R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
We're back in London, fully settled in, and back on the edge of the Comet investigation. It will probably be flying again, although James is pessimistic, mainly because he has lost confidence in De Havilland. The children are settling in, with Jim-Jim very cutely looking forward to nursery school, which we've discussed.
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
Letters
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| "Tugwell"? |
The Periscope reports that the 21 remaining US POWS at Panmunjom are under the influence of a smaller number of hardcore Communists. The White House "blew up" this week behind the scenes at a 'high Navy official" who called Nautilus a "test vehicle," because atomic stuff is supposed to come from the AEC and because the President saw it as an attack on the New Look. White House staff was told to find the "official," and believe it is someone with a grudge against Admiral Rickover. Several generals are likely to join the fray and protest the Army reductions. It is reported that Beria embraced the Christian faith in the last hours before his execution and prayed with Cardinal Wyszynski. "Several top Democratic Senators" are miffed at Lyndon Johnson over this and that. Ike is not going to openly criticise several GOP "obstructionists," but will cut off their patronage. Senators Style and McCarthy want an inquiry into waste and mismanagement at the CIA, while insiders think that McCarthy might move on from security investigations to tax investigations, and endorse the President's farm programme. The railroads are fighting the nonskeds over military personnel movements, alleging that they are getting special treatment from the CAB, including relaxed safety precautions. Some Democratic leaders are worried that Truman's memoirs will stir up intraparty rows. West German officials point out that Chancellor Adenauer got birthday wishes from all the important world leaders except the White House. The State Department is getting its own private air force to drop propaganda leaflets and smuggle gold out of western Chi-- never mind the last bit. The House Education and Labour Committee has a majority against Taft-Hartley, but the group pushing the St. Lawrence Seaway is gaining members. The Navy is working on an underwater-to-air missile to be fired at antisubmarine aircraft from submarine torpedo tubes. The Soviet embassy in Paris sent out 200 fruit baskets over Christmas. No wonder France is going Red!
"Temperamental" Mario Lanza will be back on screen next fall with Vagabond King, while Audie Murphy will star in a biopic about himself, To Hell and Back. Canada's National Film Board will branch out into feature-length films. Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy will get a husband-and-wife show on CBS this fall. NBC is talking to Jane Russell and her husband, Bob Waterfield, about a similar show. Errol Flynn and John Payne are going into TV production. Hal Block is likely to be back on national television soon, as his Chicago show, Four to Go, is getting attention. Rocky Graziano and General MacArthur have memoirs coming out that will shake things up. Where Are They Now? catches up with 1906 heavyweight champion Tommy Burns, who is living near Fresno with his second wife, while New Dealer Rexford Grey Tugwell (which is a real name) is teaching at the University of Chicago and has a study of FDR out next year.
The Lanza and Murphy stories gave me hope for The Periscope, but literally everything between those stories and Where Are They Now is wrong, and there's no sign of Burns' second wife at Wikipedia.
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the President is absolutely going to get his whole programme through Congress, why would you even question it? On the other hand the Democrats think he is already beaten on taxes and farms, and the Congressional GOP has no time for Taft-Hartley reform. No-one likes the legal immunity for wiretapping bill, but the only way the bill stripping Communists of citizenship will be stopped is by the courts.
National Affairs
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| Senator Watkins was an interesting guy with an interesting dam named after him in a pretty bit of Utah. Socialism! |
The four top stories cover the issues highlighted in Washington Trends in more, uninteresting detail. At the end of it we get coverage of the spectacular collapse of a breakthrough in the 1948 assassination attempt against Walter Reuther, with the alleged wheel man, Don Ritchie, going to the police to confess and implicate Carl Renda and Sam Perrone as instigators, then disappear from custody and show up again in Windsor with a new car, some spending money, and no further interest in being the state's star witness. The Rockefeller and Billy Rose divorces have been finalised at great expense, with Barbara Rockefeller walking away with $5.5 million and Eleanor Holm receiving $600/week in alimony and $200,000 in ten installments. Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah gets a boxed interview about his efforts to bring "Peace for the Holy Land." He proposes: i) A guarantee, backed by the great powers, that Israel will not expand further at the expense of its neighbours: ii) Israel will pay for the private property of the refugee Arabs which it has confiscated, which will lead to the refugee camps melting away as their inhabitants find their own way into Middle Eastern society. The Arab states would need to similarly guarantee Israel against their own aggression. American aid to both Israel and the Arabs might be exacerbating things, and should be reviewed. Also, our current "national origin" immigration rules are just great, and the only people against them are demagogues courting the "hyphenated" vote. New York has abandoned three more sections of its elevated rail lines, and the winter storm in the Midwest sure is something. A week's end tour d'horizon finds that James Rufus Landis tried to steal a lot of money from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, that the Beast of Bladenboro sure is something, and that Senator McCarthy's committee might take on corruption (in Alaska), but wouldn't be giving up on its hunt for subversives.
