Cruciform

Cruciform (pronounced kroo-suh-fawrm)

(1) In geometry, a geometric curve, shaped like a cross, which has four similar branches asymptotic to two mutually perpendicular pairs of lines (equation: x ² y ² – a ² x ² – a ² y ² = 0, where x = y = ± a are the four lines).

(2) In engineering or design, being in the shape of a cross; cross-shaped.

(3) An emblem or escutcheon in the shape of a cross.

(4) In aeronautical engineering, a type of tail structure.

(5) In genetics, a cross shape in DNA (known also as the Holliday junction).

1814: From the Modern Latin cruciformis (1655-1665), the construct being from crux (genitive crucis) (stake, cross) + forma (form, shape), both Latin words of unknown origin; the he English form was first documented in 1814.  Early etymologists suggested crucis might have links with the Irish cruach (heap, hill), the Gaulish krouka (summit), the Old Norse hryggr (backbone) or the Old English hrycg (back) but modern scholars, although offering the odd speculation, concede only it may have been borrowed from “somewhere” an observation which, while probably true, isn't a great deal of help.  Form first entered Old English around the turn of the thirteenth century as forme & fourme (semblance, image, likeness), a direct borrowing from the Old French forme & fourme (physical form, appearance; pleasing looks; shape, image; way, manner), from the Latin forma (form, contour, figure, shape; appearance, looks; a fine form, beauty; an outline, a model, pattern, design; sort, kind condition), again a word of unknown origin, the most accepted theory being it may be from or cognate with the Ancient Greek morphe (form, beauty, outward appearance).  Cruciform is a noun & adjective, cruciformity is a noun and cruciformly an adverb; the noun plural is cruciforms.

Empennages: the cruciform & the T-Tail

On airframes, a cruciform tail is an empennage (the tail assembly, almost always at the extreme rear of an aircraft, provides directional stability while in flight, as the feathers on an arrow generate, the word derived from the French empenner (to feather an arrow)), a configuration which, when viewed in direct frontal or rearward aspect, assume a cruciform (lower case †) shape.  The accepted practice is for the horizontal stabilizer to intersect the vertical tail close to the middle, well above the fuselage.

Cruciform tail: Rockwell B-1 Lancer

The cruciform tail is a compromise.  While not offering all the aerodynamic advantages of the T-Tail (where the horizontal stabilizer is mounted atop the tail (upper case T) and thus almost completely removed from the wake of the engines), it doesn’t demand the additional structural strengthening (and thus weight) or suffer the same vulnerability to metal fatigue.

T-Tails: Lockheed C-141 Starlifter (produced 1963-1968), Wright-Patterson USAF (US Air Force) Base, Dayton Ohio (left), Vickers VC10 (produced 1962-1970) in BOAC livery, BOAC promotional photograph, 1964 (centre) and Lockheed C-5M Galaxys (produced (all versions) 1968-1989) at USAF Base, Dover, Delaware (right).

The T-Tail is used in aviation for a variety of reasons.  On freighters, the advantage is the horizontal stabilizers are moved away from the rear of the fuselage, meaning the space-consuming mechanical and hydraulic assemblies don't intrude on the rear-loading area, permitting both a larger door aperture and an uninterrupted load-path.  One unusual use was the Vickers VC10, a design distinguished by the four engines being mounted in the tail section, something which precluded the conventional placement of horizontal stabilizers.  The VC10 was a design cul-de-sac but as the K.3 aerial refueling tanker, the airframe remained in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 2013.

The cruciform (left) and the T-Tail (right) can be borrowed from aeronautical design and applied to hairstyles: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates.

Mongoose

Mongoose (pronounced mong-goos or mon-goos)

(1) Slender, ferret-like carnivores, any small predatory viverrine mammal of the genus Herpestes edwardsi and related genera, occurring in Africa and from southern Europe to South-East Asia, typically having a long tail and brindled coat; feeds on rodents, birds, and eggs, noted especially for its ability to kill cobras and other venomous snakes; known in Italian as the mangusta.

(2) Any of several other animals of this genus or related genera.

(3) Any species of the Malagasy mongoos; only distantly related to the Herpestidae, these are members of the family Eupleridae; they resemble mongooses in appearance and habits, but have larger ears and ringed tails.

