Electronic Blast from the Past

Philo T. Farnsworth - The Birth of Television (1939)

TheHistoryofTV

Cool video.
Update January 2025. Replaced missing video with a similar one.

Mike Vining

Mike Vining

Saw a video by a very annoying guy about Mike Vining, who was one of the first members of Delta Force. He was involved in a bunch of very sketchy stuff, like bomb disposal. He's still alive and just a year older than I am. Reading the Wikipedia story about him I come across this line:

"He has also written articles on naval postal history,"

Naval Postal History? What are you talking about? The Navy has a postal system? Well, I guess they would have to, wouldn't they? Letters to and from for sailors sailing around the world. This leads me to the Univeral Ship Cancellation Society which has a PDF about Naval Covers Fakes, Forgeries and Frauds. 

On page 59 of this PDF we find a story by Mike Vining:

1931 Wilkins-Ellsworth Trans-Arctic Expedition

Sir George Hubert Wilkins, MC, and Lincoln Ellsworth secured use from the U.S. Navy of the soon to be scrapped submarine USS S-30 for an expedition to sail under the ice cap to the North Pole. They got close to the North Pole, but no cigar. They managed to return to Norway and submarine was scuttled off of Bergen.

I tried to extract the story from the PDF, but it was going to take a bunch of mucking around to make it presentable, so you're just going to have to go read the original.

1939 Ford Forgotten Hot Rod

Junkyard To On The Road In 25 Minutes - 1939 Ford Forgotten Hot Rod
IronTrap Garage

This is kind of the essence of hot rodding. Take a clapped out old sedan and stuff a big motor in it. Don't worry about the interior or the paint, put it together and make it go. These guys do take some pains with chassis, rebuilding the suspension and a installing new braking system, but they pretty much used all the original stuff and they did it in a what looks like a residential garage. It's a big one, but it's also got a bunch of other stuff in it, and it's certainly not a big commercial space.

There did use some new sheet metal, but I suspect some of it was after market parts. That seems to be a thriving industry itself.

The best part is there aren't any computers. Computers are great, when they work, but when they quit there is no way to easily figure out what is wrong. You either need to get some other computers and run some diagnostic tests or you can just start replacing the parts, and that can get expensive. Problems with simple machines like this can be diagnosed visually. You might have to disassemble the whole engine, but you don't need a zillion dollars worth of computerized diagnostic equipment.

Annie - Musical at Keller

Annie The Musical | Official Trailer (2017)
London Theatre Direct

I can't say as I enjoyed the show. Most of the singing grated on my ears. However I can't tell you whether it was the singing, the sound system or my ears. It sounded like it was being overdriven. Or maybe I am just used to the sound that comes out of my Blue Tooth speaker and live music is just different. Whatever, the kids were just horrible, most of the rest just blared. Daddy Warbucks and his personal assistant were much better, they actually sounded like music.

But it's a curious show. It's set in 1933 right in the depths of the depression. We have half a dozen Hoovervilles in New York City. Things are pretty grim. Annie is living in an orphanage with half a dozen other little girls and she suddenly gets plucked out of her miserable existence and deposited in a royal palace. It's a ridiculous fantasy but it gives us an opportunity to examine poverty and wealth.

The 'aww' exclamation from nearly everyone in the audience when the dog appeared on stage was surprising. It was also a bit puzzling. Hasn't anyone ever seen a dog before?

Complete Little Orphan Annie Volume 15

The show is based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. I used to read it when I was a kid. I couldn't tell you what it was about, but I do know most of the principle characters:

• Annie
• Sandy, her dog
• Daddy Warbucks, super wealthy industrialist
• Punjab, a mysterious dude from India
• Asp, another mysterious dude.

Punjab and Asp are mysterious because all I recollect is that they were characters in the strip. I know nothing else about them. I used the picture from Amazon because it was the only one that had all the characters in it. I don't know who the chick is.

