some kind of comment about "events in Manchester" this week that the reader is supposed to know about from the dailies. It might have something to do with Richard Cobden. Oh, you're thinking now. Richard Cobden! Of course!
Letters
Books
American Survey
American Notes
A revised Consumer Price Index is expected this week which will better measure inflation. Selective Service pressure on labour supply is easing, but it is going to be hard to raise a million head for the service this year given the declining number of youth. President Truman wanted more regular recruits and was willing to raise service pay to get them; Anna Rosenberg wants more women and post-Korean War fathers; General Hershey wants an end to exemptions and deferments for farmers and fathers. The National Manpower Council thinks the system is working well, but is concerned about educational deferments leading into fatherhood deferments, although not as much as critics like Dr. Conant, who thinks that it is a scandal that poor boys are fighting the country's wars. The Council thinks that relaxing physical requirements and a "minor tightening of deferments" will be enough to make up the deficit.
"Pistols at New York Heads" The International Longshoreman's Association has long "held a pistol" to the country, or New York's, head. Now that there is a Communist-influenced West Coast longshoreman's union, something has to be done about this and that, mainly organised crime on the docks. The AFL says that the ILA has three months to kick out the gangsters.
The World Overseas
"Foreign Forces in Korea" UN "foreign" forces in Korea include 7 American and at best 3 other divisions, and the Americans think that other countries should contribute more. As usual, the British point out that the Commonwealth is responsible for about half of that and don't forget the four divisions in Malaya or the four in Germany, and the French say, don't forget about Indo-China. In conclusion, the Dutch and the Belgians are terrible. Although the Dutch have decided that they won't need any American aid in 1953--4, so good on those thrifty, hard-working and flooded Netherlanders! The Economist then spends a page each explaining why Spain's future is so rosy and the future of iron and steel in Lorraine.
"Australia Enjoys Its Import Cuts" Remember last year when there were a flurry of stories about how terrible the economic situation in Australia was? That was because the Australians had to introduce severe import restrictions to save its current accounts balance. Ten months along, the country has somehow managed not to fall apart. But soon, for sure!
The Business World
"Corpse in the Capital Market" There's just not enough private investment in Britain these days due to their not being enough of the kind of rich people who light cigars with five pound notes and put their feet up on their banker's desk. Maybe the middle class will take over if they can be persuaded to save all their money. Also, the Export Credits Guarantee Department took a serious blow last year, as revealed in the supplementary estimates just published. The Economist admits that it is the first time in years that these losses can actually be broken out of government accounts, what with one thing and another (the war, mainly), but it is sure to presage some kind of disaster.
Business Notes
"Freer Payments or More Trade?" Should Britain work on reducing import restrictions or currency restrictions first? People differ. Also, an effort to invest more in the Commonwealth.
"The Flood Bill" The flooding has had a huge cost, knocking three major power plants out of action, damaging the three big new oil refineries along the Thames, and Unlever's margarine factory at Purfleet and flooding the docks at the Kemsley paper mill and ruining stocks of finished paper in the warehouses. It is still unclear how much damage was done to the power grid or the railways. Reclaiming the 250,000 acres of flooded farmland may take years. Seawalls will need to be repaired. On the bright side, the supply of gypsum for remediation of soil from salt damage seems to be adequate.
Sweets are off the ration, South African mining companies are making new profits on uranium, the end of the drought in Australia means more butter and cheese. The "end of rationing may no longer be a pipe dream."
Aviation Week, 9 February 1953
News Digest reports that US Far East Air Force commander, General O. P. Weyland, figures that the Communists have 7000 combat aircraft in the Far East, greatly outnumbering American aircraft. Reynolds Metals is expanding its McCook, Illinois plant to produce tapered aluminum sheet for the Navy. The Flight Safety Foundation is forming a Division of Aircraft Service and Equipment. Ryan has a new two-stage parachute for recovering its Q-2 target drones and the AEC has postponed the deadline for proposals to develop the prototype (ground installation) aircraft atomic reactor engine. Industry Observer reports that Army Ordnance has made the first tests of a ground-launched antiaircraft missile system against air targets, firing Douglas Nikes at B-17 target drones and getting a better-than-fifty-percent hit rate. The first North American F-86H fighter bomber has been delivered to Edwards AFB (as it is now called.) Lord Hives is in America selling the Rolls-Royce Conway, expected to be used on the de Havilland Comet 4. It is? He expects the Conway to be in production by 1958 with a thrust of 11,500lbs and consumption of 0.7lb of fuel per pound of thrust per hour. The Martin P5M1 has gone through an accelerated flight trial period. Lockheed, Douglas and Boeing are pressing engine manufacturers to produce a thrust-reversal system for their jet engines as soon as possible. The Navy is working on Moving Target Indication for ground surveillance radar scopes so that aircraft can identify moving targets like tanks on the ground. The Bell XHSL is too small to carry cargo in addition to its anti-submarine role, which is why the Navy is pressing for an enlarged version. Hiller wants us to know that it has moved beyond the Hornet prototype to develop a whole portfolio of jet-propelled helicopters with all sorts of interesting features. Meanwhile the Army wants helicopter manufacturers to worry less about aerodynamics and more about cargo capacity.
Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup has a summary of Eisenhower's comments on defence during the Inaugural address, which were all about efficiency, economy, and reorganisation; the continuing but falling lag in service spending on aircraft compared with authorisations; a brief set of capsule biographies of the "money men" of the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defence; and the new members of the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees responsible for the CAA and CAB. An economy drive is expected.
Aviation Week reports that "F3Ds Outfly Red Night Fighters in Korea" The Marines think that they have downed six Red night fighters, including some MiG-15s. Night flying B-29s are reporting being attacked by jet fighters, presumably vectored on target by ground radars, so it is possible. Meanwhile, it is reported that 1172 American aircraft have been lost to enemy action in the thirty months of the Korean conflict, plus an additional 562 Navy aircraft operational losses in Korean waters. The USAF does not announce operational losses. Unofficial estimates put total Korean War aircraft losses at around 2400.
"Comet Problem" It looks like the CAA is tempted to drag its feet over the Comet's airworthiness certification long enough to endanger the TWA sale.
Nat McKitterick reports for McGraw-Hill World News Service that "Britain Announces New Jet Liner," which is Aviation Week's report on the Vickers 1000, being ordered for Transport Command, with a civil version of the plane, the VC-7, in the design stage. This is the airliner based on the Valiant 2, with Conway engines. A capacity of 150 passengers and a range of more than 2000 miles is implied by the Air Minister's comments introducing the new design. It will be 146ft long, with a wingspan of 140ft and a height of 38ft.
Alexander McSurely reports that "Plane Fastener Fight Nears End." The military looks set to accept the Camloc quick release fastener standardised by the National Aircraft Standards Association after a marathon meeting of Army and Navy at Wright Patterson. McSurely goes on to explain how this turned into a fourteen year controversy. Mainly, Camloc's competitors bought off the services.
Aeronautical Engineering has an article by William Littlewood about air transport trends, and a box explainer introducing Littlewood as the vice-president of American Airlines, and Aviation Week's answer to a thirteen page shortage of editorial. To briefly summarise: "Aircraft are getting better, and if you like, here are some graphs of historic trends of figures of merit where you can extend the line to predict the future."
This week we look at papers given at the IAS meeting in New York on aerodynamics, flight propulsion, and aircraft design. The engine article is on compressor stall, while both aerodynamic papers are related to skin drag.
Avionics has Philip Klass reporting on "Big Brain to Solve Aviation Problems: Oarac Memory Can Hold up to 10,000 "words:" First Task: Solving of 1011 Equation Problem" After all that title, this is a GE-built electronic digital computer. "Words" are 10 digit numbers (in the binary number system) along with an operator symbol. The problem is to find the indices of absorption and refraction of low-frequency radio waves in an ionising medium in the presence of an external magnetic field. It is expected that it will take about 200 hours to solve it, compared with 20 years for an operator at a desk computing machine. Oarac is slower than its competitors, but GE thinks it gets its own back by being more reliable, and it gets rid of permanent programs, because it can store programs in its memory or on magnetic tape. Internal design is simplified by the use of "standard circuits," allowing the use of only 1400 vacuum tubes and 7000 germanium diodes. Tubes run at 90% rated voltage to reduce the failure rate. Ourac is another computer using magnetic tape to communicate with the outside world, and its internal memory is a cast aluminum drum coated with ferritic material and driven at 3400rpm. Four magnetic heads "read" and "write" the "words." GE is also said to be building machines that will automatically produce electronic assemblies for similar digital control units.Tektronix has a nice new oscilloscope, and a description of it will fill an inconvenient gap at the bottom of p. 66 and the top of p. 67, along with a description of the actual world's smallest capacitor, a molded paper piece smaller than a paperclip from Sprague Electronics and the MPT pulse transformer from PCA Electronics. And now we can finally start Filter Centre, which must have been turned in a column short this week. It reports that McDonnell hopes to use some telemeter equipment from Telecomputer in its helicopter division, and that Westinghouse is putting its components into a standard aluminum base to save assembly time. It also has, just for a change (maybe that Spraque advertorial embarrassed someone) the largest aircraft three phase alternator, weighing 123lbs and putting out 400Hz 60kV current while spinning at 6000rpm. What a beast!