1698: From the Portuguese mangusto, from the Marathi मुंगूस (muṅgūs), from the Old Marathi muṁgusa, from the Telugu ముంగిస (muṅgisa).  The Portuguese mangusto was concocted to refer to the "snake-killing ichneumon of India, from an Indic language (of which the Mahrathi variations are the best known), probably ultimately from Dravidian.  Other Indian forms documented during the Raj were the Telugu mangisu, the Kanarese mungisi and the Tamil mangus.  The English form is mongoose but in most languages where the word exists, it’s as a variation of the Portuguese mangusto (mangusta the spelling in Italian, Polish and Lithuanian).  In the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries, the spelling in English was mungoose, derived from the names used in India including the Hindi muṅgūs (maṅgūs in the classical Hindi), the Marathi muṅgūs, the Telugu mungisa and the Kannada munguli, mungi & mungisi, the form displacing the native Old English nǣderbita (literally “snake biter”). The spelling mungoose emerged in 1698, the “-goose” part adopted by virtue of folk etymology with goose and the noun plural is mongooses, not the occasionally seen mongeese, the mistake an understandable by-product of the example of "goose" and an example of why English must sometimes seem strange to those learning the language. There is no accepted collective noun, suggestions including troop, committee and delegation.  The correct plural is mongooses because of the origin in India; the plural thus built in the regular English way.  Goose is different and one of only seven common nouns (all of which can be traced back to the Old English) in which changing a vowel in the middle is involved in the construction of a plural.  Three are beasts (louse/lice; mouse/mice & goose/geese) two are body parts (foot/feet & tooth/teeth) and two are humans (man/men & woman/women).  The woman/women this is unique in that the first vowel also changes sound, even though the “o” stays in place.

The mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal of the family Herpestidae, split into two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae; in the former there are some two-dozen species native to southern Europe, Africa and Asia while the later exists in half that number, all native to Africa.  A famously efficient hunter of snakes, in the 1870s, mongooses were introduced to the Caribbean colony of St Lucia as a control measure against the deadly fer-de-lance (from either the French or Créole and translated variously as “iron of the lance”, “iron spear point”, “lancehead” or “spearhead”), the local name for the Terciopelo (Bothrops asper), a species of pit viper.  The voracious little killers proved more effective than the Governor's bounty of sixpence per fer-de-lance which had yielded a disappointing 1200 victims in seven months.

Mongooses enjoying morning tea, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda: The interaction between the mongoose and the usually disagreeable common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus; an un-domesticated member of the pig family (Suidae) endemic in the savanna & forests of sub-Saharan Africa) is an example of symbiosis in nature.  In what behavioral zoologists call a "mutualistic partnership" (which they distinguish from true symbiosis), a resting warthog will allow mongooses to gather and perform some grooming, snacking on the annoying biting ticks which infest their coats.  

The De Tomaso Mangusta

Dance of death: Cobra and Mongoose.

Argentine-born Alejandro de Tomaso (1928-2003) in 1955 fled to his father’s native Italy after being linked to a plot to overthrow President Juan Perón (1895–1974; Argentine president 1946-1955 & 1973-1974).  In Latin America, that wasn’t something at the time unusual, young, middle-class men having long been attracted to scheming against left-wing rulers to the point where in some families, it was a calling.  In Italy, he married a rich heiress, spending her money to go racing (without notable success) and, (rather more productively), building fast cars.

Shelby American Cobra: Fiftieth Anniversary 427 SC Continuation (2014, 50 of which were built, allocated serial #CSX4500-CSX4599).

In 1964, he met Le Mans winner, Carroll Shelby (1923–2012), famous also for his Anglo-American hot-rod, the AC Shelby Cobra.  They entered into an agreement to build racing cars for the up-coming Can-Am series but squabbles between the two ensued, the arrangement ending in acrimony.  De Tomaso continued to develop the vehicle, this time as a road car which, in revenge, he named Mangusta (mongoose), a beast renowned for its skill in hunting and killing snakes including Cobras.  Designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro (b 1938) of Ghia, between 1967-1971 some four-hundred Mangustas were produced and although the details are contested, the 150-odd are said to have been powered by the same highly-tuned 289 cubic-inch (4.7 litre) Ford (Windsor) V8 as the most numerous of Shelby’s Cobras, the remainder using a milder 302 (4.9 litre) Windsor for the lucrative US market, the 302 compliant with their more onerous emission regulations.

