Postblogging Technology, March 1955, II: Detroit's Battle of the Century

Tony Randall as sex symbol is the perfect lead into the musical act that closes the thumbnail below. 

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

It is my understanding that I am to call you "Daddio" and decline to do my homework until such time as there's a revolution or something, and there's really no point in doing anything but knock over newstands. I'm not even sure that I am allowed to care about Kefauver '56 or Aneurin Bevan, as they might be too square. (Bevan sure is. Binge drinking is for when you're young and irresponsible, not putting yourself forward as a potential prime minister!) 

So, you know, who cares about stuff and anything? Not us young people today! (I am young, right? At least, I'm not thirty!) Anyway, because it is March and the technical press is still exhausted from the New Year's stuff, and the British press is waiting on an election, it will probably feel like this installment is all rebellion.  

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

It won't hit the top of the charts until the summer, but Rock Around the Clock is the hit single from the Blackboard Jungle soundtrack. Did you know that the novel that Blackboard Jungle is based on is set in a British school? I didn't!

Letters

Five letters about the article on the golden anniversary of the Rotary Club. Arnold Hanson of New York City and Meredith Parker of Mexico City appreciated the article on pay television and look forward to the day when they can pay for TV. Several people enjoyed the article about the handicapped Bolivian boy who got surgery in the United States, and Frank L. King thinks that there should be less attention to diagnosing personality from handwriting and more put to bad handwriting, which is said to have cost American business $70 million in 1954. Newsweek's Harry Markland spend almost a month in Central America covering the aftermath of the Costa Rican incursion, the Nixon visit, and Princess Margaret's tour. His conclusion is that the President of Costa Rica is a cold fish and Princess Margaret is too aloof, whereas Nixon and Somoza are swell guys, and too bad Somoza is a thug, but, you know, excitable Latins and all.

The RUTH test tower from the U-bomb test shot during 1953's UPSHOT-
KNOTHOLE. Both U-bomb test shots were deemed fiazzles, generating a 
250 ton yield. 

The Periscope reports that "There is growing feeling" that the Soviets have handed some atom bombs over to the Red Chinese,, who might try to use them on the "key U.S. base at Okinawa." I mean, if they're going to use an atom bomb, that would be a good place! The AEC's report that the U.S. possesses the "U-bomb" means that the US. atomic arsenal has expanded ten-fold, that it now h as enough bombs to "knock out the U.S.S.R. with radioactivity alone," and that because it does not require a hydrogen bomb to set it off, the Soviets are "in a position to rapidly overtake our atomic lead." 

One of Howard Pyle's duties as a new White House aide is getting Eisenhower Republicans on TV, instead of all the anti-Ike pols. Yet another investigation of union welfare funds is expected. Democratic and Republican house leaders have been warned to ease up on parliamentary discipline after the bruising tax cut fight, or face a serious rebellion. Louis Johnson and Harry Truman are still feuding. The first indictment in the housing scandal is expected soon, Millard Tydings is going to run for the Senate. Navy officials, desperate to get the fifth supercarrier authorised, have let slip one of the Defence Department's most closely guarded secrets, that the first Soviet intercontinental missile is expected around 1950. The Navy's proposal for a 4600t, $95 million atomic submarine "carefully conceals its true purpose," which might be to be "stationed close to the European continent" to give "final guidance to long-range missiles." From Los Angeles comes news that the "thermal barrier" to high speed flight has been broken as decisively as the sound barrier due to advances in heat resistant metals. The President's plan for an involuntary reserve is said to have little chance. The Federal budget will not have provision for an atomic shelter for Red diplomats in the event of nuclear war, which was advanced on a quid-pro-quo basis. The Teamsters are fighting with the AFL and will probably get kicked out. Intelligence officers are looking for signs of the Reds building air bases in range of Matsu. Diplomatic relations between Spain and France are "white hot" because it turns that guns are being smuggled into Morocco via Spain. The April Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung might go better for the West now that Nehru is saying bad things about Red China. Eisenhower and Churchill will probably meet at the White House this spring. Otto John's book will come out in the spring and will probably cause diplomatic trouble. The Russians are working on a navigable waterway up the Yenisei River from the Arctic as far as "Outer Mongolia." Out of curiosity, I looked this up. The capital of Outer Mongolia is Ulan Bator, which is located on the banks of the Tuul River, which is a tributary of the Orkhon, which runs into Lake Baikal, which is the source of the Angara, which runs into the Yenisei. Romantic, in a cold and distant sort of way! Where Are They Now reports that Rene Lacoste is an industrialist now, while Curt Becker, the attorney who prosecuted Adolf Hitler in 1931 and was exiled from Germany in 1936, now has a thriving practice in Tokyo. He and his wife are avid photographers. (Per German Who's Who, this is true, but very misleading.)

  
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that only the President knows what the President will do if the Reds attack Quemoy and Matsu, and who knows? For one thing, the GOP is riding high because all Americans are excited by "dynamic conservatism," and why risk that?

National Affairs

There's no actual story here, but Fulbright's stock market investigation has us so cross we'll do one of those wanders around the facts (and two box stories!) and broadly imply that only a Communist would be against rising factory sales. Also, Republicans are upset that people are talking about Mamie's health, which has Lyndon Johnson pointing out the hypocrisy after four years of talk about Maggie Truman. Which is a bit much considering, well, Maggie Truman. Judge Harlan's nomination to the Supreme Court continues to be troubled by Southern senators' disapproval of his desegregationist views. Bob Cutler has left the White House, and Texas State Representative Charles Lieck has a bill to abolish the Texas Rangers before the Assembly that is getting some attention because the Rangers have been just that bad, say many people who are clearly wrong. 

It turns out that the "U-bomb" isn't Livermore's failed
uranium hydride bomb, but rather the revelation that 
H-bombs were being jacketed with U-238. 

"Atomic Light in the Desert" The cloud of fallout that lingered over the United States last week from the Nevada test blast had people uneasy, even though scientists said it was nothing to worry about. People, on the other hand, say that the tests changed the weather, and that the radioactivity was causing abortions, stillbirths, and sterility. In Long Beach, California, Survival Food Kits retailed for $5.40 each, enough food for a family of four for three days. Despite helpful mailouts about the enormous danger of H-bomb attacks and the ease with which you can survive them by hiding in the basement for three days, or five or six in a shelter, no-one volunteered to be a Civil Defence person. Charles Noel-Martin says that ten U-bomb tests would "upset the delicate chemical balance of the world's atmosphere and eventually hurt all life." Do H-bombs make us safe from attack, or invite sneak attack? Can they be smuggled into the country? Answer, it would be complicated, and at least they won't fit into a suitcase. Is it all the fault of traitor scientists? Probably not. Will there be genetic effects on future generations? Let's watch Hiroshima survivors and find out! Should the AEC be franker about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and for example those Marshall Islanders? Probably, Newsweek thinks. 

