Postblogging Technology, November 1954, II: Flying in the Grass

Because of boundary layer control

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

The cat is truly out of the bag after Senator Knowland's floor speech, of which I am glad that someone had the consideration to give us all of five minutes warning so that we could get well clear of our apartment before anyone was curious enough to look in at us. We are now in transit to Hong Kong with the understanding that we are not wanted in London until January. Which means last minute Christmas plans, if you haven't let James' room to a lodger yet.

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Letters

William Parker of the Modern Language Association is proud to point out how fast modern language instruction is spreading in our schools. Bishop Nikon of Florida (Russian Orthodox Church Beyond) liked the article about religion in Russia and reminds us that there are long-bearded men with funny hats in America, too! On the other hand, Tom Iacakes of the Greek Orthodox Church in Detroit has some questions about Russian Orthodoxy. Igor Boussel points out that feminism has a long way to go at Oxford and Cambridge notwithstanding the optimistic Newsweek article, which makes the editor testy. Rex Stanley remembers the old days, before the war. (It's not just Flight!) Corrections to Newsweek's biography of Angela Thirkell are in order. Richard Lykens is upset that John W. Powell took the Fifth. For Your Information reports that the Emperor of Japan reads Newsweek, and so does "the Moscow press." 

The Periscope reports that with their new majority, Democrats will attack Wilson over defence cutbacks, McKay over private power, will scuttle the Dixon-Yates contract, and will probably embrace the CIA report that says that the Soviets will have a big enough atomic stockpile for "all-out war" by 1957. SAC is going to lost more than 55% of its trained men to private industry this year and the Air Force is worried that recruitment is too far behind to replace them. Wilson is promoting a pay raise for the ranks, which will help. The VA is launching a follow-up study on the hemorrhagic fever that afflicted some 3000 GIs in Korea, which remains mysterious. Marine brass are considering overnight leave from Parris Island after a rash of late night auto accidents. General Collins' appointment as chief of special missions in Southeast Asia is a "direct slap" at MacArthur and Van Fleet, who have criticised Collins for opposing the expansion of the Korean War. Senator Jenner is going to use the lame duck Senatorial session for a "full scale Red probe" of John W. Powell, while "writing hundreds of letters to families of New England men still unaccounted for by the Chinese Reds, implying the missing men are happy and well off." The Senate will take action against "the interstate shipment of movies regarded as objectionable for childrens' TV programs" in the next session. Fresh off his victory against proposals to put unions under antitrust laws, Labour Secretary Mitchell is moving to extend minimum wage laws to department store employees and other "unaffected" employees. Representative Emanuel Celler of the House Judiciary Committee intends to go after State Department security chief Scott McLeod for slowing down refugee admissions. 

Current plans are to withdraw "almost all" U.S. troops from Japan and Korea over the next five years, concentrating them in Guam, Okinawa, and the Philippines. Russia is being nice to Tito, there are signs of a purge of the Communist party in Hungary due to the ongoing economic crisis there, West Berlin students are getting worryingly pink according to "Allied officials," the still-unannounced resignation of the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil will be a blow to Latin America, since he actually liked the continent, and Where Are They Now catches up with Oswald Mosley, who has moved to Ireland but travels to London several times a month to look after his "present right-wing 'union movement.'" 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Losing the election makes Ike more important than ever and he will be successful in his fight for lower defence spending, health insurance, more highways, public housing, and increased reclamation. What he won't get includes the vote for 18-year-olds, statehood for Hawaii (unless he gives Alaska statehood, too). What he'll have to fight for includes the existing tax structure, farm-price supports, and moderate reforms of the Taft-Hartley Act, and Democratic investigations. 

National Affairs

The election was too close to say that either party was repudiated. Washington insiders say that the lessons of '54 are that Ike will face off against Stevenson in '56, that a coalition of "moderates" will run the country for the next two years, that Democratic investigations will focus on Republican monopolist tendencies and "giveaways." The defeat of three McCarthyite congressmen and the victory of Clifford Chase in New Jersey are bad news for McCarthy. The seven governorships picked up by the Democrats would ordinarily mean a Democratic landslide, which is why the election is being pitched as close. The detailed coverage is a bit longer, of course. There are any number of races that attracted attention and have to be recapped, but I don't think you care about Glenn Taylor or FDR, Jr. We will also be able to look back and answer Ernest Lindell's urgent question ("Will Bipartisanship Work?") for ourselves. John Paton Davies has been fired because Dulles has no spine.

International

"Middle East: Fabulous Onassis and Oil" The Middle East is in turmoil! Terrorism has spread to "previously peaceful Algeria," Israel-Jordan relations have taken a "quick and ominous turn for the worst," and, most importantly Onassis and King Saud are squeezing American tankers out of the oil business. Newsweek explains that Onassis, or "Ari," as his friends call him, is not the supervillain that some portray him as. He is a "ticking bomb" in the heart of the Middle East, but with enough American pressure the tanker deal will be called off in no time. A capsule biography of Onassis follows. Nehru was disappointed in his talks in Peking, Adenauer is trying to rally his coalition behind the Saar plan, the US is talking "atoms for peace" at the UN again, the death of Thomas Terence Manners, the man in charge of maintaining the 800 clocks in the Royal Courts of Justice is a major story. His coat was caught in the works and he was killed by the clock he was adjusting. 

John Rothenstein has been involved in "an altercation" with Douglas Cooper over the "scandal" at the Tate Modern. There is something very dark and mysterious going on with Herman Field, the American architect recently released from five years imprisonment in Warsaw. Konstantin v Neurath has been released from Spandau at the age of 81.

"The Coldest Cold War" The Russians are sending an expedition to an ice floe island, airlines are flying over the Arctic now, the Distant Early Warning line in northern Canada is now a done deal, the Army has activated the 71st Infantry Division in Anchorage as a special Arctic warfare unit, the Navy is preparing its own new set of seasonal ice floe island bases, and Newsweek has a very pretty map of our new Arctic front. Is that enough? Should we be doing more? No doubt. But what? It's cold up there! Where it's not cold, in places like Cuba, Fulgencio Batista is consolidating his unshakeable hold on power that no-one will ever challenge, notwithstanding the difficult economic times brought on by the huge 1952 sugar crop he was unable to sell.

Life and Leisure looks at package winter vacations to the Caribbean or Brazil or places like that.

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that business is happy that more Democrats weren't elected because farm supports won't be increased, Taft-Hartley won't be repealed, and stimulative spending and monetary policy will continue, so there won't be a depression. Stocks are up "amazingly" considering, says the lead story. Sales were up in October, construction is doing well, Babcock and Wilcox finally have continuous casting going ("developed in Germany, it already is in use in England"), and the first signs of the new Fords and Chryslers for the "'55 sweepstakes" are on show. 

