1950-04-01 — Page 4

Sefton Delmer's

FLYING BRIEFCASE

unpacking for this NEWSMAP

the notebooks of an expert eye on a flying tour across the world,

They put our the m clown Semin

10 British

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1950.

WHERE BRITAIN IS LEADING ·

THE NEW POWER ON

LAND, SEA AND AIR

By O..A.

Professor

SAUNDERS, M.A., D.Sc.

*ECENTLY ww have elated with both jet propulsion pioneered the way, our own and

and the gas turbine--and they Switzerland.

R

been reading of the amazing performances of the Comet, the jet-pro- pelled gas turbine powered airliner.

We have heard of the trials of a gas turbine railway locomotive. Now the first gas turbine car | is being demonstrated.

A new kind of engine is being used on land, at sea, and in the nlr.

It has already produced a technical revolution in the air, and we wonder whether there refusal to supply will be strnilar revolutions on . LONDON.

anti-land and at sen. ROM Sydney to Singa-

To understandi I had drinks pore

There are powerful forces in how all these now and much talk with Amerien who

with developments are will offer

possible we must monocled John Sefton them in this

drst be clear Brancker, ti director of

tur- about "gag bines"

and "Jet Propulsion." These are two complete- different ideas.

B.O.A.C.

and son

of the

Sefton Braneker who lost

his life in the R101.

Main obstacle to the use

of the Comet on Empire air

routes, I learned from him.

It's A Flop

is not, as is grinerally be production.

hered, the inadequate size opptak.

It was

THE 48-hour week has proved a flop in Austral expected to provide A stimulus to greater eferency anal higher But It has done the And it has had a

the

of the runways or the dan. Boerally lowing down ffect on trains, slups, or

of the tarmae being 1:0 burned up by the jets,

The reni difliculty lies in the hot air of the tropies, It may be necessary to coni it artificially to provide the necessary boost for the jets to take off.

At Singapore I found at tone jet fighter already on the job trying out jet per formance in the hot Tropical air.

re

are both pil kleas. What, then, was the great thing he did?

The answer is that he brought the two together. He said, "Let us use a Cos turbine to produce a powerful jet of exhaust gases.** His great achievement was that he did t

One of the defects of the let engine is its extenvagance on fuel. For many purposes this is inore than outweighed by its extraordinary lightness, which enables more fuel to be carried,

But for longer flights, es- pecially at lower altitudes and speeds, the turbo-prop is better.

TURBO-CAR on its test run.

a kas tur- a conven-

Hi a jet airerait they are brought

In together, but gas turbine-driven

vehicles

as turbine The turbo-prop res the life of the nation.

general T. Morrison,

principle would be used with- bine engine to drive Mr

works of

Is tional propellor. out jet propulsion, which manter of the vot

very wasteful Keept at ligh Victoria': State electivity.com- mission of Yallern, was typical speeds of travel.

his view. And what Mr Morrison mays hut authority. For le mates a cool field covering 30 Equare mijes, a giant brimette factory, tel a power station with on outian of 1.292 milion kilo- wat hours.

THE MEANING OF PROPULSION JET

ET propulsin e "motion of a vesel in a certain direction by squirting a jet of flukt from it in the opposite direction."

If you stool on ice and blew hard enough you would go back

"Sine the introduction of the 48-hour week, my's Glasgow University graduate Morrison, Topul per man-hour has been wards.

here thau wns before.

This has not yet been done, men bed to start but squids use a siraitor means wher Time-Wasters

Saturday in for travelling under water. THEN the Comet does readiness for the wrek-run they now start stacking off on Friday, start to operate 1

Anch they work less hard during hope B.O.A.C.

their working weeks will the rest of drop its present time-wast- tan they did befors,

ing system of night stops, week

4511

And the

-40-hour

Jos avoid the use of a pro- palier, and are delightfully sim ple, but unfortunately they are inefficient at artlinary speeds of travel, most of the effort being

behind.

The remarkable developments in aircraft since 1941 have nol, of course, been contined to Britain.

In the early days of the war we informed the Americans of our progress, and in 1941 sent a Whittle engine to the U, S.

