R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
Letters
John Stafford of Rockford, Illinois, points out just how obnoxious Charlie Wilson's complaint that the Senate committee that grilled him at his confirmation was acting like a "Board of Directors." They are the Board of Directors! Of America! That's even more important than GM! A regular person and no less than J. Edgar Hoover write to point out that Newsweek suggested without evidence that the United World Federalists are some kind of what they're calling a "commie front" these days, and that's what they're calling "libel" these days. Many, many correspondents noticed that the Sudanese bugler is blowing "Reveille" at noon, and that he's probably not blowing "Reveille" at all.
S. J. Hartnell, who might be one of your employees, considering that he signs his address as "Youbou, BC," has some fun with the chairman of Quaker Oats whining about taxes. For Your Information this week makes an entire column out of the Sports department being saddle sore after covering the National Field Trials.
Exclusive to The Periscope is the inside scoop that the Communist leadership of the six Schuman Plan nations have met to coordinate resistance to the plan. Shirley Boot's next film will be About Miss Leslie, based on the Vina Delmar novel. Joan Crawford will star in Republic's Johnny Guitar, her first Western since 1928, while Claudette Colbert's next will be a historical drama, That Lady. Marge and Gower Champion will have a TV series in which they play themselves, Danny Kaye and Betty Hutton are mulling over TV offers for next season, Jack Carson will have his own TV comedy, Here Comes Calvin, and Eugene Pallett may be Nero Wolfe in an upcoming series.
The Periscope hits fifty-fifty on Hollywood rumours, which makes its claim that the planted CIA story is from a "usually reliable" column source a bit less ridiculous.
Washington Trends reports that Malenkov will probably focus more on Europe than the Far East and that this means that the Administration will be under pressure to speed up mobilisation, but the President won't do that because he is worried about the budget and thinks that the machinery of mobilisation needs to be reorganised, anyway.
National Affairs
We are waiting for Malenkov to do something. He's 51, fat, a "nonstop haranguer," and, well, that's all we've got. We do hear that Marshal Zhukov will have more influence in the new regime.
Then we look back at the Stalin legend, and then we have a map that looks like it cost a cool nickel to put together (with an inset map of "Kublai Khan's Mongol Empire" covering almost the same territory) under a headline reading "From Red China to Red Berlin, A Slave State: Can Stalin's Heirs Hold His Empire Together?"
"W. Averill Harriman: After Stalin, What?" Averill Harriman's theory is that it'll be one thing or another. In America, "intelligence" has no idea who this Malenkov person is. In Germany, no-one cares because they have more important things to worry about, such as a possible renewal of the Blockade, since, as Mayor Reuther points out, things can't keep on as they are going in Berlin.
"Saved by the Knell" The death of Stalin came at just the right moment for the Administration as it tries to sell "We're not doing anything about the horrible awful Yalta agreement" policy shift. Which is great, because Senators were yelling at Dulles about it just the other day. Newsweek's coverage of the Eden visit doesn't add much to The Economist, apart from explaining British verbal concessions on the not-quite-blockade of Red China and the terms under which Britain will agree with an Iranian oil settlement. Also, it looks like the McCarthy hearings for Voice of America aren't going anywhere because McCarthy can't really prove that it has been promoting Soviet propaganda by reporting on it. TV coverage of the hearings is not going well because McCarthy is chewing up all the available broadcast time, making it hard to cover the other side. Voice of America engineer Raymond Kaplan is the latest suicide over McCarthy attacks. The "Tidelands Muddle" gets a story, as does Joseph Dodge's threatening memo telling Office of the Budget staffers to come clean about irregularities now, or face the consequences. Some of those consequences may not include being replaced by more Republican-friendly officeholders, because of an employment freeze which has been in effect under an Executive Order since 1947. Also, Arthur J. B. Cartier has refused to resign voluntarily, and it is a scandal, like the one over the new Tennessee governor, who is up on corruption allegations perhaps orchestrated by the Crump machine. And that pro-Communist production company trying to film in Silver City, New Mexico has now been attacked by mobs, shot at, and had an actress deported to Mexico, with SAG refusing to intervene because the production is non-union. Arthur Burns is still on the new Council of Economic Advisors, although Newsweek adds to The Economist's coverage by noticing that there is no CEA right now because Burns is the only one hired to replace the old Council, so far. Ernest K. Lindell makes a Washington Tides column out of telling us that high Washington officials expect one thing or another out of Stalin's death.
The Korean War
"Ammunition Shortage in Korea: Pentagon, Van Fleet Disagree" Fortune has covered this story better, while The Periscope, as much as it pains me to say it, is probably better on the politics.
And in Latin America, an American shrimp boat was arrested by the Mexican coast guard for allegedly fishing in Mexican waters, but it is fine because they were just blown off-course by a storm and everyone is upset, because how dare those Mexicans. Why don't they just go have a bullfight, instead? Chile is upset because Peron meddled in their Congressional election, leading to the opposition winning both houses.
Business
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The Congressional GOP is having a grand old time fighting over tax cuts and the budget. (The states are also worried about deficits.)
Notes: Week in Business mostly covers the Merck-Doman and Sharp merger, although there's a mention of United Steel's new laboratory near Pittsburgh and confirmation that Kerr-McGee, the Oklahoma oil company owned by Senator Robert Kerr, is joining Philips in its Alaska exploration contract.
Products: What's New has Automatic Controls Corporation's automatic garden hose cutoff timer, an "autmatic valet service" from U. S. Hoffman Machinery Corporation in which you leave your clothes in a locker and call the number, and the company picks them up and cleans them for you. Domestic Sewing Machine Corporation of Cleveland has a cabinet sewing machine designed to fit right into a kitchen. Valco Products has a spinning knife sharpener, while Ideal Toy Corporation has tough toys made of Fiberglas armour as proven in military body armour.
Henry Hazlitt sees how Ernest Lindell (and me!) have spun Stalin's death into an excuse to write a lot less, and goes in for "Stalin and Our Policy," two columns of blather with all of two thoughts: There might be a civil war in Russia now, and Socialism is awful because it is too nice to Communism, which is awful, just like inflation.
Medicine, Education
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"Electronic Speech" Easter Seal's "blinker," which shows the electronic waveform of their teacher's speech, helps deaf children learn to talk faster. Dr. Nicholas S. Assalti of the University of Cincinnati Medical School has come up with a faster test for toxemia, which could save the lives of 1500 mothers and 30,000 children every year.
The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn has graduated a lot of engineers in its hundred years in operation. It is so busy these days that it supplements its faculty with "adjunct professors," who are engineers and scientists from local industry who teach part-time for extra cash.
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Radio and Television, Press, Art, Newsmakers
Lewis Iselin is quite the sculptor.
Donald O'Connor is very funny on television while Mutual Network won the Stalin death watch coverage award as given out by Newsweek. TV did a terrible job of covering it because it didn't want to interrupt Groucho Marx or Burns and Allen. Ed Sullivan is getting good programming out of promoting new films, Eddie Albert's new afternoon show is pretty good for a show in a time period that doesn't need shows. Freedom Rings, the other new mid-afternoon show, is not as good. Press is entirely devoted to the media death watch for Stalin, which needs a lot of coverage.
