Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 December 1949 — Page 31

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SAFETY through destruction.

One might even say Civil Aerona utics -Adminisn fration engineers, working in the many iia. 27 on the grounds of the experimental station at Weir Cook, play with fire every day to save lives. Riney Cunard, chief of the engineerin g division, didn't cafe much for my initial observation about

playing with fire. He called t- research, dogged, tireless, endless research. oEe

"Didn't bother me in the least. I don't expect engineers to have a sense of humor where their work is. concerned. An excellent point in Mr. Cunard’s favor, though, when you vjsit him you can be sure something is cooking. It so happened that the CAA boys had the left outboard engine of the first Nayy C onstitution on the griddle. ¢ Mr. Cunard wondered. if I'd be interested, Why not, the temperature outside was. dropping and what would be cozier than a burning 28-cylinder | left outboard engine off the giant Navy Constitum?

ests New Detector

| LYLE E. TARBELL, chief of the reciprocating engine section, explained what was going on. No, they wouldn't reduce the engine to a puff of ash. He eyed me curiously as he said the flames would be large enough. We're testing a vapor expansion type-fire detector,” said the chief, while three company representatives from New York prayed silently in a corner. They might have been talking. The nacelle, a tremendous thing, was mounted on an I-beam frame. Studs of the port wing gave the entire installation a weird look. Flight conditions would be produced before the fire broke out. Wayne Miller, laboratory mechanic, was handling the fire and the wind tunnel. Clifford Winget, laboratory mechanic, was re-

“ficult ‘to set on fire. No, he didn’t want to go out

Fire. + . oufside a 28.cylinder airplane engine is butning and {left to right} B. C. Street, Clifford Winget, Wayne Miller and yo Tarbell watch. Just testing.

A Costly Fixer

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sponsible for Wing: the data and was in charge of m—— FRIDAY, er : nw Tr eet, mechanical engineer, was cr in immediate charge of the test. Occasionally he! A DECEMBER 9, 1949 PAGE would smile at the detector officials. Man, mls

were interested in what was going on. y The engine was fired up. So was the wind | > tunnel. Noise in the control room made it impos-| 1!

sible to talk , ... impossible to yell and make yourself understood. The operators had earphones.

Frightening sight, fire. With your féet on the ground, behind reinforced glass, under controlled conditions, flame breaking out of the cowling iw

licking over the nacelle produces a feeling in th pit of your stomach that one can imagine Bai ; i after swaliowing. a Whole cantaloupe. Maybe Photos by Bob Wallace, Times Staff. Pitogpbés oe | ria worse. a pi -

You see the lips of the technicians move. and| all you know is that seven-foot .flames . are whipping aluminum. Shortly they're out. The en-| gine is shut off. Men swarm over it. First test, satisfactory. Reset the detector and try again, and again. It has to be better than one of the best be-| fore the CAA puts the stamp of approval on the accessory. | Fifteen experiments, in various stages of com-| pletion, were on the books. 1 was shown a fuel| hose and connection that withstood 10 hours of! 2000 degrees temperature. Mr. Tarbell said he has tested hose that would burn completely in five, minutes.

We walked into another building where Lou! Asadourian, engineer on the baggage compart-| ment tests, was just getting ready to fire up. For| the project he had built a compartment identical | in size to the aft baggage compartment on the Constellation.

An alcohol fire was lighted. Aluminum began buckling. Fans produced 13 volume changes an| hour in the compartment. Enough to keep any blaze, said Mr. Asadourian, burning fiercely. “The big problem in haggage compartments 1s air leakage,” the engineer continued. “You get more than 13 volume changes, which is not unusual at all, and the fire isn’t going to be put out.”