Products: What's New reports that Gibson Refrigerator has an 11 cubic foot refrigerator, that National Starch Products has a resin glue which can be used in books and containers to be pulped for recycling, previously a problem for adhesives. Philharmonic TV and Recording has a child's record player with a kaleidoscope built into the front of the cabinet. Notes: The Week in Business reports that Frederick Richmond's takeover bid for Follansbee Steel continues, that the last year will be the worst season in fifteen years for Great Lake tankers, that two  new government stockpiling programmes are in the works, that personal income was 287.5 billion per year in September, up $2 billion from the same period in 1953. 

Henry Hazlitt is back in Business Tides for a long-overdue apology for provoking the recession with his crackpot monetary ideas . . . I'm sorry, actually he is going to complain about how Government lending is corrupt or something. Specifically, he is upset that the Administration is going to liberalise the rules for the Export-Import Bank,, hard on the heels of the complete collapse of the European economies due to the Marshall Plan . . Wait, that didn't happen, either? All that aid refinanced the Europeans and now they're competing with us? What he means is, resurgent European competition won't be beaten off by loans to finance American exports, but only by the rigid application of laissez-faire. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"The Timeless Honour" The Nobel Prize for physics dips far back into the past to honour Max Born and Walter Bothe for work they did twenty-five years ago. Less controversially on the scientific side is the award to Linus Pauling, because he is  younger, although his political activism, including in "some Red-front groups," led to questions about whether he would be allowed to travel to Stockholm to receive his prize after his passport was withheld in 1952, although not for his 1953 trip to Israel. Born was honoured as  a theoretician of quantum physics, Bothe as a noted experimentalist.

Griswold's brilliant scheme to get rid of undergraduate course requirements
goes unmentioned in his Wikipedia biography.

"Bugs and Birds" Chuck Yeager is visiting the White House next week, which occasions a column inspired by Blanche Stillson's recent Wings, on how birds and bugs inspired early aeronauts. Also, the Tuoro Institute is a hundred years old. News in Drugs reports that metacortandralone and metacortandrosin show more promise than any other treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, says the Schering Company, which developed them, while the Armour Veterinary Laboratories have developed a B12+ACTH shot to treat canine distemper. Education profiles Gilbert Highet, and Yale and the University of Tennessee are reacting to signs that they are not doing a good jo of teaching the classes they have scraped together by testing them more (Tennessee) or kicking them out of the classroom to learn grammar in the gutter, where they're going to learn it, anyway. (VERY UNLADYLIKE JOKE!!!) Periscoping Education reports that we shouldn't write off Representative Carroll B. Reece's investigation of tax-exempt foundations just because someone rowed it out in the bay and sank it in fifty fathoms tied to an anchor before dawn on 4 November and that Oveta Culp and Samuel Brownell are arguing about granting aid to schools, with  Culp wanting to hold off until after the 1955 educational conferences. 

  

Press, Art, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

"Checking the Guesses" "'Both the Democrats and the Republicans can be said to have lost the election,' a tested political commentator said." Newsweek does round up an impressive list of predictions overestimating likely Democratic gains in the House, less so the Senate. Sensibly, Samuel Lubell points out that it is very hard for pollsters to narrow down the 2% of undecided voters that determine elections. For what it is worth, Wayne University's UDEC, Burroughs "mechanical brain," did a pretty good job, and the general thought is that Ike is still popular and can bring out the votes. Readers Digest is going to start taking advertising. 

Wyndham Lewis, Workshop (1914)

The MoMA has eggs on its face after buying one of three paintings by Lithuanian expressionist Chaim Soutine, after refusing them at much lower prices in 1939. (Or not, as he died in 1943 and is now officially a famous dead painter. Would some money have helped when he was hiding from the Nazis and dying of a perforated stomach ulcer?  Who can say?)  Art also has a retrospective on "Fauvism" to mark the death last week of Henri Matisse. The idea of Matisse's art as some kind of revolution of decadence already seems strained and strange to me. It's said that the history of the period just before your birth and your earliest childhood is the strangest to you, and the pre-WWI era fits into that for me, with a bit of stretching. So this should be the strangest and most distant era of all for me, but on the other hand I do French literature so I know the story of Blast and Rites of Spring and come to the instant impression that there were lots of artistic revolutions before the war, and if it all came down to Futurism, Futurism led to Fascism, and who wants more of that?  

"That Electronic Election" TV was ready for a "history-making" election, with NBC demonstrating a technique that split the screen up into four corners, each with a correspondent from a different city, none of whom had much to say. UNIVAC, as we've heard, mistakenly predicted a Democratic landslide, but as we heard this week, UDEC did better. It all comes down to the human operators, says human operator Charles Collingwood. In Congress, Richard C. Clendenen, staff director of the Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency, blamed TV for glorifying gangsters, which leads Newsweek, which obviously actually watches TV, to go down the list of this week's TV shows and name the one where gangsters come off well. Periscoping TV predicts an avalanche of George M. Cohan plays on TV after the estate released the rights this week, Judith Anderson's first regular TV show will consist of Bible readings, James Mason, his wife, and his six-year-old daughter are also doing Bible stuff on TV, while Duke Ellington has a show featuring his orchestra coming up, Guy Lombardo is going to sell recordings of his New York show around the country, and Rosemary Clooney and Dorothy Shay will have shows this fall. 

Rosemary Clooney had a TV show and I don't know how to measure an avalanche of Cohan plays. 

Mamie, King Farouk, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Colonel John ("No Trousers for Girls!") Dilley, Dick Haymes, Rita Hayworth, Audrey Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Bob Hope, and Tenzing Norgay are in the paper for the usual reason. Dr. Schwitzer has received a reward, John Wayne has married "Peruvian beauty Pilar Palette," and Lord Clydesmuir, Ewald v. Kleist, Edward Marquart, William B. Umstead, and Oran Page have died. 

The New Films reports that Warner's Track of the Cat is a Western based on a well-written novel, just like the last Walter Van Tilburg Clark novel to be turned into a Western movie, The Oxbow Incident,  but that doesn't save this flick, which at least has good scenery. Hurok-Oscar brings us a movie version of Aida, which is still too operatic, although the music is great. Columbia's The Black Knight gets the all-bold subtitle, "Fair Warning."