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| Definitely thinking something about "bastards" and "not grinding you down" after reading about Goldsmith and Patino. |
International
"The Inside: Nehru Must Take Sides in Korean Row" I thought we were done telling Nehru what he "had" to do over Korea, but, no, we're going to keep right on doing it. The article does have a point, in that, as General Thayyendra says, the 22,500 anti-communist POWs will just walk right out of camp as soon as the custodial rights agreement expires on 22 January. So either that will happen, or it won't. Maria Isabella Patino is married at Gretna Green. (Well, not exactly, but as much as.)
On this continent, we catch up with Victor Raul de la Haya, who is still in refuge in the Colombian embassy in Lima, wanted for the crime-in-advance of maybe winning an election if he ever got out.
Business
The Periscope Business Trends reports that Congress and the Administration are going to work together and end this business recession we're not having, double time! The Administration knows that it can't hold the corporate income tax at its current 57%, talk is that reductions will be held to 50%. Unemployment is expected to rise to 3% of the workforce in January. The industry outlook for food and consumer goods and machine tools is down, the last dramatically, and for the movies, up.
Notes: Week in Business reports that layoffs were up sharply in December, the GM/Frigidaire "kitchen of tomorrow" is a big hit, US Steel has received its first delivery of Venezuelan ore, and the Defence Department has cut orders for $140 million of trucks and trailers.
Products: What's New reports the most weight efficient boat engine yet, from Aerojet, that is, an engine maker of Detroit and not the Los Angeles rocket builder, a two-cup coffee maker that is two-and-a-half times faster than a regular percolator and stops automatically, from S. W. Farber; a giant tree scooper from Wolfe Nursery of Stephenville, Florida that can uproot 4000 to 5000 trees a day, and remote controlled vertical blinds, from Vertical Blinds Company of Los Angeles, of course. 
In Business Tides, Henry Hazlitt apologises for the recession brought on by the hard money policies he has been campaigning on from the first day of this column, and explains why the Europeans avoided it with Keynesian policies --Or, no, he explains that what we need is even harder money, specifically a return to the gold standard, just not at $35/oz. Because, you see, at that price it would cause a runaway deflation, and we only want a bit of deflation, just a tiny slice.
The Special Report on Winter Travel explains that it is booming, with people either going skiing or to tropical climates to seek the sun, one or the other. Liner voyages --"packaged tours"-- in ships like Caronia, pictured on the cover, are becoming quite popular, with 140 "cruises" out of New York booked this year alone.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Biggest Smasher" Brookhaven's new Cosmotron will be a 2.3 billion volt particle accelerator. The USDA's new Meyer Z-52 is the best lawn grass yet, although quite expensive. It takes over a lawn quickly, but grows slowly and so only needs to be cut once a month or so, and it is hoped that it will soon produce turfs to match old European sporting greens, at least on golf courses.
Wisconsin State College is getting into the GM/Frigidaire act with its own "school of the future." It doesn't have a retractile oven, but it does have a "cozy, stone fireplace" in every classroom. I cannot think of a thing that could possibly go wrong. (Sarcasm!!!!)
"Gentlemanly Grades" Columbia University is having a scandal because The New York Herald Tribune think that it is grading too lightly. It is obligingly toughening up upper year curriculums.
"Case History of Those 21: What Their Lives Show" What about the 21 American POWs who won't come back from Panmunjom. What is wrong with them? Medically speaking, I mean. Their average age is 23, 14 are from broken homes, two had college educations while another 3 finished high school. Most enlisted at 17 or 18 and had no trades or skills. Most were captured in 1950. Five were solitary youths, six are reported to have had no interest in sports, 3 were habitual truants. Six had chronic illnesses, or a family that was affected by chronic illness. Four had "virtually no interest in girls," five were "easily led," one is reported to have suffered chronic guilt for the death of his mother in childbirth, another seemed to have shell shock. (Three are Negroes, although I had to count that myself.) Brigadier General Chambers, chief army psychiatrist, finds the report that the men were "underprivileged" seems reasonable, once you account for all the ways that people can be underprivileged, which suggests that we need case histories of all 21 men, which follow.
