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TODAY, wood makes as important a contribution to the aircraft industry as before. In the United Kingdom and abroad leading designers and aircraft manufacturers have turned to wood laminates for particular applications in aircraft, hovercraft and helicopter manufacture. Earlier this year it was stated by the British Aircraft Corporation, co‐designers with Sud‐Aviation of the Concorde SST, that the flooring would be manufactured in a balsa wood laminate.

Reliable, specific, comprehensive and frank data about the fate of PR graduates is hard to find. The problem is compounded by the CAM professional qualifications, since CAM people are often lumped together with ‘academic’ PR graduates in research into careers. The problem is further compounded by media studies, which overlap, and often encompass, PR studies. The PRCA has obtained data from members which show an apparent reticence to provide the actual number of ‘pure’ PR graduates employed. The sparse data gathered to date do suggest that media and communications graduates are more successful in being employed than are ‘pure’ PR graduates. It is difficult to define what a pure PR degree is since, very often, despite the degree title, only a small component covers pure PR training. Many consultancies employ on an ad hoc basis, and few PR graduates are likely to be ready to take on immediate responsibility, unless they have had a fulfilling sandwich year. Moreover, there is stiff competition from graduates of cognate disciplines such as history, English and philosophy, who can be adept in communicating clearly and succinctly, especially on paper, unlike some PR graduates. Even this initial research, thanks to the PRCA's responding with alacrity to this author's request, shows that far more needs to be done, especially regarding the numbers of pure PR graduates employed. Some educational institutions are responsible for this studiedly lackadaisical lack of precision, preferring to hype all the way to the bank. The question arises as to whether comprehensive research already exists, but is too embarrassing to be shown the light of day.

The use in aircraft construction of sandwich panels with balsa wood cores gives a saving in weight with very high tensile and compressive strength, which is maintained over a wide range of temperatures and is uniform in all planar directions. The core is stable under changing temperature conditions, and absorbs little moisture through its exposed faces. Panels made with it can be produced in flat sheets and with single or double curvature, are very stiff, and have a smooth aerodynamic surface. They em be fixed by almost any of the conventional methods.

IN the two years since the last Farnborough Air Show was held by the Society of British Aerospace Companies the aircraft industry has achieved an almost complete metamorphosis from the body blows in the form of major programme cancellations that almost felled it in 1965 to the very healthy position that it holds today.

A Description of Mallinson Mallite E.G.B. Floor Used in the Passenger and Freight Compartment of the Short Turbo‐Skyvan and the Results of Some of the Tests carried out to find the best Combination of Metal and Balsa Thicknesses. THE maximum payload of the Short Turbo‐Skyvan, which was fully described in the January 1965 issue of AIRCRAFT ENGINEERING, is 4,000 lb. This may consist of eighteen passengers with their luggage, or a motor vehicle, or a full load of freight, or a mixture of these.

The Minister of Technology, Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, has appointed Dr. E. V. D. Glazier as Director of the Royal Radar Establishment, Malvern, with effect from 1st September, 1967. Other appointments include Mr. F. H. Scrimshaw as Director‐General of Electronics Research and Development, Ministry of Technology, and Mr. John R. Mills as Director of the Signals Research and Development Establishment, Christchurch, in succession to Mr. Cedric J. Stephens. The latter appointment was effective on 25th September, and Mr. Stephens took up his appointment as Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office on the same day.

MID‐OCTOBER sees the activities of the library world in full swing. Meetings, committee discussions, schools at work, students busy with December and May examinations in view, and a host of occupations for the library worker. This year—for in a sense the library year begins in October—will be a busy one. For the Library Association Council there will be the onerous business of preparing a report on State Control; for libraries there will be the effort to retain readers in a land of increasing employment and reduced leisure; and for the students, as we have remarked in earlier issues, preparations for the new syllabus of examinations which becomes operative in 1938. It is a good month, too, to consider some phases of library work with children, “which,” to quote the L.A. Resolutions of 1917, “ought to be the basis of all other library work.”

THIS paper describes work done to translate the theory of Structural Sandwich Panel Design into a form in which it could be used for rapid estimation in a design office.

Brief Details of Materials, Components and Equipment Produced by a Number of Companies in Support of the Belfast Programme Including Details of the Arrangements for Power Plant Maintenance and Overhaul. AS has already been stressed in the earlier article on Structural Design of the Turbo‐Skyvan, Redux adhesive, made by Bonded Structures Ltd., is used extensively in the construction of the aircraft. Both the fuselage and the wing skins are made up by bonding a corrugated inner skin to an outer skin—this method producing an extremely strong and light structure.

Brief Details of Some of the Components and Equipment Produced by a Number of Companies in Support of the Super VC10 Programme. THE preceding articles have dealt with the raison d'être of the Super VC10, interior engineering, technical details of the combined passenger/freight version, principal differences between the Standard and Super VC10s, development of Economy class seating for B.O.A.C.'s VC10s and aircraft systems. It is the object of this final article to provide some additional information regarding Super VC10 equipment and systems in the form of the contribution made by specific firms to the Super VC10 programme.