 Books 

Woman authors get the lead story introducing a biography of Susan B. Anthony by Katherine Anthony, and memoirs of the Chase sisters, Elsa Schiaparelli, (as reviewed by The Economist), and Elsa Maxwell, as definitely not. A second section features books on the theme of "Edward VII was kind of a stinker and here are some books set in that period, do I need to draw you a picture?" These include a novel by William Plomer, an anthology of period pieces edited by Elisabeth Edes and Dudley Frasier, and Gene Fowler on the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Pierre Boulle's Bridge over the River Kwai is quite the novel. 

Raymond Moley surveys the election and finds that it proves he was right all along about the President and the GOP's need to move towards the conservatives. 

Leaders

"Sucking and Blowing" It was a sad day when Poulsen stepped down as editor of Flight. Anyway, boundary layer control is the coming thing. 

"Projected or Launched?" Flight worries that if the RAF goes ahead with its plans for all-jet pilot training, future RAF pilots won't be fit to handle small planes, which give them a "feel" for the air. 

From All Quarters reports at length on the Civil Aviation Debate in the House, which seems like an odd use of the column, but no-one died and made me editor! The minister pointed out that civil aviation is advancing, that BOAC is making money, and that BEA is probably being  hurt by the ill-judged rapid expansion of tourist fares in Europe. Helicopters will probably be great for civil aviation once we figure out how to do it, the Comet was definitely a setback. The Labour critic is getting a bit tired of British airliners being delayed or disappointing, and wonders if there should be an inquiry. Various members think that buying the DC-7D when the Britannia was coming along is a terrible idea. The Westland Westminster is a great idea. (This isn't from the debate, it's the announcement that Westland is going ahead with a 35-seat helicopter.) The ARB has new requirements for pressurised airliners. All makes must make a hull available for immersion testing. The search for the lost Javelin continues. Inquests into the Marathon and Valetta crashes continue. Six Hunting Percival Provosts left Britain this week on their way to Burma to join the air force there. Flight has quibbles with the first episode of The War in the Air, but liked it. 

The Comet Inquiry is in its fourth week. The de Havilland designers sound like they were a bit evasive under cross-examination in regards to whether they had accurately measured stresses in the fuselage skin and tested them for fatigue failure thoroughly enough. 

"BOAC's Equipment" We continue to hear that BOAC is interested in the DC-7D. I guess that if Douglas is willing to throw money away developing a new propliner just as jets become available, it would be criminal for BOAC not to take advantage of their folly? At the moment, BOAC has 22 Argonauts, 11 Constellations, 10 Stratocruisers, 7 Comet Is, and four York freighters. Miles Thomas points out that BOAC has been supporting the Britannia since its first orders in 1949, but that does not mean that it can get away with not buying the DC-7. It has a business to run! It is already buying 18 more Stratocruisers and Constellations due to the withdrawal of the Comet and the non-delivery of Comet 2s. 

Here and There reports that it is reported in Parliament that it costs £25,000 to train an RAF pilot, £15,000 a signaller, and £10,000 to train an engineer. Temporary flight restrictions have been placed on the Venom, Sea Venom, and F-100 because they keep crashing, and Canadair is working on a noise abatement scheme at its Montreal factory. 

"Martin Midget: An Unorthodox Design for a Close-Support Aircraft" It seems like everyone is working on an unorthodox close-support aircraft because everyone can do close-support. This one is unorthodox in the sense that it is as small as a Gnat. Hello? Did anyone read the bit about it costing £25,000 to train a pilot? Give him a plane that can carry some bombs! 

American Order Book" Up through the elections, the Department of Defence had issued orders for $828 million in planes, most, in this order, for the Navy, and including the F8U-1, AD-2, A4D-1, F9F-9, a Hiller helicopter, the P2V-7. P5M-2, AH-1, FJ-3, and HR2S-1. The advantage of the Navy's idiosyncratic coding is that once you can decipher it, and can remember that V stands for Lockheed, "J" for North American and H for McDonnell, these strings of letters and numbers tell you everything you need to know about the orders. 

P. R. Payne, "Subsonic Ramjets for Helicopters" What, this again? First, for Heaven's sake, noise! Second, it's not even a good article, not that anyone would write one, since the main problem is getting the gas to the tip of the rotor still hot enough to do work, and that requires lots of tedious engineering, and not a neat little aerodynamic calculation of how much thrust the ramjet should develop. 

"Comet Inquiry: The Fourth Week" More or less the same again. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that Douglas has been having difficulties with the internal stowage for weapons in the Skywarrior's bomb bay. They keep getting hung up due to aerodynamic pressure, but now Douglas has fixed this problem that no-one has ever mentioned before it was fixed (the old Aviation Week trick) by putting spoilers on all the bombs. I bet the crews love loading up those! The Skyraider is also a pretty hot plane now that Douglas has saved weight by eliminating fripperies like ejection seats. Engineers wondering about how British fighters can eject all the spent cartridges that a RARDEN gun produces might want to look at the ejector slots on the F-100, some people say. SNECMA's "Coleopter" is quite the thing. 

Robert Blackburn reports from Central African Airways, which, among other things, flies De Havilland Canada Beavers in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Flight visits a Canberra Trainer unit and gets some pictures. Martin-Baker explains the Martin-Baker ejection seats Mks. 2, 3, and 4. The main improvement is that they are now fully automatic. All the pilot needs to do is jettison the hood and pull the firing pin, and everything else is done by timing devices as the seat moves along its rails. The Mark 4 is also much lighter. Martin-Baker is currently working on making the hood jettison automatic, and on high altitude ejections, where the "capsule" approach has not worked out. Besides pressurised suits that obviate the need for a pressurised capsule, it is looking into some kind of detachable shields to protect the pilot from the initial high speed airflow. 

The amazing fact that Canada has a special air service related to its picturesque native practice of "forestry" once again requires notice. 

Correspondence

Bill Henry of Washington recently experienced the operation of an Auxiliary Power Unit, and was quite impressed. Hans Schicht of Germany is quite taken with the Folland Gnat, because he does not understand how "pilot training" works. Maurice Allward defends standardisation by specific reference to tyres.

Civil Aviation reports the final approval of the Viscount by the CAA, and the date of the Irish inquiry into the recent KLM Super Constellation accident is announced.  West African Airways has ordered 6 Herons, while American is taking more DC-6As.  The inquiry into the 13 March BOAC Constellation accident at Kallang Airport, Singapore, finds pilot error at fault.  The third annual North Atlantic Regional Air Navigation meeting of the ICAO has wrapped up, recommending Consol radio beacon installations around the region, until which time a thirty minute separation of flights on all routes is to be maintained. Since there has been no coverage of Skyways this issue: Skyways.

The Industry reports that Lexington Product's "Nenette" is a dust-absorbing powder.

