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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1538.PDF
626 THE INDUSTRY Dowty Group Progress "pIGURES presented at the annual general meeting of the Dowty•*• Group, Ltd. (held at Arle Court, Cheltenham, on October 28), show a net profit after taxation of £792,322, compared with£777,171 for the previous year. In his statement the chairman, Sir George Dowty, said that for the first time in the group'shistory undercarriages were being supplied to the U.S.A., for the Fokker Friendship being built by Fairahild; and he added that theLockheed Starfighter uses Dowty Liquid Spring shock absorbers manufactured under licence by the Cleveland Pneumatic Tool Co. Dunlop Changes AS briefly noted in a news-item on October 11, Sir George**• Beharrell has resigned from the presidency of the Dunlop Rubber Co., Ltd., and therefore from the Board (which has placedon record its appreciation of "his distinguished part in the history and development of the Dunlop group"), but has consented to actas an honorary consultant. Lord Baillieu, who at his own request has been relieved from his duties as chairman, succeeds Sir Georgeas president. Mr. G. E. Beharrell has been elected chairman of the Board in succession to Lord Baillieu and will continue to act asthe company's chief executive. At the directors' meeting which received Sir George's resigna-tion, Mr. John H. Lord and Mr. R. M. Geddes were appointed managing directors and Mr. T. E. Peppercorn an executive mem-ber of the Board. Miles Electronics T T was recently announced that expansion of the electronics divi--*- sion of F. G. Miles, Ltd., has led to their associating with the Lombard Development Corporation, Ltd., in the formation of anew company, Miles Electronics, Ltd. Its directors are F. G. Miles, G. H. Miles, Mrs. O. M. Wadlow, J. W. P. Angell,Paul H. A. Bowman and Leslie H. Davies (the two last-named representing Lombard Development Corporation, a subsidiary ofLombard Banking). Chief engineer and manager of the new company is Mr. C. H. Bickerdyke. A statement accompanying the announcement says that parti-cipation with Miles Electronics, Ltd., is "a natural outcome of the policy of Lombard Development Corporation, Ltd., to invest inthe expanding world of electronics and automation. Miles Elec- tronics, Ltd., is at present mainly concerned with the design andconstruction of flight simulators." This enterprise will be asso- ciated with present work on analogue computers. Transistors in the Making AS recorded on this page last week, the new factory ofTexas Instruments, Ltd., at Bedford, formally opened on October 1, is in production with a range of silicon transistors andrelated devices. The company is a subsidiary of Texas Instru- ments, Inc., of Dallas, U.S.A. Although first developed less than ten years ago, the transistorhas made swift progress in its role of substitute for the electronic valve, principally by virtue of the facts that it is very much smaller,is less fragile, requires only a nominal operating current, and theoretically has an almost infinite working life. Until a little over three years ago the crystalline material fromwhich transistors were manufactured was germanium; then silicon transistors began to be produced on a commercial scale (itis the claim of Texas Instruments, Inc., that they were the first company to do so). The principal advantage claimed for siliconin comparison with germanium is that it will operate efficiently at much higher temperatures, and this attribute is a critical one inmany applications, of which missile equipment is an example. As we were able to see during a short tour of the Bedford plant,the process of "growing" silicon crystals for transistors is a highly specialized one. An extremely pure silicon is initially employed(impurities, it is stated, amount to less than one part in a million), and is melted by induction heating in a quartz crucible. This pro-cess is conducted in an ingenious apparatus whereby, under elec- tronic control, a revolving rod is dipped into the melt and slowlywithdrawn so that it pulls up what might be described as an inverted mushroom of cooling and solidifying crystal. At cer-tain predetermined moments in the process minute quantities of impurities are metered into the melt, with the result that the headof the mushroom, by the time it is fully withdrawn and solidified, consists of three sharply defined layers of