"Whistling Into Space" The second annual Spacecraft Convention in the Mojave Desert had lots of attendees, but no aliens, including Daniel Frye, an instrument technician at General Atomics, who missed the bus back to town and had to stay in a local hotel where the air conditioning in his room went out. And on top of that, he was carried off in a flying saucer, rather like attendee Dana Howard, and she was taken to Venus, instead of a joyride over New York! Truman Bethurum, who has never been carried off, exactly, has had eleven encounters with a "saucer-shaped 'scow'" captained by the beautiful and statuesque Aura Rhanes, a Latina from the planet Clarion, if that makes sense. (And it does!) Regrettably, the best speaker Orleo Angelucci could muster was joyrides ending at a Los Angeles cemetery and featuring "exquisite people." 

Americana reports "Bang, You're Dead," a roundup of stories about young people with guns and things that aren't actually guns, like the BB gun with which 11-year-old Frank Stretch of Ventura,California, shot out the family television tube. Not in this feature, but deserving to be treated with the same seriousness, is news that Joseph Davies (Mission to Moscow) and Marjorie Post are divorcing and that Congress is thinking about some ethics rules for investigating committees.
 

Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to report on Secretary Dulles' speech about how we now have "tactical atomic weapons," which are like H-bombs, only smaller and so won't hurt civilians. So like the atom bombs we had before we had H-bombs, which did hurt civilians? Well, who can say? It depends on how close civilians live to military installations! The important thing is that they are small enough to not trigger WWIII if they are used. Maybe. 

International

"Asia: A Shiver and Impending Crisis" It was cold in Tokyo when all the diplomats met up with Felix to worry about Matsu and Quemoy, which is where the crisis is going to happen soon. U.S. officials are worried that the Koumintang will lose their army again, and that "it will be necessary to put U.N. troops in Formosa," perhaps five to seven U.S. divisions, and that would be hard with the New Look and all. The French and British say that the Koumintang should abandon the islands, and that would be that. Washington is "hoping" they will, but obviously Washington has no leverage over Chiang, and he seems to want to fight. But then he'll lose, unless the United States demonstrated that it was "not a paper tiger," as Dulles put it, by dropping "tactical" atomic weapons on China, at which point, WWIII, etc. Also this week, the Finnish-flagged but Chinese-chartered tanker Aruba sailed from Romania right through the South China sea carrying a load of "jet fuel" for China's "Mig-15s." The Navy did not intercept it, because "[b]lockade was not American policy," but Bill Knowland threw a fit so Chiang is sending out his ships to capture Aruba instead, "[w]ith aid from the radar-equipped U.S. Navy." So in conclusion you can figure out who is actually causing this crisis and stop him without sending Felix off to a summit conference in Tokyo. Just say, "Shut the heck up about China buying some kerosene, Bill!" An attempted assassination of Nehru in Nagpur did not go well. Bevan's decision to break with Labour leadership obviously means that Churchill's unexpected vacation in Sicily is meant to get him ready for a snap election call. Britain is agog over the question of whether Margaret will marry Peter now that she's 25 and can have a "door of grace" marriage, and the "wave of speculation" about the match is evidence that the Government and the Palace are testing public opinion. And whether Peter is a cad. In the latest and most exciting news from Europe, Germany and France are fighting over the Saar! Ngo Dinh Diem is having a little civil war with the Buddhist sects, but don't worry, he's the good guy. Scandinavians are funny people who have monarchies and socialism and factories, even though they shouldn't go with each other. The Red Army is probably not as influential under Khrushchev as it looks, but the Reds are definitely reaching out to Tito.

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the economy is up, including steel, dividends and construction, but so are mergers, and unemployment is not falling as quickly as hoped. 

"A-Power in the Air ---And Space" Newsweek rounds up news and speculation from companies including General Dynamics (Electric Boat), Convair, and Lockheed, generally intimating that atomic reactor-powered planes are not far off, perhaps five years away. It also offers some even more speculative thoughts about the use of atomics in the conquest of space. 

Mallory-Sharon Titanium Corporation of Niles, Ohio, has four new furnaces tripling its titanium metal production capacity to four million pounds per year, giving the company almost 20% of the nation's titanium production capacity because it is really hard to smelt titanium. It is "the metal of the future" because we don't have it today! Well, we do have plenty of sponge, but that's because fabricators don't know what to do with it. But when production hits 35,000t a year under the stimulus of subsidy, that problem will solve itself! This week's Special Report is about how Detroit is competing to meet the more optimistic projections of economic growth and car sales now coming out. They are talking about more insulation for noise as well as temperature, turbine engines, hand-operated accelerators to reduce fatigue on long trips, smaller engines like V-6s pending turbines, more streamlining and directional stability through bigger tailfins, and televisions. (For rear passengers only.) Frank Sharp's Sharpstown is going to be biggest residential subdivision in the United States at 25,000 homes, berating out Levittown's meager 16,000. It is on ten square miles on the southwest fringes of Houston, has attracted 51 builders so far, will have shopping centres with moving sidewalks, with land set aside for churches, schools, and libraries, and will have country clubs for all residents to create community. 

The Republic XF-103 is to be an all-titanium jet interceptor powered by the Wright J67, no, wait, scratch that,
the Wright J65, no, I'm sorry, the GE YJ93. Okay, no. we'll think of something. 

Products: What's New reports a secret recorder "for all kinds of investigative work" that will be concealable in a brief case, made by the Amplifier Corporation of America, and a garden aid called the Renco Porta-Burner, a burning bin that can be wheeled around the backyard. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that some companies are merging, that 1954 was the safest year for scheduled airlines ever, and that TWA is starting its Trans-Atlantic Super Connie service soon. Henry Hazlitt uses Business Tides to denounce an income tax, of all things, because Democrats want to do it and there is a "perpetual deficit." As this is a bit thin, he continues with a review of efforts to give the President a "line item veto" of the Federal budget as passed by Congress, which he disparages as not being enough to give us a responsible budget. 

There's no way of controlling which pot-boiler 
a boy first encounters super-mutants in. For
me, it wasn't Slan or The Chrysalids. It
was this typically workmanlike Williamson
effort. 