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New Films
Lili, an MGM film, is a showcase for Leslie Canon, in which she plays an orphan who talks to puppets, which soundes like very upsetting because technically people who talk to puppets because they think the puppets are real are "crazy," and that is bad. But the movie handles it all with such "delicacy" that we just have fun with Canon! Colour me dubious, but what do I know, I haven't seen the movie! The Tall Texan is a Western from a small production company that does a pretty good job with its budget limits. MGM's Tale of Three Loves is a Technicolor anthology film with three stories, and is as good as any of the rest of them. Moira Shearer dances! (Everyone dances this week.)
Books
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Speaking of horrible, Raymond Moley, who at least usually works on his columns, pulls the same "blather about Stalin for a page and take off early" trick as Lindell and Hazlitt.
Aviation Week, 16 March 1953
News Digest reports that Frederick Lee's nomination as Director of CAB is guaranteed. A C-119 has set a record of 2000 operational hours in Korea.
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| By Peng Chen - Flickr: Enter!, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22174424 |
Lee Moore reports for Aviation Week that there is a "Boom for Trans-Atlantic Aircoach Travel" We already knew this, but there are statistics for passenger miles and load factors, which are pretty good.
Robert Hotz reports that "Radar Breaks Bad-Weather Jams" Specifically, ground control at Washington National is using a radar setup to monitor ILS final approaches, roughly doubling capacity and cutting weather delays by two-thirds. The Washington setup uses a war surplus long-range microwave early warning radar supplied by the USAAF to the CAA, two Skiatrons to monitor it, both by GE. There is also an airport surveillance radar (ASR-1) built by Gilfillan Brothers of Los Angeles on a hill in Arlington, but monitored from the tower. Also,a Precision Approach Radar (PAR-1), formerly known as GCA, also from Gilfillan, automatic VHF/DR and VHF air-to-ground communications. The success of this set-up in controlling the very heavy traffic coming into and out of Washington means that it will be hopefully be a good setup for Chicago and New York, which will get the same equipment from the CAA shortly.
Ross Hazeltine reports for McGraw-Hill World News that "French Announce a Mach 1.5 Interceptor" SNACSO's S. O. 9000 Trident "officially is super-secret," but that won't stop the French from announcing it. It is a tiny little plane, powered by two 880lb Turbomeca Marbore IIs and a rocket in the tail giving 9000lbs when lit. The plane is "expected" to reach Mach 1.5.
"Allies Get Look at Intact MiG" There is nothing new or exciting about the MiG-15, which is pretty similar to Western types, although its ejection seat is notably lighter than Martin-Baker types. We also hear that the C-119 fuselage and tail have been beefed up, and that propeller shipments are up 39% in 1952. The aircraft order backlog is up to $17.9 billion, and BuAer is giving up on the J40 and is looking for alternatives for the McDonnell F3H, Douglas A3D and Douglas F4D. B-47 production is underway at Douglas, and the RAF buildup is being stretched out, it says here, although additional Canadair F-86s are being ordered and the first Supermarine Swift squadron is being formed. On the other hand, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has opened the pocket book for the charter airlines with some generous trooping contracts. Good on those Mau Maus for starting a revolution just when the charters needed some cash!
"Allies Get Look at Intact MiG" There is nothing new or exciting about the MiG-15, which is pretty similar to Western types, although its ejection seat is notably lighter than Martin-Baker types. We also hear that the C-119 fuselage and tail have been beefed up, and that propeller shipments are up 39% in 1952. The aircraft order backlog is up to $17.9 billion, and BuAer is giving up on the J40 and is looking for alternatives for the McDonnell F3H, Douglas A3D and Douglas F4D. B-47 production is underway at Douglas, and the RAF buildup is being stretched out, it says here, although additional Canadair F-86s are being ordered and the first Supermarine Swift squadron is being formed. On the other hand, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has opened the pocket book for the charter airlines with some generous trooping contracts. Good on those Mau Maus for starting a revolution just when the charters needed some cash!
Aeronautical Engineering has the unsigned (and passively voiced) "Plan for Broadening Jet Engine Design" You see, "an engineer" has proposed "multi-purpose turbine powerplants, adaptable to military planes and civil jet liners." Look, just because I have shares in pulp and paper mills in my portfolio doesn't mean I want my subscription money paying for wasted paper! The idea hear, buried at the bottom of the second column, is that Robert T. Holland, who is the "product planning engineer on transport" at GE thinks that engine designers should pay more attention to those things that airlines like. Which is obvious, but you can't justify your expense account giving a thirty second talk to a conference, so we're going to stretch it out the old-fashioned way by looking up the definitions of "output," "performance," "reliability," and "cost" in the dictionary and then reading them out. Or, to be fair, looking at all the things his designers worry about, and giving, say, foreign object damage and overheating a paragraph each.
Thrust and Drag reports that they had lunch with someone from Loening who says that the guys at Wright-Patterson have him coming and going. But the funny part was that he swore several times!
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NACA Reports sings the Power-Off Tests of a Model Helicopter Rotor in Vertical Auto-Rotation, with R. E. Slaymaker and Robin B. Gray in baritone and mezzo roles, respectively, and a lot of flare. Or is that what they were testing? One or the other! In other news, Hawker-Siddeley has bought a rocket-missile plant, yet another study of backwards-facing seats is underway, and although we all know that the national supply of engineers is dropping due to not many people being born in the Depression, there's a chart on this page that shows it pictorially. It also shows the Soviet engineer supply soaring skywards.
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Production has an unsigned article, "Lockheed Develops 'Giant' Techniques, which is more about Lockheed's "Hall of Giants," that is, giant machine tools. They're big, they're numerous, and sometimes they have automatic controls. Northrop, jealous, reports that "Punch Press Scheme Can Save $1 Million," which is about shifting the production of stainless-steel ends for hot-air ducts from machining to punch pressing. Equipment also has an unsigned lead article, "Lear Raises Lodestar Performance," which is about how Lear Aircraft has improved the performance of the company Lockheed Lodestar by fiddling with the exhausts, cropping the flaps, and putting in a retractile tailwheel.
Claire Chennault has a DC-4.
The McGraw-Hill Line-wide Editorial asks "Prosperity in the USA: How Deeply in Debt Are We" Is America's apparent prosperity a debtor's delusion, asks friends of McGraw-Hill Linewide Editorialist? No, Linewide Editorialist replies, debt is low compared with rising national income.
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Air Transport has Pan-Am pleading for a US jetlliner as soon as possible. There's just no comparison. Jets use cheaper fuel, are more reliable, and offer more power, which is far more important to improving performance than any further aerodynamic refinement.
"Propeller Reversed in NEA Crash" That's the Northeast Airlines Flight 825 Convair 240 that crashed at LaGuardia in February, fortunately with no casualties. Apart from prop reversal problems, there were comments about the lack of emergency cabin lighting and the difficulty of opening the emergency exits, which got tangled up in the curtains. Also, CAB is proposing a new cockpit setup of controls.