Science, Medicine
"TB: The Right Direction" The VA's tuberculosis survey has screened 2.5 million patients and 704,000 employees with chest X-rays, finding 12,740 active cases of tuberculosis of the lungs, and 34,000 inactive, with an average 67,000 patients screened a month, meaning that 1000 new cases were spotted each month. Not only is tuberculosis easier to treat when caught early, but the screening means that for the first time the VA has "clean" facilities with no tuberculosis around, which will further cut down on infections of veterans and families. Also, the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit is trying out prosthetics for rheumatics and Boston cardiologist Paul Dudley White is studying whales, because their slow heart rates make it easier to study a resting heart and will help diagnose people with naturally low resting heart rates who might be misdiagnosed with an illness.
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Radio-Television, Press, Newsmakers
"White House Assist" Sources close to Robert Montgomery say that Robert Montgomery has played a key role in presenting the Eisenhower Administration on television and even picked the President's new Lucite glasses, which replaced the heavy, black-rimmed ones recommended by Winston Churchill. Stupid old Winston Churchill. What does he know? Leonard Evans' National Negro Network will give Coloured audiences something besides blues, pop, and spirituals. The network can reach 12 million of 16 million American Negroes, who collectively earn $15 billion a year. No Amos & Andy, needless to say.Harry Truman and Drew Pearson are fighting again.
Beetle Bailey is in trouble with army brass again. Press runs a story about a company that a press agent who is dead founded hiring another press agent who is alive. If this isn't too inside-the-news-business, I don't know what is. More American newspapers are narrowing their columns to cut costs by reducing their paper use. The Chicago Daily News has announced that Mrs. Chauncy McCormick has been crowned the new uncrowned Queen of Chicago. That was the sound of me fainting to the floor!
The "Maids of Cotton" beauty pageant contestants, Georgi Malenkov, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Queen Elizabeth, and Donald Piccard are in the column for the usual reasons. A Virginia hunter is in it for ambushing a game warden, and, when asked why, excusing himself by saying that he thought he'd shot the deputy sheriff, and that's it for a brief column, less Transitions, which shortly notes that Joan Benny is engaged, and Thomas Braniff, Oscar Strauss, the Countess Dorothy Di Frasso, and Belle Mulford Wylie O'Hara have died. Braniff, appropriately enough, was aboard a private plane, although not piloting, and ten friends were killed with him.
New Films
Knights of the Round Table is MGM's first Cinemascope, and Newsweek is impressed by the look, if not the writing and acting in the "cautious but colourful" production. Also from MGM is All the Brothers Were Valiant Men, about New Bedford whalers, in Technicolor, with Betta St. John as a South Pacific "native beauty." Paratrooper, from Columbia, is a "has of war-film cliches." Man in the Attic is a sinister movie perfect for Jack Palance to play a very bad, bad man. (Fox).
Books
Speaking of bad, bad men, Louie Davidson and Eddie Doherty bring us Strange Crimes at Sea, which somehow manages to come in at only 273 pages and still drags in a crime on land, albeit a horrible one. You know who else is horrible? People! That's right, Philip Wylie has a new novel out, Tomorrow! It is aabout how two Midwest cities across the river from each other get an H-bomb and a germ bomb, and the one that has good civil defence does okay, and the other doesn't, because they've neglected their precautions. Chester Bowle's Ambassador Reports is about India, which sounds exotic. Glad to have a full investigation at last! Three novels, Constantine Fitz-Gibbons, Charles Wertenbaker, and Charles Terrot, get into the Other Books column, with the last one sounding like the next whimsical British comedy at the cinema.
Aviation Week, 18 January 1954
News Digest reports that the Navy's cut in its F7U-1 Cutlass order has led to the layoff of 1500 assembly line workers, with another 1750 to go by the end of the month. The Navy fighters are still sitting at Chance Vought waiting for engines, although Westinghouse says that the engines are being shipped on schedule from their Dallas warehouse. The new, thin-wing version of the North American FJ-4 with Curtiss-Wright J65 is expected to fly faster than 650mph and will be in production from 1956. General Doolittle predicts atomic-powered planes within 25 years and entirely automatic landing within 50. Scientists are studying the jet stream again, and Harold Harris is out at Northwest Orient due to a "slight heart attack." That's the guy who was running the show when Northwestern was somehow the only company crashing 2-0-2s. Convair has delivered its 501st 240/340 design. The first pilot with 1000 hours on a B-47 has just been identified as Major Donald Pierce of SAC-MacDill.