Science, Medicine

"The Great Leveller" The "U-bomb" story is explained at a big greater length. When Lucky Dragon returned to Japan, testing revealed the presence of U-237, "a neglected orphan in the family of uranium variants (isotopes." This could only mean that the detonation of the CASTLE BRAVO hydrogen bomb involved  large amounts of "natural" uranium, U-238. American scientists who "work outside of the high walls of official security have been patching together a concept of an entirely new departure in atom-bomb making. Their tentative conclusion is that there is a new Super-bomb that dwarfs the H-bomb as toweringly as the H-bomb once dwarfed the A." What that means is that the H-bomb tested that day had a triggering mechanism consisting of a small atom bomb, an "hydrogen-like material" that underwent fusion, and some kind of shell of natural uranium, which soaked up excess neutrons from the fusion and underwent fission. The result is the potential for a basically infinitely large bomb, or, at least, 200 megatons or beyond. "It represents the realisation of all the wildest nightmares of atomic warfare." Specifically, scientists remind us that the radioactive heavy metals so far produced might not be that dangerous in themselves, but they will persist for centuries and accumulate as more tests, or, worse, an atom war occurred. We should definitely investigate the possible genetic effects, and maybe do something about the testing.

"St. E.'s Centennial" Newsweek revisits efforts to improve national mental health treatment as recommended by a recent Hoover Commission special report and the Administration's $17 billion budget (up from $14 billion), which is intended to be supplemented by $7 billion from the states and $1.25 billion for "special demonstrations," in connection with the 100th birthday of D.C/'s model mental hospital, St. Elizabeths. Besides congenial surroundings and the most modern methods of therapy, the staff at St. Elizabeth's are now experimenting with Thorazine and Serpasil. 

"Commanders in Mufti" W. Barton Leach, the Harvard law professor who is also a brigadier general in the USAF Reserve, says that the Pentagon needs more academics and other smart people to tell the generals what to do. Which isn't wrong, but might be the wrong approach? Anyway, he's promoting an American version of the Imperial Defence College, which you'd think we would have already. Also, Fort Scott Junior College is offering a course in "Telephone Techniques," because people are so bad at telephone sales.  And educator Rudolf Flesch proposes that the U.S. is forgetting how to read because it uses "word recognition" nowadays instead of "phonics," and "phonics" is better, and he has books and cards for sale! 

Periscoping the Theatre reports that Danny Kaye is taking the Alec Guinness role in a fall musical based on Captain's Paradise, Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday will be a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical next season, and that Ben Hecht is writing a play based on the life of Marshal Bodenheim. 

 

Press, Art, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

Walter Winchell is leaving the TV because ABC is tired of people suing him for libel.  

"Critic on the Round" Ward Morehouse used to be a journalist and restaurant critic in New  York where he'd eat things like green turtle soup, crab meat sauteed in butter, and steak diane. But now his old paper has closed and he's moved to Colorado Springs to work for the Colorado Springs Free Press, and he goes to the diner and has burgers! Because he doesn't have much money now, you see. Michael Levy is having a strange art show devoted to modern art-style over-the-watercooler office art.   

It turns out that the most popular TV show amongst young men is The Ozark Jubilee, that CBS's The Search is very popular but is ending because it can't find a sponsor, and it is very expensive to wander the country finding out what's happening in colleges and schools. It will be replaced in its timeslot by Face the Nation, which features politics-talking-people talking at each other, and is quite cheap because those people are cheap. On the other hand, NBC's Mr. Wizard is doing pretty well. People like science, and it's cheap. 

 

Lady Astor is visiting with General Marshall because they're both rich. Lady Godiva processions are based on a myth, says the city chamberlain of Coventry, but that doesn't mean that Godiva processions can't continue "when we want them." Billy Graham, Albert Einstein, Linda Christian, Betty Lait, the President, and Zsa Zsa Gabor are in the column for the usual reasons. Samuel Eliot Morison is retiring. Jorge Pasqual, Oscar Meyer, Sir Alexander Fleming, Matt Henson, and William Robinson Leigh have died. 

The New Films

Paramount's Run for Cover has James Cagney being a sheriff instead of a gangster, but still Cagney, which is good. White Feather is a Western where the Indians aren't that bad, from Fox and with Robert Wagner and Debra Paget as romantic co-leads. 

Books

Rebecca West's A Train of Powder is a pretty good look at a few years of West's journalism, but mostly the Nuremberg Trials. Edwin O. Reischauer's Wanted: An Asian Policy, explains that unless we have a Policy, the Communists will take over. For that reason we should probably learn a bit about Asia, which turns out to be quite a large continent with different countries in different bits. That will all go Communist if we don't watch out! Ronald Firbank has a short novel, now reissued to give us all a chance to goggle in amazement at a writer who had an odd life. Really! (Not spelled out: He was homosexual, but it is okay because he was a writer!) T. E. Lawrence's The Mint is out in a new edition. Raymond Moley uses Perspective to explain how terrible the "Clay Plan" is. That's Eisenhower's interstate plan, but since Moley is determined to torpedo it, best to blame it on General Clay and not the President. Moley's plan, of course, is the one where the Federal government gives the states a big chunk of money so that Mississippi can do important stuff with like concentration camps for Coloured folk and New York can build highways or stuff like that. Also what about the debt?!?

News Digest reports that a "radically new aircraft projectile" consisting of a hollow shell rotating at 300,000rpm to better penetrate and ignite self-sealing fuel tanks, is under development for the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance by Armstrong Cork Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and is nicknamed "the Cookie-Cutter." I quote at length because the whole report is so flagrantly technically illiterate. Did we skip editors this week? It's boring not to tell everyone about potential atomic aircraft again and again, so we tell them! De Lackner's one-man "amphibious copter" is absolutely a real thing, and not an attempt to hook in the Navy after the Army gave up on the "De Lackner Aerocycle." The former President of Colonial Airlines has been fined $22,000 for making up its books for thirteen years. Westinghouse is making flight simulators for the F-100, the first for a supersonic plane. Industry Observer reports that Northrop's F-89H will be the first missile-carrying fighter, that Goodyear aerial-grade Plexiglas, the Folland Gnat, Skydrol-500 hydraulic fluid, and the Douglas F4D-1 are all excellent, and that the Britannia is coming along fine, and that the Grumman S2F is overcoming obstacles no-one mentioned before to be excellent, too. Washington Roundup reports that the fight between TACAN and VOR/DME continues. They're both excellent, or awful, or one is one and the other is the other. The Navy reminds everyone that aircraft carriers are not vulnerable like some people say, and there is more money for airports and military mail rates may be coming down and they may be moving the ARDC to Dayton because the Ohio gang isn't getting enough air force money already. 

260,000lbs!!!