The Wikipedia article is enlightening and entertaining. Among other things, Harold Gray, the creator of the strip, hated FDR and his policies. I've heard some criticism of FDR's policies, but he was in charge and that's what we got. It's not enough to have a better idea, you need to convince the people in power that your idea is better. The convincing part can be a hard row to hoe. In the show Warbucks and FDR were at least cordial.

The blurb from the Amazon book paints a pretty good picture:

A chronological reprinting of one of the most important comic strips of the 20th Century. Annie is a cultural icon--in both her red-headed, blank-eyed appearance, and as the embodiment of American individuality, spunk, and self-reliance. Even those who've never read the comic strip are keenly aware of the plucky orphan, her loveable mutt Sandy, and her adoptive benefactor, Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks, through the Broadway play, the hit movie, and the song "Tomorrow," made famous by both.

It's "Open Season for Trouble" as America's spunkiest kid, "Daddy" Warbucks, and his bodyguards Punjab and The Asp battle wily Communist spies, search for a potentially game-changing mineral known as QX-7, contend with small-town cheats, and make a frightful discovery about disappearing patients at a shady rest home. The action ranges from the played-out mining town of Fiasco, where "Daddy" made his first million, to the land of the genii, where Punjab dispatches his enemies. Meanwhile, Annie and Sandy are separated, but their inevitable reunion may be a silver lining inside a very dark cloud! Volume 15 collects the daily strips and full-color Sunday pages from March 13, 1950 to October 28, 1951 in five vivid stories filled with mayhem and murder. It's not for the faint of heart!

 

DC-3

American Airlines Flagship Detroit DC-3, Bowman Field Louisville KY.

Flagship Detroit

The Flagship Detroit was manufactured in early 1937 . . . It was the twenty-fourth DC-3 in American’s fleet which eventually totaled eighty-four aircraft. American Airlines flew the Detroit in regular passenger service until 1947

Bowman Field

Established in 1919, Bowman Field is one of the longest continuously operating, general aviation airports in the United States. Conveniently located approximately five miles from downtown Louisville, Kentucky, Bowman Field is situated on 426 acres. There are 17 buildings, including the historic Art Deco Administration Building that was built in 1929.

Art

The Harp - Augusta Savage - 1939

Cool.

Via View From The Porch

1927 Cummins Model P

This image got me started.

Cummins and his first diesel

Google found this on the Cummins website:

THE LEGACY OF THE CUMMINS NO. 8 RACE CAR by Michael Nagel

May 15, 2015

Of all the Cummins race cars, none is as well-traveled as the 1931 No. 8 Cummins Diesel. From the famous Indianapolis speedway to a tour round the world, the No. 8 car was the model for efficiency and reliability.

Cummins founder Clessie Cummins originally installed his 4-cylinder model U engine in a Duesenberg chassis and in February 1931, drove it to Daytona Beach and set a new diesel speed record averaging 100.755 miles per hour (mph).

In May of 1931 Clessie took the Cummins-Powered Duesenberg as the No. 8 Cummins Diesel to the Indy 500 and finished 13th with an average speed of just over 86 mph. It was the first car in racing history to complete all 500 miles without any pit stops.

The No. 8 car wasn’t retired after the race. Cummins founders W.G. Irwin and Clessie Cummins drove it on a European tour through France, Monaco, Italy, Germany and England to promote the efficiency and reliability of the diesels.

So now I'm looking for some information about this Model U engine. Wikipedia coughs up:

The Cummins Engine Company was founded in Columbus, Indiana, on February 3, 1919, by mechanic Clessie Cummins and banker William Glanton Irwin. The company focused on developing the diesel engine invented 20 years earlier. Despite several well-publicized endurance trials, it was not until 1933 that their Model H engine, used in small railroad switchers, proved successful.

So two years after the founders made their world tour, business came their way. So now I'm looking for this Model H engine, but I'm not getting anywhere. Probably because there's only three guys who have the info and they're so old they don't even know about the internet. So instead of anything useful, we get to watch this even older engine get run through it's paces.