1969 De Tomaso Mangusta (289).

Achingly lovely though it was, adapting a race car for the road necessitates compromises and the Mangusta had not a few.  A 32/68% front/rear weight distribution delights racing-car drivers but induces characteristics likely to frighten everybody else and the interior was cramped, something tolerated in competition vehicles but not endearing to buyers looking for something with which to impress the bourgeoisie.  However, it sold well enough to encourage de Tomaso to pursue the concept and the better designed (if less beautiful) replacement, the Pantera (Italian for "panther"), lasted from 1971 to 1993, over seven-thousand being sold, some with the Australian-built Ford 351 (5.8 litre) V8 (which continued usually to be referred to as the "Cleveland" (a reference to the Ohio plant where the US versions were first built) even though most of the blocks were cast in the foundry attached to Ford Australia's manufacturing facility in Geelong, Victoria.  The idea of a "351 Geelong" never caught on but a footnote in Ford's V8 history is the Australians also concocted a unique "302 Cleveland" (all other pre-modern 302s using the earlier "Windsor" block).

1970 De Tomaso Mangusta (289).

As a road car, the Mangusta was fundamentally so flawed it really couldn’t be fixed; seen first in 1966, it came from those innocent times before Ralph Nader (b 1934) got politicians interested drawing up rules, some of which admittedly were both desirable and overdue.  However, even had it been possible to re-engineer the thing into something well-behaved enough for real people safely to drive (and what Porsche's engineers achieved with the 911 proved such things could be done), there was no way it could have been adapted to conform to the laws which began with severity to be imposed in the 1970s.  The solution was the Pantera, designed with a copy of the regulations in one hand and a cheque from the Ford Motor Company in the other, FoMoCo interested in having in their showrooms a competitor for Chevrolet’s Corvette.  Discarding the Mangusta’s steel backbone chassis for a steel unibody, with a 44/56% front/rear weight distribution, inherently the Pantera was safer in non-expert hands and contemporary testers praised the handling characteristics.  Its sales volumes never challenged those of the Corvette but in the four years it was available in the US through Ford's Lincoln-Mercury dealer network, well over 5000 were sold although Ford was required to inject significant resources to ensure quality control was maintained (infamously, the US singer Elvis Presley (1935-1977) one morning shot his when it refused to start).  

1972 De Tomaso Pantera.

This time, De Tomaso used the 351 cubic inch version of Ford's new 335 series (Cleveland) V8, which, although somewhat bigger and heavier than the earlier Windsor, did offer some advantages in that it was designed with emission controls in mind and used a more efficient cylinder head.  None of that much helped in the market conditions which prevailed in the recession induced after the first oil shock in 1973 and sales declined to the point where Ford concluded any continuing investment was no longer viable; in 1975 the arrangement with De Tomaso was terminated.  After the withdrawal from the US market, De Tomaso maintained production on a smaller scale, the majority sold in Europe and it enjoyed a long Indian summer, the final examples not leaving the factory until 1993 by which time output had slowed to a trickle; the final count when production ended after 19 years was 7260.  After 1988, there was a switch to the Windsor V8 because Ford Australia (Cleveland V8 production moved to the Geelong foundry after 1974), reacting to both the second oil shock in 1979 and changing customer behavior, in 1983 closed the line (they would later realize that had been a mistake and in 1991 began importing US built V8s which would remain available until the Australian operation was closed in 2016).  De Tomaso accordingly warehoused Australian 351s which powered the Panteras until the stockpile was exhausted.

1985 De Tomaso Pantera GTS.

Disappointingly, despite on paper appearing to possess a promising specification, there was never a stellar career in competition although factory support was offered and private teams ran regular campaigns.  Conspiracy theorists have long attributed the paucity of success to the more established players like Ferrari and Porsche having undue influence on the regulatory bodies (such as the habitually dopey Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation)), nudging them always in directions favouring their machines.  It had been done before.  Doubts had always been expressed about the suitability of the Cleveland engine for competition because the lubrication system lacked the passages which made the Windsor so robust but there were work-arounds for that and the factory arranged small runs of Panteras which conformed to the FIA's Group 3 and Group 4 racing regulations (some of which owners later converted to Group 5 specifications) but consistent success proved elusive.  De Tomaso however knew his market.  Even if he couldn’t often beat the Porsches and Ferraris on the track, as the years went by the Panteras adopted increasingly wild styling and they certainly looked the part although it'll always be remembered as a car for the boulevard rather than the track, one in 1972 memorably awarded to Playboy's playmate of the year (PotY), finished in the magazine's then traditional pink.