Letters

Theodore Anderson is very excited about teaching foreign languages in elementary school, while John Ellison is a bit dubious about letting it take time away from more necessary subjects. Don Blackburn of La Porte, Indiana, surveys the electoral scene and asks why, if we have the right to express our opinion, anyone who speaks out of line gets hounded and insulted. B. J. Wiltfong of Little Sioux, Iowa, enjoyed the story about Gene Fowler. The Reverend C. E. Jackson of Tulllahoma, Tennessee, is upset that the University of Iowa is putting a restriction on Joe Palooka comics but not fourteen romance novels that he would never let his children read. Newsweek points out that the specific cartoon to be restricted contains an explicitly sadistic panel of Palooka imagining himself being flogged, and that it is the first daily Palooka strip ever to be banned. For Your Information reports that Edward Weintal found London awfully crowded, which is why he had to settle for renting an apartment the size of a dance hall (the US dollar does go a long way there!) and is glad to be back in Washington because all the entertaining he did there ended up being exhausting.

Republic F-105 Thunderchief w P&W J75/JT4

 The Periscope reports that Eisenhower and Churchill are getting ready for a Big Three meeting with Malenkov, that rumours say that Mendes-France is awful, that McCarthy's friends in the Senate are trying desperately to get him off the hook, while Ike is determined to stay out of it. Averill Harriman will run in '56. Democrats will try to expel McCarthy as well as censure him  if a case can be made from his tax records. Ike's "Militant Democracy" initiative will involve financing democratic leaders around the world and sending them to school for "detailed training in politics and industry in America." Val Peterson of the Civil Defence Administration wishes that the President would say more about the dangers of radiological fallout. The President wants an all-out hunt for the source of the NSC leak about U.S. negotiations with Chiang to keep him from provoking Red China. Air Material Command is working on a radically new jet bomber that would avoid radar detection by streaking in on a target at tree-top level. "A brand-new design of jet engine would be needed." The military is recommending that H-bombs be set to go off at lower than the 8000ft recommended for atom bombs to maximise radiological fallout. 

In discussions with a senior member of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Marshal Bulganin said something bad about Stalin. Despite protests, the Swedes seem prepared to let the 1955 World Peace Conference go ahead in Stockholm. Mendes-France is said to be trying to persuade Allen Dulles that the Soviets are moderating, so that he will carry word to Washington. The Chinese Red Army is getting stronger and planning to invade Formosa. Investigations of recent Algerian terrorist episodes shows that French intelligence is hopeulessly crippled by internal jealousies. "Insiders" in Germany are aware that German agents are doing a brisk business selling Nazi uranium to interested parties. The special Red Communist spy school has been moved from Prague to East Berlin. The Russians are infiltrating Afghanistan now, and word out of Hong Kong is that 200 Chinese technicians are going to Russia to be trained in Soviet atomic power stations, which goes to show that the Soviets will have some soon. Where Are They Now looks up Barney Ross, who is 44, has a grandson and a daughter, and works as public-relations advisor to Eddie Fisher. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the 84th Congress will fight and squabble and not accomplish very much. 

National Affairs

The President thinks that with Soviet farm problems, the time is right for peace talks. His family is cute and an Oklahoma politician deserves a profile as second story. Fourth story is a 42-year-old Navy veteran who lives with  his father and sister in upstate New York, who has been fired from Republic Aviation as a security risk for having a "psychoneurotic background that makes him unsuitable for secret work," who was also dismissed from his local civil defence unit for the same reasons. When he protested, it was discovered that he was actually diagnosed with "neurodermatitis," and rehired all around. Oh, sure, sure, that's exactly what happened. Nixon, Knowland, Bridges, Saltonstall, Ferguson, and Dickson all tried to get McCarthy to "compromise" ahead of his upcoming censure vote by admitting that he had been a very naughty boy, to  no avail. Meanwhile, Senators Bricker and Goldwater think that anyone who would criticise McCarthy (like, for example, Senator John Stennis) are practically Communists themselves. John Marshal Harlan is the first Supreme Court Justice appointed by Ike, and is the first on the current court not appointed by Roosevelt. (Warren being Chief Justice.) Two pages about what Alger Hiss will have to confess before he can be forgiven, follows. The President isn't giving up on the Dixon-Yates contract yet. The Sheppard trial is turning so juicy that I have to mention it againn in spite of it going straight to Crime. 

Ticking If Off reports that the Air Force has grounded the F-100 after three crashes, that the Russians are working  hard on a space ship, and America better catch up, says William Lear, who thinks it might take a year and cost a BILLION dollars. Ellis Island is closing, since these days most immigrants are cleared before they even board a ship. Colonel James O. Wade has been relieved of command of the Replacement Training Centre at Fort Gordon, Georgia, for refusing to punish Lieutenant Charles Anderson, the company commander accused of having a trainee strung up by the ankles. A new date has been set for the execution of Caryl Chessman.  Ernest K. Lindell has a worthier Washington Tides column, "What Bipartisanship Implies." It means that the President has to listen to Democrats, not just talk to them. 

International

We catch up with Mendes-France, who is in trouble with the United States because he won't back Diemh in Vietnam, with French bien-pensants because trouble is spreading from Morocco and Tunisia to Algeria, and with the actual French because the cost of living is up. (He's really in trouble; Newsweek does a boxed story asking "Is the New French Leader Really Our Friend?" The story about the RB-29 shot down off Hokkaido has real legs, showing up again in this issue. To its credit, it is to give the Kremlin version, which is that the "routine mapping mission" flown by the RB-29 was actually a deliberate provocation in which the RB-29 repeatedly set a course towards Soviet airspace only to veer away at the last minute. That is how you prepare map-quality aerial photographs, but it  is not as though the USAF needs to make a new set of those. The new camera that can take detailed pictures at a distance of 75 kilometers or more is more than long enough ranged to photograph the main Soviet air base on the Kuriles. and the Soviets have been very conciliatory over the episode. General Naguib has been removed from the Egyptian government, Jacques Fath is dead, the UN is fighting over atoms for peace, Moscow is upset at German rearmament (NEWS!!!), and the maritime exodus of Catholic North Vietnamese to the South has everyone ineffectually upset while the impasse between Hinh and Diemh has been broken by the face-saving intervention of Bao Dai, who has summoned Hinh to attend him in France. 

In this hemisphere, Peron is fighting with the Catholics now, and Dictator Rafael Trujillo isn't so bad, considering that a spectacular bank robbery at the local branch of the Royal Bank of Canada has been dealt with. There is no room for crime in the Dominican Republic, Trujillo said proudly, as his casino winnings were delivered. 