Captain R. C. Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint has "More Reliability Needed, Part 1" By reliability he means fewer cancelled flights, so this is a discussion of both flying in poor weather and misleading weather reports that lead to unnecessary cancellations and delays, which is what Captain Robson likes to talk about more than anything. Especially since he wants more freedom to ignore weather reports!
Letters has more on pilot experience. J. H. Zerby of the Pottsville Republican thinks that he is right that the recent spate of MATS accidents has to do with the pilots' lack of experience, while Mark Houston of Cleveland asks how inexperienced pilots are supposed to get experience, and issues a wall of words (1 and a quarter columns) showing that Robson is wrong. Lyle Gildermaster, a Co-pilot at Chicago and Southern, agrees with Houston with fewer words. Henry Bohmbach of Convair in Hawaii reams the magazine out for referring to Garuda Indonesian Airlines as an "Indian" outfit. Marvin Hammer of the Midwest Research Institute of 4049 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, Missouri, writes to say nice things about the magazine and not to show off his incredible mailing address.
Letters
Correspondents disagree about whether "ineffable" is only ever encountered in writing, or is a common word. Readers have nothing to say about Minot Jelke, and say it. Herb Mahumed of the Loyal Order of the Moose (Mooseheart, Illinois), is happy with the Newsweek feature about their documentary film, Faith of Their Fathers. Music fans, the radio programmer who plays him, and Eugene Ormandy love Eugene Ormandy. but everyone loves Edward R. Murrow. For Your Information takes a victory lap for predicting that Malenkov would succeed Stalin on the cover of their 1 September 1952 issue. He also has the soothing news that the F-86D all-weather interceptor won't be painted red in service. That's just for flight testing of the plane and its Mighty Mouse armament.
The Periscope reports that stories about long line of mourners viewing Stalin's coffin are false, that the Chinese delegation now in Moscow includes several Chinese nuclear experts, that one of the cost savings being implemented by the Republican Congress is closing inessential military bases in Democratic districts. The top-secret Naval installation that the Navy was gathering up land for on Santa Catalina Island through a "front" has been abandoned because it is so embarrassing when it came out. Morale is low on the House Un-American Activities Committee because members are upset with their new leader, Harold Velde. Apparently his "series of boners" has been tearing down the reputation that HUAC has gained "in three years of careful work." Yes! We should be careful to preserve the reputation that HUAC has won! Although I, for one, am shocked that members of HUAC would comment anonymously to Periscope. I mean, why not take your horrible, made-up complaint to a non-horrible column that doesn't make things up? Sometimes symmetry isn't prettier. Unions are the leading donors to the Truman Presidential Library, which is still well short of its fundraising target. The 83rd Congress may be economy minded, but it is on a pace to spend $6 million on investigations, with 125 opened up so far. Ike is already planning his first vacation, outside Denver, which he will take for "about a month" after Congress adjourns. "A top Navy war planner" who has been "kept bottled up" because of his embarrassing views, believes that the armed forces could be reduced substantially if "outmoded weapons and theories were boldly discarded." The US is raising a "Foreign Legion" division of Iron Curtain refugees that will be deployed in Europe. The "trick new submarine" Tunny will be ready to launch the Regulus atomic missile by the spring. It will be followed by the guided missile cruisers Boston and Canberra, which will be armed with the Terrier anti-aircraft missile. NATO exercises outside Paris emphasise forcing Red attackers to bunch up so that they can be attacked with atomic weapons. South Korea says that the China opium it is seizing off fishing junks is being imported by Japanese Reds for processing and sale to UN soldiers. Mecca is getting British-built prefabricated homes to serve as dormitories for pilgrims. The new Soviet ambassador to the UN, Vasily Kuznetsov, is forever "haunted" by saying nice things about American industry when he worked for Ford in the 1930s. Soviet coast guards are no longer responding to Western SOS calls. Hungarian Communists are awful and Fanco will restore the Spanish monarchy soon. Enver Hoxha was not invited to Stalin's funeral, the Soviets are adding a guided missile installation to their "ominous military installations" in occupied Finland, while the Air Ministry reports that the Soviets can now jam the radar equipment on British and US planes.
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Ike is keeping his temper under wraps as he looks for more "savvy" in the GOP. So far, Senator Taft is his savviest supporter, which isn't saying much.
National Affairs
On the investigation front, McCarthy is fighting with the Administration over the security files of Voice of America employees, which the President doesn't want to release because of privacy concerns. Meanwhile, Dulles has turned to Scott McLeod, the former FBI agent, who is technically working for Senator Bridges. McLeod has found enough to fire nine State Department officials, eight for homosexuality and one for adultery, and to hold up the promotion of 200 others. Dulles is happy with this because the investigation is helping him get rid of Democratic holdovers in State, and might be hoping that giving McCarthy access to the security files would speed up the process, as long as it is Congress forcing his hand. Senator Taft says that McCarthy has been very constructive and helpful, and now thinks that he would have (not) fired everyone at Voice of America if he were in charge. (Just like he would have ((not)) repudiated Yalta much more forcefully than the President!). Ovetta Culp Hobby, which is a real name, will be the first Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and only the second woman to serve in the Cabinet. She is Republican, and she has Taft's support, because "health, education and welfare" are things that Taft is soft about. Hopefully she will push the Federal health service and eventually Reggie and I will have something as nice as the National Health Service.
Speaking of women, Senator Margaret Chase Smith has stepped in to settle the shells crisis. i) It is a crisis; ii) Everything is nevertheless fine; iii) There will be a Senatorial investigation, because you can't have too many of them; iv) Something is eating General Van Fleet, who could do with some time away from the office. Hawaii will definitely be a state because it votes Republican. Ernest K. Lindley's Washington Tides column is devoted to saying, over and over again, that the Administration is absolutely full to the brim with savvy. Lots of savvy! Trust me, I know savvy!
Special Report: "The Mighty Mouse: It Guards America in the Air" The F-86D fires a sheaf of 2.75" rockets, each weighing 18lbs. Everything else is secret in case someone hears about the Battle of Berlin, when the Germans used the same weapon. It goes about 2900ft/sec and has folding fins. It is going to equip pretty much all the North American air defence fighters, of which the Air Force now says that the F-86D and F-94C are reaching the squadrons. We're reminded that this is all made possible by a Hughes electronic brain with 495 tubes, 6400 coils, and 5 miles of wiring, costing $90,000 and holding "more smoke than you would believe," says Reggie. I hope not!
International
Korean War
In Canada, the foot-and-mouth epidemic is over and cattle exports to America have resumed, except that there was a Canadian import limit to protect prices, and now that it is gone, the effect is that the Canadians are importing American cattle. Canadians are jealous that America has the Voice of America to investigate, and so are looking for Communists at the National Film Board, but it's just not the same thing, so now they're trying out the CBC. There is no international baby-selling ring operating out of Canada notwithstanding someone being arrested for baby-selling.