Robert Hotz reports for Aviation Week that "Operational Missiles Now Arming USAF" What this actually means is that the Atlas ICBM programme continues and that aerial testing of the Falcon continues. The Atlas is a Convair job with an intended 5000 mile range, with a hoped for reduction of the original  500,000lb weight by half now that lightweight hydrogen bombs are in sight. The USAF has been worried enough about Convair's management of the programme to bring in Ramo-Woodbridge, and Convair has responded by naming an advisory board with von Karmen, Hans Bethe, and Edward Teller on it. Also the Snark, which is another of those "aerial torpedo" type missiles that seem to silly little me to be a terrible way to deliver atomic bombs, has hit some or another developmental milestone. BEll's Rascal GAM-63 is closer to one of those WWII glide bombs, and Bomarc is a ground-to-air interceptor missile with a 250 mile range with promising characteristics but serious design troubles. Not part of this story is a Financial Times "scoop" on Britain's various missile programmes that has no details except for some nonspecific statististics of trial flights at Woomera.

"Navy Blames Engine Builders for Costly Production Delays" James H. Smith, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, gave a "hard-hitting speech" to a propulsion section meeting of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences in Cleveland the other day explaining why the Navy can't deliver its new fighters. It is because companies based in Ohio with a comfortable relationship with the Air Force keep bungling jet engine contracts.  Why that might be is the greatest of mysteries. BuAer hasn't said anything, and, oh, by the way, here's the latest magic helicopter from Hiller that is absolutely a real thing. Since you haven't heard about the Navy's minesweeping helicopter project in Florida since last issue, here's that story again. 

This isn't the specific Hiller moonshine referenced above, but it is the only one with a Youtube video about it. 

Claude Witz reports that "Army Creates Aviation Division" What this means is that the existing army aviation organisation has been promoted to a higher level on the table of organisation and gets a Brigadier-General to be in charge, Hamilton H. Howze, which is a real name. I looked this guy up, and it turns out that he's Cavalry, so traditionally the dumbest but richest kind of West Point graduate, which makes it an interesting appointment. No boring Engineer, Artillery, or Signals men wanted here. Bugler, sound the charge! 

"RAF Shows Off Hunted Units, Hoping to Silence Critics" No, see, there's an election coming. Nothing is going to "silence the critics." But we do get to see pictures of great masses of Hunters, on the ground, in the air, right before we're reminded that Hunters sometimes stall when they fire their gigantic Aden 30mm cannons that are better than anyone else's aircraft cannons, but isn't that boring? Congres has approved NACA's real estate budget and Lockheed promises quieter cabins than ever with their "syncophasing" propellers. Syncophasing prevents the helicopters from getting into a "beat" relationship with each other, for anyone who cares about math and music theory. 

Henry Lefer reports for Aeronautical Engineering that 'Scientist Shortage Threatens Defence" I know what you're thinking, but this is a new story about a real thing, and not the latest recycling of an old story. There's even a picture of a job ad page from a paper! Oh, and while the United States has 500,000 engineers and 200,000 scientists while Russia has 400,000 and 150,000, we have only 27,000 new graduate s a year compared with 30,000 in Russia, projected to rise to 45,000 in 1957. Besides a shortage of births in the Thirties, it is because we don't care enough about science and engineering. Various data about money follow in an impressively long article. 

IAS Summaries note five papers on air transport, three on flight safety, one each on flight propulsion (afterburner efficiency), helicopter dynamics (rotor flapping), and JATO for aircraft. (who the heck else uses rockets to fling themselves into the air? I mean, besides rockets.) 

The second-hand machinery dealer advertising this piece was nice enough to post
a picture of a Sheridan stretcher from a contemporary ad. 

Irving Stone is off to the Torrance, California works of Sheridan-Gray to report on "Stretch Forming Control Improved" I think it might involve keeping a constant tension on the piece as the stretching force is adjusted? Most of the article is spent explaining the advantages of the new arrangement and the three paragraphs on how it is done are opaque. 

"Boeing Says B-52s Are 'On Schedule'" We'd throw a scandal over this, but it's like the engine thing. No election (for once it is Britain and not the United States having election fever), no problem. 

Philip Klass reports for Avionics that "Autofab Sparks Automation Race" Klass describes the new General Mills "Autfab" printed circuit maker at some length, and the other automated equipment needed to keep up with it, like the automatic circuit tester. 
 Filter Centre reports that high-frequency transistors are coming soon from Bell, that Dave made a hilarious joke to the Stanford Research Institute about an aircraft being defined as the largest assembly of electronics that can fly, and that Collins and Bendix are worried enough about the prospects of VOR to send a report into the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics explaining how to increase its accuracy 600% by tightening a nut or something. 

A McGraw-Hill linewide editorial explains that McGraw-Hill subscribers who work as college teachers (and their colleagues, too, I guess), are underpaid and will soon quite en masse to take lucrative private sector jobs and then where will we be? Nowhere! 

Letters 

Brigadier-General Allen of the USAF's Department of Information Services explains that no-one at the Air Force is censoring General Weyland's new book because no-one at the Air Force knew he was writing one. Two industry guys write to defend VOR/DME against TACAN. Ed Modes of ALPA criticises centreline slopeline runway lighting. It turns out that the pilot who wrote to say that restrictive visual flying rules for busy airports are too much of an imposition on private pilots was A. G. White, an executive at Bendix. K. R. Duee of Safe Flight Instrument Company explains why his company's device makes premature flap retraction a thing of the past. 

New Aviation Products reports a spark plug tester, a fuel-oil connector, am airborne hoist, and a cooling blower that goes in the nose of a missile to cool the electronics on board, by Air Equipment Company of Los Angeles. Five even sadder little companies get stuck in Also on the Market.

Isabell and Preble Staver 

If you're wondering where the editorial content on Congress reopening the VOR/TACAN debate is, it is in Air Transport, which I do not usually cover, and reporting is also by a new name in the Aviation Week stable, Preble Staver, a name I can't bear to comment on because it just might be unisex, and I don't want to let the side down!

Editorial

Robert Hotz explains that we underestimate Soviet airpower because . . . Actually, he doesn't explain that. He says he will, but settles for telling us that we do, and five prominent German scientist say we do, and probably we are "doomed to defeat in five or ten years or so." North American has just decided to share accident data about the F-100A Super Sabre because they're such a great company and not because they keep falling out of the sky. 

Letters

Nick Essa of Baghdad and Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations really liked the Special Report on Iraq. Lester Hand of the Youth Research Institute liked the article about Hollywood's revival and points out that youth are the best movie audience, while Zira Siegel is impressed with Dale Healy's "M.G.M. Players" photo, asking whether or not it is a composite. (It is not!) Bernice Williams writes from Birmingham, Alabama, to remind us that Senator George is a great man and a great Democrat, notwithstanding his support for Ike. Several writers are confused about the picture of an elk from the Moscow Circus, because they don't know what elks look like. W. H. Dresser offers a timely reminder that Chiang has been a disaster for China to this point. Raymond Cartier of Paris-Match writes to remind us that Paris-Match is great. G. M. Atchison of Garden Grove is very tired of people calling the world their "parish," or "classroom," reminding us that it is actually quite a large place. For Your Information reminds us that Compton Parkinson of Newsweek is all over East Asia bringing us  news, that the Red Cross is pretty great, and that Dr. Eugene Carson Blake is "Mr. Protestant." 