Aviation Week has Katherine Johnsen reporting that "Congress Set for Showdown on Air Issues" Top Republican lawmakers want a cutback in procurement while the airlines are set for a tough fight in the House over subsidies, mainly of airports. Democrats, led by Henry Jackson of Washington, will also fight the surface force cutbacks, which seem to leave the U.S. with no alternative but an all-out attack on Red China. The Democrats, who currently have a one-seat majority in the Senate, are expected to press hard.
"Hughes Charity: Medical Institute Takes Over Aircraft Company: Flying Boat and Copter Not Included, Sources Say" Effectively, Howard Hughes is out of the business as a family medical charity takes over the strategically vital avionics business. Also, William J. Coughlin reports that "BuAer Clamps Censorship on Contractors," reflecting the expiry of the old Restricted classification.
"Bell Builds Mach 1.5 Air-to-Surface Missile" Oh. Air to surface. That's easy! The XB-63 releases from a bomb bay and uses rockets and a preset navigational device to fly up to 100 miles to the target. A pictorial underlines that the Navy is very happy with the F3H-1N Demon.
News Sidelights reports that the USAF only has the money to investigate 8% of its crashes. Seaplane advocates have found a reporter bored enough to take the millionth edition of the "We Don't Need Runways --Shut Up About Tenders and Jetties" story. The USAF investigation of that B-47 forced landing in Oklahoma finds it to have been a very safe landing except for the part about it being in a farm field. The B-52 wil have Hytrol anti-skid brakes, Brigadier General Richard O'Keefe of the Air Force's Flight Safety Research Office might not have the money to investigate B-47s in fields, but he does have the money to work on better windshields. Fire has destroyed the Meletron plant in LA, the Navy has received its last F3D, and no-one in aviation in southern California speaks French.
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| Speaking of straight wing superiority, let's look at Johnson's next design after the F-104 |
David Anderton reports that "Space Experts Outline Targets" at the annual meeting of the American Rocket Society. Richard Porter of GE's guided missile division wants a target so that the whole industry can "throw stones" at the same target. Von Braun answers that he has a target --wheel shaped artificial satellites orbiting the Earth. Others think that this is too ambitious and want to fire off more rockets and test things like radio transmission through the atmosphere, inertial navigation, automatic stability, and ground control, and point out that we haven't even decided what orbits we want, or what the radiation hazard is, or how it will be dealt with. Physical shielding is excessively heavy, but electromagnetic shielding sounds a bit science-fictional and won't stop gamma rays. In fact, Pierce thinks we will be able to talk to aliens at Alpha Centauri by microwave before we can get a spaceship to Mars. Braun closes the conference by pointing out that of course we won't have his satellites any time soon if we don't start now from small beginnings.
Lear reports for Avionics that "Avcon Prevents Lightplane Spirals" Lear's automatic rudder for Twin-Beech sized planes is an adaptation of the yaw damper installed in the F-86D. It has a rate-gyro amplifier and a rudder servo. Adding a $500 directional gyroscope turns it into a single-axis autopilot. The IRE is holding a seminar on the automatic factory based on the success of the Bureau of Standards's "Tinkertoy" factory, which now has a full modular assembly arrangement. Filter Centre reports that the USAF has developed a point-contact transistor with a higher operating frequency using gold "cat whiskers" in place of phosphor bronze. The Navy has a DME School for air navigators. Bendix is building a new 3-cm radar, Holland has bought Collins VOR while KLM has increased the number of HF channels and has bought automatic channel tuners to go with them.
George L. Christian reports for Equipment that Jack and Heintz "'Demobilises' Military Accessories" That is, they're telling the airline industry to tell them what to build besides their new civilianised engine starter, alternator, magnetic amplifier regulators, and safety mounting boards. But they're in great shape financially, no worry about Jack and Heintz! 
New Aviation Products gets a snazzy full page layout to report on a new anti-static coating from American Latex, a Vickers remote booster pump, a Mycalex Corporation moulded mica Mycalex switch ("molded to exact size!"), an attachment for automating a honing machine from National Pioneer, and a "Mechanical Tracer for Surface Roughness Unit" from Brush Electronics, an accessory for its Surfindicator.
Letters
John D. Curd of the Marines agrees with Captain Robson that the command pilot should make the final choice over who gets to visit the cockpit. The publicity manager of Napier points out that while they have taken a subcontract to product Avons, it is not because they don't have designs of their own ready to go, and they would appreciated the magazine publishing a clarification. Lloyd Halvorson lets aviation instrumentation technicians know that they now have a National Association to call their own. J. W. Veale of Tasman Empire Airways writes to remind readers that they exist and can fly you to Tahiti. Rafael Barco and J. Peter Brunswick, of Aerovias Nacionales de Colombia and El Al really like Aviation Week.