1991 De Tomaso Pantera 90 Si in Giallo Cromo (chrome yellow) over Nero (black) leather.

For its final run, the bodywork was updated by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini (1938–2024) and given the designation Pantera 90 Si, 41 of which would be built; two were sacrificed to crash-testing, one (chassis #9641) was allocated to the de Tomaso museum and 38 were offered for general sale.  The touches of Gandini (noted for his work on Lamborghini’s Miura (1966-1973) & Countach (1974-1990, first displayed in 1971), the Lancia Stratos HF (1973-1978) and Alfa Romeo Carabo (1968)) were more subtle than previous revisions to the design.  The 90 Si (it was sold in the UK market as the Pantera 90) used the Windsor 302 (Type 99E) although it was much updated from the unit which had powered the US bound Mangustas two decades earlier, fitted with electronic fuel injection, revised cylinder heads, camshafts, pistons valves and intake manifolds.  The underpinnings were also modernized with revised suspension geometry and the addition of ventilated and cross-drilled disc brakes, the four-piston Brembo calipers familiar from the appearance on the Ferrari F40 (1987-1992).

1991 De Tomaso Pantera 90 Si in Rosso Corsa (racing red) over Beige leather.

Based on the GT5S, beneath the skin was used a modified version of the original steel unibody, now featuring a tubular rear subframe for the engine, transaxle and suspension, the new design both lighter and more rigid.  The wheels were 17 inch Fondmetal cast in magnesium wheels (the front 9 inches wide, the rear 12) which replaced the various Campagnolo units used since 1971; originally they were shod with Michelin MXX tyres (235/45ZR/17 front, 335/35/ZR/17 rear).  Supplied from the US in the form fitted to the Ford Mustang (with a 9.0:1 compression ratio (CR) and rated at 225 hp at 4200 rpm), de Tomaso’s modifications included lifting the CR to 11.0 and the factory claimed 305 hp at 5800 rpm, a number more plausible than the 306 hp Shelby American allocated (somewhat arbitrarily) to the original 289 Cobras.  The 90 Si continued to use the 5-speed ZF transaxle but two (chassis # 9637 & 9639) were fitted with Getrag 6-speed units.

1991 De Tomaso Pantera 90 Si in Rosso Corsa (racing red) over Beige leather.

With air-conditioning, electric windows, a CD player, wood veneer inserts on the dash, centre console and door panels and much leather, the 90 Si was the most lavishly appointed Pantera ever.  The mechanical modifications made it also the best behaved and most civilized but although the design brief had included making it suitable to be certified for sale in the US, none were exported there and the recession of the early 1990s saw demand for such machines collapse and sales never approached the optimistic expectation of 75 a year justified its conception and development.  Production ceased late in 1993.  One was even made in RHD (right-hand-drive) and in the UK the importer (Emilia Concessionaires) offered the option of twin turbochargers, advertising it as the Pantera 200 (an allusion to the claimed top speed of 200 mph (322 km/h) although it seems not certain that was ever verified.

1993 1991 De Tomaso Pantera 90 Si Targa by Carrozzeria Ernesto Pavesi in Stratos Blu (blue) over Beige Leather.  This is chassis #9637, one of two with a Getrag 6-speed transaxle.

Between 1993-1994, four of the 38 90Si Panteras (chassis #9636, 9637, 9638 & 9639) were converted to targas by Carrozzeria Ernesto Pavesi (1929-2012), a coach-building house with a decades-long association with Alejandro de Tomaso, the company having produced the 14 Longchamp spyders (and reputedly also the two convertible Maserati Kyalamis which were Longchamp-based).  The quality of Pavesi's work attracted the attention of some Longchamp owners who had their cars converted to spyders.   Founded in Milan by Ernesto Pavesi (1901-1974) in 1929, Carrozzeria Ernesto Pavesi (1929-2012) proved adaptable to a changing environment and survived the Great Depression, World War II (1939-1945) and the post-war decline of coach-building but succumbed finally to the effects of the GFC (global financial crisis, 2008-2012).  Pavesi completed the last of the four Pantera Targas in 1994, demand further hampered by it being some 50% more expensive than the coupé.

Scoop

Scoop (pronounced skoop)

(1) A ladle or ladle-like utensil, especially a small, deep-sided shovel with a short, horizontal handle, for taking up flour, sugar etc.

(2) A utensil composed of a palm-sized hollow hemisphere attached to a horizontal handle, for dishing out ice cream or other soft foods.

(3) A hemispherical portion of food as dished out by such a utensil.

(4) The bucket of a dredge, steam shovel etc.

(5) In medicine, a spoon-like surgical apparatus for removing substances or foreign objects from the body; a special spinal board used by emergency department staff that divides laterally (ie literally “scooping up” patients).

(6) A hollow or hollowed-out place.

(7) The act of ladling, dipping, dredging etc.

(8) The quantity held in a ladle, dipper, shovel, bucket etc.

(9) In journalism, a news item, report, or story revealed in one paper, magazine, newscast etc before any other outlet; in informal use, news, information, or details, especially as obtained from experience or an immediate source.