Business
The Periscope Business Trends reports that business now believes that there won't be a recession this year. (This is also the lead story.) Meanwhile, all those mergers lately reflect the need for diversification, a cash shortage, a need for volume, more growth, and operating economies. In completely unrelated news, it is becoming increasingly clear that the New and Fair Deal anti-monopoly drive is being put on ice. The CAB is going to lift the moratorium on new air routes soon. Denver will almost certainly emerge as one of the great "cross-roads" of the nation. A shortage of US dollars is leading to a revival of bartering around the world.
Automobiles: "Air of Optimism" The Chicago Auto Show is full of optimism.
"Burns and Keynes" Arthur Burns explained to Senator Bricker that he thinks that Keynes was generally right, but . . . The last price controls are going down, and Westinghouse has sent out an annual report to its employees so that they will know what Westinghouse is spending its money on. (That is, on raw materials as opposed to tax-dxeductible three martini lunches for executive vice-presidents in charge of being the President's brother.)
Products: What's New reports that Firestone has a tubeless tire for trucks, that Marchant has a Braille calculator so that blind people can do the books, too; Westinghouse's X-ray amplifier for flourescent tubes gives an image 2000 times bright than anything before. United States Plywood's new concrete-like slab is one-fifth the weight. Northwest Nuts has an assembly line nutcracker, which isn't actually in this section because it's not a product, more a big roller on an assembly line.
Notes: Week in Business reports that farm exports fell 15% last year. Two big shoe companies are the latest to merge, while the Controlled Materials Plan is about to be scrapped. Ford's new trucks will have 4000--5000lb capacity and represent a fifty million dollar investment in engineering and tooling costs. Firestone is safer than ever. Turkey is allowing foreign oil companies to explore in the country.
Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides has "Trade, Plus Aid," which explains that free trade would be great, but actually it's not American tariffs but all that European socialism that is the real barrier to free trade, so instead of lowering our trade barriers. So when they say "Trade, not Aid," they mean, "Trade plus Aid."
Business Report: "Petrochemicals Mean Miracles for Customers" The industry makes perfume and plastics and fibres and not just gasoline!
Science, Medicine, Education
"Time Compressor" Dr. Grant Fairbanks of the University of Iowa worked for the OSR during the war to find fixes for garbled speech over the air. Since 1950 he has been working on ways to "compress" vocal language without losing intelligibility. You can do this simply by speeding up the rate at which a record like a tape (and we're a bit richer!) is played, but that raises the pitch. Or you can snip and split, but that's too much work. Since a phoneme can be understood in 0.005 seconds while taking 0.15 seconds to sound, speech can simply be recorded in snippets. His "time compressor" tape recorder just simply skips stretches of time. He has a recording of Rosemary Clooney's "Come On-a My House" that is 30% shorter than the live performance but which sounds essentially the same. He hopes someday for universal application. University lecturers could pre-record their talks and they would be 30% shorter and 100% less boring, for example. Oh, that sounds like just the way to talk about Martin Heidegger! (If you don't know him, well, not every French Literature major just reads Madame Bovary.)
"Care and Feeding of Athletes: A Medical Report" Athletic trainers have endless dietary strictures, most with no scientific support at all. (Newsweek goes on to single out bans on "fried foods," which leaves me wondering who they've been talking to, because cutting out fats and sugars is exactly the way to get down to fighting weight!)
Life is pretty tough for the half of America's teachers who work for its million rural schools and make about two-thirds as much as city teachers. Harvard has hired Herold Hunt, which is obviously big news.
Art, Radio and Television, Press, Newsmakers
KTLA Los Angeles' Klaus Lindsberg gets a profile.
Newsweek went to a show at the MoMA sponsored by the Japanese government. It turns out that Japan has art. It's very Japanese art, just like the art Japan used to have. But it was a nice show and it was catered so Newsweek has to cover it. It's pretty half-hearted compared with the sumptuous, all-colour Special Report, "Takarazuka: It's All Girls and It's All Japanese." Apparently, it's a word for all-girl troupes, which are quite a thing in Japan and now they're thinking of putting them in the movies.
KTLA Los Angeles' Klaus Lindsberg gets a profile.No one liked I Love Lucy summer replacement, My Little Margie, except Philip Morris and, apparently, the audience, especially after a dubbed-in laugh track was added, and that is why it is back this winter.
Mamiemania is real! Arthur Godfrey is going off television because of a lower body injury. Nobody likes My Little Margie except Philip Morris (and the audiences, it says), especially with a dubbed-in laugh track, which is why it was revived on NBC in January.
Starting 2:59
Omar Garrison is quite the fellow, and The Virginia City Territorial Enterprise is quite the paper. The Continental Daily Mail is shutting down because Daily Mail readers don't go to France any more, whiel its former stablemate, The Sunday Dispatch, has the Mickie Jelke exclusive, of which say no more.
President Eisenhower's grandchildren are settling in at the White House. A polar bear cub at the Minneapolis zoo fell in a dangerous hole because somehow the Zoo put a dangerous hole in its actual cage, which seems like adding injury to injury, never mind insult. Two men in Illinois who think that the other is an idiot swapped jobs as automobile dealer and grocery store manager and still think that the other guy is an idiot because the job is so easy. A boy George Cross winner is the bravest person in Britain this week. Mrs. Jack Putnam of Memphis, Tennessee, has been swamped with supportive mail since announcing the formation of Fat Girls Anonymous. Katherine G. Howard is Assistant Civil Defence Administrator. 158,000 American women smoke pipes, but you'd never know it because they do it in private. (Eyebrow wiggle, Groucho style.) The President took the presidential yacht out for a spin. Jane Froman is suing Pan American for her injuries in the 1943 Lisbon Clipper crash. Philadelphia's new anti-jaywalking campaign involves professional models in police uniforms giving out "Don't Jaywalk" ribbons. President Truman says it has been nothing but speeches and interviews since he left office and he is looking forward to his Hawaiian vacation.
Albert Einstein has had a birthday, I. A. O'Shaughnessy has won an award, Alexander J. Groesbeck, James A. Hard, Fred Toney, Joseph Bryson, Newcomb Carlton, Homer L. Ferguson, Herman B. Baruch and Marc Birkigt have died.
New Films
Justice is Done is a French film about a court trial of an accused femme fatale. The jury has various dramas in a "subtle and moving study of human judgment." She's Back on Broadway is a tedious, tuneless WarnerColor vehicle for Virginia Mayo. Seminole (Universal) is about a potential mutiny during the Seminole Wars as Lieutenant Rock Hudson risks treason for siding with the Seminoles, while Richard Carlson wants to exile them all to the farthest west. There's quicksand, a Seminole attack, and Rock Hudson. The Stars are Singing is Rosemary Clooney's first screen appearance for Paramount, replacing Betty Hutton. Clooney is okay, but a good supporting staff has some supporting to do.