‘Officials in a Stew’ a THE TESTS began when airliners were plagued by false alarms, The detectors the CAA ordcred in planes were too sensitive. The order was rescinded. New detectors were made, Airline companies were in. a stew. What was o . d M h En Ce was the bests Should the sensi- Butler University coeds will present a snappy new skit during halftime ceremonies at the Bull Carolyn McCann, R. R. 13, Box 183 (lof), and tive photo-electric detector be used 1n conjunetion dogs-Ohio State basketball game tomorrow night in the Fieldhouse. James Sewry, Milwaukee, Wis., MH with the new visual one” director of choreography; Nancy Forbes, 4409 N. Pennsylvania Sf. color guard captain; Mary-Ann--- man, 3122 College Ave., hunt up props for the skit, “V've “We're burning luggage. clothes, materials to Hands, Springfield, Ill, drum majoret, and Hal Wilkins, Louisville, Ky., drum major (left to right] Working on the Railroad.” The 96-piece Butler band, directed b bs diagram their maneuvers on the blackboard. Charles Henzie, will provide background music for the program,

see what goes on,” said Mr. Asadourian. “We'll have the answer soon.” L - He hinted that luggage and tlothing was dif-|

on-a limb or wing before all tests were completed and the report was in. “Do you have a match?’ I-did. Just like an ‘engineer. -

“By Robert C. Ruark

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 9—Got a guy here who is unique. At least he has no counterpart in his business, Even his business has no real desaeription, unless you could ‘cal. it political engineering. Joe Robinson is a political engineer, although some folks call him a fixer, California is an odd state politically. It is partial to lavish pension plans and similar crackpot- _ tery and it is one of the few states that deal heavtty tn the “initiative.” The initiative is a device which allows the people to make laws themselves, instead of entrusting them to lobbies and legislatures. Let us say we wish to get a law on the books forbidding the eating of peanut brittle in movie theaters. If you can get 204 672 signatures from valid voters on a petition, that proposition will go on the ballot at the next voting. Well, Joe Robinson, a cigar-chomping political expert, is the sole proprietor of the initiative in

2 California. He charges $100,000 to get an initiative

qualfied for the ballot and guarantees that it will

he be done.

He also handles mail campaigns for political candidates and has a mailing list of five million voters. He also raises money for campaigns. At this he is very good.

Bet on Truman JOE IS A MAN whose judgment is untempered by sentiment. He handled the Dewey-Warren mail campaign and bet on President Truman. He will get you an initiative on the ballot and then next year he will hire out to the opposition to rig a petition to get it off again. In a recent special election to fill the congresgional shoes of the departed Richard Weleh, he worked for both Lloyd Cosgrove, Republican, and Jack Shelley, Democrat, to get them on the ballot, and succeeded in both cases. Mr. Shelley won, but Joe couldn't have cared Jess. He fulfilled his obligation by placing both men in a position to run. Actually he dictated the terms of the election, for he refused to qualify several other candidates, There was only 10 days to rig the petitions, and only one other candidate, a Wallaceite named

Charles Garry, was able to scrape up the necessary names, Joe's best effort in impartiality was when he worked for George Maclain a year ago and got an outrageous sevision of the old-age pension plan on the voting books. In fine print, this ballot even named the director of social welfare: ~THis past year, he switched] horses, worked for the governor, and got the Mac-| lain modified plan. | This sort of thing pleases Joe. He says he is| the servant of the people. He will not tell them | how to vote, but he will make it possible for them to vote on anything from anti-vivisection to whisky regulations. Joe keeps a permanent staff of about 30 employees, but he has ‘3000 representatives in 30 key counties who can drag in a petition in record time. | He pays from 15 to 30 cents per signature and his folks average $30-$40 as day when they are working. He also has a standby. staff of stenographers and housewives who write his letters for him and Joe can deluge the constituents with 300,000 letters a day. For this service he charges one-| half cent per letter—which can run into money on | five million missives.

‘Il Never Lose’ MR. ROBINSON is scrupulously honest. - » > Jo “I would not doublecross a client for all the tea | Four principals of the act go through rehearsal here. They are fle to right) Allo eyes focus on Miss Spencer at the rehearsal. She will present a in China. he says. “But 1 sce nc reason, when the, Patty Andrews, 306 Ohmer Ave., conductor; Joyce Dehnbostel, 1413 N. Wales dance. Gathering props and rehearsals for. the eight-minute Prossefation

ob is done and the initiative is qualified, why I| job lo, not go to work for the opposition the next Ave. "Keystone Cop"; Dee Dee Wampler, 4640 Kenwood Ave., tramp, and Diane taken several days. The group will present a different

year and get it off the books. I am a specialist,” Spencer, Hagerstown, red cap. this winter. . says Joe. “I don't miss. I never lose.” - TTT ————— As a servant of the people, Mr. Robinson is a Pp practical dictator on the subject matter of their ree ris ring es amper vote, and is eagerly sought by big interests with

lat a Ag i carefully, chooses a Six Kids i in Santa Claus, Ind.