(10) A gathering to oneself, indicated usually by a sweeping motions of the hands or arms.

(11) In informal use, a big haul of something.

(12) In television & film production, a single-lens large floodlight shaped like a flour scoop and fitted with a reflector.

(13) To win a prize, award, or large amount of money.

(14) In bat & ball sports, to hit the ball on its underside so that it rises into the air.

(15) In hydrological management, a part of a drain used to direct flow.

(16) In air-induction management (to the engines in cars, boats, aircraft etc), a device which captures external the air-flow and directs it for purposes of cooling or combustion.

(17) In Scots English, the peak of a cap.

(18) In pinball, a hole on the playfield that catches a ball, but eventually returns it to play in one way or another.

(19) In surfboard design, the raised end of a board.

(20) In music (often as “scoop up”), to begin a vocal note slightly below the target pitch and then to slide up to the target pitch, prevalent particularly in country & western music.

1300–1350: From the Middle English scope & schoupe, from the Middle Dutch scoep, scuep, schope & schoepe (bucket for bailing water) and the Middle Dutch schoppe, scoppe & schuppe (a scoop, shovel (the modern Dutch being schop (spade)), from the Proto-Germanic skuppǭ & skuppijǭ, from the primitive Indo-European kep & skep- (to cut, to scrape, to hack).  It was cognate with the Old Frisian skuppe (shovel), the Middle Low German schōpe (scoop, shovel), the German Low German Schüppe & Schüpp (shovel), the German Schüppe & Schippe (shovel, spade) and related to the Dutch schoep (vessel for baling).  The mid-fourteenth century Middle English verb scōpen (to bail out, draw out with a scoop) was from the noun and was from the Middle Low German schüppen (to draw water), from the Middle Dutch schoppen, from the Proto-Germanic skuppon (source also of the Old Saxon skeppian, the Dutch scheppen, the Old High German scaphan and the German schöpfen (to scoop, ladle out), from the primitive Indo-European root skeubh- (source also of the Old English sceofl (shovel) and the Old Saxon skufla.

Sherman L Kelly's (1869–1952) ice-cream scoop (the dipper; 1935) was a masterpiece of modern industrial design and thought sufficiently aesthetically pleasing to be a permanent exhibit in New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  Its most clever feature was the fluid encased in the handle; being made from cast aluminum, the heat from the user's hands was transferred to the cup, obviating the need for the moving parts sometimes used to separate the ice-cream for dishing out.  The dipper is like the pencil, one of those designs which really can't be improved.  In the industry, the technical term for the small but annoyingly intrusive globule of ice cream which appears at the base of a scoop is “skirt”.  Some manufacturers of ice cream scoops (the advertising folk also like “scooper”) promote their product's ability to avoid “over-serving & wasteful skirt”.

A New York Post scoop, 29 June 2007.  This was the Murdoch press's biggest scoop since the publication in 1983 of the "Hitler Diaries".  The "diaries" turned out to be forgeries; the picture of Lindsay Lohan resting in a Cadillac was genuine.

The meaning “hand-shovel with a short handle and a deep, hollow receptacle” dates from the late fifteenth century while the extended sense of “an instrument for gouging out a piece” emerged by 1706 while the colloquial use to mean “a big haul” was from 1893.  The journalistic sense of “the securing and publication of exclusive information in advance of a rival” was an invention of US English, first used in 1874 in the newspaper business, echoing the earlier commercial verbal slang which imparted the sense of “appropriate so as to exclude competitors”, the use recorded in 1850 but thought to be considerably older.  The meaning "remove soft or loose material with a concave instrument" dates from the early seventeenth century while sense of “action of scooping” was from 1742; that of “amount in a scoop” being from 1832.  The noun scooper (one who scoops) was first used in the 1660s and the word was adopted early in the nineteenth century to describe “a tool for scooping, especially one used by wood-engravers”, the form the agent noun from the verb scoop.  Scoop is a noun & verb, scooper & scoopful are nouns and scooped & scooping are verbs; the noun plural is scoops.

XPLR//Create’s fluid dynamics tests comparing the relative efficiency of ducts (left) & scoops (right).

In air-induction management (to the engines in cars, boats, aircraft etc), a scoop is a device which captures external the air-flow and directs it for purposes of cooling or combustion.  An air scoop differs from an air duct in that a scoop stands proud of a structure's surface allowing air to be "rammed" into its ducting while a duct is an aperture integrated into the structure, "sucking" air in from the low pressure zone created by its geometry.  For a given size of aperture, a scoop can achieve an airflow up to twice that of a duct but that doesn't of necessity mean as scoop is always preferable, the choice depending on the application.  In situations where optimal aerodynamic efficiency is desired, a duct may be chosen because scoops can increase frontal area and almost always, regardless of placement, leave a wake of turbulent air, further increasing drag.  It's thus one of those trade-offs with which engineers are familiar: If a scoop is used then sufficient air is available for purposes of cooling & combustion but at the cost of aerodynamic efficiency while if a duct is fitted, drag is reduced but the internal air-flow might be inadequate.

