Page 6/The Battalion/Wednesday, June 8,1983
Engineers testing plane
cabins to slow air fires
United Press International
SOUTH BEND, Ind.-
Aerospace engineers are using
their computers to fiddle with
aircraft interiors, looking for a
configuration that can help keep
passengers of burning jets alive.
have prevented the deaths last
week of 23 passengers on an Air
Canada flight from Dallas to
Toronto.
Anything they discover will
come too late for the 23 victims
of last week’s Air Canada DC-9
fire, but a research team at the
University of Notre Dame is
hoping its work will prevent fu
ture tragedies.
“In this case, the fire starts in
the lavatory,” he said. “We ha
ven’t even gotten to that yet.”
Using a computer program
that essentially is a model of a
burning aircraft, the scientists
can experiment with different
cabin seats or cushion materials,
tracing how each delays a fire or
advances it.
Investigators suspect an elec
trical malfunction or a cigarette
in a rear lavatory touched off the
smoky Air Canada fire and
forced the pilot to make an
emergency landing outside Cin
cinnati. Officials say all 23 vic
tims died of smoke inhalation.
“We have developed a simu
lation model which will enable
us to find out what happens to
the smoke and fire once a fire is
intitiated in any part of the
cabin,” K.T. Yang, professor of
aerospace engineering, said
Monday.
But Yang says the research
has a long way to go before it
yields the kind of data that could
“Fire spread is always very
rapid,” Yang said. “Any kind of
closed area is the same kind of
situation. The question is
whether the toxicity of the
smoke would be so severe that,
within a certain amount of time,
you’d be in trouble.”
Yang, working with profes
sors John R. Lloyd and A.M.
Kanury has looked at how well
fire and smoke would be con
tained by seats without space
underneath for carry-on lug
gage, or by seats with higher
backs.
PUG expects rate
increase requests
United Press International
AUSTIN — The Chairman of
the Public Utility Commission
says he expects the Dallas and El
Paso electric utilities as well as
Southwestern Bell Telephone
Co. to file major rate requests
now that the Legislature has ad
journed.
PUC chairman A1 Erwin said
Monday that Dallas Power 8c
Light Co., its sister firm, Texas
Electric Service Co. and El Paso
Electric Co. all are expected to
make rate hike requests in the
next few weeks.
American Telephone 8c Tele
graph Co.
State regulators expect Bell’s
request to total nearly $1 billion,
by far the largest such rate re
quest ever made in Texas.
“They all waited until the ses
sion was over,”Erwin said.
Due to the expected
onslaught of rate cases, Gov.
Mark White has agreed to speed
up his search for a public coun
sel to represent consumers in
PUC cases, Erwin said.
In addition, Bell has indi
cated it is nearly ready to file its
first rate request since breaking
away from its parent firm,
The Office of Public Counsel
was created with the passage of a
bill that orders reforms at the
PUC. White signed the bill Mon
day, saying it would “create the
atmosphere for the best-
regulated utilities in the nation.”
Braniff officials
to leave Friday
United Press International
DALLAS — The two highest-
ranking officials of Braniff In
ternational, President Howard
Putnam and Executive Vice
President M. Philip Guthrie, will
leave their management posts
on Friday.
bankrupt corporation,
iff'
The Braniff board scheduled
a meeting Wednesday to decide
on an interim president and
chief financial officer.
Putnam said he and Guthrie
would enter another business
venture in the Dallas-Fort
Worth area after a rest period.
He said he doubted he would
return to the airline industry.
Putnam, 45, a 26-year veteran
of the airline industry, joined
Braniff in the fall of 1981. He
was lured from the presidency
of Southwest Airlines, one of the
nation’s most profitable regional
carriers.
Putnam said Monday the res
ignations did not contain any
signals regarding the fate of a
Hyatt Corp. plan to take over
the bankrupt airline.
“If Hyatt moves along, if it
ever gets affirmed, Hyatt will
put in new management,” Put
nam said. “If there is no deal,
what you are left with is a small,
fixed-base operation, and the
Braniff estate can no longer
afford our talents.”
Putnam signed a three-year
contract, at $250,000 a year, and
a “golden parachute” pact
guaranteeing he would continue
to draw 36 months of pay if a
Braniff takeover or merger put
him out of a job.
Putnam brought Guthrie
along with him from Southwest.
Guthrie, 38, received a three-
year contract at $130,000
annually.
Putnam added, “Phil and I
plan to take a little time off and
get our batteries recharged.
We’re tired, we’ve been trying to
save this thing, to turn it aound,
for 20 months now . We’ve run
out of gas.
“We’ve done everything we
could possibly do, and the job is
nearing completion one way or
another,” he said.
‘We just can’t accept the cur-
ffe
Putnam had revealed several
months ago that he and Guthrie
would leave the airline this sum
mer, but did not specify a date.
Although Putnam will give up
his daily executive responsibili
ties, he will retain the title of
chairman of the board. Guthrie,
the airline’s chief financial offic
er, will remain a Braniff dire
ctor.
