Search results

TWENTY‐ONE years devoted to the development of ejection seats, 24,000 seats built for more than forty nations and now one thousand lives saved—that is the proud record of the Martin‐Baker Aircraft Company. To coincide with these achievements, the following article describes the technical development of the range of seats—from the first swinging arm concept through the early manually‐operated seat to the rocket‐assisted completely automatic zero/zero ejection seats of today. From whatever standpoint Martin‐Baker's record is examined, the result is impressive. In terms of mechanical engineering, a series of ingenious features allied to robust design have resulted in ejection seats of unparalleled performance yet renowned for their simplicity and reliability. In terms of sales, this comparatively small firm has, in effect, conquered the world and won substantial export contracts—not least those for over 7,000 seats for the United States armed forces. In human terms, the company has won the grateful thanks of all those aircrew members—a long roll of highly‐skilled and dedicated young men whom some might call the cream of manhood—who but for Martin‐Baker ejection seats would have perished. Small wonder that the name Martin‐Baker has become synonymous with successful ejection.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

In March, Pavilion and the University of Luton organised a conference ‐ Community Safety Five Years On. This article reviews the contributions of the speakers. It argues for the need to embrace the wider social exclusion agenda and unless community safety becomes a working habit, it risks returning to the limited status of ‘crime prevention’.

The purpose of this paper is to find an answer the question of whether an educational institution of a fair socio-economic mix of pupils, and an institution favoured with powerful political connections, made any difference to access, equity, and exclusivity in relation to the transition into secondary education. It undertakes this purpose as a historical investigation of Junction Park State School in the early twentieth century combined with statistical analysis of family backgrounds of scholarship holders and their cohorts from 1915 to 1932.

The socio-economic study uses a published list of scholarship holders from Junction Park State School for the years 1924-1932. The study compares the scholarship groupings with their different school cohorts for the same years using the data on parental occupations, extracted from the Junction Park State School Admission Records 1915-1931. After refinement the study examines a cohort data set of 4,531 pupils which includes 287 scholarship holders. Parental occupations are categorised into socio-economic groupings with high and low occupational ends. There were 237 parental occupations described among the cohort, 1915-1931, from the admission records.

The statistical chance of obtaining scholarship is increased for a pupil from “commercial low” and “industrial low” background when the school starts with a cohort that has a large representation from such backgrounds. Pupils who were at the lower end of the socio-economic scale at Junction Park State School did much better in scholarship outcomes than for the state. However, pupils whose family background was at the high end of the professions did marginally better than the state result. For the school between 1915 and 1932, in most socio-economic groupings, the boys outperform the girls in the like-to-like comparisons.

The numeric value is excessively low for the primary producers (high) category and numbers in cohort groupings vary. This study deliberately applied like-to-like comparisons: the number of scholarship holders compared to their own gender for the same socio-economic cohort. Percentile in relation to the study’s total was not used due to numeric variations between cohort sizes. The study is a historical investigation of a formative period before Junction Park State School developed its reputation as a scholarship school in the 1940s, and historical factors relating to the post-Second World War era would have different results for a similar statistical analysis.

The paper presents a case study of particular historical significance; however, a generic principle that institutional status can change access and equity opportunities can be tested within the historical setting. The paper claims that historical investigation provides the groundwork to establish the distinctive actuality. Historical investigation picks up on unusual patterns over time, not necessarily to disprove the sociological model, but more to test the model against actual events.

The Queensland social history is connected to the study’s statistical analysis. The data are considered from a perspective that, first, Junction Park had a diverse population of pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds. Second, the school had a solid reputation as a leading school, partly from the political standing of the school leadership, and partly from the strength of its scholarship teachers. Together these factors suggest that pupils at Junction Park State School from the socio-economic backgrounds less inclined to foster educational values were given greater support to achieve better scholarship outcomes.

Statistical analysis is rarely brought to academic history work. There are greater risks in misinterpreting the data. There is also a difficult enterprise of extracting the required information. Nevertheless, the reward from this paper is an insightful view of a large and an innovating Queensland primary school, picking up the details in the life experience of pupils. In that historical process there is a greater degree of accuracy and better interpretive value which can be applied to the sociological model.

Master and servant — Redundancy — Employment — Contractor's agreement to act as agent for National Coal Board in employing and paying workmen — Workmen's contract of service with board — Contractor acting as employer — Workman unaware of agreement — Payment of wages and giving of statutory notice of terms of employment by contractor — Prejudice to workman by relying on contractor's representation as to employer — Whether contractor estopped for denying himself to be workman's employer.

THE following list of contracts placed by the Air Ministry during December, 1937, is extracted from the January issue of The Ministry of Labour Gazette :—

The Science and Engineering Research Council is pressing on with funding of university research projects associated with industry. Dr Peter Smith of the ACME Directorate talked to Jack Hollingum about progress.

Several companies at Farnborough were exhibiting products previously unpublicised and indeed introduced only after Aircraft Engineering had gone to press.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a hybrid additive/subtractive manufacturing platform for the production of high density ceramic components.

Fabrication of near-net shape components is achieved using 96 per cent Al3O2 ceramic paste extrusion and a planarizing machining operations. Sacrificial polymer support can be used to aid the creation of overhanging or internal features. Post-processing using a variety of machining operations improves tolerances and fidelity between the component and CAD model while reducing defects.

This resultant three-dimensional monolithic ceramic components demonstrated post sintering tolerances of ±100 µm, surface roughness’s of ∼1 µm Ra, densities in excess of 99.7 per cent and three-point bending strength of 221 MPa.

This method represents a novel approach for the digital fabrication of ceramic components, which provides improved manufacturing tolerances, part quality and capability over existing additive manufacturing approaches.

THE Twenty‐fifth S.B.A.C. Flying Display and Exhibition is to be held at Farnborough during the week Monday, September 5, to Sunday, September 11, promises to be one of the most interesting yet held as for the first time member companies of the Society have nominated for entry aircraft from member countries of the European A.I.C.M.A. (Association Internationale des Contructeurs de Materiel Aérospatial) that are powered by British engines. Seven European aircraft will be taking part, four of them sponsored by Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd. and three by Rolls‐Royce Ltd. The dominant theme of the Show will be collaboration, and it is fitting that the foreign aircraft have been sponsored by the aero engine manufacturers as they have advanced farther along this road than the airframe companies. Between them, they have close associations with practically all the major engine manufacturers in the Western world. Apart from the models and displays which will be mounted by the major airframe and engine manufacturers reflecting their growing involvement with European projects, the stands of the Associate Members of the Society of British Aerospace Companies will have many examples of materials, techniques and equipment that these companies are producing in support of current programmes, some of which will be for the American military aircraft now on order for the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.