Out of that ve

grown in changes America revolutionary in aircraft design, The Germans are out of the technical raer, but and the the Russians are not, French have made great pro- grew since the war.

While we in Britain were des veloping the Kas turbine, for were deve- aircraft, the Swiss loping the gas turbine for Indus- trial purposes.

Today the Swiss have bullt more industrial gas turbines, for themselves and other countries, than

any other nation. We are now very active in the same Beld,

The Metropolitan Vickers Company is building a 15,000

4

kw set for the Stretford power station. C. A. Parsons, Ltd., are building a 15,000 kw set for the Dunston station and a 10,000 kw.

sel

for the Na-

tional Gas Turbine establishment.

John Brown and Company are building a 12,500 kw set for

the Dundee station,

All these Eas turbines Bre oil burners. Because oil has to be im- ported, their fuel bills Riny

little discouraging. This is counterbalanced by other advantages, but if it burned a really cheap fuel the gas tur- bine overall economy would be so much greater.,

For us jo Britain there are only two such fuels-cal and peat. A

Breat effort Is, therefore, being made to adapt the gas turbine to burn there fuels,

The reonomie impulse towards the coal-burning gas turbine for and use has no parallel for the

urine gas turbine.

WILL GAS TURBINES DISPLACE STEAM?

Otherwise all the time gain shops clares Saying For/ wasted in stirring up the air left Aircraft Company in 1941-was economiept marine

SaturdaysOW, by the Comet will be Thuit means that the housewife: lost in hotel beds and Co- has to carry much food home met-less foreign lines will on a Friday to last her over the still be faster than R.O.A.C. erk-end. Her favourite cartoon

True enough, you cannot expect the crews to fly night

and day without a break, But surely B.O.A.C, could take a leaf from the book of Holland's KLM

route.

The on the

The Dutchmen have relief waiting along the crews

time KLM. ground is spend strictly for picking up and setting down passengers, re- fueling and servicing.

Passengers get their sleep on the plane-in the same seats they sit in during the

To All Concerned

of herself :hows her as a camel.

Remarkable Match

pend the Come cricket. to joun mun

WHEN I ended on Hollway, Mr

い

Is

The thrust of the jet in the IPS have moved away from most coal to oil, and the 128/39, the first jet-propelled

engine aeroplane-built by the Gloster

Rolls-kely to be that which burns the about 200 16. Recently A turbine je an engine in Royce announced the thrust of lowest grades of nit.

their latest engines as 6,250lb. which the main driving part one of

The E28/30 few at about 350 In 1946 the rotates, in contrast to the piston

hour. cars, in which the main driving miles per engine, such as in our motor-

Meteor reached 616 miles per paris move to and fro,

the hor, and today

oficial record is 671 miles per hour.

IT IS IN ITS INFANCY YET

Prime Minister

first the

Victoria,

HOW THE POWER

IS PRODUCED

of pOWER is produced as the result of compressing, heat- thing he said wasting, and expanding a fluid. "1

to

going When the fluid is steam, we DOUBTEDLY e as tur bine type of engine will be and sea for many afternoon watching have the steam turbine. When aged on land

Would you sure the fluid is a Kasuamily ur- purpures. It is compact and light,

we have the gas turbine.

needs little or no water and no not require a it was 11 meest remarkable

The seed of revolution develops boiler, and does gaine. At the wicket when 1 ar-slowly at Brst. In the case of jet special oil fuel, as does the petrol ived was the organizer of the propulsion it seems to have been engine. match.

General Sir ansplanted in 150 B. C. by Hero of Brooks, the new Governor-Gen- Alexandria, who applied steam

be decided for some

LIS SL13213 11416 AUG 475844279 98IYIZITZESLENÉZELLİK)

COMING SHORTLY

by SILES

"Britain's first turbine train will be passing---

uny-minute now,"

GILES

London Express Service

am amt

Faincy an

thinking of that!

Whether the Kas turbine will ultimately displace the steain turbine and the diesel engine will nat years.

The Best gas turbine to drive a

Is Shilp

British. In 1917, ing MG12009 bekan trials with a Metropolitan-Vickers gas tur- bite lapted from one of that firm's aircraft engines.