 "Testing Our Mettle" The recent Red air raid on the Tachen islands and the sinking of the Taiping are deemed to be the first step in a "Hop, Skip, and Jump" operation in which Red forces consecutively occupy deserted islands to the north of the Tachens to get in range for a surprise amphibious operation. In Japan, the formation of a new Liberal splinter party with the votes to unseat Premier Yoshida is deemed an "ambush" of the world-travelling premier, while in Britain the Duke of Windsor's private visit turned into a mess because two books are out showing what a twit he is. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the Transportation Department is looking at rail fee structures, that unions still won't be considered for antitrust action, that unemployment will be up for the next few months but no-one should worry, that exports, especially to Europe, will be up. The lead story is about "The Big Push to Atoms," that is, to atomic power. Second story is that there is another bidder for Montgomery Ward now that Sewell Avery has ridden it as low as it can go. He should sell, considering that he thinks that a depression is just around the corner. Of course, he always thinks that, so . . . Notes: Week in Business reports that the Administration is thinking about setting up an International Financial Agency within the World Bank to really twist Henry Hazlitt's knickers, that the Department of the Interior's first auction of offshore oil and gas leases raised $23 million, that the gross annual GNP for October is $355.5 billion, down $11.7 billion from the third quarter of 1953. Auto price cuts are still coming from the Big Three along with new models. Products:What's New reports undecorated ball ornaments for Christmas trees with packages of paint and stick-ons to make your own, from Christmas Ornaments Decorator Services of New York, a quick test for moisture content from Moore-Mitford, and an attachment that allows users to talk to a telephone without touching it (a mike) so that you an pace around the office and rant as you like. The Harvard Business School gets a box story, and Henry Hazlitt takes this occasion to . . .wait, no, he is going to use his flagship column in the Business section to tell  us what the "Lessons of the Election" are. Are they that his preferred policies of austerity are proven vote winners, Ronnie guesses without reading? Why yes, he is! 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Paths to the Horizons" Dr. Einstein was quoted this week as saying that if he were a young man today, he would go into plumbing and not science, because he sees more prospect for independence there, and Mitchell Wilson's American Science and Invention, out this week, is an "unwitting answer" to his "pessimism," because it shows how Americans invented everything, with pictures, completely refuting the idea that future scientists won't make much money working in academia. Somehow. All Around Science reports that the Brookhaven cosmotron is down for repairs, that warmer summers are putting stress northern forests, according to Dr. Rene Pomerleau of the forest pathology laboratory at Laval University of Quebec, and just how  much damage will be done in the long run will be determined by whether  the trend continues. Smog experts have told "watery-eyed millions looking for snap solutions" to cool down and wait for definitive scientific research that establishes that it is actually bad for you. Meanwhile, W. L. Faith, LA's smog-control man is not waiting for someone to come along and fix the estimated 15% of unburnt fuel coming out of LA's seven million cars that is allegedly causing all those alleged health effects. 

"Poster child for polio"

"The South on Guard," and "Searches and Finds" It has come to the attention of the Governor of Tennessee that no Southern state has made adequate provision for mental health yet, while Pittsburgh is suffering from its worst typhoid outbreak in fifty years, a new attempt to find the cold bug is to be made by a group chaired by Dr. Yale Kneeland of Columbia, a new nylon stocking will help support varicose veins, Dr. Paul Bell of American Cyamide has successfully fractionated ACTH to find its active ingredient, which might  make it more available, and Dr. Ralph Major of the University of Kansas has a new history of medicine out. 

"Off the Ground" The first USAF Academy class of 300 will report to their temporary campus at Lowry Air Force Base  near Denver next July, with a campus to follow in good time, this week's story being about Superintendent Lieutenant General Hubert Harmon's insistence on a strong component of liberal arts education alongside science and engineering. Progress Report reports that Professor James Koerner of Kansas State College is appalled at the low level of English literature training shown by Kansas elementary school teachers, that Ohio and New York are cracking down on fraternities, and that the National Education Association has discovered a worrying decline in the number of  high school teachers. Periscoping Education reports that the New York City Board of Education believes that is third graders are at least a month ahead of children elsewhere in reading ability, and actually bothers to report a rumour that the President of NYU might be going to be President of the University of Illinois. 

Life and Leisure catches up with the business suit and a new card game craze, Calypso. 

Press, TV-Radio, Art, Newsmakers

The Soviet magazine, Knowledge, predicts the first (Soviet) trip to the Moon in 1974. Al Capp has apologised for a "frankly indecent" recent L'il Abner strip in a letter to Tablet. A lithotypographer for Chinese has been announced by Kwei Chungshu, currently of Yale. The editor of Ecclesia, the last uncensored Church paper in Spain, has been dismissed for complaining about press censorship,and the Gannet group has bought another local paper. 

We catch up with Bob Hope, currently in a slight state of bother in France for fetching Maurice Chevalier away from an engagement in France, not that the profile mentions it, followed by stories about two playhouse anthology shows out of New York. 

Beverley Pepper, and, more interestingly, the astonishing covers which have recently graced Scientific American get stories in Art. 

Betsy v. Furstenberg might have been kicked out of the cast of a Broadway play for being so annoying, but at least she's married now! Everyone is throwing a party for Winston Churchill in hopes that he'll go away. Various royals, Cecil B. DeMille, Dorothy Collins, forty-one German scientists now working on American missiles in Birmingham, Alabama instead of Nazi Germany, Marilyn Monroe, and Frank Lloyd Wright are in the paper for the usual reasons. Prince Charles has had a birthday, Jane Powell is married, Guiseppe Cardinal Bruno, Lewis E. Pierson, and "boiler kid" Fred Snite have died. 

New Films

Unchained is an excellent prison movie based on Kenyon Scudder's experiences at the California Institute for Men in Chino. The Last Time I Saw Paris (MGM) gets a very negative review that comes down especially hard on Elizabeth Taylor's acting. Athena, also from MGM, is much more kindly reviewed. A "bouncy, adolescent musical show that keeps turning into a satire of California mystics, vegetarians and muscle bulgers." 

Books

The feature story is a meditation on the novels of smalltown Midwest ambling along to a review of Lewis Atherton, Main Street on the Middle Border. Robert Sage has edited and translated The Private Diaries of Stendhal, while Alfred Duggan, Scott Hart, and Manuel de Jesus Galvan have fine historical novels out. 

Raymond Moley digs a bit deeper into the "Land That Didn't Slide." The Democratic margin of victory was so small that it was actually a Republican victory. A Conservative victory!