The Periscope reports that Frank Millard is a surprising replacement for John Adams. Okay! The President is reported to have delegated authority for the use of American atomic weapons stored overseas to local commanders under certain "very extreme conditions." TV coverage of the '56 Democratic Convention will cut away from the boring stuff. The Air Force and Army are getting their first atomic batteries to power the electronic brains of guided missiles, because radioactive waste batteries have long lives and are very dependable. The AEC is set to release more atomic secrets to industry. Ownership of U.S. gold coins is being legalised. The Navy will soon reveal a minesweeping helicopter, and finds itself unable to make its submarine and aviation officer intake quotas. Army Ordnance has developed a 115mm leaflet rocket with a range of 1500 yards. The Swedes have cracked a Red spy ring based on information from the seizure of the Rumanian embassy in Berne. Iran is going to join the Iraq-Turkey defence treaty. The French are going to stop being so obstreperous over Vietnam because Dulles yelled at them. An explosion in a Hamburg apartment has revealed a Communist bomb ring, but no-one is talking about it. Deposits of high-grade uranium in Malaya's central mountain ranges are one more reason for sweeping up the last Red remnants. Reports down from Indo-China are of a serious famine due to a failed rice crop. "Apparently well-founded intelligence reports have it that the Soviets are building several battleship-sized guided-missile launching ships." The Reds are also plotting another world peace conference, are planning to get out of a trade agreement, are trying to buy uranium in Belgium, and are building a submarine base in Albania. Where Are They Now catches up with Judge Samuel Seabury, who is retired, and Ezra Pound, who is still in the asylum, still Fascist, and still writing. (He's also still viciously anti-Semitic, but it's not polite to say so because he's a poet.)

The Periscope Washington Trends reports everything we already know. (Adlai vs Ike in '56, the Bricker Amendment is going nowhere now that there's a GOP president, talk about repudiating Yalta is just hot air, the President can get his way on tax cuts but not tariffs because that's what Republicans in congress care about.)

National Affairs leads off with selections of politicians reacting to the Yalta Report and Nixon saying that because the GOP is electoral poison, it needs a man like Ike to get the White House, which has the rest of the GOP making frantic shushing noises because no-one likes a loser. The President says that in the event of war, "tactical" atomic weapons will be used like bullets, but also that Harold Stassen is his ambassador for disarmament. A Federal judge in El Paso has found that professional informer Harvey Matusow was telling the truth when he implicated Clinton Jenks in a violation of Taft-Hartley by not disclosing his Communist ties, and that he is lying now when he said he lied then. This handy little two-for-one lets the court punish Matusow without exonerating Jenks. Joe McCarthy is still tracking down the culprits who promoted Irving Peress from Dentist-Captain to Dentist-Major even though Wilbur Brucker just laughed at him in committee when he tried to press the issue. We can laugh at Tailgunner Joe now! Uranium land is going for boomtown prices out in Bakersfield. Senator Cain has had a weird conversion to sanity after being made a member of the Subversive Activities Control Board, making one heck of a set of recommendations that include "liquidating" the Attorney General's list of 283 subversive organisations and cancelling all loyalty investigations before 1947. Then we get five-and-a-half pages on the release of the Yalta Papers, which has Winston Churchill, among others, hopping mad. In a rare episode of readability, Ernest K. Lindley reads the riot act in Washington Tides, with "What If There Had Been No Yalta?" "Most of the concessions were made by Stalin." 

International

"Bevan's Brawl: The Real Winners"  Bevan, who will reapply for membership in the Fall and almost certainly get in; and whoever of Morrison or Gaitskell wins the leadership after Attlee inevitably retires over this. Bevan gets a box story profile, we hear more about the Oskar-and-Daisy-Schlitter scandal, and about the first tourists in Nepal. (Passengers on the Cunard cruise ship Caronia, who took a flying side trip to Katmandu, a city where every car, and the steamroller that paved the streets, was brought by porters over an 8000ft pass, and where temples and vast white stucco palaces dominate the wide streets.) Dulles was in Ottawa last week, a story about "Far East: Targe --Peace" incongrously begins. Because Dulles gave a press conference calling for a ceasefire in the Formosa Straits, which, he stresses, would not mean Red China giving up its claims, but which would prevent a larger Pacific war, possibly with "A-weapons," but only if the Reds invaded in a very serious and not at-all casual way. Meanwhile, Chiang rejects a ceasefire, and the Aruba has turned around after Finland agreed that kerosene was a "strategic" export, after all. Pierre Poujade and his "Poujadistes are the victors after the National Assembly refused to extend the economic rule-by-decree powers enjoyed by Mendes-France to Premier Faure until he rescinded the tax penalties levied against the Poujadistes. In other Faure-related news, he says that France is going to build an H-bomb because all the best people have one. 

"The Reds and the Facts: Ignore the 'Scare' Talk: We have a 10-year Edge" General Alfred Guenther explains to Newsweek senior editor Harry Kern why the Administration thinks it can cut spending on guns and deliver a tax cut. (As opposed to deliver a tax cut and spend more on guns, per the Democratic position.) The only nice thing the Reds have going for them is the T-54 tank, and once the new German army takes the field in three years the Reds won't even be able to attack on the ground. In other news, the completion of a US air base at Adana, Turkey, brings our bombers 1200 miles closer to Russia. The Swedes have turned up a Czechoslovak spy ring that had nothing to do with that embassy occupation in Switzerland. A Hungarian inventor in France who has supposedly invented a silicon bath that makes fabrics last forever gets a half-column story in Newsweek for some reason. Apparently all the textile magnates hate Joseph Hajdu because his brilliant invention will ruin them. Erich Kleiber has fled eastern Europe for capitalist freedom. (He'd been lured to the Berlin Staatsoper in 1951.) Lester Pearson reiterated his belief that the days of easy relations between Canada and the United States are coming to an end. Plans for a natural gas pipeline between Alberta and Ontario through Canadian territory "blew up" last week because it would be so much more expensive than routing it through Michigan. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that demand for cars is so high it's amazing and the Administration now expects the economy to do even better than predicted., and that employment will turn around soon. 