NAIROBI.

OLLOWING my exclusive interview with an African elephant I have now obtained another scoop by interview- an ant-a white ant.

As you probably know, Africa is a white ant's country. They've colonised it from end to end and carried the white ant's burden for several million years.

Bernard

This vessel uses diesel engines for slow speeds and the turbine

Other races of ants are for high speeds, and has had a very successful debut.

settle here, too, of course, There has not yet been demon- There are black unts, brown So far it however a marine gas ants, red ants, and yellow Wicksteed

for long continuous // Melent, but it is Turbine

in DARKEST AFRICA capable of develop steady running, such as the main ants, but

So with all this talk going survive, and they go off on In the case of the gas turbine, ment to efficiencies level with power plant of at ordinary ship herrenvolk.

of engine will not be long fast bowling from one of Vic-a design recognisable as such was the best steam turbine plant and demands. But tests of this kind

Englishman, beiter. toria's leading Suciali M.P.s.

patented by

In moderne turbine engi- delayed.

(Contd. en Page 13 Col. 1) two countries have The mame of Waitle is asso- neering

al of Victoria. He was hitting Jets to drive on engine.

rather evtic but

at some

an

day. Exhausting, yes. But A Liberal (Australian equiva-John Barber, in 1791, you get there in double-

Jent of Tory) was & kveping wicket quick time.

behind him. Politlent raviks who in Australia hardly ever 17 socially had hurled their differ ences in an attempt to prevent! SINGAPORE pro- Sie Dallas's Government House duced song thing

Jesum from de efeating Victoria's that struck ne as unarunt. In the hall Parlament. They failed. Gavera- ment House won, and Sir Dallas.

of the Rules Hotel, with 37, made Bie second highest

respectably

framed

fermed

and glassed, hangs a letter signed core of the match.

by High Commissioner Malcolm Wanted---Immigrants

MacDonald. It is

on official

URING the tea Interval, Lord stationery and recommends 10

the Rennell, banker and partner all enncerned the services of the Rafles Hotel dealer in Chinese in London's Morgan Grenfell and curios. MacDonald himself, he Company, shocked the company says, has made several purchases by telling someone that he was from this merchant, and has out here in Australia to make bit always been thoroughly satisfied money." That did not fit in a with both the price and quality, with Australian deas of aristo- eralle dignity, Lord Rennell is une of several London fanciers prospecting for useful oppor-

M

I

Enter Mr. Judge

Headaches?

WAS Interested to

to

Work Waiting

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE DIAMOND

Lets

HORSESHOE

get this crime conscience

off my

F the man who was vard detective at the East River tugboat terminal 40 years go will drop around to my office, I'd like

Judge. This air delivery work power, plenty of opportunities central heating system

By BILLY

ROSE

071

white: are the

colour about human problems and race difficul- ties 1.thought I'd get hold of a white ant and ask him how they run their affairs. You never know, UNO or the Colonial Oflice might learn something.

White ants are difficult to interview because they hate the limelight.

over

There's also the language difficulty, but I got that by recruiting Dr L. S. B. Lenkey. curator of the floating 102fit 1 came to

Coryndon Museum. Nairobi, vacant lot on Rivington Street as my interpreter. where a bunch of my pals were making a snow man.

"Did ya get it?" one of them

mouth

there nric

hap

steal?" he

belt clear around the middle,

did I What dollar? Well,

do with there

the

who had

never given - me *

פתער

Nest makers

very class Tconscious. white ants.

are

leave

married.

together

urually produce enough to keep the colony going.

What do white ants live on? Their favourite food is mush- room soup.

The wood

chew up in

and paper they

people's houses is not their true dlet. They simply pulp and use it as compost in their mushroom beds.

First of all they hollow out a cellar ant dump the soll above the ground like moles and miners. Then they chew up a newspaper or the leg of a chair, deposit the pulp In the cellar, plant it with mushroom

nud spores.