NACA Ducts: 1969 Shelby Mustang GT500 (left), 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 351 (centre) & 1972 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase IV (Right).

When Ford introduced NACA ducts on the 1971 Mustangs (subsequently adopted by Ford Australia in 1973 for the XB Falcon), whether in error or to take advantage of the public’s greater “brand-awareness” of the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA), they were promoted as “NASA ducts”.  In fairness, the two institutions were related, NASA created in 1958 after the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was dissolved, the process essentially a name change although much had changed since the NACA’s formation in 1915, the annual budget then US$5000 and the dozen committee members unpaid.  The NACA duct was one of many innovations the institution provided to commercial and military aviation and in the post-war years race cars began to appear with them, positioned variously to channel air to radiators, brakes and fuel induction systems as required.

Scoops: 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 (left), 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 428 CobraJet (with shaker scoop) (centre) & 1974 Pontiac Trans Am 455 SD (with rearward-facing scoop) (right).

From those pragmatic purposes, the ducts migrated to road cars where often they were hardly a necessity and, in some cases, merely decorative, no plumbing sitting behind what was actually a fake aperture.  Scoops appeared too, some appearing extravagantly large but there were applications where the volume of air required was so high that a NACA duct which would provide for the flow simply couldn’t be fashioned.  That said, on road cars, there were always suspicions that some scoops might be fashionably rather than functionally large, the lines drawn in the styling and not the engineering office.  There was innovation in scoops too, some rearward facing to take advantage of the inherently cool, low pressure air which accumulated in the cowl area at the base of the windscreen although the best remembered scoops are probably the “shakers”, assemblies protruding through a hole in the hood (bonnet) and attached directly to the air-cleaner which sat atop the carburetor, an arrangement which shook as the engine vibrated.  By such things, men are much amused.

The inaugural meeting of the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), 23 April 1915.

The NACA remains a useful case-study in the way a bureaucracy can contribute first to the development of an ecosystem which enables the institution's growth yet ultimately outlives its purpose in the sense of becoming a victim of its own success.  When World War I (1914-1918) war broke out, the US army possessed only 23 aircraft (at a time when France possessed 1,400 airplanes, Germany 1,000 and Russia 800), reflecting the historic view in Washington DC that aviation was an amusing diversion for the rich rather than a strategic matter for government.  Rapidly, the blast of war changed that view and in the way these things still are done, Congress added a rider to Navy appropriation legislation that established the NACA; to this day the first response of politicians is to form a committee.  In that spirit the NACA soon established four expert sub-committees to focus on the fields it had recognized as critical: airframe structures, aerodynamics, methods of propulsion and aircraft operations.  The NACA’s original mandate was (loosely) to coordinate the nation’s efforts in aeronautical research but because in the inter-war years both military and civilian aviation rapidly advanced and new industries emerged, the committee soon was transformed into an independent research organization with labs and workshops staffed by engineers, scientists and technicians, its wind tunnels, the biggest and best in the US.  Even prior to the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), NACA was spread over multiple sites and, in conjunction with industry, universities and the military, it made substantial contributions to supersonic flight, jet propulsion and improvements to airframes.  The NACA was disbanded in 1958 to become the foundation for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the creation of which was prompted by the shock caused by the Soviet’s successful launch of Sputnik 1 in October, 1957.

The NACA's "C" being removed to make way for the NASA's "S", NASA’s Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory, Cleveland, Ohio, 1958.

One potential economy which could have been achieved by the re-branding in 1958 was the signage on the buildings would have demanded only the scrapping of the “C” and its replacement with a “S”.  That sounds DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) friendly but lateral-thinker Elon Musk (b 1971) would probably have suggested the name should have been National Aeronautics and Cosmic Administration, thus meaning the signage could stay.  As things turned out, NASA got a new logo.  Compared with some of the NACA’s contributions (which led ultimately to the space program) the NACA duct seems slight but after it first appeared on race cars in the 1960s it became well-known although when a pair were included on the 1971 “ram-air” Mustangs, Ford’s advertising agency promoted it as the “NASA duct” undoubtedly because the Moon-landings had made NASA famous while NACA was known to few.

