ALLARD TALES
SYDNEY ALLARD wasn’t your typical Englishman. For one thing, he got the point of drag racing. For another, years before Carroll Shelby stuffed American V-8s into British sports cars, Sydney … Continue reading
WRITING, METAPHORICALLY
THERE’S A recently published book that threatens to tell me more about metaphors than I really want to know. Its review by Colin Burrow in the London Review of Books, … Continue reading
CLARA ADAMS—PERSISTENT FIRST FLIGHTER
IN 1914, CLARA Adams née Grabau first flew in an airplane, a Thomas flying boat on Lake Eustis, Florida. In 1917, she followed this with a Wright Flyer piloted by … Continue reading
SIKORSKY’S FLYING CLIPPERS
IGOR SIKORSKY thought big. His 1914 Bolshoi Baltisky was the world’s first four-engine airplane, with a huge wingspan for its time, 88 ft. 7 in. (a modern Boeing 737’s is … Continue reading
FIREARMS OF THE HOLMESIAN CANON
IN FULL candor, I’m not much into firearms. By contrast, as chronicled by his friend and sidekick, Dr. John H. Watson, Sherlock Holmes certainly knew his way around them. Here’s … Continue reading
A FOURSOME OF FRONTENACS
SO THERE I was, preparing a remembrance of Quebec City’s Hotel Frontenac, when my research reveals yet more valve orchestrations. The resulting foursome of Frontenacs includes the famed hotel, a … Continue reading
VALVE ORCHESTRATIONS, OPUS 2
THE INTAKE and exhaust valves of an automotive engine have busy lives, operating each time the engine fires. Actuation of these depends on (at least) one crankshaft-driven camshaft, with a … Continue reading
VALVE ORCHESTRATIONS
AT 2400 RPM, a conventional engine has an orchestration of its intake and exhaust valves, each operating 10 times every second. Multiply this by a factor of six for a … Continue reading
WHAT A MESMERIZING BITCH!
“LOOK INTO my eyes, Lassie.” Or maybe it’s Lassie communicating this wish to her human pal. Between humans, a prolonged gaze into each other’s eyes promotes an emotional bond. There’s … Continue reading
VE DAY, 70 YEARS AGO, 20 YEARS AGO
THIS PAST week, May 7, 2015, was the 70th anniversary of VE Day, celebrating the end of World War II on the European Front. And, as I write this, a … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 