differing purities, whichwill ultimately constitute the collector, base and emitter regions of the transistor. The base region—which, in spite of its name,is sandwiched between the other two—is only about O.OOOlin thick. The "sandwich"—about half-an-inch thick—is then dividedvertically by means of an ultrasonic cutter to yield some scores of square bars, each of about the size of one-third of a matchstick, FLIGHT, 18 October 1; 57 and each containing the three regions in succession along tslength. Subsequent processes include the soldering of three conneci >r-wires to each bar. Attachment of the wire to the thin base-reg on is a particularly delicate operation that has to be performed un Jera microscope. After hermatic sealing into a case, the finished transistor is subjected to a series of temperature-cycle, shock andvibration tests. The interior appearance of the Texas Instruments works is thatof a laboratory. Crystal ingredients are weighed in a dust-exclud- ing room; and some of the processes are performed by girlswith their hands inside inert-atmosphere cabinets. Although, for security reasons, the more significant applicationscould not be shown, a demonstration at Bedford illustrated how, though operating at 100 deg C, resistors could be used to providea 15W output from an electronic amplifier of the kind that might be used to power aircraft instrumentation or a missile servomotor. Inanother they were shown amplifying the signal from a photocell in order to vary the iris-aperture of a camera-gun. British Aluminium Appointments (CHANGES in the Board of the British Aluminium Co., Ltd.,^ have been announced. Mr. W. H. Harrison and Mr. E! Holland-Martin recently relinquished their directorships and thevacancies thus created, together with one already existing, have been filled by Mr. G. A. Anderson (as director and general salesmanager); and Mr. W. B. C. Perrycoste and Mr. J. Salter (each as director and general production manager). Mr. G. W. Lacey,formerly director in charge of sales, has assumed the title of commercial director. Expanded-plastic Applications AT a recent meeting in London, Expanded Plastics, Ltd., of675 Mitcham Road, Croydon (a subsidiary of the Expanded Rubber Co., Ltd.), showed applications of their material Polyzote.This is expanded polystyrene, formed by the expanding in steam of granules which are constrained in a mould, and cooling the toolin water. Various adhesives are suitable for bonding the resultant very light blocks to sheets of plywood, plastic or aluminium.The material has obvious uses, the manufacturers say, in such applications as removable bulkheads or partitions in aircraft. Itcan also be usefully employed as a low-temperature insulator for aircraft or missile electric, electronic and radio equipment, or forthe packaging of a wide variety of fragile articles. IN BRIEF Mr. W. E. Ogden and Mr. W. W. Dolton, chairman andmanaging director respectively of the Delta Metal Co., Ltd., have been appointed directors of James Booth and Co., Ltd., and of itssubsidiary, John Wilkes, Sons and Mapplebeck, Ltd. * * * Mr. Arthur Elliott, commercial director of Precision Rubbers,Ltd., was presented with the Swinbank gold medal at this year's annual conference of the Purchasing Officers' Association, for his"outstanding services to purchasing." * * * Mr. R. G. Wilkinson has relinquished his appointment asdevelopment manager of Magnesium Elektron, Ltd., and is suc- ceeded by Mr. K. G. D. Bailey. * * * The Plessey Co., Ltd., has announced the appointment ofMr. Eric E. Pratt—formerly sales manager with Airtech, Ltd.. and before that with the Mullard, Ltd., equipment division—ascommercial manager in the electronics and equipment group. * * * Aero Research, Ltd., Duxford, Cambridge, have produced a16 mm sound and colour film describing the "Redux" bonding process for aircraft structures. Running for 17 minutes, the filmis available in French, German, Italian and Japanese (with sound- track for magnetic reproduction) as well as in English (opticalreproduction). Mr. C. W. Sharp, managing director of Electro-Hydraulics, Ltd., and Conveyancer Fork Trucks, Ltd. (two of the Owen Organization com- panies), who leaves England on October 22 for a three-months' world tour. This will include visits to the companies' subsidiary plants in Sydney and Toronto and to the parent company's factories in Mel- bourne and Toronto.
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