Equipment has George L. Christian reporting on a new expandable cantilever-roof hangar with a clear floor from Thompson-Starrett of New York and designed by Paul Rongved and Cyril P. Erwin of Erwin-Newman Corporation. It is expensive, but it is a really good hangar and you should buy it.New Aviation Products (Yes, I know) has a flush latch from Hartwell Aviation Supply down on Venice Beach. It is an aluminum extrusion, so much smoother than a punch press product. Romec's has a new light plane fuel pump. David Brown of Huddersfield, England, wants America to know about the world's largest gear hobbing machine.
Letters has S. J. Davy of the Computer Engineering Department of Arma Corporation writing at length about the "pictorial computer" discussed by Captain Robson in his recent column. He explains that the point of a pictorial computer display is to project voice-over-radio bearings onto a standard chart and calculate the plane's course. Radar cannot do that. It is not radar's job. Radar fixes and bearings are not reliable enough yet and radar bearings would still need to feed a pictorial computer. Radar is a good thing to have in an airplane. It is not a replacement for a pictorial computer. Milt Kusa, an F-86D flight test project engineer at North American, writes about "fighters and altitude." He suggests that F-86s are not, in fact, compromised at high altitude by their high wing loading, and the design features that lead to this are apparently good in air-to-air combat. W. F. Milliken, Jr.[?], the manager of the Flight Research Department of Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, has concerns about the accuracy of the reporting in a recent article about their stall recovery device. Aviation Week defends its reporting. William Raser of New York thinks Grover Loening is right about there not being enough support for inventors in this country.The Economist, 14 February 1953
Leaders
"Tory Reform for Housing" The Tories have built more houses than Labour which is very embarrassing for Labour but is also bad for Britain because it distracts effort from exports. There is some question about getting maintenance done, and also about the balance of public and private housing. Secretary Dulles' plans for starting WWIII are meeting with a cool reception in Europe. The Economist hopes for a middle ground where the Administration only tries to start WWIII a tiny little bit, and Europe helps. Or something. Honestly I have no patience for three pages trying to find the bright side of John Foster Dulles.
"Allies on the Dikes" The whole world has rallied to help the Dutch in their flooding. Even The Economist's cold heart is almost warm enough to avoid making a political point. (The Americans helped, too! See how nice they are?) The Dutch, on the other hand, are a bit shaken in their confidence in the Waterstaat, or Ministry of Works, especially because the flooding struck rural areas in the south of the country, in the islands of south Holland and Zeeland. The worry now is soil remediation from all the salt damage.
"Saturday Night at the Palais" The joint was swinging! Ballroom dance swinging! Which is a thing they are doing these days in Britain. The Economist, which knows no joy, wonders why but explains the (of course) economic implications. A lot of hall rentals and dance schools. Jive dancing is not particularly lucrative, and that is why it died in Britain, and square dancing will go the same way, it says here.
The Economist of 1853 has "The Interment of Protection," an editorial celebrating the latest setback of all the backward "noblemen, gentlemen, and intriguers" of the National Association for Protection, which has formally dissolved itself.
Notes of the Week
"Kenya Takes the Strain" OPERATION GROUNDBAIT is "the fourth in a series aimed at clearing the Aberdares of Mau Mau gangs." I didn't know there were Mau Maus in Scotland! Oh, no, I have read it wrong. It is referring to a part of the Kenyan Central Highlands that the settlers have decided to start calling "the Aberdares." "Special areas" of the Aberdares are being cleared of all Africans, while African labour on British farms is being issued special identifications. The white settlers look forward to self-government under the new order, in which representation by communities means that native Africans will be permanently outvoted by a board consisting of "one Hindu Asian, one Muslim Asian, three Europeans, one Arab, and one African." Kenya is "taking the strain" in the sense that land values have stopped rising, but aren't actually falling, and there is no reduction in the wait list of British farmers interested in buying. "If anything, men of greater substance are coming forward this year than last," and "there is no detectable slackening in the secondary industries." A drought is a bit of a problem, though.
Letters
Books
Vladimir Dedijer has Tito Speaks. For a Communist, he's a great guy! It says here. Jacob Viner''s International Trade and Economic Development is a collection of six lectures vindicating the classical economics interpretation of international trade as the basis of "stability and progress." The Editors of La Prensa explain the slow death of their newspaper in Defence of Freedom. Geoffrey Sawer edits the very worthy Federalism: An Australian Jubilee Study. George Dangerfield's The Era of Good Feelings is a history of the boring bit of early American history.
American Survey
"Dollars for Diplomacy" The President wants Congress to appropriate them, and Congress has doubts. It is hard to believe it won't come around when American exports depend on replenishing the supply of dollars! US public transport is in trouble. It can't make money, especially given rising wages for its staff, and cannot keep up with the potential increase in ridership, either. Because of difficulties in handling intermittent loads, it cannot rationalise services, and in spite of heavy investment in new technologies, risks eventual block obsolescence. Of particular concern is its likely inability to take on the strain of moving the whole population in the event that another war forces cars off the streets.
American NotesAfter which we close out with some articles about sales and salesmen.
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