Sort a page of material, Aviation Week runs a nice drawing of the 3 June 1953 Worcester, Massachusetts tornado that a transmission line engineer figures might have hit 335mph because how could it have knocked down their lines otherwise? Robert Woods' Editorial is on about the Navy's new censorship policy, which is "incredible effrontery" because it violates the President's announced policy of greater openness, prints an obituary of Thomas Braniff, and argues with the National Business Aircraft Association. (The NBAA is upset that Aviation Week wouldn't print some letters about how all businesmen are flying all the time now, or something to that effect.)
Letters
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| By Karrmann - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons. wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2256623 |
Ed Murrow's Person to Person is visiting Adlai Stevenson in his home town, Edgar Bergen is going to do a current affairs show with Charlie McCarthy, a "top Hollywood camera man' has worked out a way to film black and white and colour film footage in the same shoot, with the black and white to be produced now, and the coloured to be held until colour television makes it worthwhile to use it. Where Are They Now looks up Dr. Francis Townshend, who is 87 and living with a son in Bedford, Ohio, a Cincinnati suburb, and Alvin York, who is still living on his 400 acre farm in Wolf River, Tennessee, but isn't up to much because of high blood pressure.
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Eisenhower and Dulles aren't bluffing when they say that the Russians will have heck to pay if they cross this here line in the sand. Depending on how much they cross, we can shoot them with little atom bombs, or big atom bombs. (Just because we drop an atom bomb here or there doesn't have to mean the end of the world.) Meanwhile, by not spending as much on guns, America avoids economic exhaustion. It will still support NATO, and will replace the two divisions withdrawn from Korea with a "stepped up striking force" on Okinawa. Meanwhile, no-one is expecting anything from the Berlin Conference because Dulles has a list of demands for the Russians that they'll never go for. Which is good! Because that's how you do diplomacy! With non-negotiable demands!
National Affairs
"Enough Defence Money?: Yes, For Our New Atomic Striking Force" The New Look means more money for guided missiles, bombers, fighters, and carriers, but fewer battleships, tanks, and foot soldiers, with the Army going down from 20 to 16 divisions, the Navy laying up 50 combat ships, and the Marines slimming down.
"Winter 1954: Bad, Brother, Bad" Canada is getting back at us for that trade war with a polar air mass, so lots of cold, snow, and rain is ahead.
International
Business
"Autos in '54? GM Hits a Bloomingly Optimistic Note" In a speech to 500 businessmen ahead of the GM Motorama in New York City, GM president Harlow Curtiss predicted 6.5 million new car sales this year in America and Canada. "There is no depression in my vision." Most dealers said they were worried, not frightened (although some are definitely frightened). Newsweek dug up L. D. Crusoe, a vice-president at Ford, to say that the problem was that there weren't enough cars to keep up with market demand. Retail coffee prices are up, GM's line for the Motorama is less dramatic than Packard's.
This week I'm sure that Henry explains his recession. Or, no, maybe he talks about going back on the gold standard some more. Burning issues of the day!
Science, Education
"How an A-Engine Looks" You can see pictures of an atomic marine engine at Groton, Connecticut. They're not secret. Only the one on Nautilus is.
"Dams and Dinosaurs" A dam on the Colorado upstream of the Hoover may not be built because it would flood a major fossil bed.
"Sun Bullets and Snap Bags" The sun is shooting out subatomic particles at 37,000 miles per second. If a quiet star like ours can do that, Paul Wild of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation in Sydney wonders what a big star can do. Plastic bats will replace wooden buckets in this sugar maple season because they are more sanitary.
University of California Santa Barbara will be the next, and ninth addition to the University of California system when it opens this fall, and Eastern Illinois State College's home economics creche, which supports twelve students per volunteered baby is in trouble from Roman L. Harenski, the supervisor of Illinois child welfare services, because "too many mothers" might be bad for babies and warp their personalities. The president of student council at University of Washington is a disc jockey on campus radio, which is definitely national news, and the Kansas City school board has made a windfall profit selling off old oak desks to nostalgic buyers.
Art, Radio-Television, Press, Newsmakers
Photographer Colleen Browning gets a beautifully laid out splash page, which needs to be seen to be appreciated.
Arthur Godfrey is constantly in the news these days because of eccentric behaviour. CBS officials have figure out who is to blame. It's the reporters who keep telling us about it! NBC's morning show is making money hand over fist, and Dave Garroway is much less eccentric than Godfrey.