Can you imagine trying to set up a factory to build an engine? Now-a-days to be competitive, you would probably need a billion dollars. There are a few specialty shops building engines, big and small. I wonder if any of those small shops are casting their own iron blocks? Casting iron is a big deal, not like casting aluminum. That crazy old coot who rode the The World's Fastest Indian was casting pistons in his backyard. Casting iron takes a lot of heat. How much, you ask? Let's see what we can find.

From THUNDER SAID ENERGY:

A good rule of thumb is 25 kWh of useful energy to heat each ton of material by each 100ºC. (1) Thermodynamics 101. Heating and melting materials requires energy, inducing particles to vibrate more (specific heat) and ultimately to break the bonds that hold them together as a solid or liquid (latent heat).

Density of iron is 7.874 grams / cc. Density of aluminum is like 2.7 grams / cc, so iron is three times as dense as aluminum so the same size object would weigh three times as much and require three times as much energy. Except iron has a much higher melting point than aluminum. Aluminum melts at 1200 degrees C, iron melts at 2800 degrees C, so, assuming we are heating the metal on a cold winter's day, iron is going to take:

(7.874/2.7) * (2800/1200) = 6.8 times as much energy to heat to the melting point as aluminum.

Springs? We don't need no steenking springs.

Troy Corser destroys the field on 89-year-old bike
Goodwood Road & Racing
Troy Corser (famous motorcycle maniac) on a 1936 BMW R5SS stormS from 7th to 2nd in the 2018 Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy. (The video title is wrong - in 2018 the bike would have been 82 years old)

I've been studying up on old motorcycles. It's like any technical subject, there is an endless supply of information and if you aren't careful it will suck you in and you will never be heard from again. However, I'm not finding much in the way of videos. Found lots of walk-arounds of old bikes and people starting old bikes, but not much in the way of stories, at least not ones that tickled my fancy, not until I got to this one. Reminds me of a Russian land speed record attempt.

Scott Motorcycles

1936 Scott Motorcycle

Scott motorcycles are unusual for their time: parallel twin, not a V-twin, water cooled, not air-cooled, two stroke, not four stroke, rotary valves. Scott also made supercharged version of this bike.

If all that doesn't tickle your fancy, take a look at this one:

1936 Scott Three

It's an inline three cylinder engine with unit gearbox. 

Did not find much about the man or the company, but there are still bikes available.

Panhard Dynamic

Panhard Levassor Dynamic 1938

I'm still on an Alan Furst kick. This week I'm reading Mission to Paris. Early on, an American actor sails to Europe. When he arrives, the studio's agent picks him up in a 1938 Panhard Dynamic. France was in the middle of changing over from right hand drive cars to left hand drive. As a compromise, the Panhard's steering wheel was in the center.

The Diplomat - Netflix Series

The Diplomat | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Got a bunch of people running around being very serious, splitting hairs over who should say what to the public. I don't know how you could maintain that much intensity for more than a couple of hours, but apparently this is what these people run on. The best part is the new US ambassador to the UK is apparently bipolar in regard to her husband, who is also a career diplomat.

We get to visit Winfield House, the Ambassador's residence:

Winfield House

Barbara Woolworth Hutton (1912 - 1979)

Winfield House was built in 1936 for Barbara Hutton, granddaughter of Frank Winfield Woolworth. Yes, that Woolworth. She gave it to the US Government in 1955.

Winfield House in London

The building sits on a 12 acre private park.

We also get to visit the new US Embassy building:

US Embassy London UK
Also Known As The Sugar Cube

Building was opened in 2017.

Perry Mason Season 2 - HBO Series

Perry Mason Season 2 Trailer
Rotten Tomatoes TV

I've just recently figured out that the characters are what makes or breaks a show for me. I like knowing who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. I want to cheer for the hero and boo the villain. It's nice to have a coherent plot and spectacular scenery, but they aren't really necessary.