Business stories include a survey of what finance leaders think, some notes of concern about the inadequate amount of investment money available to fund the U.S. business expansion, a spat between Homer Capehart and Senator Fullbright that underlines that Fullbright's Senate investigation into the bull market is wrong and stupid, and an explanation for why the current merger wave is such a good idea. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that Detroit Edison continues to round up capital for its atomic plant near Detroit, that Alcan is expanding its smelters at Kitimat to increase capacity from the current 91,500t to 331,000t/year, that GE and Telefilm are supporting the National Affiliated Television Stations cooperative of UHF television stations  nationwide, since it turns out that no-one watches UHF and they should! 

The results for the latest Pikes Peak gas economy rally are in, and it is good news for Nash, placing first in two of four categories, with Studebaker and Buick taking the other two. (That's not in Notes, because it is too long, but should be.) Newsweek notices the Viscount. 

Products: What's New reports that Potter Electronics makes the Magnistor, which it thinks makes a better compact electronic element than tubes or transistors because it is cheaper and more rugged. Gould National has battery rechargers for large industrial users. 

Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides makes the rare useful point (and backs it up with research!) The current stock market boom is due to the Administration pushing the "Easy Money" panic button. It's wrapped up in his usual coupon-clipper nonsense about secret inflation, but it's still a good point. 

Science, Education

Beside his Less Nessman cosplay, Kirk was known for nick-
naming his home, "Piety Hill." 

Walter Dornberger, who is working for Bell in Buffalo for some reason, has a theory about why people see UFOs. It's not that they're crazy, it's spinning vortices in the air. Camille Rougeron, "former scientific advisor to the French Air Ministry," proposes using hydrogen bombs for heating by detonating them next to water reservoirs deep under the Earth to provide a ready supply of hot water. It seems a bit crazy, but at least, Newsweek points out, he's found a good location for letting off H-bombs. 

"Care on the Campus" Fifty-two years ago t here was that time Cornell University had to close because the everyday "Ithaca Fever" usually suffered by new students and visitors had turned into a full-blown typhoid epidemic, and 291 students fell sick, with 29 dying. That was why Cornell developed its own student health service in 1903 (or actually 1940, because before then it was hygiene lectures and calisthenics in the quad). Here's a story about why it, and its 957 counterparts, is a good idea, even though college students are usually pretty healthy. 

"Burning Question" Long time readers may recall that biology professor Frank Richardson of the University of Nevada got into trouble with his university president for some critical letters that got him labelled a "buttinsky" by same, and eventually canned. They may also recall that Richardson was then reinstated because of his colleagues' concerns about academic freedom. Now there's more! Three weeks ago, another professor wrote to the state legislature complaining that the President had punished Richardson by depriving him of his department chair appointment, and the legislature was going to investigate, but now there's even more! "Orthodox conservative" Russell Kirk has taken up the cause in his new book, Academic Freedom, which explains that academic freedom is a "natural right," and that's enough about Richardson because now let's talk about Russell Kirk for the rest of the article!

Periscoping Education reports that the four maritime academies are upset about the President cutting $600,000 from their federal aid and don't think they can carry on without it, and that the school strike in Irving, Texas, in support of fired superintendent John L. Beard, continues. 

Art, TV-Radio, Press, Newsmakers

Time is always doing neat little Art stories about artists who are famous and good because they are dead,and Newsweek always tries harder, so here's a story about the latest thing in Iron Age art, the Etruscans! They're having an exhibition at the Zurich Kunsthaus! (That's in Switzerland.) Too bad they couldn't spend the royalties before their civilisation became extinct!

Periscoping the Theatre reports that Sincerely, Willis Wayde should hit Broadway next Fall, when Judy Garland and Van Heflin will also be there, the latter in the title role of "The Loud Lord Patrick" in Joseph Boruff's adaptation of Ruth McKenney's biography of her grandfather. 

"The Happy Stooges" Newsweek celebrates TV comedy's "second  bananas." supporting comics like Art Carney, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Vivian Vance, Bill Frawley, Bea Benaderet, Gale Gordon, Hal March and Rocky Graziano seem much more carefree and stable then the leading names. Rocky Graziano?

One of the New York newspapers are on strike, newspaper people sure like to talk about themselves, here's a profile of the Herald Tribune's Bob Peck. 

 Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies is  upset at all the news photographers who met him at the airport in Washington and makes the "grim prediction" that eventually the United States will be ruled by the most photogenic politicians and "God help the country then."  Billy Graham, the Explorers Club, Dean Acheson, Gloria Vanderbilt, Fulton Sheen, Mal Whitman, Senator Cotton, some penguins, and Harry Truman are in the column for mostly the usual reasons. I hope that Truman's expression of nostalgia for the Confederacy isn't one of the usual reasons for much longer! John Sherman Cooper and Parry O'Brien have married. Charles Frederick Childs, Elton Hoyt, Joseph F. Cullman, and William Robertson Coe have died. 

The New Films 

The Blackboard Jungle is a popular and controversial novel about "hoodlumism" in a boy's vocational school. MGM read it and decided there was  money in bad boys.  

From Allied Artists, Seven Angry Men is a terrible movie because it is nice to John Brown. Also through Allied, The Big Combo is a gangster movie with Cornel Wilde producing and acting and probably making some  money from a pretty good script. Periscoping the Movies reports a German-French co-production about Hitler's astrologer, a screen version of Arms and the Man starring Alec Guinness, and a Technicolor Die Fledermaus with Van Johnson and Val Fontaine. 

Books

Clinton Rossiter's Conservatism in America and Louis Hartz's the Liberal Tradition in America get a  joint review, just like in a big boy magazine! Not that you'd mistake the review for something The Economist would run (I know, it DOES make me faintly nauseous to say something nice about The Economist!) Rossler sounds like the kind of 24 carat idiot who thinks conservatism would be great if only the actual American conservatives would stop pulling his pants down in the locker room, while Hartz thinks America has been perfect since the start because it was all liberal, no feudalism, and therefore doesn't need foreign European socialism. Which would make Hartz one of the pants-puller-downers. John Masters' Coromandel is the third volume of what he projects as a 35 volume "fictional history of the British in India." It sounds pretty risque. Frederick Hoffman's The Twenties: American Writing in the Post-War Decade is an entire book about F. Scott Fitzgerald and that other . . . guy? I want to say "guy," but come to think of it, it might have been a gal named Virginia. Which isn't to say that American writing in the Twenties have been completely forgotten because of what came next, because who can forget that gal . . .or maybe it was a guy? Are gals named "Dos"? Is anyone? Ralph de Toledano hasn't made up a book lately, but since his day job is as an editor at Newsweek he's not short of spare time, so here's Day of Reckoning, which is a novel instead. About how Communists are bad, though, so not a complete change of course.
 

Raymond Moley sees Lindley and Hazlitt putting in an effort in their columns for once and says "Chumps," to himself as he knocks out yet another fact free ramble about how Walter Reuther is bad, actually.