The RNC and the Administration have collaborated on a press release, which is worth at least two-thirds of a page's worth of coverage. Donald Ritchie, the man who confessed to being the wheelman in the 1949 attempted assassination of Walter Reuther, is back in police custody. Boston newspapers have silly letter columns because the reporters who make some of the letters up are funny people, and I don't mean "ha-ha" funny.
Pete Smith, Shelley Winters, Lady Astor, Barbara Hutton, and "Mrs. Samuel W. Anderson," who really should style herself "Mrs. Secretary of Commerce" if she wants to keep up the old-fashioned virtues, are in the column for the usual reasons. Clifford Alexander is in it for being the first Negro to be elected to Harvard's Student Council, and Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio are in it BECAUSE COME ON! And the Navy is celebrating the collapse in enlistments by bringing back the requirement that all officers buy a sword. Margaret O'Brien is 17, Martha Gellhorn is engaged, Johnnie Ray is divorced, Thomas Connelly is retiring, and Admiral Blandy and Don Carney have died.
The New Films
Books
James Michener's latest giant book about a place is Sayonara, and is about Japan, hence the cover photo, and a box story about the ever-exotic geisha girl buried in the literary back pages. Michener is a big deal --the review article takes up the entire section! I wish they'd found another page of material so I wouldn't have to pretend to care that Moley is still on about the Bricker Amendment.
Aviation Week, 25 January 1954
Katherine Johnsen is back to Washington Roundup with reporting on aircraft procurement spending, which will remain high through the middle of 1955 as contracts are completed, a strategic argument between Britain and the United States that boils down to the RAF looking for $100 million to operate the V-bomber force under MSDAP, that the Air Force is looking into a new Combat Cargo Command, and a bunch of discussions about aviation subsidies.
Katherine Johnsen reports for Aviation Week that "''55 Budget Reflects Airpower Stretchout" Industry wants more money, is, I think, the story.
William HJ. Coughlin reports "R3Y Flight Signals New Seaplane Era" That's the Convair Tradewind, originally ordered for fleet reconnaissance duties, now to be a transport on the Hawaii run, better than anything on the route until the DC-7 arrives. Lots of praise for a plane that has already flunked the role it was designed for, with engines which have been pure headache for other uses. "No airline has knocked on the door" yet. Five pages of flying boat bumph! Frank Shea has the less thankless job of checking in with Pan American's new pilot training course, which is "going Hollywood," in that it has multiple training films. Buried at the end is real news: "Air Force and Army chiefs" seen going into a building for a briefing about the B-99 Bomarc at Boeing recently. It's top secret!
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| By Eduard Marmet - http://www.airliners.net/photo/ British-Airways/Aerospatiale-BAC-Concorde-102/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5810282 |
Captain Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint celebrates its third anniversary by looking back at all the things he has complained about. Letters finishes the issue. Marvel Taylor of San Francisco loves Aviation Week. J. M. Gwinn, chief engineer of Buffalo Metal, appreciates the article about "canned engines," which explains why "canning" them is a better storage method than the alternatives. W. L. Kuttner of Sydney is upset that the RAAF is described as flying obsolete aircraft. D. M. Bay of Percival writes to tell Americans to get on with side-by-side trainers. Captain John Snow of the USAF, a project engineer at Wright-Patterson, continues the fight over who designed which crash barrier first, and the publicity man at FAirchild really liked the article about Fairchild's small turbines.
The Engineer, 15, 22, ,29 January 1954
It is January and time for the big retrospective articles!
But first, a week in the life of the British engineer, with (Not-the-Seven-Day Journal): The week of the 15th, the IEE had a party, the RAe bought someone's collection of antique planes, the Comet was grounded, and the motor industry's new training scheme and British Railway's rolling stock renewal programmes were announced. (2750 passenger trains, 53,000 good wagons, 325 locomotives, thanks to there finally being enough steel.) The week of the 21st, Ernest Benn died, the latest Lloyd's Register came out, the International Cargo Handling Co-ordination Association had a party, a report on galvanising techniques in the U.S. came out, and the Metropolitan Water Board submitted its annual report. For the week of the 29th, Iberia is launched, there's another industry where Britain is exporting lots of goods in spite of not being productive enough somehow, the mining engineers throw a party, Lloyd's Shipbuilding Returns is out, Dr. Bishop's paper on the graphical solution of vibration problems somehow makes the Journal, and the Merchant Shipping Bill is discussed in the House.