This may sound simple, but it is really one of the most in- tricale bits of gardening in unture. The type of fungus or

which they get mushroom

grow cannot survive In the wild. It'

We'll follow the adventures of live only when tended by ter- one such pair. The girl, the mites. Wraf, says to the fellow: "Look,

new

that

we're properly Happy situation

It's

TS

all

married, let's give up dying.) at dangerous business, and we've IS a pouse, just as the

happy situation BOL the next generation to think uf."

tushrooms can't live without can't raise "Wizard," says the R.A.F. type the ants, the ants

"Let's their young without the much- with a glint in his cyc. settle down and have millions of 100mts. little ants."

If you're a gardener

you So they land somewhere and know that you can't grow mush- dig themselves in. Their wings, rooms without air. So the ants system of Tho which are no use underground, have an elaborate break off at the shoulder along underground ventilation.

from the soil that is removed a convenient fracture-line.

cellars is taken above the ground There's nothing to eat in their and bullt Into air chutes, which first little white ants' love nest, give the nests their lurreted ap- Eut, as so often happens with pearance.

these main chutes thero hewly married couples, they are

From

so engrussed in each other they are tots of little shafts going to hardly notice.

the different cellars, and they're In the human work there's a deliberately kept sinall so that

llve saying that you can't

on the beds won't be subjected to sudden changes of temperature The white outs have solved or humidity in the outside als.

with the

love.

to

the

So here we are

Same Shapo

·

yard detective-an oyster-faced asked. Y second uirman travelling tunities to Invest British money

to present him with a pair de man

of a whose idea companion, a young man in non-Socialist Australia.

Shrewal old multi-millionaire of downfront tickets for good time was to calch two "Nothing to it," I said.

kings, queens, called Judge, came aboard in

They have Sir William Angliss, Cairo. Mr Judge was wearint cattle man Sir

their heads together.

We used two lumps for the and courtiers; an air force

large chunk for the grey flannel trousers, a blue however, summed up the typical the show playing at my coal thieves at once and konwek

One murderously cold February eyes, a Blazer with silver R.A.F. buttons, Australian reaction to offers of theatre.

What did the yard dick do to I Wis stuffling

n sack with nose, a fow analler pleces for for taking over new terri- this problem. They live on their and on his arm he carried not a British capital (Hc, too, was

these front-row ducats? choice

was tory; an army with officers own fat till their first children ericket rate

chunks of anthracite the there to watch the

weight; the mushrooms in the coat but brown flying overalls.

tho cellars coming on nicely; Over lunch in Nome's airport "What Australia needs." he said] Well, I can't answer that one when the dick sneaked up and enough. left over for a row of N.C.O.s. and privates; and are old enough to support them. queen in her parlour putting on

Dynasty makers buttons down the front and a three grades of civil ger-

regular army keeping foraging restaurant Mr Judge told me he to me, "is not so much British without sketching in a bit of my caught me blackhanded,

and the three bumptious background.

"Don't ya know what

vants.

A really

FTER this initial success they Insects ut bay, team who are flying money as Drilish immigrants." was one of

The year Senator Tatt's pop

grades of the civil service work- kids who

get down They live in a variety of British military aircraft out to

became President, the

Roser Pong to

sald. Egypt

delivery

the

anests but the most striking business of founding a dynasty, ing together in harmony. for

IF I were a young were living in a railroad flat on

I could have told

film they little cutie pa Rivington Street are those of a race called and their production figures in- Egyptian Air Force. He had just

artisan or u young the lower East Side-four rooms get warm, but decided not to.

Everything in the garden is til they're turning out lovely except for one thing, Baby flown one job out-what it was

farmer

would in a row each with a window

white. "Don't tell me let me guess, tumble, and so I offered to buy Termes badius. They are erease

ants I would not say and now he

can't eat their emigrate to Ausa-that looked cold climate.

he went on, "Ya got a poor was flying home with the rest of

In at once There is

old mother and unless ya bring her a hot chocolate. at Slidin's shaped like Gothic castles 4,000 ants' eggs a day.

with hollowed towers and

Naturally the title girl from mushrooms raw. his crew to pick up another lot.

plenty of work wait-

home come coat she'll catch her drugstore.

own right, can't do this and keep ing Wages are excellent, taxes

death of cold,"

“You mean you got money?" turrets 6ft. and 10ft. high. the W.RA.F. now a queen in her lower than in Erilsin, and, with

"How'd ya know?" I said. UR

she said.