Aviation Week, 28 March 1955

News Digest reports the separate crash of three transports last week, a Navy R6D, an American Convair 240, and an American DC-7.  Collins has a new airborne TACAN receiver that is more accurate than the last one, but is it 600% more accurate? Tighten those nuts! Industry Observer reports that a Nike replacement is under development at RCA, that the Victor has flown more than 6 hours at more than 50,000ft, that Convair is trying to sell its XFY-1 as a trainer for vertical-to-horizontal flight transition, that Avro's CF-105 fighter will be Mach 2-capable, that the F-102A is about as fast the original F-102 was promised to be, that Republic's F-103 supersonic interceptor will be conned by periscope, that Goodyear has two thrust reversers  under development, that a B-52 recently had a landing gear collapse on landing, setting that flying programme back, maybe? Washington Roundup is mostly budget news, but reporters are getting fresh attention for their complaints at the way that the Navy shops its scoops around to favoured magazines. The Pentagon is warming up for a fight over who screwed up the turboprop programme. 

Best of British luck with that!

Aviation Week has non-bylined stories about an imminent selection in the long-range interceptor competition and the new NACA "reactor to test engine parts," which seems to be a particle accelerator to shoot radiation at rivets to see if they blow up. One of the things holding up the long range interceptor is that no contractor has been able to offer a good enough radar. Lockheed's Robert Gross warns that the big airframe companies are in danger of losing the weapon business to the companies that make "weapon systems," Aviation Week went to the Aero Medical Association's annual meeting and summarises papers on the effects of g-forces and high altitude radiation on humans and mice, respectively. You can put men in sleds, but only mice in cosmic ray chambers! (Their hair turns gray after 18 hours.) Allison is investing heavily in expanding its turboprop and turbojet facilities because this whole "Allison completely failed to deliver its promised engines" thing will probably blow over. NACA gets a bunch of money, and the Navy evidently has too much, because they're building blimps again. The CAA will be updated on Transocean's experiments with C-46s with auxiliary jet engines under the belly. What it will do with the data besides crumpling it up and trying to hit the wastebasket from across the office,  I don't know. Transocean? Crashes. C-46s? Crashes. Auxiliary engines on airliners? Crashes. 

David Anderton reports for Aeronautical Engineering that the Space Flight Committee of the American Rocket Society has recommended that the National Science Foundation look into earth-orbit satellites, which could be useful for a bunch of stuff, like space telescopes and radio relays. I know it's March and the big annual state of industry issue just ran on the 14th, but that's no excuse for allowing the editor to publish his funniest material in Thrust and Drag. It's embarrassing, Aviation Week. Cut it out. 

Irving Stone is back from darkest California to report for Production on "Tape Will run Convair Milling Machine." I'm attaching a diagram, which should be enough to let you write the article in your head. 

"Weight-Saving Titanium Bolts Available in Production Quantities" Standard Pressed Steel had a lot of trouble making them, but they seem fine. "TRADIC," the first "airborne computer," which uses 800 transistors and comes to us from Bell viar the Wright Air Development Centre, gets a pictorial complete with editorial comment explaining how fast it can multiply and divide, and hence do trig problems for aerial navigation. G-M Laboratories report that their new mag-amplifier for servo systems is "low slip," which would be more useful to know if we had any idea that previous mag-amplifiers had a problem with "slip"! H--G of Bradle, Connecticut, has two-pile relays that will withstand 20gs, and other companies also have rectifiers, trim pots, pulse transformers, and a "six-pole, double-throw relay" that are the smallest or most rugged or most accurate ever. Filter Centre tells us that more and more military radio systems use single-sideband receivers, that the Navy's new ARC-52 transceiver is modular, and that for some reason it is news that Bendix sold some radio equipment to a company. 

George L. Christian reports for Equipment that Carmody is building a "procedure trainer" for the F9F-9, which is a new concept in ground training for pilots. We also here about a new engine starter, a portable X-ray unit, and a new viscous damper to go into the SeaMaster and a new Bell helicopter. What's New has thirteen new brochures, booklets, catalogues over the transom, and I will not be telling you about booklets on metal slide rules, catalogues of non-ferrous forgings, or brochures about electronics subcontractors. New Aviation Products reports an aircraft tug from Wagner Tractor for Northwest, a bolt with built-in teflon washer from Aero Bolt, a porous-stainless stell ideal for anti-icing systems, a missile rate gyro that weighs less than a pound, an auto-adjustable turnbuckle, and a variable dc power supply from Kell-Strom Tool.

Again, I normally skip Air Transport, but absolutely need to mention United celebrating that "Male-Only Service Pays Off for United" United has been running a surcharged men-only executive class service from Chicago to New York since April 1953, and it is paying off. They can take their jackets off and smoke cigars, you see. 

Robert Hotz uses Editorial to explain that "Military Tacan vs Civil DME --A Bad Mess!" Unlike all the nice messes, you see. Basically, the civil side is going to have to use Tacan in place of DME or interceptors will end up shooting down all the airliners. Sorry. 
 

So what has been happening in the land of imminent snap elections? The Engineer had numbers out on the 18th and 25th of March. 

(Not the Seven-Day Journal) for the 18th reports that the Federation of British Industires is also worried that Britain doesn't have enough scientists or engineers,that the Institute of Marine Engineers threw a party, that the British Productivity Council has look at bronze and brass founding and has discovered that the industry is ignoring many of the important lessons it carried across the sea from America in a gilded ark surmounted by cherubim of gold, lo these many years ago. The new, automatic, vehicle-actuated traffic control device at the north end of London Bridge is similar to the one that has been operating at Banks since 1947, but still worth a party. The annual report of the DSIR highlights all the important things it has discovered over the year in spite of staff shortages. The annual report of the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association points out that the main problem is that those sneaky foreigners don't fight fair. On the 25th it is reported that the IME is having a party, that the British Institute of Management, the FBI and the National Union of Manufacturers had a three day meeting where they tried to say something useful and general about machine tools. There's still a shortage of science teachers, Sir Henry Pilkington, currently with the FBI, reminds us in a talk. The British Plastics Federation has a report and the National Factory Equipment Exhibit is on. 

"Plastic Strains and Stress Relations at High Temperatures," by A. E. Johnson and others, begins on the 18th. The authors took pieces of various aeronautical materials, heated them up, and then did strain and stress tests at various temperatures and produced lots of graphs, some of which will be printed in The Engineer. The article can't quite be fitted to three pages, so a half-column of blank space is filled with notice that the BBC will begin broadcasting three services on VHF from a station 23 miles from London in May. Part II on the 25th similarly makes room for discussion of a recent conference on substituting town gas made from oil for town gas made from coal. 