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| Launching of the Tina Onassis |
"Naval Construction in 1953" is the money article and gets a byline (Raymond Blackman), discussing Forrestal, Antietam, as completed as the first angle-decked carrier, the command ship USS Northampton, destroyer leader Norfolk, with its 950 degree steam plant, the Russian cruiser, Sverdlov, new French submarines, Dutch cruisers, Swedish destroyers, and assorted reconstructions. Coastal forces feels neglected and sneaks their new torpedo boat in at the bottom of the month with all the other ephemera. (A new 25kV diesel generator absolutely deserves an advertorial.) "Coal in 1953" also gets a byline, because Sir Richard Redmayne was persuaded to write it, reviewing the "Crisis" in US coal, improvements in Europe, the possibility of British participation in the European common market in coal. "Some Foreign Civil Engineering Schemes" appears the week of the 21st, and the first two-thirds are about American works, mostly in New York state, the Hungry Horse dam aside. The laying of the concrete caissons for the Hudson River Bridge is interesting! Latin Americans are mainly interested in convenient methods for erecting bridges along their various highways through underdeveloped areas. On the 29th we hear about hydroelectric works in Canada (Kemano) and Europe, the Colombo Plan and where it is at, the damage to, and first steps of rebuilding, of Holland's sea defences, and a dam in India.
The Engineer attends a special session on "Additions to Intake Air of C.I. [compression ignition] Engines," where much discussion of adding hydrogen, methane, and who knows what else, ensued. At the end of the issue, precis of two additional articles submitted to the symposium are printed. They both look at adding more oxidant (fuel!) to the air. D. C. Barnes and C. Wainwright get their "Precision X-Ray Spectrometer Ring" article published next: It seems to be a pretty robust addition to an X-ray test rig! Then The Engineer looks at "Tiko Wharf, British Cameroons," which was built by the Germans in 1911 and is worth noting because of how it has held up.On the 21st, it attends "The Opening of the Queen Elizabeth II Oil Dock at Eastham," which is a basin for oil tankers carved out of the Lancashire countryside and quite something. The lock gates are enormous! On the 29th we look at rebuilding a railway bridge in Wales and the extension of a truck factory in Basingstoke. Related is F. E. Montaigne on the "Festival Hall Heat Pump," a paper given to the Institute of Fuel and summarised on the 29th.
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| By Peter Bruffell, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index .php?curid=6106564 |
Also in the week of the 22nd and continuing on the 29th, T. W. F. Brown gave "High Temperature Turbine Machinery for Marine Propulsion" as the annual Thomas Lowe Gray Memorial Lecture to the Inst. Mech. Eng. Admiral Brown has been working at Parmetrada since his retirement and is understandably excited at high-temperature steam and not at all worried that time has passed him by, as Uncle George says it has. ("Diesel! Diesel! Diesel! But enough about my hobbies!") The precis is absolutely packed with details and diagrams and tables. He also looks at gas turbines, which have perhaps more promise, at least in military applications where the blatantly obvious superiority of diesel is less obvious. "Metallurgical Aspects" of high-temperature turbine design were addressed before the North-east Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders by J. M. Robertson and covered on the 29th. High temperature steels, etc., as was "Reversing Reduction Epicyclic Gears for Marine Use," technically an advertorial from W. H. Allen, but highly relevant. On the 29th The Engineer publishes J. S. Forrest on "Corrosion in Steel-Cored-Aluminum Overhead Line Conductors," which gives an expected service life of 25 years.
"Trends of Public Service Vehicle Designs" was "Contributed" by someone. It is basically about diesel busses. British Electrical Engineering Ltd writes in with an interesting description of its self-regulating alternators with Amplidex control, now available at fine heavy electrical engineering retailers of discretion. Chamberlain Industries, for its part, wants us to hear about its automatic, high speed bending machine, while Metropolitan Vickers has another fuze box for giant main line power, Rockwell Machine Tools of London is proud of its giant triple-action press, Vacuum Oil explains how they build gas stations, Monell has a new nickel, Fairmile has built a nice double-ended ferry for Sarawak, and Lockheed (the British company) has a high-pressure hydraulic pump for aircraft that is better than all the other ones because it has higher flow and can use the new synthetic hydraulic fluids which have all sorts of advantages. Then all the advertorials that didn't make it into print in the month get crammed in at the back of the issue for the 29th and I will be damned if I give them space. Go learn about a "Heavy Duty Hacksaw Machine" on your own! Industrial and Labour Notes is mainly devoted to showing that industry can't afford pay raises in spite of excellent current trading conditions, because those can change, and what about productivity? Three Launches and Trial Trips, two oil tankers and a mixed passenger/cargo ship, all motor, one with auxiliary steam and a boiler for that. Secondite is quite taken with its so-named new nonflammable material,
Our American Correspondent gets into the act on the 21st with a letter about free-piston gas generators, which supply gas to combustion turbines for power generation. It is the same technology as the "Turbocompound" aeroengines and supposedly is much more efficient than conventional turbines, but puts a lot of strain on the valves. I'm throwing in mention of an article about the new British Railways 2-10-0 heavy freight locomotive here, because it seems (ir)relevant. There is more locomotive working (an electric one for Victoria and a diesel-electric for Tasmania) on the 29th.