Putnam and Guthrie will con
tinue to be consultants to the
rent offer by Hyatt,” said Dallas
attorney Sander Esserman, who
also reported the secured bon
dholders had withdrawn from
the talks with Hyatt.
The airline’s 39 secured cre
ditors — mostly large banks and
insurance companies — are re
portedly close to an agreement
with Hyatt. An agreement
would face a vote by all the se
cured creditors, and there was
little chance the smaller secured
bondholders group could out
vote the secured lenders.
Worker gets 50 years
in murder of guard
United Press International
GALVESTON — A former
offshore worker who pleaded
guilty to stabbing a Galveston
security guard 59 times last
November has been sentenced
to 50 years in prison.
Wayne La Plant, 19, agreed
to plead guilty in exchange for
the sentence for the Nov. 30,
1982, killing of Barbara Jean
“We have found that the seat-
back is quite important in how
long it’s going to take for the
smoke to come down to the floor
level,” he said.
“It turns out when the seat-
back is high, it would take more
effort — so to speak — on the
part of the flow to penetrate
down into the seating areas,” he
said.
That would suggest that jet
seatbacks should be made high
er, to keep smoke up around the
ceiling and away from the pas
sengers — perhaps until the
plane is landed and everyone is
evacuated.
But the scientists say it will
take more study to determine
how much time that would buy
passengers on a stricken plane.
Yang said the United States is
lagging behind other industrial
ized countries in research into
airborne fires.
“On the national scene, (it)
hasn’t been a major research
area at all, contrary to what we
think it should be,” he said. “It’s
not the FAA’s fault, because
they’re not getting the money
from Congress.”
Forth computer languageCh
a rising star in Hollywood
y H United
United Press International
A programming language
available on microcomputers
has earned big-time movie
and television credits. Forth,
as it is called, has helped cre
ate special effects for such
movies as “Escape from New
York,” “Jaws III” and “Heavy
Metal.”
What makes Forth right
for Hollywood is its prowess in
process control, that is, con
trolling mechanical devices
and sensors. For example,
according to Charles Moore,
inventor of Forth, one of the
first applications developed in
the language was a program
that helped a computer moni
tor the radio telescope at the
National Radio Observatory.
Most other well-known lan
guages for microcomputers
were developed for numerical
calculation.
Many non-movie applica
tions of Forth have been de
veloped since the National
Radio Observatory Program.
For example, notes Elizabeth
FKD
Rather, a co-founder with
Moore of Forth, Inc., and one
of the first Forth program
mers, a major airline uses
Forth to control its automated
baggage handling equipment.
Scientists use it to monitor
laboratory equipment and in
struments.
In movie production, some
special effects require that a
camera be moved two or more
times along precisely the same
path, as when the image of a
space ship must be superim
posed on a separately photo
graphed background of stars.
If the path the camera takes
while photographing the two
subjects differs even slightly,
annoying jiggles and shadows
will appear in the finished
film.
One of the firms specializ
ing in Forth-driven process
control equipment is Elicon,
of Brea, Calif. According to
Elicon’s Peter Regia, director-
producer Roger Gorman
bought the firm’s first Camera
Control System late in 1978 to
create the scene in “Escape
From New York” in which a
glider flies through the city.
The system consists of a com
puter-controlled robot that
moves the camera exactly as
directed.
Elicon found that Forth
had several advantages over
Fortran, the language used to
program a previous camera
control system; the Forth sys
tem can be stored in less disk
space, floppy disks can be
used instead of more expen
sive hard disks, the Forth
programs run faster, and —
because Forth makes it easier
to attach a digitizing pad to
the system — an artist can
“draw” the path the camera is
to take.
In the Fortran system. Re
gia said, “all our work had to
be precalculated.”
The flexibility that allows
programmers to define custo
mized commands is-only one
way Forth achieves its prowess
in process control. Am
advantage is speed.
Speed is critical in|
control. The proeramtluf
tn take
Christ
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terprets Forth takes u|
less space in memory
program that interpretsHfrout and
When microcomputerzoo aroi
was at a premium, thisfshe short
alone made Forth partitlenley, ci
valuable and helped tktjlmi Trot
guage gain popularityanBA lot
early microcomputer
byists.
For the home ci
user, Forth takes somep
used to. It is quite
f rom the Basic languagt
comes with most hornet
puters. However, with Ft
a relatively simple home
puter system can
process control fui
usually availableonlyon
special purpose comi
Precise timing and conird
photographic darb sns,
equipment is one exam[« ed out
Forth is available onah
all microcomputers.
going
lal to I
rout 1
Putnam said although the two
contracts run until 1984, “under
bankruptcy, contracts take on a
different light, meaning they
aren’t any good.”
Meanwhile, Braniff s secured
bondholders, who hold about 25
percent of the $467.5 million
owed to secured creditors, say
they plan to go to court to fight
Hyatt’s plan.
Whiteley, 57, of Galveston. He
was sentenced Monday.
Police said La Plant stabbed
Whiteley after she refused him
entrance to a Shell Oil Terminal
dock on Pelican Island. He then
swam the Galveston Ship Chan
nel to escape. La Plant was
arrested Dec. 14 in New York
City.
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