Letters

William Houston tries, and fails, to correct Newsweek's Latin. Ralph Fleck relates how he saved this one girl when the East Germans were rounding up slave labour for the uranium mines in 1948. Malcolm Ross of the University of Florida explains that the Florida football programme pays for all sorts of worthy university activities. Alec Alexander points out that the sham election in Guatemala means that Guatemala isn't free, and isn't that what we were upset at the Communists about?  For Your Information points out that Ernest K. Lindley is so upright that the "Lindley Rule" describes the way that reporters don't talk about "off the record" policy discussions. 

The Periscope reports that Henry Cabot Lodge will take over the National Security Council chief position barring a last-minute change, because Ike is so upset about NSC leaks. Ike is going to be talking mainly about foreign affairs in the State of the Union Address, the Postmaster General is unhappy with the Administration, the Justice Department and the FBI are not ready for peace with the Reds, because they are still spying. The French AEC is suing the American AEC for violating French patents for small uranium piles. The Army is working on mortars and a 156mm tank gun, both capable of firing atomic warheads. Air Defence Command is training three man paratrooper teams who will jump to capture enemy fliers shot down in bombing raids. The Periscope is sure that the Dixon-Yates contract will go through. The real reason that the 83rd Congress isn't going to cooperate with Ike is that Southern Democrats are so upset about his approach to civil rights. It looks like the Viet Minh is sure to overrun Southern Vietnam, leading some to question the point of American aid to the South. Archbishop Boris, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, is going to visit America to regain the loyalty of the American Russian Orthodox Church. Everyone is worried about Soviet wooing of Tito. The United States is now somehow tangled up with the Soviets in a disagreement between Iran and Afghanistan over water rights on the Helmand River. A counterrevolution is expected in Guatemala. The Germans are pushing to build their first atomic reactor as quickly as possible. Soviet Russia is building its second underground atomic research city in the Tatra Mountains of Czechoslovakia, says "word reaching Vienna." Two new Soviet weapons spotted by British intelligence are a long-range, swept-wing flying boat[?] and a 13-foot-long antiaircraft missile with a speed of 700mph and a range of 20 miles. Where Are They Now catches up with the Count Alfred de Marigny, who is still a low life playboy, but older now and working as an aluminum window salesman, and Admiral Samuel Fuqua, who is retired, 55, and taking a master's degree at Stanford to possibly teach as a second career. 

National Affairs

Everyone is feeling optimistic on Thanksgiving eve because the weather is good and the recession is  almost over. For sure this time. The President is absolutely bipartisan now. You can tell because Senator Knowland made a bizarre speech attacking him in a speech on the Senate floor, and half way between Knowland and Kefauver is the middle! He's so moderate he won't even consider preventive war against the Soviet Union! More poisonous rumours about Mendes-France get into the pages, this time that he has "crypto-communists" in his cabinet. Ike's "famous stag dinners" get a box story. McCarthy has been told to sit down and shut up ahead of the censure vote, as he was just making things worse, and has reacted by taking to a bed at Milwaukee General, supposedly because a supporter shook his hand too hard. The inside-dealing case against various people involved in that tanker stock transfer have been exonerated, so I guess it was never a scandal after all. The Army is in trouble again, this time over its double standard on discipline. Anita McCormick Blaine's will will disburse $38 million. Ticking It Off reports that  the Justice Department has given up trying to disqualify Federal Judge Luther Youngdahl from presiding over the perjury trial of Owen Lattimore, Democrats in the Senate  have postponed the confirmation vote for Marshall Harlan while they look for more information about him, Junius Irving Scales has been found in Tennessee and arrested by the FBI and charged with thinking Communist thoughts, punishable by ten years in jail and a $10,000 fine. Cincinnati's controversial proportional representation system for city government has survived a plebiscite. 

In Washington Tides, Ernest Lindell has us "Facing the Atomic Facts," which is that we are approaching an atomic stalemate. The Soviets have, or soon will have, the bombs to fight America, and the bombers and possibly intercontinental rockets to deliver them. It is time to have a discussion about this, Senator Knowland says. Presumably the National Security Council already has, but it was secret. The Eisenhower Administration is for "peaceful coexistence." It will not "bring matters to a head" against the Soviet Union, or even Red China. "[B]ut some of our military authorities think that our society will survive if it were fought now." We should have a frank discussion, and get all heated up about civil defence, industrial dispersal, the balance of defence spending, and intercontinental rockets. Just a discussion, mind you. A discussion that would admittedly scare the pants off of our Allies and possibly most Americans, but a discussion. This isn't about the Koumintang buying Knowland at all! 

International

"Japan: The Twin Blade of Crisis" Japan's economy is "headed down" and the Prime Minister is in trouble, for two pages. There's probably something in there about Socialists and Communists, too, but I can't be bothered, as this sounds far too much like how France is covered. Or Germany now that it has normal politics! Soviet Russia is apparently upset about a village named "Christmas," because it is atheistic. 

"Moment for Socrates"

It's been a tough week for our favourite supervillain. Peru has seized five of the nineteen ships in his pirate fleet that is upholding the freedom of the sea by catching whales too within Peru's claimed 200 mile limit, Spyridon Catapodis is suing him for agency fees over  his deal with Saudi Arabia, and the man himself has been summoned to New York to be yelled at by American oil executives. Winston Churchill is 80. Red lawyer Giuseppe Sotgiu has been caught with a dead call girl of his own, Adelaide Montorzi. (Although she died in her own bed while "ranting" about Sotgiu, which isn't really like the Wilma Montesi case at all.) Meanwhile, Charles ("Lucky") Luciano  has been placed under house arrest for being a very naughty boy. 

"The Peril Is Now" The French are still saying that the Algerian trouble is just isolated banditry, but "isolated bandits" had 30,000 French Union troops tied down in Tunisia, and there are anywhere between 4000 and 25,000 guerillas in Algeria's Aures massif. Admiral Liu Shih-chao was in Washington this week to ask for more warships due to the sudden appearance of Red torpedo boats and the imminent supine American surrender over the Tachens. Behind the Iron Curtain, the story of the Fields seems to be that they are good Communists, not spies, and that they were arrested to facilitate some purge trials, and that they should be released to go where they like, whether that is behind the Curtain or not. Noel Field in particular should be allowed to go to America, because it is fine to think Communist thoughts if you are the right sort of people. Ticking It Off reports that Greek and Turkish parliamentarians got into a fist fight in Ankara, the Kabaka of Baganda is to be allowed to return home, and the drab life of Communist East Germany gets a full page box story. Venezuela's oil-bought prosperity gets its own, contrasting story. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that defence spending will continue to be a major stimulator of the economy, but the pattern of spending will change, especially after plane deliveries begin to tail off in the third quarter. Electronics, shipbuilding, and guided missiles are all up, ammunition is down. It is still not clear how much will be spent on Ike's highway programme. $50 billion? $100 billion? Depends on how  you count it, too. We should also look at foreign investment possibilities, which are in good shape. The top business story is the buying trend on the NYSE, which might well be a "sensible bull market." I am sure you haven't heard enough about Scandinavian Airlines System flying over the North Pole, because here's another story! I should talk. I didn't realise that they did a refuelling stop at Bluie West 8, which has the advantage of being the least frightening air strip in Greenland that I have landed at.

