FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0445.PDF
3 APRIL 1953 FLIGHT 'S Landscapes in Oils (2) From Alfwin to Esso BY BERNARD HOLLOWOOD ON this second leg of our expedition into Esso land we approached our target from Oxford and came in low (the springs of our ancient roadster responding poorly under severe pressure from artist, writer and guide) along A34. The portals of Milton Hill stood open and welcoming and we swept majestic ally enough into a fine drive, lapped the front lawn and pulled up smartly in an odour of burning rubber before ALFWIM " Time somebody invented Esso. . . ." the elegant Ionic pillars of the manor house. It would be easy to continue in this vein, so why not ? The guide-books tell us that Esso House, formerly the Manor of Milton Hill, is steeped in nine centuries of history. There was this King of Wessex and one Alfwin, but why the king gave Alfwin fifteen hides of land and why Alfwin in turn conveyed them to Abingdon Abbey are facts shrouded for ever (to us) in mystery. It sufficeth to say (that's what Esso House does to one's literary style) that the present solid, mellow, lovely, ivy-clad walls were built on the site of the manor by one Thomas Bowles of Abingdon in the latter part of the eighteenth century, that extensive altera tions were made in the 1840's by Sir Gilbert Scott, and that after many vicissitudes of fortune and ownership the property passed into the beneficent care of Esso in 1939. Once, this ancient demesne was occupied by the flower of English nobility, but in 1798 Pitt invented income-tax and gradually, very gradu ally, the faces at the windows changed. To-day, the mansion and the score of technicians, by men and women in white coats and the prime of life. Hundreds of them. What are they doing ? Yes, a reason able-enough question. " What," we asked one man, who seemed to be smoking a sort of hookah—a rubber- tube affair connected to an enormous glass jar full of " U " tubes and rods and wires and other quaint scraps of equipment—" are you doing ? " After a time he pressed a stop-watch, took the tube from his mouth and began to discourse rapidly about oil. " The viscosity index," he said, " is a measure of an oil's viscosity-temperature characteristics and is expressed as a number .... The viscosities in Saybolt Universal seconds at 100° F. and 210° F. are determined ... V.I. may be obtained by the formula V.I. = L-U over L-H times 100. . . ." Baffled, we retreated into badinage. " It all sounds simple enough," we said. " Ah," said the scientist (and I think nodern buildings on the estate are occupied by chemists, physicists and he took us seriously), " but it's the calculations that take the time." In other labs, we saw fuels and lubri cants under minute inspection and analysis, under microscopes, spectro photometers, chronometers, hydro meters, calorimeters, viscometers, evaporometers, mobilometers, pycno- meters . . . meters galore, even thermo meters. And we were suitably impressed. The experts work in four main groups. The two research teams (Lubes and Fuels) concoct new juices, keep the whole range of Esso products at top quality, and contrive and develop new uses for them. But the manufacture of new lubricants and fuels — from the chemist's flask to the refinery—is a long job calling for testing and re-testing at every stage : and this is where the other two groups come in. One, which we will call the engineering outfit, is respon sible for the large-scale laboratory preparation of the products and their testing in engines, while the other team operates after the manner of our scientific friend mentioned above. It makes sure that the products behave well in a chemical sort of way. This, very roughly, is the picture and the scope of the division of labour at Abingdon, though all the teams work hand - in - glove, and in the closest collaboration with the aircraft and motor industries. And with the Ministries. Indefatigable research is all very well for trained resear chers ; but after several hours of sightseeing these visitors were so ob viously defatigable that they were led away to recuperate in the Esso social club, a very hand some building which boasts (in all seriousness) the largest thatched roof in theworld. Wemadea numberof oblique references to this thatch and the learned scientific domes of those it shelters, and one expert, a chemist, had the decency to register mild amusement. When Esso House and shades of Alfwin had been left behind, and the bewildering mass of equipment and multiplicity of dials (worse than any flight deck) had become a hopeless blur in the memory, the writer and the artist compared notes. They decided (a) it would be trite to mention the incalcu lable benefits which every industry in Britain derives from the researchers of Abingdon, and (b) that the neatest way to conclude the article would be to repeat the simple understatement — fr pays fo say FOR ALL PETROLEUM PRODUCTS SSO PETROLEUM COMPANY, LIMITED, 36 QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, LONDON, S.W.I
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