We dug out our white ant her figure.

O the community Invites along ineet Mr a non-Socialist

"I also suppose yer old mon Government In

consisted of a squarish stove

At first both of them are not

a litle beetle who cats the not only got for hot choco- from beneath one of these,

than hard-working and thrifty in the kitchen, and the cost of hasn't worked in six months."

long," I sald, late" I bragged,

grains of fungus and repays his hosts by. "It ain't that

*but for and as he belonged to the much bigger he is doing is likely to cause for

coal being what it was (1 "but he don't make much even movies and after, maybe, ice.

civil service erste he wheat.

The little-king stays exuding from his feelers a form British and American diplomats mea to get

mushroom a headache in the near I found

ព party of recent cents a bag) it was seldom that

when he does work."

was well qualified to act as a the same size all his life and of processed "A dozen times a day I hear

the middle aged that is just the thing for infants. future.

British Immigrants working as the home fires were burning.

relations officer. never "That would be peachy," said public

spread, but his queen, in her Israel does not look kindly on builders and carpenters on the

Most

went the same story," sald the yard of the time.1

prime, grows as big as a stick of The youngstero lap it up and "I know it like 1 the little doil, flashing the kind Here's his story. the efforts of Mr.Judge and his Klewa Dam project. They were

of smile that in later years 1

it's probably during this stugo friends. Particularly because earning £il a week after taxes around the house with a lady's detective.

During the rainy season shaving soop. had to give up diamonds to rec.

Can you imagine it? There's of their lives that they acquiro Britain is once more supplying had been paid. Their food and stocking stretched over my ears, know my name,"

Suddenly, to my unbelief, ke

there's great activity in a orms to her mid-Eastern allies, lodging were free. So they could but when it got so blustery that

white ants nest and out of the king asleep, dreaming of the their taste for good furniture, but has refused to supply my to save the whole of their wages, if even that didn't help. I would handed in the bag of coal and "Don't let me

it emerge hundreds of ants sylph he flew off with in these because the beetle fumiture,

carefree dying days, and then which they feed they wanted to, and build them-stick an old flour bag into my walked away.

pants, ense my way into the cateli ya again." he raid. Which means that the Israella selves the capital to start a farmyard back of the tugboat ter- As I got to the gate he yell-

now. It's like boing married to Chippendale choir. to buy their British arms, or some other enterprise.

south minal

of Manhatian

trained to fly. They had only one grumble,

the Albert Hall. British tanks, and British jet

a silver dollar in my direction bouring for 40 yearn. I won't

Half of them are malca even going as far and nutes, Sald William E. Jones, late of Bridge, and swipe as much coal a silver dollante," and sealed WELL, there it is, the nasty whineduve been specially he wakes up and looks at her name shape as the least the

as the Manor-way, Uxbridge, Maudie as I could carry from the piles "Maybe this'll help out."

used to fire the boilers of the

go so far as to say it's boen (or R.A.F. types) and the years, and when she dies her ant a copy of this article when keeping, me awake at nights,

(or place is taken by one of the it appears. He doesn't want it but well, I'd feel a lot better other half females

Wrafs). Most of them get royal concubines. The concubines to read but he thinks that it If the old yard detective were

or other look after their figures better properly chewed it will make down-front eaten by birds

than the queen, and they don't beautiful mushroom manure, to w wise pranged, but a few have so many childreq, but they Astondon Expirata. Survior.

many

Israol.

have

Argentina

S.

Then, us now, t was built

cream."

L

little secret I've been har-

sex: The Israelis, of course, don't "They give us too much ment. appreciate the British four of I cannot stand egg and tamb offending their no event of fast, every morning for break all get-out, so I usually got away I PICKED up the buck, dicated to pick up those whom they count in the

out of the yard and kept ducats.

the cold war becoming a hot war,

-London Express: Service,

close to the ground and fast as

clean. as a clinker from the

upper

gets

just

soup

The queen lives for about nine I promised to send the white