i 1d-| client with the best chance of succeeding and co SANTA CLAUS, ‘Ind. Dec. 9 (UP)—The children of my

ly brings the client's cause legally into the ballot boxes gs | has finally become Thdispensable to Cal- | Claus have more Santas per capita than any other place in the, . |world, a town booster said today.

ifornia politics, and he is proud of his role. pe P William Koch, manager of one of the two commercial enter-

“I guess you can say I am unique,” Joe says. | “At least I don't know anybody else in thé same | prises in this little village of 30 persons in the southern Indiana| racket.” { hills, said there are three Santas for. six kiddies.

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All Wet

“That’s one Santa for every two ” Santa in a 200- mile radius of his youngsters,” said Mr. Koch, who He turn down al

By Frederick C. Othman Cherates ihe oo -akre Wwe “hance to head a big parade in| aus Land resor ‘ Prd) icago ‘for Mayor Martin Ken-|

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9—If the chemistry class kindly will come to order, we now will have a lecture on heavy water. It isn’t really. Wejghs no more than the kind you drink, but it may possibly be a little wetter. The trouble is that a glassful of the stuff’ is worth about $1000 and hence isn't recommended for thirst-quenching purposes. Fact is, it doesn't seem to be good for anything else much, either. Back before the war the Norwegians first ] stirred up a beaker of heavy water, by adding an : extra atom of hydrogen to every unit of H20. This is easier said than done. They had to use a $5 million hydroelectric power plant to do it, There was a lot of scientific whonpla in the papers about it then.

Heavy Water Cools Atom’s Ardor

THEN the Germans took over Norway, you may remember, and tried to get heavy water gushing from the faucets on the theory that it would be handy for making atom bombs. The idea was that a jug of heavy water would serve as a moderator in an atomic pile. This means, as I get it, that the heavy water would slow down the split. ting of the atoms a little so they'd have time to go boom. Well, sir, we didn’t like the idea of heavy water for bomb-making purposes because it was almost as dificult to make as pure uranium, itself. So we figured out a scheme to calm those busy atoms by the use of pure graphite. Now comes an ex-Army major, name of George R. Jordan, to make spfel on the radio about when he was at the Great Falls, Mont., air base, he saw big jars of heavy water on their way by Army planes to Russia. He ‘made a number of other charges, too, about uranium being sent over to the Russkies. This created about as elegant a rhubarb, with charges, countercharges and flashlight explosions, as this town has seen in at least a week. So the House Un-American Activities Commit-

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draw 470,000 visitors here the tee got into the act by calling up Lt. Gen. Leslie first 11 months of 1949. nelly Detapse he was leo Con Groves, the wartime atom boss, to see what hel rhe Santas are known in Legion post commander and presi- | knew about all these nefarigus activities. The everyday life as Jim Yellig, 49, & gent of the Santa Claus Chamber. room was jammed. There were so many Camera- ,.ciourant owner from Mariah of Commerce. men there hardly was room for the Congressmen. Hill; Louie Schmitt, 56, a farmer, Mr Schmitt works for «ganta| Rep. John Rafikin of Mississippi was : tide SUr- na’ Charles Edward Spriggs, Claus Land.” Mr. Koch's part-phi-| prised when he found ols seat occupied by the yr. ~~ ile Tenn. who has been lanthropic, part-commercial ven-| nh Century. ox tr 0 ary look 1 4/foaming the country In _a Kris tyre attracting youngsters here ha by In a costume. which was ny phon in Kringle suit for 40 years. all seasons of the year. Dir the only things about him that ot ure The children were Linda Lou Mr. Spriggs was hired by te were his shoes. These were black. So he knocked, Martin, 7, her ‘brother, Lloyd, 9, operators of “Santa's Castle, and her sister, Brenda, age four $60,000 commercial enterprise

down a good deal of the major’'s stor The Seneral s Idea oa; that the Russians Months; Donna Phillips, 2. Elma across town from Mr. Koel's; Mae Vogel, 12, and Howard Poh- resort.