Books
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Raymond Moley is so tired from doing journalism last week that he asks someone else to ghost-write his column, "Army Over Ideology," this week. Said author is a Russian emigre, so there's some excuse, and the point is that Malenkov has probably abandoned any aggressive ambitions that Stalin might have been nursing in his last days, that the army has been strengthened at the expense of the NKVD, and that the Soviet government no longer contains anyone of very strong ideological bent. But "a soldier is a man with a gun in his hands. It requires no indoctrination to understand that."
Aviation Week, 23 March 1953
News Digest reports that CAB is taking legal action against the American Aircoach System, that Mrs. Mina Martin, mother of Glenn L. Martin, has died at 89, that Leeward Aeronautical Service of Fort Wayne has bought Eastern's last 17 DC-3s.
Industry Observer reports that everyone is going over that Polish MiG-15 ahead of its return to Poland, with special interest in the metal its compressor blades are made from. The USAF has removed 15 Wright J65 engines from F-84Fs and returned them to Wright for "minor repairs." Northrop's new F-89C deliveries have been modified to prevent the wing failures previously experienced at high speeds and low altitudes. Northrop is producing the Snark pilotless bomber for the Air Force. A US pilot has had a chance to fly a Gloster Javelin and was very impressed. Sikorsky is further increasing the power of the HRS series by putting a Wright R1820 into the HRS-4. The Navy will switch production of the Pratt and Whitney J48 to the J57 to provide an alternative to the J40. This will be at its Detroit plant operated by Ford Lincoln-Mercury, because the Air Force is absorbing all the J57s being made at Hartford. Allison is building a big new engine testing facility at Indianapolis.
Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup is back to look at the Senate's probe into aircraft procurement, which has Kaiser-Frazer in its sights. About time! Senator Bridges is a horrible man, but maybe that's what's needed to pin Uncle Henry down. Air transport is down on bilateral national air pacts. Local air services say they can't go off subsidy until they have a viable business, which I guess? And Congress is looking at the CAA and CAB budgets. Will they cut?
Robert Hotz reports for Aviation Week that "NACA Research Goal: Mach 5 Tunnels" Broader research aims at beating the "heat barrier" and better rocket engines, along with better rocket test facilities. The high speed tunnels might be a mix of newly built and remodelled old ones, and are needed because the pace of aircraft development has been so fast that they threaten to outrun Mach 2 tunnels. We also need to know more about the transonic regime, and the recent failure of assorted high speed experimental aircraft shows that we have a lot to learn. Stability, pitchup, flutte, Dutch roll and buffeting have all emerged as problems.
"U.S. Tests EKCO on Copters" The British ground control radar is being evaluated by the ANDB, which is aiming for its first all-weather helicopter flight. Instrument flying is not around the corner for helicopters due to lack of stability, but the small, one-man EKCO equipment could provide manual VHF control, landing 10 aircraft an hour. Australian National Airlines is very upset with Australia and is threatening to give up on this whole "flying" business..jpg)
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Alexander McSurely reports for Aviation Safety that "New Approach to Safety Urge" Consultant engineer Ben Howard thinks that the passenger miles are a useless statistic considering how many crashes happen landing and taking off. By focussing on non-existent safety improvements due to longer route lengths, we are missing a chance to reduce accidents in half by focussing on the real problems. Gust locks are the most ridiculously preventable cause of accidents at takeoff or landing, but there are plenty of others. Speaking of common sense going nowhere, a "Cargo Expert" says that the service air transport resources should be merged for efficiency. No, dear Expert, "efficiency" will be when the Army and the Air Force do what they are told by the real military. The one in boats. (And planes, now. And tanks? Counting the Marines!) Speaking of old news, Canadair might build Britannias for the RCAF, it says here.
Aeronautical Engineering has a special feature, "Aircraft Design in Transition." David E. Anderton leads off with "The Interim Interceptor: An Analysis" Between the F-86 and the eventual triumph of the guided missile comes . . .something? Maybe with rockets, maybe a delta wing, maybe a prone pilot, maybe air-to-air missiles. Who knows? And after all the buildup, that's it, as we go to Philip Klass reporting for Avionics about an "'Automatic Rudder' In Production." Javelin Aircraft Corporation of Wichita has a "single-axis" automatic pilot for light planes that is basically same.
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Production has the unsigned article, "Designers Seek Plastics Know-How," which prominently quotes chief engineer William E. Braham of Zenith Plastics, who "confidently predicts" that plastics will be everywhere on aircraft soon. Plastic is especially useful in radar installations, because it is invisible to radar, but this might also help military aircraft evade enemy radar. (Reggie says that since what's inside isn't ever going to be invisible to radar, it would probably be more productive to design aircraft to scatter incoming radar beams, or at least not amplify them, as propellers do.) The British, Braham says, are well ahead on aircraft plastics.
Equipment has George L. Christian explaining that "Liquid Spring Offers Strut Gains" Cleveland Pneumatic Tools makes an air-oil shock absorber now. It proudly refers to it as an "Aerol shock strut," and expects orders galore for its daring innovation in the field of licensing a Dowty design. Cleveland Pneumatic spends five pages (including one full-page ad) explaining why better struts are better.
New Aviation Products has Joseph Carroll of the Naval Aviation Experimental Station in Philadelphia explaining the "Thixotropy" of their new filling liquid for engine storage. In other words, it's a material that is a solid gel until it is given a good shake, when it turns liquid again. So in theory you can pump an engine full of it and put it in storage, confident that no air will get at the innards and cause corrosion, but turning the engine over will turn it into easily-drained liquid. Unlike predecessors, it does not melt in the tropics or contract on drying. However, it needs to be applied hot, and the Navy is looking to industry to further improve the formula. Hulcher has a new high-speed camera with large negative sizes for high speed, high altitude missile tests. Westcott Chuck has a four-jaw chuck that prevents drill chatter.
Captain Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint has the promised "More Reliability Needed, Part 2," which points out that if Americans are embarrassed by the Comet, they should also be embarrassed about being held up on Centre-Line Approach Lighting, which is helping with reliability in British and Dutch service by bringing planes down in weather in which American cloud height-based minimum visibility rules wouldn't even let airliners fly.
Robert H. Wood's Editorial is on "The Awakening to Safety," and is inspired by Laurance Rockefeller's gift of $25,000 to the Flight Safety Foundation. People need to be more worried about safety, even though flying is very safe!
Letters
Laura-Jane Taft of Cut Bank, Montana doubts that the average six-year-old has a twenty-thousand word vocabulary as reported in "Electronic Speech." It seems like this one should have been cleared by the Montana Visitor's Bureau. Though to be fair Herb Landsdell and Samuel Lawrence Brennglass are also skeptical and they live in Toronto and Berlin, so even people from the Big Smoke can be wrong and sure they're right without even bothering to look it up in their Funk and Wagnall's. Newsweek explains. Several readers have thoughts about George London. Dog fanciers are very happy with the coverage of the National Field Trials, while 90th Division veterans are happy to see General Van Fleet wearing their divisional badge. Private Donald Tremblay and William H. Smith like the magazine. For Your Information profiles Leo Slater, the 32-year-old Newsweek stringer who covered the Yucca Flats atomic tests for Newsweek. (I said "Frenchman's Flats" last week because I somehow got that impression stuck in my head. Different slice of Nevada desert!)