"Comet Investigations" As of the 21st, investigators are interested in the sabotage theory, but are focussing on investigating structural weakness, the question being just how far the surviving Comets will have to be taken apart to establish their airworthiness, which in turn depends on the condition of recovered wreckage.
"Engineering and Shipbuilding Wages" On the 22nd, a special court of inquiry commenced investigations as to whether profits were rising at the expense of wages.
On the 29th, The Engineer publishes the first part of R. T. Sewell, "Aircraft Hydraulic Test Rigs," relevant this week as we try to crush Comet parts to see when they fall apart. Metallurgical Topics also appears this number, with looks at low-temperature effects on austenitic steels, titanium-stabilisation of mild steel, the problems of centrifuging molten metal, and the hardening of aluminum alloys. "Accident and Fatigue Investigation at Farnborough" appears on the 29th. It is quite thorough, and they have been working a Comet prototype over for some time.
Leaders
On the 21st, The Engineer reviews "Future Development of Marine Machinery," and looks at "Britain's Atomic Factories." The Brown paper was fascinating, if a bit science-fictional, imagining 1500 degree boilers with liquid sodium reheaters; although the idea of replacing the astern turbine with a reverse gear sounds interesting, although doubts are expressed on the score of the more convenient gas turbine, although it, too, needs work, and The Engineer takes it for granted that it will need to be able to burn "residual fuel." The second is just a review of a book from HMSO.
On the 29th, it looks at "Operating Experience with Gas Turbines" and "Teaching Science in Our Schools." Gas turbines are probably the coming thing after fifty years of disappointment, but teaching science is always a doomed project. Also, the working group set up to compare electric transmission in America and Canada went on to produce a long set of recommendations, summarised on the 29th at the bottom of the magazine, where they frankly belong. 
Good Letters are missing on the 15th, but for the 22nd we hear from W. E. Doran of the Great Ouse River Board about "Vermuyden and the Fens." He defends Vermuyden against the charge that the draining of the fens did an injustice to the fen dwellers, on the grounds that it was the adventurers who undertook it and the governments who presided who are responsible, and anyway it was a small matter compared with the enclosures. Then he tears into apparent misrepresentations of the complicated work. O. S. Nock and E. C. Poulteney have letters about locomotive working and testing, H. G. Parker of Short Brothers writes about preserving engineering drawings, Stanley Rogers about testing cars, and W. F. Gerrard about the small number of advantages and many disadvantages of adding caustic soda to boiler feedwater. On the 29th S. C. McKenzie has velleities on the proper study of mankind, a jeremiad, about engineering wages from Antony Vickers, and C. R. H. Simpson arguing about the technical details of locomotive working, years ago, before the war.
Iron and steel production was up about 8% over last year. Craven Brothers place an advertorial about their 42ft Boring and Turning Mill, built for installation at a John Inglis plant in Toronto for making hydroelectric equipment. American Engineering News reports on the resolution of a patent-infringement case in which the principal of a group of seven scientists was Enrico Fermi, and the issue was certain radioactive substances for military use. The Baytown Tunnel in Texas is briefly discussed. Industrial and Labour Notes are on the upswing, with more employed, more iron and steel being produced, a shortage of young workers (good for young workers!) On the other hand, "guerilla action" by the Electrical Trades Union continues. Three Launches and Trial Trips, two motor ships, one with both diesel and boilers, a mixed passenger-cargo, cargo, and an oil tanker.
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There are again advertorials down at the bottom on the 29th, which sentence you've already read m any times because I've put mention of them in at various points while I was preparing this letter. This time I mention for carbon dioxide tool cooling from the Carbon Dioxide Company, and a power supply regulator from Electrical Instruments, because who wants power surges when they are running giant machines with giant currents? Then it is on Industrial and Labour Notes (engineering wages! Productivity! Exports! And someone gave a talk on industrial relations somewhere. Only one Launch and Trial Trip, the bauxite carrier Dispatcher, a steamship with double reduction geared turbines built by David Rowan, with Babcock and Wilcox-type boilers.
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