Convairiety, Volume 12, Number 14, July 8, 1959 Page: 5 of 8

                                
Wednesday, July 8, 1959
CONVAIRIETY
Page 5
NEWS FROM OTHER DIVISIONS
OF GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP.
General Dynamics Corporation, created in April, 1952, as successor to Electric Boat Company, is
composed of six divisions and a Canadian subsidiary, Canadair, Limited of Montreal, airframe build-
ers. The divisions are:
Convair, head offices at San Diego, Calif., aircraft, missiles and space systems.
Electric Boat of Groton, Conn., submarines.
Stromberg-Carlson, of Rochester, N. Y., telecommunications, electronic equipment.
Liquid Carbonic of Chicago, 111., carbon dioxide producer, industrial and medical gases.
General Atomic of San Diego, Calif., nuclear research, development, production.
Electro Dynamic of Bayonne, N. J., electric motors, generators.
Electronic Printing
To Become Popular
SAN DIEGO—New electronic
Material Service Corporation
To Become Dynamics Division
printing systems for high-speed
registered printing of computer
data on pre-printed forms have
been announced by Stromberg-
Carlson here.
S-C 5200 Systems print num-
bers, letters or symbols at speeds
up to 5,000 lines per minute on
pre-printed forms. Stromberg-
Carlson sees their widespread use
by financial institutions, insur-
ance companies, government
agencies and manufacturing firms
for large-volume processing of
such business forms as invoices,
checks, statements, premium no-
tices and inventory records.
NEW YORK — The boards of
directors of General Dynamics
Corporation and Material Service
Corporation announced last week
unanimous approval of the merg-
er of their respective companies.
The proposal provides that Gen-
eral Dynamics’ acquisition of
Material Service Corporation will
be financed through an exchange
of stock. Share owners of both
corporations will be asked to ap-
prove the merger at special meet-
ings.
Material Service, one of the na-
tion’s largest producers of build-
ing materials, concrete products
FOR RESEARCH—In top photo are some of key persons at
dedication of $10 million John Jay Hopkins Laboratory for Pure and
Applied Physics in San Diego. From left, Dr. Frederic de Hoffmann,
head of General Atomic Division; Frank Pace Jr., chairman of Gen-
eral Dynamics board; Mrs. John Jay Hopkins, for whose late husband
laboratory is named; and Prof. Niels Bohr of Denmark, Nobel Prize
winning nuclear physicist, who was chief speaker. Below, at far left,
is Earl D. Johnson, General Dynamics president.
Reactor's Power Tapped
For Dedication of Lab
SAN DIEGO — General Atom-
ic’s TRIGA research reactor was
“flashed” to a peak power level
of 1,500,000 kilowatts—a new
record for atomic reactors—in
the climax to the dedication of
the John Jay Hopkins Laboratory
for Pure and Applied Science last
month.
Dr. Frederic de Hoffmann,
president of General Atomic Di-
vision, described the “flashing”
to the audience as an impulse
received from the TRIGA reactor
serving to unveil the laboratory’s
dedication plaque.
The TRIGA prototype reactor,
located at the north end of the
laboratory, increased its power
output from one watt to 1,500,-
000 kilowatts (thermal) in less
than one-tenth of a second. The
actual flash lasted approximately
15-thousandths of a second. Sci-
entific personnel could safely
stay within a few feet of the top
of the tank during the flash.
The self-regulating feature of the
TRIGA reactor’s unique fuel-
moderator elements of uranium-
zirconium hydride immediately
reduced the power to normal op-
erating levels.
This peak flash of a million-
and-a-half kilowatts is a new
record for the energy level at-
tained by any nuclear reactor in
controlled operation, exceeding a
previous recorded high of 530,000
kilowatts achieved by the Atomic
Energy Commission’s kinetic ex-
periment on water boilers
(KEWB) in a test conducted
April, 1958. To have produced
a similar burst of instantaneous
energy by electrical means would
have taken the entire generating
capacity serving San Diego.
and coal, will become a major di-
vision of General Dynamics.
Henry Crown, present chairman
of the board of Material Service,
will continue as chairman of the
new division.
According to Frank Pace Jr.,
board chairman of Dynamics, the
merger of these two organiza-
tions, one primarily in defense,
the other entirely in commercial
business, offers vital advantages
of long-term growth and develop-
ment for both. Pace also said
“the interest and activities of the
Crown family in Material Serv-
ice Corporation will be main-
tained. The policies and program
relating to personnel and the
conduct of the business which
have contributed so much to its
success and growth will be con-
tinued.”
Pace pointed out that Dynamics
is engaged in a long-term pro-
gram to supplement its defense
business with expanding com-
mercial businesses. The corpora-
tion’s ultimate objective is to
achieve an approximate balance
of defense and commercial earn-
ings. The merger with Material
Service represents a long step in
that direction, he said.
Material Service was started in
1919 by Henry Crown, Irving
Crown and the late S. R. Crown.
For 1958 net sales were $114 mil-
lion.