The Periscope reports that The President doesn't like Senator McCarthy, but only in private. "This rumour is true:" The Navy picked up a Russian pilot who had bailed out of a MiG-15. He was taken aboard Oriskany, but the sources don't say if he lived. Russian diplomats in Washington are complaining that the B-50 shot at near Kamchatka was a spy plane. Whatever else is true, the rapid MiG response shows that Russian air defence is as good as the Pentagon says. US naval intelligence has a very good idea where the Red Chinese are getting their oil and gas from, including the specific ships involved, but won't reveal it without Congressional pressure. Attorney General Brownell reminds all State Department officials to lock their office doors when they step out, because those files are sensitive! Senator Taft isn't just waxing hypothetical about not firing Communist teachers. He has intervened in the case of Professor Thomas Emerson at Yale Law, who "was a leader of the red-line Progressive Party in 1948 and has headed the left-wing National Lawyers Guild." Unless he does something in the class room, Senator Taft thinks, his politics are no reason to fire him. Treasury Secretary Humphrey is not stealing White House silverware. It was an honest mixup. Not all Democratic Senators want to go on the record rejecting the "McCarthyism" of the day, in this case the Budget Director's little loyalty oath. People in the know say that foreign submarines are going to start showing up off the US coast any day now. The VA is getting tougher on alcoholics because it does not have anywhere near enough beds for the mentally ill. The Periscope hears that Charlie Wilson is one savvy guy. North American has built one big rocket engine, and Task Force Eniwetok is getting ready for another series of H-bomb trials in the Pacific. The Army has studied the performance of drafted convicts in the last war and thinks that there might be up to 50,000 suitable for recruiting in the next. Officers and crew of a Polish-manned Red submarine tried to mutiny and escape to Britain recently, but failed. Georges Bidault will probably sabotage the EDC agreement, Charles de Gaulle is wearing dark glasses during his tour of French North Africa because of eye trouble. Marshal Tito predicts that the Albanian communist regime will collapse soon. Japanese firms have been making deals with Communist China.
A film about General Yamashita is being shot in Japan to "stir up patriotism." Gene Kelly and Cyd Charise will co-star in a Hollywood version of the Broadway hit, Brigadoon. CBS is admitted defeat in the battle for Tuesday night. Father Sheen and Milton Berle have Ernie Kovacs licked and his show will be pulled and cancelled soon. Lux Video Theatre is shifting from Monday to Thursday. It will do an adaptation of a William Faulkner story, a first for television, as its first Thursday night programme. The Bob and Ray mid-morning comedy show on NBC will be replaced by a telephone quiz show because the humour was deemed too sophisticated.
(The Periscope is pretty accurate on entertainment this week. The captured Russian pilot is the old Periscope moonshine, however.)
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Senator Dulles' staff is the hottest place in Washington because the Secretary is selflessly taking brickbats that would otherwise go to the President. It is predicted that McCarthy and his imitators will come after Dulles soon. On spending cuts, Cabinet secretaries are all for them, just not like that, they say to Dodge.
National Affairs
"Kremlin Peace Talks Sincere? Ike Hopes So, But is Cautious" The headline pretty much covers it. Is the President feuding with House Majority Leader Martin? Somehow it is Congress' fault that the President couldn't repudiate the Yalta agreement. (Which, among other things, gives us the legal right to keep troops in West Berlin.) It is definitely Congress' fault that heavy budget cuts and tax cuts are on the agenda and that McCarthy and the lot can go right on tearing through the machinery of government with one investigation after another. That would be more Taft's area than Martin's but the article says that Taft and Martin have the President's back. Speaking of which, Pat McCarran and Joe McCarthy are going after Chip Bohlen on the basis that the exhaustive FBI security report contains "derogatory information" about him. This is what has Republicans in Congress so upset about Dulles. He had the report first, and didn't axe the appointment. Abraham Glasser and now Chester Bowles are also in trouble. (Bowles told Voice of America to cool the anti-Communist rhetoric in its Indian broadcasts because Indians weren't buying it.) The sudden talk about heavy budget cuts in defence gets its own story, following. It's a bit stomach-wrenching to have 1946-style cuts suddenly on the table again, but Reggie says he is confident that it will cut "fat" rather than "muscle." I asked him just how much of his gallivanting around on the secret service and flying gadgets counted as muscle, and we've agreed that we can probably live the life we'd like to become accustomed to on his pension and what they pay a good lawyer at a good San Francisco partnership(!) He can be Uncle George's apprentice! What does Uncle George do, exactly? I kid! A strange little real estate deal is coming back to haunt C. Wesley Roberts, the RNC National Chairman, who may or may not have been a "ten percenter" on the deal. Meanwhile, in regular crime, the pulp mills in Allen and Rapides Parish, Louisiana, are out on strike and the employers are operating them with strikebreakers, leading to dynamiting and cars being shot at with shotguns.
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"Greasewood Fries and Man's Most Terrible Weapon" What happened to those dummy buildings, dummy automobiles, and dummy dummies in the Yucca Flats blasts? They caught fire. The troops, and the Newsweek stringer, were actually in better shape than last year, when the trenches were eight miles further back, because the shockwave skipped over them. The worst damage to the cars was to the ones with closed windows. The lesson is that civil defence is inadequate and must be improved because effective defence against Soviet bombers is so expensive and difficult.
One person who isn't sanguine about what is going on in Washington is Ernest K. Lindley, who entitles this week's Washington Tide's column, "The Crisis in Washington." Secretary Dulles says that the attack on Chip Bohlen's nomination is an attack on government itself. How can we even have a professional civil service when appointments are held up in the Senate over a bit of backyard gossip and an affiliation with the rival party? Dulles seems to be most upset that it is a man like McCarthy daring to contradict him.
Apparently General Van Fleet told Congress that "twenty-one months ago" we had the Reds on the verge of defeat in Korea, but we relaxed the pressure. And General Spaatz is back, with a column explaining why he changed his mind on bombing north of the Yalu. It's not because the President said so, and the General is a shameless political hack. No, it is because if we bombed in China, Mao would invoke the Chinese-Soviet mutual defence treaty, and Malenkov would not be able to resist, as Stalin might have done, and the result would be WWIII, and that would be bad
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The Red Navy is gigantic suddenly, says the First Lord of the Admiralty, especially the 350 submarines, say the USN. In other news from the United Kingdom, Queen Mary is 86 and in decline, Twenty-eight year old Hungarian refugee and stateless person Laslo Szilvassy is in trouble for destroying Reg Butler's prize winning sculpture, "The Unknown Political Prisoner," while it was being exhibited at the Tate. On the one hand, it is the destruction of a work of art and probably a tragic story of mental illness. On the other hand, it is "modern art," so we can make jokes about five-year-olds making it and say that "I don't know art, but I know what I like." So funny!