In this show we've got plenty of characters, both good guys and bad guys, and the principles are all old familiar characters. Of course they've been changed up, Della Street and Hamilton Burger (the District Attorney) are both gay and Paul Drake (the investigator) is black, but this isn't much of a stretch. Hamilton has always been a villain, so making him gay just makes him that much sleazier. I don't recall that Della ever had any men in her life, so making her gay kind of explains that. The original Paul Drake always struck me as too flashy in the original series. I mean, how is he going to slip in unnoticed anywhere? You want someone who is willing to get their hands dirty, so an unemployed black man during the Great Depression easily fits the bill.

Vulture has a good story about some of the real people & events that parallel the show's story.

Posts about season 1 of this show.

Vintage OEC Motorcycle

1930 OEC Duplex steering vintage motorcycle

OEC has an unusual steering arrangement. I'd never seen the like. From Cybermotorcycle we get this explanation of how it works:

OEC 1930 Duplex Steering Diagram

And this:

A Brief History of the Marque

Made in Great Britain from 1922 to 1954

Frederick J. Osborn built his first motorcycle using an MMC engine in 1901. After WWI, he produced OEC-Blackburne machines, later shortened to OEC. During the marque's long lifetime models were produced with large capacity V-twin JAP, Blackburne and Matchless engines, and with Villiers two-stroke engines after WWII.

The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst

French Postcard Dewoitine D.338 Airliner

On page 175, our correspondent Carlo Weisz flies from Paris to Berlin on a Dewoitine D.338 airliner:

"On his lap, an open copy of Dekobra's La Madone des Sleepings - the Madonna of the Sleeping Cars - a 1920s French spy thriller, wildly popular in its day, which Weisz had brought along for the trip."

Goodreads has heard of the book:

One of the biggest bestsellers of all time, and one of the first and most influential spy novels of the twentieth century, is back in print for the first time since 1948

Alan Furst fans will note that train passengers in his bestselling thrillers are often observed reading The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars. It’s a smart detail: First published in 1927, the book was one of the twentieth century’s first massive bestsellers, selling over 15 million copies worldwide. 

It was made into a movie twice, a silent version in 1928 and a talkie in 1955.

On the return flight (on page 187), Alfred Millman, The New York Times correspondent, quotes Karl Kraus:

"How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read."

Alfred and Carlo were in Berlin to report on Germany and Italy signing The Pact of Steel. Did you know that Benito Mussolini wrote a novel? I didn't. It's The Cardinal's Mistress.

 

The Most Important Motorcycle You Never Heard Of

The Most Important Motorcycle You Never Heard Of
FortNine

More motorcycle history in this video clip than in a whole box of ducks. There is a short advertisement in the middle, but it is clever enough to be entertaining.

Code

I am reading Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst, a great espionage story set in 1938-39 Europe and everyone is very nervous about what's going on in Germany. Towards the end I come across this passage and it's so great I just have to share.

Tried this with my kids at dinner the other day and it failed completely. Different times.

Anyway, Nicholas Morath goes to Vienna to try and get this guy out. He takes ten large with him in cash in case they are just thieves, but when he gets there he decides on another course of action. He checks into the same hotel our poor violinist is being held in, sneaks down to the kitchen in the middle of the night and sets the place on fire and taking advantage of the ensuing chaos, spirits the hapless Kolovitsky away.

Seems kind of extreme to burn down the whole hotel to rescue just one guy, but you know, fuck around and find out.

USS Farragut (DD-348)

See the ships at Washington Navy Yard! 1933
128 piece jigsaw puzzle

The Washington Navy Yard is in Washington D.C. It was converted to administrative use in the 1960s. I think this ship is the USS Farragut (DD-348). It was the first of its class and the first class to have only two funnels. Before this destroyers all had four stacks. Only problem is that this Farragut (there have been several US Navy ships with that name) wasn't launched until 1934.

USS Farragut (DD-348)

The ship served in the Pacific during WW2. It survived and was scrapped after the war.

Notes on Night Soldiers by Alan Furst

I'm reading Night Soldiers by Alan Furst. It is the story of Khristo, a Bulgarian peasant recruited by the Russian NKVD and trained as a spy. He is sent to Madrid to help the Republicans in their war against Franco and his Nationalists. Today toward the end of the section titled Blue Lantern I came across a couple of interesting bits.