Shelby American Mustang GT500: 1969 (left) and 1970 (right).

The 1969 & 1970 Shelby Mustangs featured an impressive five NACA ducts on the hood (three to let air in, two to allow it to escape) and one able to admire them was Connie Kreski (1946-1995, left) who received a pink GT500 as her prize for being judged Playboy magazine’s PotY (Playmate of the Year), an honor the photographs suggest richly she deserved.  Five NACA ducts is at least three more than most cars in the era had but one owner of a 1970 GT500 (right) decided it just wasn’t enough and added a scoop atop.  It was a era of annual styling changes but the reason the 1969 & 1970 Shelby Mustangs look so similar is that Shelby American and Ford agreed not to continue production in 1970 but because there was an unsold stock of 798 1969 cars, they were (under the supervision of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation)) issued new VINs (vehicle identification numbers) and sold as 1970 models.  Visually, the only things which distinguish the 1970 cars are a chin spoiler and two black hood (bonnet) strips which pass over the outer pair of NACA ducts.  The owner of the green car (not in the sense Greta Thunberg (b 2003) uses the phrase) must have decided the stripes and spoiler might have detracted from the impact of the big scoop. 

Japanese gold-lined sugar scuttle & sugar scoop with laurel leaf detailing (circa 1970s, left) and William IV sterling silver sugar bowl (1832) by John Fry II, London, England (right).

Sugar scoops are used to scoop sugar from a “sugar scuttle” whereas if one’s sugar is in a “sugar bowl”, a “sugar spoon” is used.  A lump of sugar is handled with a pair of “sugar tongs” (another of those cases in which the nominally plural “pair” is correct when describing a singular object because the first “pairs of tongs” literally were “two tongs” manipulated in unison.  The difference between a “sugar spoon” and a “tea spoon” is the former has a deeper and usually more rounded bowl and most are supplied as part of a “tea set” or “tea service”, often with the same decorative elements.  Among antique dealers, all are often bundled for sale with a “tea tray” although in many instances, such agglomerations are a case of “mix & match”. 

Jaguar E-Type: S1 with covered headlight (left), S1.25 with early "sugar scoop" (centre) and S2 with later "sugar scoop" (right). 

After the Jaguar E-type's (1961-1974; sometimes known in the US as XK-E or XKE) lovely headlight covers were legislated to extinction by the newly created US DOT (Department of Transportation, established by an act of Congress on 15 October 1966 and beginning operation on 1 April 1967), the replacement (uncovered) apparatus came to be called the “sugar scoop”, a term earlier used for the Volkswagens & Porsche sold in North America US market which had to be fitted with sealed-beam headlights because of protectionist rules designed for the benefit of US manufacturers.  The use of “sugar scoop” for the E-Type was appropriate because the visual link with the utensil was much more obvious than on the Volkswagens & Porsches.

The lure of the headlight covers: 1973 E-Type with headlight covers subsequently added (left) and with the original "sugar scoops" (left).  These are US market cars with the additional "dagmars" appended to the bumperettes.  Even by 1973, thin whitewall tyres were still a popular option on US Jaguars and they remained available until the last were sold in 1975 but the wide whitewalls often supplied in the early 1960s had long fallen from favor.  Although the judges in the JCNA (Jaguar Clubs of North America) confederation are usually uncompromising members of the originality police, they make a rare exception in not deducting points from late-build E-Types (the so-called 1.25 & 1.5) which have been fitted with the headlight covers.  Although the covers never appeared on the S3 E-Types, their presence clearly doesn't dissuade buyers because the S3 pictured above (left), in February, 2021 sold at auction for US$230,000.  It was an exceptionally low-mileage example (8000-odd miles (13,000 km)) but even given that it represented an impressive premium. 

A US market 1977 Porsche 911 (1964-1989), fitted with the front bumper assembly of a later 911 (964 (1989-1994)):  The original “sugar scoops” are seen on the left and the replacement Hella H4 lights are to the right (in RoW (rest of the world) cars both H2 & H4 units were fitted).  Conceptually identical, a sugar scoop (centre) is similar in form to some smaller "coal scuttles", differing only in scale. 

Golconda

Golconda (pronounced gol-kon-duh)

(1) A ruined fortress city in Telangana in West Andhra Pradesh near Hyderabad city, India, capital of one of the five Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan (1512-1687) which was then annexed to the Mogul empire; it was once famed as a centre of diamond cutting.

(2) A rich mine or other source of great wealth (usually without initial capital).

(3) An ostentatious display of jewelry (usually without initial capital).