Electronic Aids
Will Cut Size
Of Subs' Crews
GROTON — General Dynamics
Corporation’s Electric Boat Di-
vision has been selected by the
Office of Naval Research to serve
as manager of an industry-Navy
team working on a submarine in-
tegrated control system (SUBIC)
that may permit manpower re-
duction on atomic powered sub-
marines from the present average
100-man crew to 12 men.
Target date for placing the in-
tegrated control system in a nu-
clear submarine is 1964 and the
project promises to be of im-
portance in both small “killer”
(anti-submarine) submarines and
the larger ballistic missile-firing
subs.
Primary purpose of the pro-
gram is to increase the opera-
tional and combat effectiveness of
submarines. The SUBIC scien-
tists are attempting to create a
balanced man-machine partner-
ship that will utilize electronic
sensing and data-processing
equipment to permit up-to-the-
minute tracking of contacts and
provide information necessary for
precise navigation and weapons
firing. A television-type visual
display of information will en-
able the submarine commander to
make prompt decisions. In effect
the skipper will have an “elec-
tronic porthole” to “see” his sub-
surface environment, similar to a
pilot looking through an aircraft
windshield. These features, origi-
nally developed for the aircraft
instrumentation program, are
logically adaptable to the latest
atomic subs which feature one-
man airplane type control. The
single-stick submarine system
was recently tested in the high-
speed A-sub Skipjack which Gen-
eral Dynamics delivered to the
Navy on April 15.
AN ALSO RAN—This was Consolidated Sikorsky Guardian,
built for Army bomber design contest in 1927 but withdrawn at
last minute as not coming up to specifications. Consolidated col-
laborated with Sikorsky Manufacturing- Co. on this project with
latter building the plane at Long Island plant.
Army Engineer Laddon
Joins Consolidated Air
(This is 12th installment of a continuing history of Consolidated
Aircraft Company, which ultimately grew into Convair Division of
General Dynamics Corporation.)
From the standpoint of avid
and sustained public interest,
American aviation enjoyed its
golden age in the closing years
of the 20s. A flourishing air traf-
fic developed in Europe after the
war, but at home the average
American remained apathetic to-
ward flying in all its aspects.
This changed swiftly when a
young air mail pilot, Charles A.
Lindbergh, fired the nation’s
imagination with a solo flight
from New York to Paris on May
21, 1927. From about that time
the great aviation boom was on.
This climate was made to or-
der for the prospering Consoli-
dated Aircraft Co. which had de-
termined to expand into the com-
mercial market as well as heavier
military aircraft. Attention cen-
tered at first on the fruitless
design of a bomber. However, the
end result was a new family of
flying boats that were to domi-
nate U.S. naval aviation for a
decade, and incidentally spur cre-
ation of the country’s first in-
ternational seaplane line.
President Reuben Fleet’s open-
ing move was to employ one of
the Army’s foremost civilian en-
gineers. This was I. M. Laddon,
who joined the Engineering Di-
vision of the Air Service in 1917
and was made chief of Design
Branch 2 (heavy aircraft) at Mc-
Cook Field in 1919. Among his
accomplishments were the GAX
attack plane of 1919, and the all-
metal CO-1 of 1921. When the
Army stopped building proto-
types he turned to designing de-
tails and was awarded patents
in 1923-27 on aerodynamic, struc-
tural and equipment develop-
ments. The Bendix-Laddon disc
wheel and integral brake became
standard aircraft equipment of
the late 20s.
Laddon joined Consolidated in
March, 1927. He remained at
Dayton with a field staff.
(Among them was C. B. Carroll,
who retired from Convair in 1956
after a long career in aviation.
His last post was as project en-
gineer on the Navy-Convair ex-
periments with the first vertical
takeoff plane, the XFY-1.)
What the Army Air Forces
wanted most in 1927 was a mod-
ern, heavy (twin-engine) bomber.
Consolidated was one of five
companies that entered a design
competition, and the Dayton staff
worked for some months on
Model 11. This was dropped when
Fleet and another competitor,
the Sikorsky Manufacturing Co.,
reached an agreement to collabor-
ate on a Sikorsky design.
The bomber was completed in
Sikorsky’s Long Island plant late
in 1927. Its wing span was 100
feet and power plants were 525
hp. Pratt & Whitney Hornets.
When wheeled out for its maiden
flight the plane bore the legend
“Consolidated Sikorsky Guardian”
on its red and white tail surfaces.
Consolidated pilot Leigh Wade, a
veteran Army flyer and later
(1928-1933) a vice president of
Consolidated, was at the controls.
After a series of tests, how-
ever, Consolidated decided the
plane fell short of specifications
and withdrew from the design
contest. It was too late to cancel
press releases and advertisements
that described the Guardian as a
joint product of the two compan-
ies. The Army bomber contract
eventually went to the Curtiss
B-2 Condor.
30 YEARS AFTER—I. M. Laddon, Army's foremost aviation
designer when he joined Consolidated in 1927, is shown here (right)
receiving his 30-year pin from Frank Pace Jr., chairman of General
Dynamics Corporation board.