Django Reinhardt - In A Sentimental Mood - Paris, 26.04.1937
Heinz Becker
On page 157 Faye is listening to Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli on an Emerson radio.

1938 Opel Kapitän

One page 165, Khristo and his gang are working with SIM (Republican secret police) to round up nationalists who are hiding out in embassies that have been abandoned because of the ongoing civil war. The SIM thugs are driving an Open Kapitän.

Degtyaryov machine gun

Khristo and Ilya are sitting in the back of a Citroen with Degtyaryov machine guns on their laps.

Port Bou railway station

Khristo and Andres barely manage to avoid arrest in Madrid and are deciding which direction to take to make their escape (p.174). One of their options is head to Port Bou in northeastern Spain. Never heard of this place, but when I look on Google Maps I see a huge railyard. What the heck is this? You see big railyards like this in big cities, but Port Bou is like a little fishing village. Turns out this is a break-of-gauge station. Evidently French trains and Spanish trains use a different gauge for their railroads.

Portbou was a small but important point for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, as it was one of the few places from where they could get supplies from abroad. - Wikipedia

Links

Read some good stuff on the web this morning.

The last days of Jeremy Corbyn is about left wing of politics in the UK. The link goes to Unherd which places a limit on free articles.

‘Amsterdam’ Review: Three Amigos Try to Save America in David O. Russell’s Ungainly Period Dramedy. The movie is about social unrest in America in the 1930's and the Business Plot.

14 Things We Know About The Mysterious “Explosions” That Severely Damaged The Nord Stream 1 And Nord Stream 2 Pipelines - I suspect the we (the USA) did it, though I can't comprehend why. I mean we have a knucklehead running the country, but surely there are people with brains in the White House. They can't all be incompetent psychopaths, can they?

Mister Mulligan

Mister Mulligan Replica

Cool airplane from the glorious 1930's. 

Airworthy replica of the sole 1934-built Howard DGA-6 racing cabin monoplane which won the 1935 Bendix trophy. [The original] was damaged beyond repair in a forced landing during the 1936 race. The replica, powered by a P&W R1340, was built in 1985 by R. Younkin and is painted to closely represent the original. - Air History

In the 1935 Bendix race the aircraft was loaded with 300 gallons of gasoline, 30 gallons of oil and oxygen equipment for two, giving it the ability to fly for seven hours at 22,000 feet (6,700 m). At that load the aircraft required 1,500 feet (460 m) of runway and had an initial climb rate of close to 2000 ft/min. - Wikipedia Howard DGA-6

The second-place plane in the 1935 race was actually a faster airplane but had to make refueling stops, which cost enough time to prevent Roscoe Turner from winning the race. The time difference was only 23.5 seconds between first and second place. The winning difference in speed, over the total distance was less than 0.2 mph (0.32 km/h). Mister Mulligan achieved 238.70 mph (384.15 km/h), compared to Roscoe Turner's 238.52 mph (383.86 km/h). - Wikipedia Bendix Trophy

The Bendix Trophy is quite the work of art: 

Bendix Trophy

The trophy is big, as this picture illustrates:

Louise Thaden with the Bendix Trophy. (Tom Sande, AP)

4 September 1936: Louise Thaden was the first woman to win the Bendix Trophy Race when she and her co-pilot, Blanche Noyes, flew a Beechcraft C17R “Staggerwing,” NR15835, from Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York, to Mines Field, Los Angeles, California, in 14 hours, 55 minutes, 1.0 seconds. With one fuel stop at Wichita, Kansas, Thaden and Noyes had averaged 165.35 miles per hour (266.11 kilometers per hour) - This Day In Aviation

The difference in speed between the 1935 and 1936 Bendix Trophy Races might be because of head winds. The 1935 race was from Los Angeles to Cleveland (West to East) and the 1936 race was from New York to Los Angeles (East to West).