Notes: Week in Business reports that Robert Young and the American Association of Railroads have kissed and made up, that RCA has filed a response to the government's antitrust action, that dividends are up 7.5% over last year. E. Claiborne Robins, a Virginia pharmaceutical maker, thinks that employers should try to make sure that employees have more fun. Products: What's New reports a motor-driven revolving scrubber for cleaning waste baskets from Fuller Brush, an almost soundless high-voltage lamp from GE for  wherever you want silence, but mainly movie theatres, and a washable rubber pad that adds spring to old  mattresses from Dayton Rubber; plus yet more cars, the AMC Rambler and Ford Mercury. Uncle Henry says that the only Kaiser automobiles that make money are the commercial ones (trucks, jeeps, and station wagons), which is where production will concentrate, now at the Toledo plant. A special report, a box story, and even a graphic all predict that 1955 will be a good year notwithstanding the continuing decline in capital investment. 

Henry Hazlitt uses Business Tides to predictably denounce the new international finance corporation. "The Giveaway Mania Continues!" He is especially upset about Japan lining up to get some capital, as it really those Asiatics' fault for not having their own capital. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Taming the Atom" The "Atoms for Peace" proposal is being filled in, with Britain and the United States offering some 264lbs of refined uranium for a UN "pool" to power atomic reactors around the world. Newsweek points out the need for clarity here. The "pool" uranium can't be refined to the point where it could be used for atomic weapons, because that would be illegal and against various treaties and generally a very bad idea. Periscoping Science tells us not to be surprised if the British ask for Eniwetok to test their own H-bomb soon. The University of Texas is working on cost-effective ways of turning salt water into drinkable by centrifuge and filtration techniques. The Weather Bureau has "just about demolished" the theory that atomic bombs cause tornadoes using maps of radioactive dust drift. 

"Global Food for Thought" A UN Conference has deep thoughts about how people eat. For example, Americans have moved on from a "tradition-directed" to an "inner-directed" diet. A box story explains that sometimes people are fat because they eat to fill some inner void. 

"Red-Hot Issue" The Speech Association of America proposed the topic "Resolved, the United States should extend diplomatic recognition to Red China," and there has been quite the scandal. Five Nebraska colleges have now refused to debate the topic, followed by West Point and Rutgers. It turns out that you're not even allowed to talk about this. (Although Brown has challenged West Point to a debate on the question of whether Army cadets should be allowed to debate extending recognition to Red China.) George W. Stone, an English professor at Washington University, is an academic hero for taking the IRS to tax court and winning tax immunity for his research grant from a tax-free foundation.

Robert Delauney, Circular Forms (1930), (Guggenheim)

Press, TV-Radio, Art, Newsmakers

Keyes Beech, the Far Eastern correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, has a book out that we're obliged to make a lot out of because he's in our club. Among his talking points is that four years under MacArthur left  him"hating dictators." And he works for the McCormick press! The New Republic is thirty years old and proud of never making money in all that time. Steven Allen gets a four page(!) profile in TV-Radio. Periscoping TV-Radio reports that Edward R. Murrow is trying to get Ike on his show, that Cass Daley will star in Going Hollywood, that Robert Cummings will play a bachelor photographer on The Bob Cummings Show, that Edward Teller is going to do a series of talks on San Francisco educational TV, that The Marriage, the sophisticated Hume Cronyn/Jessica Tandy comedy, will return on NBC.  Robert Delauney gets an Art story entitled "Top-Notch Catastrophe," which is a smart reference to Gertrude Stein's description of him as a member of the "catastrophic school." Well, he went on to a have a good career, so what do you think of that, Gertrude? His first retrospective in the United States opens in the Guggenheim next month,but Newsweek does not reproduce any canvasses. 

Various royals, Adlai Stevenson's son, Borden, Ilka Chase, Lin Yutang, James Thurber, Spencer Tracy, Homer Capehart, and Gregory Peck are in the page for the usual reasons, and the new Vienna phone system for having dial-up news. Although the bit about Thurber is either a joke or Thurber being senescent, as he seems to be claiming to have written The Secret Life of Walter Mitty again. Vera Ellen is married, John Nance Gardner is 86, Gallant Fox, Dr. Kenneth C. M. Stills, Dr. John Boswell Whitehead, Mrs. Barclay H. Warburton, Frederick Coykendall, and Clive Cessna are dead.  

The New Films

The Heart of the Matter is a British import from Associated Artists, an adaptation of the Graham Greene novel. Desiree, from Fox, has Marlon Brando being a ridiculous Napoleon ijn a ridiculous but sumptuous movie with a sumptuous Jean Simmons. Periscoping TV-Radio has Lucy and Desi returning to the movie studio to make a second comedy movie, a new movie from Charlie Chaplin, The Good King, and talk of an adaptation of William O'Dwyer's life from Robert English.

Books

No spoilers! 

This week's feature is largely directed to the latest fantasy craze from Britain, Oxford Professor J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, which is, we need to be warned, not a finished story, like the author's related, earlier story, The Hobbit, but rather the first of a promised three. Newsweek thoroughly enjoyed it. The Collected Essays of William Carlos Williams gets a long introductory essay review, which I have come to expect to be associated with a scholarly edition where the editor needs some kind of acknowledgement, but not this time. Maybe it is because Williams' relationship with Ezra Pound needs explaining? An extremely patronising introduction leads into notices of  nine new cookbooks that roughly tell the story of all the new households that have been created over the last few years that need new cookbooks if they are going to develop "inner-directed diets." Margaret Yourcenar has a historical novel that is also a psychological novel, a purported autobiography of the Emperor Hadrian. Newsweek liked it, too. 

 Raymond Moley meditates on "Security, Scarcity, Austerity." It's great that the big automakers are building giant cars because it shows competition and progress. It's bad that Walter Reuther wants a "guaranteed annual wage," because it is socialistic control who probably wants cars to be rationed or something. 

Leaders

"The Inquiry --And After" The Comet Inquiry has been much longer than expected, but will wrap up this week after six weeks. Flight is not impressed by all the publicity, but thinks that important lessons were learned, particularly that sabotage can be ruled out.