And after seeing Raymond Moley get out of writing his column by having a Russian write one, regular Newsweek is inspired to ask the Reverend Leopold Braun, former chaplain of the US embassy in Moscow, to write a full page about "The Russian Revolt" in the form of a lightly edited interview with Ralph de Toledano, Newsweek Associate Editor and lightweight anti-Communist windbag. Father Braun explains that there is not going to be a Russian revolt unless some day there is, because that is how the Russian people are.
In Latin America, the "new regime" is cutting corruption left, right and centre. The Agrarian Reform Bill that will confiscate the United Fruit Company's massive "reserve" of unused agricultural land has gone through. It says here that the reserves are to be used in the event that the Panama fruit disease afflicts its current groves, and I am sure that it is just an unfortunate side effect that it keeps the price of bananas high and depresses worker wages. The Company is very upset, and wants us all to know that this is definitely a Communist plot.
Business
The Periscope Business Trends Industrial production is still rising with cars leading the way, and housing following. The only dark spot is coal, but mortgage money is tight, and Congress is interested in freeing up all the money in dormant accounts. Anyway, the boom is booming, nothing to worry about here. (This week, "everything is fine" only rates a half-column repeat just above Notes.)
"UAW Opens Annual Wage Drive in Atlantic City Convention" That's what it says here! And just in case you haven't heard it already, wage and price controls are gone. Really gone! More gone than last week! But not as gone as they will be next week! Newsweek takes in sales shows and reports from the IRS that tax refunds are at record highs this year.
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GM will build a sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette. The Benjamin Franklin Clinic of the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia reminds the boss not to take his troubles home or to lunch, to take his vacations (he is not as indispensable as he thinks he is), and not to knock himself out with strenuous exercise on the weekends, instead doing something more casual every day.
Notes: Week in Business reports that the price of sulphur and iron ore is up under decontrol, food is down, and multiple distillers are issuing "bargain" size quart bottles for the price of a fifth. More mergers, and Westinghouse giving its 500 best TV dealers a twelve-day flying trip to Europe. Just long enough to get back to normal sleep before you fly home! (Listen to the airminded girl, she's an expert!) Ford is building a long-delayed office building in Dearborn, while the sons of Andrew Higgins are doing good business.
Did John Marshall have some ruling where he said you could never explain what a marginal tax rate was before you talked about how income tax was too high? Because Henry Bloody Hazlitt is on the job in Business Tides with "A Tale About Taxes," which explains how many cars GM has to sell to pay a hundred-dollar repair at the house of some friend of his who is paid from GM profits and is in the 90% bracket and goes on to say that it is so many cars that obviously high taxes are going to make hard work and venture capital disappear tomorrow. Even Hazlitt admits how ridiculous it is that a man who is paid more than $200,000 a year is strapped by a $100 repair bill, but nevertheless!
Science, Medicine, Education
Science, Medicine, Education
"Memoirs of a Prodigy" Norbert Weiner gets a profile on the occasion of the publication of his autobiography. He's a "mature genius!" It must be true, it says so in Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth. Because he's one of those kids who goes to university when he's three, you see. There were five of them in his year at Harvard! (One died of appendicitis, one flunked out, one went into music, another into "politics," and then there was Norbert,, who did some math and then wrote Cybernetics, and what have you done for me lately, Norbert?
An awful bit about wasps that lay their eggs in the bodies of insects they've paralysed with their stings goes on to explain that scientists at North Carolina State are blasting them with X-rays to see what happens. But don't worry about the obvious problem of giant mutant horrible wasps, because the X-rays make them sterile. Robert L. Edwards of the University of Syracuse has found that weather patterns do follow the moon, just like the old wife's tales say.
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"Patients Are People" An AMA survey finds that lots of people are very upset with their doctors. This week, the Washington, D. C. Medical Society had had it up to here, and "called in local doctors and their staffs for a talking-to." I don't think that would work on my doctor! Also, Washington-area doctors point out that they have about $2 million in unpaid bills from a population of 1.5 million, so it is not like they're the only offenders here. .jpg)
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The Baltimore Board of Education says that educational television is working, says a survey of students and teachers they did. Tennessee is extending free textboooks from Grade 3 to graduation now that some Tennesseans are making into Grade 4.
Radio and Television, Press, Newsmakers
Italy has television now, and it's very funny that one show they're watching is Hopalong Cassidy. But the Italian networks need more money.
"Oscar and Video" NBC broadcast the Academy Awards last week, the first time they've been shown on television. The stars have never looked better, says someone who I hope wasn't Producer Bob Welch, and everyone except one anonymous person in the back row in black glasses was happy with the two hour show.
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New Films
Call Me Madam (Twentieth Century Fox) has Ethel Merman playing Pearl Mesta with music by Irving Berlin. That sound you hear is every man at Uncle George's club getting up at the same time. The reviewer seems to be of the same persuasion. Salome is a Biblical epic by Columbia. A Biblical epic with ooh-la-la, supplied by Rita Hayworth. Except the script turns Salome into a good girl. I don't understand? Didn't they talk with their investors?
Books
The backpages visit The Paris Review, talk to George Plimpton, learn about how important the little magazines are these days. It's hard to sell a high brow book, they save at Grove Press! At the end of all of this (high-brow for the middle-brow!) there is room to review Dan Cushman's Stay Away, Joe, a slice of Indian life in the Montana back country. Alan Campbell-Johnson's Mission with Mountbatten explains all about those touchy, wily Orientals.
. Raymond Moley reviews the Laski-Holmes letters with a very kind introduction of the character of Harold Laski before getting to his point, which is that Laski was awful and no-one should listen to him because he lied all the time. Thanks for that, Ray!
. Raymond Moley reviews the Laski-Holmes letters with a very kind introduction of the character of Harold Laski before getting to his point, which is that Laski was awful and no-one should listen to him because he lied all the time. Thanks for that, Ray!
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Aviation Week, 30 March 1953
News Digest reports that F-86Fs are in action in Korea, first news of the 20 March Transocean crash at Oakland. It was flying on contract to MATS and 30 Air Force personnel were killed. Pioneering aviation engineer Flavius Earl Loudy has died, and that Philadelphia's new air terminal will open this summer.
Aviation Week has "Air Defence Expansion Nears Peak" The backlog stretches into 1954, but the production and financial volume at the manufacturers is hitting its peak.
"New Nomad Engine for BEA Transport" That is the Napier Nomad, the brand new diesel-powered gadget in the turbocompound field. Four of them on the Airspeed Ambassador would take it to a specific fuel consumption of 0.36 lb/hp hour. No indication of changes in cruise speed are given, but the Nomad is also proposed for a Shackleton variant and the Blackburn Beverley, with the United States Navy expressing an interest. The House of Representatives has approved Aro as the Arnold Engineering Development Centre operator. General Thomas K. Vincent, commander of the Redstone Arsenal, says that guided missiles are neat and all, but that the day of push-button warfare is still far away. The Navy is ordering nickel-cadmium batteries to replace lead-acid.