(4) As Golconda diamond, either a diamond with an origin in the Golconda region or (informally), a diamond of the highest quality (graded Type IIa, of pure carbon and devoid of nitrogen, large and of the highest clarity.

Pre 1200: The Urdu گولکنڈہ‎ (Golkaṇḍa), an Urduization of the the Telugu గొల్లకొండ (gollakoṇḍa (literally “shepherd’s hill)), the construct being గొల్ల (golla) (of or pertaining to shepherds) + కొండ (koṇḍa) (hill); it was Romanized as Gullakōnḍa.  The first Golconda fort was erected during the eleventh century, and, modest by later standards, was originally a small mud-brick structure built as a military outpost of the Kakatiya Empire.  On the basis of archaeological excavations, it’s believed the Kakatiya ruler Ganapatideva (1199–1262) re-constructed the fort in stone and on a larger scale although it’s not clear when the name “Golconda fort” came into use, the earliest known written records dating from the mid-1400s.  In the early sixteenth century, the fort was transformed into a fortified citadel by Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk (1485–1543), founder of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, which ruled the Sultanate of Golconda between 1518-1687 with Golconda its capital city.  Golconda has been borrowed as a locality name in the US (Illinois New York & Nevada), Trinidad and Tobago and Australia (Tasmania).  Golconda is a noun, proper noun, golcondic is an adjective; the noun plural is plural golcondas.

Before the nineteenth century, India’s mines were the world’s only known source of abundant diamonds and those found in the Golconda region remain among the finest known.  Because of geographic convenience and the existence of the fortified citadel as a secure facility, Golconda was for more than a century the world’s preeminent centre for diamond cutting and polishing.  It was these associations which led to the word Golconda becoming (1) a descriptor of the finest diamonds, (2) a metonym for a rich mine or other lucrative venture and (3) an ostentatious display of jewelry (as both noun “a golconda of ropes and gems”) and adjective (“a golcondic array”)).

A golcondic display: Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark (b 1972) wearing the Danish parure including the Ruby Tiara.

The grand ruby and diamond wreath tiara from the Danish ruby parure is an illustrious piece with a notable provenance.  Worn by generation of women from the Swedish and Danish royal houses, it was constructed from hair ornaments worn at Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) imperial coronation, a grand event befitting the status of an emperor who saw himself as Charlemagne’s successor albeit one who would preside over something more dynamic than the recently dissolved Holy Roman Empire.  Attuned to the importance of spectacle, Napoleon actually provided funds for his marshals to purchase jewels for their wives so his coronation procession at Notre-Dame would glitter.  That wasn’t an inexpensive matter because in the euphoria of victory, Napoleon had created a remarkable (though politically shrewd) eighteen, topping even the dozen batons a similarly intoxicated Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) would hand out in 1940.

The postmodern improvisation of youth; Coca-Cola bottle cap necklace: Lindsay Lohan as Lola Steppe in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004).

One of the wives ended up with a suite which included a necklace, girandole earrings, a large corsage brooch and two hair ornaments in the shape of branches, with pavé-set diamond leaves & ruby berries.  In the way the royal families of Europe operated, jewels often accompanied daughters and nieces as they were passed from palace to palace, country to country as marriage arrangement demanded and the coronation suite moved for some time to Sweden before, in 1869 arriving in Denmark where they’ve since remained, their destination chosen because the ruby set is red & white, the colors of the Danish flag.  In 1898 the ornaments were connected to become a kind of bandeau which, in 1935, was re-modelled into a full wreath tiara which, in an unusual disposition, Ingrid of Sweden (1910–2000; Queen of Denmark 1947-1972) didn't include in the many jewels she left to her three daughters but bequeathed instead to her grandson, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark (b 1968).  The ruby parure was thus earmarked for his spouse although at law, the arrangement had the historically unusual effect of meaning the title to a tiara passed to a man rather than a woman.

Golconda (1953), oil on canvas by René Magritte (1898–1967), The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas.

Depicting a vision of almost identically dressed figures against a background of ordinary Belgium suburban architecture, the men in bowler hats and dark overcoats may be falling like rain drops, floating upwards or suspended in mid-air, indeed, some may be in one state and others in another, the painter giving no hint, movement neither implied nor denied.  The bowler hat was a favourite motif of Magritte and is best known from his later The Son of Man (1964) and although his work is most associated with the traditions of impressionism and surrealism, Magritte was of bourgeois origin and often wore a bowler hat, critics making of that and its relationship to his art what they chose.  The title Golconda was suggested by Magritte’s friend, the poet Louis Scutenaire (1905-1987) and it’s been the subject of much interpretation, commentators variously finding themes of alienation, individualism, repression and economic exploitation.