didn't get much uranium and what they did wasn’t much good. One reason he let ‘em have a couple lin. 11. Mr. Koch said the town's Kid-| of dabs was to keep 'em from realizing how im-| The Martin children and Donna dies “never seem to get tired of portant we thought it was. Another was to steer are . grandchildren of the late coming to see Santa,” although in|

‘em off on the quality of uranium we were Oscar Phillips, who was postmas- addition to the “live” Santas in| of Santa Claus for many their little town they can look out

concoctin ter Rep. Francis E. Walter of Pennsylvania, chair- years. their front windows and see a man 6f the subcommittee, wanted to know about Free Lance Santa [OIE stone staiue of im " the, Flashing smiles are presented by the 12.coed chorus line. They are (left to right) Jean Schiuge these five-gallon water Jars, labeled heavy water. ar, vyellig 1s the best known ) un | ter, 702 E. 60th St.; Joan Carter, 912 E. Berwyn St.; Miss Chapman; Miss Hands; Ann Voter, Haw-haw, went Gen. Groves. |8anta Claus. He has worn the Visit Frequently | Zionsville; Nanc Osborne, 651 N. Hamilton Ave.; Lois Chapman, 3122 College Ave.; Phyllis Somebody Got Stung |beard and wig and red suit hun-| “Why, they visit us at least. 935 N, Denny St.; Palmer Alling, 5653 Guilford Ave.; Joan Keller, 24 N. Irvington Ave.; Miss | dreds of times since 1931. He's a/once a week around Christmas,” Forbes, and yt McCann,

WATER, whether heavy or light, looks like «free lancer” who never asks for Mr. Koch said, “and they seem . water, Tastes that way, too. And if somebody pay but turns over all gratuities/to enjoy it just as much as the poured through their fairylands here to receive ‘the Banta Claus, “We haven't had a heavy snow labeled those jugs of water heavy, then somebody to the American Legion fund for youngsters who come from other of toys and attractions for the postmark, kept Mr. Reinke and before Christmas for five years else got stung. The general said he knew who got| answering Santa letters from places. | kiddies, Postmaster Elbert Rinke a staff of 15 helpers busy. and that's good,” said Mr. Koch, taken, too, if anybody was. He meant the Amer-| yjqdies all over the world. | While Mr. Koch and Milton perspired over piles of mail sacks. | All hoped for a heavy Christ-|“If the roads get slick down in ican taxpayer, who was footing the bill under lend-| This month, Mr. Yellig has Harris, operator of “Santa's Cas-| Some 25.000 to 30,000 piéces of mas eve snowfall but they wanted these hills, nobody can get In lease for everything that was going to. Russia at |7ome 15 _ engagements to play tle,” struggled with crowds that mail, mostly greeting cards sent none beforehand. | Here.” y

nn A soak 0 19I3 vie hese Sige wets THE STORY OF THE SAVIOUR | | By William E. Gilroy, D. D.

the heavy water in America could be measured in| drops instead of gallons. We built a heavy-water plant later, just in case that graphite deal didn't| § work, but we never needed it. And I guess that takes care of the heavy-water deal. Tomorrow we'll probably be investigating| something else.

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WJ

"The Quiz Master

Have scientists ever succeeded In making gold «What from a base metal? Yes, but in extremely minute quantities ‘snd by {+ .. methods which cost .far more than the value of i the gold produced.

i ¢ oo . i How did the city of Beacon, N. Y., receive its name?

con to warn Washington, at Newburgh, of British movements up the Hudson. ‘

wails

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The city takes its name from the beacon fires Feathers are takep every 10 months. Each| - : ” Sea . 535) Fo ther which were burned on the summit of Mount Bea- plucking-yields several ounces of feathers. The “And she brought Luks 145, 55.) My soul-doth —; arn thy own a

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7? Test Your Skill ??7?

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v* What is the f fastest speed ever traveled by man! §k on land? ! On one of his speéd car runs at Bonneville, | Utah, Sept. 16, 1947, Jolin R. Cobb was timed at 403.135 miles an. hour, the fastest ever traveled by man on land.

* oo How often are ostrich feathers plucked?

om in She was yet to hear the sad phophecy a hy :

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: Jest Hines ate ol obtained [from the w wings and tall. clothes, ond loid him in @ monger.” (Luke 27.) ok joiced in God my