From All Quarters reports that Flight readers support Flight's idea of a giant collection of old airplanes from years ago, before the war.  

Yes, it's a repeat. No, I don't care. The ad for Grammarly that ran before the video is, as the kids say, the chef's kiss. 

A United States Air Force spokesman has disclosed that the recent F-100 crashes have been caused by the wings being attached to the fuselage by silly putty. I'm sorry. I read that wrong. "Soft metal." This year's Paris Aero Salon will be accompanied by an air show. In previously undisclosed breaking news, Canadair makes planes. In Canada! The USAF has bought some Canberra Trainers as transition planes to the Martin B-57, which, of course, is a Canberra. Hunting-Clan has bought its fourth and fifth Viscount. The Fairey F.D. 2 experimental airplane has been damaged in an emergency landing. No. 1 Wing RCAF will leave its North Luffenham base early in the new year for a new one near Marville, in France. The remarkable news that Scandinavian Airlines System is flying airliners over the Arctic requires mention. Group Captain R. C. M. Collard, Handley Page's sales manager (That is a real job??!?)  gave a talk on air strategy, in which it turned out that the only real way to be strong in the air was to let the Air Force do what it liked. 

"Radar Picket" Flight visits WV-2 to see the radar picket Super Constellations that my darling had to test fly and troubleshoot, but has yet to be required to serve in. Since the equipment aboard, other than its APS-20B radar, is all secret, there's not much to say except that you can see the intercom labels in these publicity shots. 

Here and There reports that the Iron Curtain is being swept by UFO stories, that the Mexico College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts has developed a high altitude target for guided missiles consisting of a parachute gilded with tinfoil, and American salesman think that American salesmen are better and that the F-100 is sure to capture the Australian market. An article on another African airline, the "Mineworker's Shuttle Service" that connects Bechuanaland and Nyasaland, does  not get a byline. Kenneth Owen gives his personal impressions of the Comet Inquiry, with sketches by Gordon Horner. 

How to be a grown up.

P. R. Payne, "Supersonic Ramjets for Helicopters: Their Claims to Consideration" UNtil I hear that they are perfect for commuting and can land on Post Office roofs, I will hear no more about this. 

"Helicopter Production: Points from a Helicopter Association Lecture and Discussion" Much discussion of  copying lathes and stainless steel spotwelding, accompanied by the usual suggestions that the customer really doesn't know what he wants. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that there are six types of Canberra in service including the B-57A, that the Folland Midge exists, and that the Viscount successor that Vickers "has long been known to be planning," will be a 90,000lb high-wing plane (not if TCA has anything to say about it!) with four Rolls-Royce RB109s, and Gordon McGregor of TCA has now been quoted as saying that it has grown into a 120,000lb machine, perfect for TCA operations. The B-52A is a very large plane. "Surprisingly," the Convair F-102 is still not cleared for supersonic speeds, and in fact cannot exceed Mach 0.98. The Lockheed F-104 is still secret. Shh! But we can be told that the GE J79 might be perfect for later marks of said F-104. Flight has some nice photos taken on HMS Centaur. 

Flight flies a Bell 47 and supplies an artist's impression of the Cessna CH-1, a contrarotating two-rotor helicopter prototype from Cessna with a bright future. It also heard a talk by Colonel C. P. A. Campbell of the USAF at the British Interplanetary Society on "Space-Flight Physiology," focussing on the problems of weightlessness (needs study) reduced atmospheric pressure (we know all about that) and radiation above the Earth's protective atmosphere. (No idea, but probably minor.) It also reviews Ira (Taffy) Jones, Tiger Squadron, but without the usual Aeronautical Bookshelf header, perhaps for space reasons, given how long the "Books Received" section is this week. Anyway, it's a fine book, and Flight isn't just saying that because Taffy is a drinking buddy. Wait, no, that's exactly why it's saying that, so buy this book if you want to hang around someone that Flight wants to hand around with, and who wouldn't? 

"Civil Airborne Search Radar: Its Value to Scheduled Airlines" Ekco explains that they're good for seeing what's coming up,especially at night. Ekco radars in particular. Canada is conducting is annual spruce budworm spraying campaign, the Meteorological Office's annual report is out, and Lodge Spark Plugs is having its fiftieth anniversary. 

Correspondence

J. M. Bruce and H. M. Yeatman argue about what really happened back then, years ago before the war. W. E. Hampton, second in command of the 1935--1936 British Graham Land Expedition,  joins the chorus of complaints about the article on "Antarctic Air Exploration." Serves Flight right for using one of its third-rate stringers in a story that someone cares about, though why it should be Antarctic exploration is beyond me. 

The Industry reports that a new Canadian engine overhaul stand, the Scoba Engine Porter is to be manufactured in Britain by Aerocontacts, at Gatwick. Salford Electronics has a 1/3 octave spectrometer for frequency analysis and the study of complex noise phenomena. Aldis Brothers has a nice new pamphlet about company history out. The Ministry of Supply has ordered thirty more David Brown tractors, and Burton, Griffiths has a display of machine tools in its showroom. 

"The Airways Debate" This week's installment of coverage of the Commons debate is mainly interesting for a short exchange on the question of whether De Havilland would survive its financial loss on Comets. 

Civil Aviation reports that Panam's latest Stratocruisers are even nicer, that BEA is looking into the Heron for Scottish domestic service, that Lockheed Burbank is working very hard to deliver all the Super Constellations on order, that Soviet civil aviation continues to expand while Eagle Aviation ins getting into the business of moving soccer fans. The French government put in an official protest against the growing  trend to airport service charges on passengers, and the inquiry into the 2 March Air Charter Tudor accident finds that it fell out of control while in cloud 9500ft near Paris while on a flight to Bahrein via Malta, recovered at 2500ft, and was found to be severely structurally overstressed on landing in Malta. It was a stall due to icing, which the pilot was pretty negligent in allowing to happen, although the difficulty of disengaging the autopilot might have had something to do with it. 

"Comet Inquiry: The Fifth Week" Final evidence and speeches by counsel. The main focus at the end of the day is whether the second accident should have happened. How predictable was it, how good was the advice given to the minister when he authorised the resumption of Comet  operations, and is it really accurate to say that the two accidents were freaks at the low end of the fatigue expectancy scatter, and not at the centre of the scatter, making them a matter of time? This goes to the methods that de Havilland used to calculate the frequency scatter in the first place, whether its reliance on calculations instad of testing was sound, and whether it accurately estimated the actual stress load at fuselage cut-outs. Upon which questions will depend the amount of money De Havilland pays to make things right, and thus its survival as a company.