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The Fifth British Commonwealth and Empire Lecture will be held on Thursday, September 15, 1949, at 6 p.m. at the Institution of Civil Engineers, Great George Street, Westminster, S.W.1. The lecture will be given by Mr E. H. Atkin, F.R.Ae.S., Chief Designer, Airframe Division, A. V. Roc (Canada) Ltd., on ‘Inter‐City Transport Development on the Commonwealth Routes’.

This article contains short accounts of some of the means adopted by Glenn L. Martin to build their first post‐war air liner, the 2–0–2, without the prior building of a prototype. Although this commendable effort to hasten into service a replacement for the Dakota eventually resulted in the production of an excellent air liner, we understand that it is an experiment that is not likely to be repeated. As was almost invariably the case during the war when a prototype was dispensed with, the delay in ironing out the teething troubles (which always seemed to be more than usual in such cases) and modifying the machines on the line was greater than that between the prototype and production.—EDITOR.

SPUN glass, woven into thin blankets, is being used by the Glenn L. Martin Company, Baltimore, in the stretch forming of magnesium sheets as a successful substitute for other, less efficient materials.

SOME type of three dimensional drawing has long been recognized as the ideal form of production illustration but they have seldom been used because of the difficulties involved in their preparation. The Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., have developed a technique, which includes a machine that cuts 50 to 80 per cent off the time required to prepare a trimctric drawing and four new drawing instruments, that offers promise of considerable simplification.

Development of a new‐type instrument gauge which opens an entirely new aspect to the measurement of thickness of metal sheet stock has been announced by The Glenn L. Martin Co. The device also may be used for inspection of the bonds between the laminar layers of laminated materials.

THE N.A.‐40c (U.S. Army Air Corps Specification B‐25c) was designed about the same time as and to fulfil similar duties to those performed by the Douglas Boston and Glenn Martin Maryland. The aeroplane is being supplied to the U.S. Army Air Corps, the Red Air Fleet and the Royal Air Force and has already been used in the notable flight to bomb Tokyo.

A new hand‐bending tool, which permits all kinds of small tubing to be curved to any desired angle, has been developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company.

A Monthly Selection of Recent Equipment and New Methods. A production gain of fifteen per cent with no additional personnel and marked reduction in arm and hand fatigue of the operators on stretching presses was made by the Glenn L. Martin Co. by the development of piston‐type air pressure clamps.

THE Annual Meeting proper was preceded by the Honors Dinner at which several awards were given for distinguished achievements in aeronautics. The Daniel Guggenheim Medal itself was presented to Glenn L. Martin, an early aviation pioneer, whose Baltimore plant is turning out patrol bombers, the B‐26, an advanced medium bomber, and the Baltimore's medium bomber specially designed for British needs. Mr. Martin is the last survivor of the American aeroplane pioneers to head an aircraft manufacturing company bearing his own name. William J. Knudsen was among the distinguished guests. The guest of honour was Griffith Brewer, President of the Royal Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, who called for speedy help to Britain in its hour of need. If the enthusiastic greeting given to Mr. Brewer is any criterion, then it may be taken for granted that the aviation fraternity of the United States is heart and soul with the British stand.

AIRCRAFT structural engineers have long been intrigued by the possibility of eliminating the thousands of assembly operations involved in a typical airframe structure—one composed of many formed pieces joined by rivets and bolts—and of replacing these multiple operations with a double, or even a single, automatic operation employing simply temperature and pressure.