A. F. Kelley, "The 'Automatic Factory'" Everyone talks about the automatic factory but no-one in Britain does anything about it even though if we don't, we're all going to die because our exports will collapse. And that's really all I have to say, but I filled up an empty page doing it!

"Some Commonwealth and Foreign Civil Engineering Schemes, No. II" And then there are articles that could be books, or book series, because there are so many schemes going on, but the article would look like a geography primer if it didn't just describe digging holes in the ground over and over again. The big story is all the dams and canals on the Volga and Don, but there are also dams in France and bridges in Germany. Part II has a dam in India, and, for a change of pace, a dockyard in France. 

Because of a dangerous shortage of boredom, L. W. Nickols express rushes "Conversions of Inch and Metric Sizes on Engineering Drawings" to the offices of The Engineer in time for it to run on the 25th. It is a study of the rate of quality control rejection of subcontracted parts to the specified accuracy of conversion in various projects. British Standards, which is on this sort of thing, tells us this week how to build our tubular box spanners and how to draw our control charts. 

On the 18th, Robert Carp brings us "Heavy-Duty Truck Development in the U.S.A." Big trucks for a big country! Also here are some details on chassis and motors that --oh, darn, out of time, next installment. 

 

It is fascinating just what a large proportion of these machines were still gas-powered in the U.S. in 1955

D. A. Senior, "Method of Heating Control, No. 1," begins in the 18 March number. It is a thermostat on a circuit that measures the temperature in a rotating drum (the kind that you put this or that in and wash it with this or that) and which automatically adjusts the heating units, but with lots of details about weight and flow. 

Shaw Savill Liner Southern Cross, No. 1, is another article starting on the 18th. It is a 21.35kn turbine steam ship designed to carry 1160 tourist passengers on trips to Australia and New Zealand, with no provision for cargo. This entry is about the decor. Part II, which we have all been waiting for, goes below decks to look at the machinery. 

"Chemical Recovery Units for Pulp and Paper Mills" Bowater Pulp and Paper sent in this nice article about how it washes wood pulp in, I presume, rotating drums, and then gets back as much of the sulphuric acid and so on as possible. (A very short note about a technical report from the DSIR about detecting chlorine leaks before they kill you comes at the very end of this section.) Similarly, "Hydraulic Equipment for Industrial Diamond Manufacturing Plant" describes the pumps and control valves made by Towler Brothers for a diamond-squeezing machine built by Buildsboro Steel Foundry in the United States, and "Electric Heat-Treatment Bell Furnaces" describes same, built by Joseph Sankey and Sons, non-oxidising atmosphere produced by the ammonia gas generators of ICI. "Vanadium Gas Poisoning from Gas Turbines" describes the growing danger to public health but also machinery from vanadium pentoxide in the heavy heating oils burned in gas turbines. 

By Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK - Green Arrow
Uploaded by oxyman, CC BY 2.0,
ttps://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8518561

Leaders for the 18th include a brief review of the annual report of the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research,followed by one on Automatic Factories with a lot more substance than the headline article. Letters has one from A. M. Conybeare, who is disillusioned to learn that locomotive engineers don't always enjoy their interviews with The Engineer ride-along correspondents, perhaps provoking three letters from three railway men on the 25th about how much they liked this sort of article. On the 18th, F. P. Post has grave concerns about the adoption of conjugated valves on the  "V2" locomotives during their refits. Literature reviews a book on Industrial Management by the directors of United Steel, V. L. Malev's Diesel Engine Operation and Management, Ian MacNeil, Hydraulic Operation and Control of Machines, and A. T. Starr, Telecommunications, as well as ten shorter notices. MacNeil is irritating, Starr is perhaps too succinct, Malev is just right, and what can you even say about "the directors." (The book is a compilation of talks to Cambridge undergraduates.) Leaders for the 25th discuss lubricants for oil engines and a brief review of the new Railways Freight Scheme, intended to address the great hole in railway finances blown by road transport de-nationalisation. 

On the 25th, The Engineer summarises the annual report of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers with a look at procedural and constitutional business. 

https://leithbuiltships.blogspot.com/2010/08/ssteano.html

"Electrical Engineers Exhibition, No. II" Two-and-a-half pages briefly describing exhibits with a representative photo or two, mostly pertaining to heavy electrical industry. There is more of the same on the 25thShort blurbs on machinery producing fine titanium powder, a centreless grinding machine, a duplex pipe flange facing machine, and a small laboratory radiant heater pad out the paper until it is time to start talking about "Two Canadian Pre-Stressed Concrete Bridges," both in Ottawa, and both very unprepossessing, as that kind of bridge tends to be. They're just two concrete beams laid across a river with a roadway built on them, and it is not until  you realise how hard it is to pour and then move the bridges that it occurs to you that this was actually difficult.The 25th has three pages of this material leading into American Section, featuring hydraulic cylindrical grinders, portable flange facers, de-burring machines for gears, articulated tipping gear, a fork truck stacking attachment, a mechanical line spreader, a double-ended automatic axle casing welder, and, the first time I have seen such a thing relegated to the advertorials at the bottom, a transonic induction wind tunnel built by Short Brothers. 

On the 25th there is a proper bottom-of-the-paper article, J. Christie, et al., "Proving the Performance of Circuit Breakers" which turns out to be a "To Be Continued" installment devoted to the choice of circuit breakers to test, and the methods of testing. 

  Indian Engineering News looks in at telephone cable manufacture in West Bengal and the steady increase in electrical power generation in India. African Engineering News looks at the steady expansion of the railways in the Central African Federation and the recent prosperity of Northern Rhodesia. American Section has a long article on "Research in High-Energy X-Rays," at the NBS, of course, where nice new bevatrons and synchrotrons can produce up to 180 MeV rays. which can be used for making and separating isotopes, treating tumours, and seeing cracks in solid materials, as usual. On the 25th we want the NBS back, as Mackintosh-Hemphill of Pittsburgh usurps our time to talk about "Rotary Straightening of Small Tubing," although there are bits about a hydraulic forging press and the manufacture of artificial diamonds to pad out the section.  Industrial and Labour Notes is on about expanding employment and rising wage demands, as usual, with the Board of Trade warning that the price of imported raw materials is rising and the TUC clearing its throat about the rush of enthusiasm for automatic factories on the 18th. On the 25th, overseas trade is  up, but so are miners' wages, while we are worried about coal output and science teachers again, and by the Railway Freight scheme, A cargo motorship and a "short seas trader" steam ship are the two Launches and Trial Trips this week, although the Royal Navy received the Murray frigate and Excalibur submarine as well. No Launches and Trial Trips on the 25th.