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| WAF, scan: Marek Debski - Skrzydlata Polska nr 434/1959, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14643698 |
Fairchild is building F3H parts, the Engineers and Scientists of America expects to have four more membership units soon, and Avro Canada Orenda deliveries are ahead of schedule. A full-scale mockup of the Fokker Friendship turboliner is almost ready, while the National Bureau of Standards has a fuel gauge meter that uses sound waves to measure the flow. Lear has a compressor for pressurising military radars (remember that air gap insulation values depend on air pressure!) that works up to 50,000ft.
Production has the unsigned article, "Silicones Help Convair B-36 Fight Cold" Dow Corning makes an assortment of silicon rubbers for gaskets and seals. Its new patent material, Silastic, is widely used on the B-36, and so is silicon grease. Grumman's new 4500 acre plant near Calverton on eastern Long Island will be use dto produce the F10F and "other revolutionary Navy fighters."
Aviation Safety has the CAB report on the PAA Boing 377 door blowout near Rio that caused the death of the passenger in Seat 33, who was blown out the door at 12,000ft. It turns out while the door has many locks and safety mechanisms, the air seal can come loose and foul the latch.
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Filter Centre reports that Hydro-Aire is the latest transistor supplier, that the B-50 is the latest plane being groomed by the Air Force for "auto-flight," that the Western Electronics Show and Convention has a call for papers out, that Westinghouse is eyeing the aircraft radar business, and that ERA of Remington Rand will show off its latest computer, the ERA 1103 general-purpose digital computer, at the national IRE convention in New York in March.
Equipment has George L. Christian reporting that "New Tube Fittings Cut Leakage" which is about Weatherhead Company's same. Stratos, meanwhile, is "wringing out" its air cycle unit, meaning that it really tests them out before they go into an F-86F as part of its NUHR15 refrigeration package.
Pioneer Aviation will sell its Martin 2-0-2s and reconvert to DC-3s after the CAB elected not to subsidise the Martins in operation at one penny more than the DC-3s. CAB's Oswald Ryan is warning Congress about the dangers.
Letters has T. G. Lanphier of Convair on the difficulties of training new executives, suggesting an in-house training programme. Roscoe Turner likes getting the straight dope on Red aviation from Aviation Week. Marconi's VOR is swell, says Marconi. Harold Hazen, Dean of the Institute, is very pleased with the Aviation Week fellowship they have now. Kingdon Kerr, which is a real name, of Stephen-Douglas, Incorporated, writes to correct the mistaken attribution of the invention of some prone-flying gadget to the one guy instead of the other. (Carlton G. Peterson and not Hans Amtmann.)
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We have two issues of The Engineer to cover, 20 and 27 March. For the 20th, Not The Seven-Day Journal notices a meeting of the London County Council on air pollution, a dinner for the Institute of Marine Engineers, a survey of the "extensive" postwar reconstruction work of the Port of London Aurhority, and the speeding up of summer train service at British Railways. "Water Power in the Italian Alps" continues for both issues. "Soil Failures in a Railway Cutting" continues. Another article on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge begins. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers session on "Steels for Steam Power Plant" is covered. NPL has found that the major cause of the frequent failure of austenitic steam superheater tubes at flash butt welds is not improper alloy steel use but poor steel manufacture. Properly treated carbon steel is at least as good. Or, at least, it seems from later papers, at least as good as poorly formulated alloy steel, since inclusions of alloying metal and "killing additives" in unspecified quantities is an important cause of abnormal creep.
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Kelvin and Hugh have a supersonic flaw detector, British Railways have two more standard wagons, HMSO has The Climatological Atlas of Great Britain. Finally, someone is talking about British weather! There are a very confusing array of Avon engine developments, some with anti-icing, and the annual report of the North of Scotland Hydro-electric Board has a nice chart of the growth of the Board's generating capacity. Everyone agrees we need more engineers and engineering technologists.
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Five ships have had Launches and Trials, all diesel, including two passenger liners, an oil tanker, a cargo liner, and a bulk cargo carrier. Notes covers a competition for the best sugar beet drill and efficient materials handling, among other things. (The Mullard VHF tetrode sounds like the most complicated vacuum tube ever!)
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J. C. Rockeley has a very long overview of the training of radiologists for industry, while The Engineer visits the Admiralty Test House for Gas Turbines, also at length, as its extensive report on its visit to the Shotton works of John Summers and Sons Steel to see "Automatic Control of Open Hearth Furnaces."
Triplex Glass sends in a bulletin on "Electronic Control for Glass Grinding Machines," sp[ecifically the edge of car windows. It's all old-time heavy electronic engineering with thyrartons for amplification and metal cores for inductance and heavy duty condensors to build control circuits the old-fashioned, hair-on-chest way, Reggie says. Wild-Barfield's "High Temperature Tube Furnace" seems similarly the strong-man-leotard-handlebar-mustache kind of engineering. No delicate mama's boy transistors wanted here! Not when you're hitting 1100 degrees Celsius to smelt chromium steel, no sir!
Metallurgical Topics checks in with recent papers on high strength steel castings and new materials for gas turbines such as ceramics.
Leaders notice the death of Queen Mary, too recent news to hit the American magazines above, "The Productivity Conference," because we just can't get enough of that, and "Naval Gas Turbines," because they are the Coming Thing. The Third Sea Lord has implied that there will be big news about gas turbines soon, and The Engineer speculates mildly about arrangements for low power auxiliaries when the 10,000hp+ of the gas turbine isn't wanted. K. J Rider writes to defend the usefulness of librarians to industry, and W. T. Wilkes on the installation of long conducting rails on the Southern.
The Inst. Mech. Eng. session on "Photo-Elastic Techniques" (of nondestructive structural testing) gets a review. J. F. C. Conn discusses the British Shipbuilding Ressearch Association's resistance testing of the Lucy Ashton to make sure that it only pitches over when it is supposed to. (This is a big to-do for shipbuilders since these are hard tests to do, so they only do them once in a while, says Uncle George.) The Engineer checks in with the builders of a new railway bridge over the Severn estuary, and publishes a precis of a talk on "Induction Stirrers for Electric Arc Furnaces" from Dr. Hammerlund of ASEA Sweden.
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American Engineering Notes considers "Carbon Dioxide as a Machine Tool Coolant," "A Gas Engine of High Thermal Efficiency" from Nordberg Engineering of Milwaukee, a Universal Contouring Machine from Cyril Bath Company, and a bolt and nut reclamation facility. This feature acceptably separates advertising brochures for fuel conversion equipment from R. A. Lister andCompany and a "soap stream divider" from Henry Simon, Ltd from the rest of the content so that it doesn't seem like too much. African Engineering Notes visits the new copper-cobalt mine in Uganda.
Notes (Industrial and Memoranda has several short notes on the steel supply and expansion of the steel industry that indicate that (nearly) all is well. To calm the Americans down, the Ministry of Transport will specially license all British ships that might trade to Red Chinese or North Korean ports.The Ministry of Housing has new rules for rehabilitating sand and gravel workings. Five ships have had Launches and Trials, all diesel, including a motor collier, trawler, two oil tankers and a motor coaster.
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