Years ago I bought Dad a nice golf shirt with a red collar, and was surprised at how delighted he was with it. It became a favourite that he wore often.
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| Murray Fraser in 1981 |
He told me why. At Bristol, a red collar on your shop coat meant you were a supervisor. We can see that in this 1956 photo taken for his ID card:
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| Employee 2795, February 1956, sporting a shop coat with a red collar. |
Murray Fraser was a charge hand in the Tooling department at the time, with a staff of 29.
As he moved up the career ladder, the shop coat was replaced by a business suit. The man with the red collar became a white collar employee in the offices upstairs.
In August, 1960 Dad was promoted to an Engineering Assistant and transferred to the Planning Department. Within three years he was a Senior Manufacturing Planner, and was a Manufacturing Engineer in the Manufacturing Projects Planning department (623) when he retired in June, 1982.
He earned the title, but called himself a Production Planner.
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| The white collar ranks. "With a slide rule and model plane at hand, an engineer at Bristol Aero Industries Limited checks his figures." [Winnipeg Free Press, May 21, 1960] |
No engine in jet propulsion is quite like GE's tiny J85 turbojet. Originally designed in 1954, the J85 is expected to power U.S. military aircraft until at least 2040.That's not a typo: GE had delivered more than 12,000 J85 engines and its commercial engine variants by the end of its production run in 1988. Yet the U.S. Air Force and NASA expect to keep J85-powered trainer jets in operational service until 2040 and beyond. That means the J85 will be in operational service for 85 years!Not bad for a jet engine that's all of 18 inches wide and 45 inches long. For many years, the J85 had the highest thrust-to-weight ratio (8:1) of any jet engine in aviation.
That's a lot of swirl cups. And, while we're discussing the J85, Dad also designed what he termed the "Murray Fraser Automatic Index" to drill holes in the engine's afterburner. It simplified and standardized machining, resulting in less waste, more precision, yet much faster production. Dad's hand-written note on the margin of his blueprint claims it reduced machining time from 21 minutes to 12 minutes per part. [3]
These are only two examples of Dad's approach to engineering that saved time and money for the company. No doubt it polished the Bristol reputation, too!
Bristol valued this kind of engineering approach, noting that, "One of the key factors in a successful Engineering Group is the Manufacturing Planning and Methods Dept. which functions as a Technological Advisory Group for management decision making processes and as a definition and control body for 'All In-House' production activities. [...] The production efficiency and capabilities of a complete factory can be measured against the skill and initiative or otherwise of its Planning Staff."
As Dad wrote, "Major difficulties and problems are the daily routine of a planner." A planner must "keep his cool and objectivity in the face of disaster and criticism, and select the best way out without panic, bias or false pride. Sometimes an honest painful reappraisal indicates a scheme should be abandoned and a new 'back to the drawing board' approach taken."
Dad was serious about his work, but would have laughed heartily (with Bill Habington, no doubt) at the following ode to a machine designer:
The Designer [4]
The designer bent across his board,Wonderful things in his head were stored.
And he said, as he stroked his throbbing bean,
"Now, how can I make this thing hard to machine ?"
If this piece here were only straight,
I know this thing would work first rate.
But 'twould be so easy to turn and bore,
It would never make the machinists sore.
I'll just put in a right angle there,
Now watch those guys tear out their hair !
I'll put the holes that hold the cap
Way down here where they're hard to tap.
This piece won't work, I'll bet a buck,
'Cause it can't be held in a clamp, a vise, a shoe or a chuck.
It can't be drilled and it can't be ground,
In fact the design is exceedingly sound.
He looked again and he cried, "At last,
Success is mine ! It can't even be cast !"
Sources (retrieved January 12, 2022)
[1] "Joe's Swirl Cup," http://frasertrunk.blogspot.com/2012/07/joes-swirl-cup.html
[2] Rick Kennedy, "Long Live the J85, GE's 'Little Tough Guy' " GE Aviation blog, June 2020, https://blog.geaviation.com/technology/long-live-the-j85-ges-little-tough-guy
[3] "Kaizen!," http://frasertrunk.blogspot.com/2013/12/kaizen.html
[4] "The Designer," attributed to Ken Lane-Winthrop of the Boston Globe, reproduced in Joseph A. Davies "Naval Ordnance Planning," The Tool Engineer, Volume X, No. 4, April 1941, p. 73; https://books.google.ca/books?id=QpgjAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA3-PA73&lpg=RA3-PA73&dq="Ken+Lane"+"Boston+Post"&source=bl&ots=8ez6HlKTBv&sig=ACfU3U2IrHJ2kkCaPIazNrMMqFQ2kmmFkw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOg__azqX1AhXUWc0KHRyCDGAQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q="Ken Lane" "Boston Post"&f=false
