11 ms·

“Miss Shilling's Orifice” helped win the war (2020)

226 points by choult 5y ago

Dah00n 5y ago
That was a much more interesting read than I expected. Well worth the time.
Jun8 5y ago
"At 15, she decided engineering was the career for her. The problem was that it was 1924. “The average woman does not possess the same engineering instinct as the average man,” was one opinion recorded in the Daily News at around that time. It belonged to the manager of the Education Research Department at British Westinghouse. “For a woman in the 1920s a career in lion-taming would have been more realistic,” observes Shilling’s biographer, Matthew Freudenberg." Aptly put. Good thing about reading up on history is to gain an appreciation on the enormous changes in perception in the last 100 years or so, in this case about women in STEM fields. Even when her contribution was acknowledged and applied, it was coined a horribly sexist nickname.
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  It's crazy how quickly these things have changed. 1920 doesn't _feel_ like all that long ago, objectively speaking.
- abraae 5y ago
  It's surprising that human society has survived, given that half the population was artificially excluded from many intellectual pursuits - or many pursuits full stop really - and the other half perhaps underperformed as they wallowed in feeling of superiority form their position of privilege.
  - corndoge 5y ago
    It's not really that surprising.
    - mc32 5y ago
      Right. (Other) Animals can be much worse in many ways and their species survive. That’s not to say we want to be like savages, but it just is not a necessary ingredient for survival.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    What a fantastic way to dismissively say "Raising children is work that is of zero benefit to the human species and a complete waste of time. Women only have any value if they are doing something other than traditional women's work."
    - stevula 5y ago
      > What a fantastic way to dismissively say "Raising children is work that is of zero benefit to the human species and a complete waste of time. I don’t know if there was an edit to the previous post, but “Excluded from many intellectual pursuits” does not mean anything like what you are saying. Isn’t it possible to lament a historic lack of choice without demeaning homemakers?
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        A. I'm reacting to It's surprising that human society has survived. B. Also the part you quoted implicitly suggests raising children takes no brains. I was one of the top three students of my graduating high school class, won a National Merit Scholarship, among other things, and was a full-time wife and mom for a lot of years. I homeschooled my twice exceptional sons because no other school was really capable of adequately serving their needs. My oldest tested at senior in college level in science at age 11 and also below grade level in writing. Addressing his needs required me to present high level materials without watering them down while accommodating his weaknesses. I take personal offense at the idea that full-time moms are not doing useful work and raising children is something any idiot can do well. The world would be a better place if we worried more about raising our children well. Studies show that investing in preschoolers saves money down the line by lowering prison costs for society. Edit in response to your edit: Isn’t it possible to lament a historic lack of choice without demeaning homemakers? Absolutely. But the comment in question doesn't manage to do so.
        xvector 5y ago
        This really feels like an over-reaction. > I take personal offense at the idea that full-time moms are not doing useful work and raising children is something any idiot can do well. Where was this even remotely implied? OP said: > It's surprising that human society has survived, given that half the population was artificially excluded from many intellectual pursuits - or many pursuits full stop Even if you disagree with the premise - how in any way does this demean homemakers? What a bizarre reaction.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bendbro 5y ago
    It isn't surprising at all considering hundreds of surviving, geographically isolated cultures all shared this same characteristic. It seems rather natural and unsurprising when we know it was successfully used so many times.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > It's surprising that human society has survived, given that half the population was artificially excluded from many intellectual pursuits A lot more than half were (and still are), by economic circumstance.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  “The average woman does not possess the same engineering instinct as the average man,” was one opinion recorded in the Daily News at around that time Good thing wars aren't won by average people, then! Great story, she reminds me a lot of Jeri Ellsworth's exploits.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  You're aware that Westinghouse quote is probably correct, right? Both then and now. Though it's application to an exceptional individual is silly.
gerdesj 5y ago
“At that moment (I must have been down to about a hundred yards), I hit his slipstream and my engine cut —stone dead.” He didn't need to describe his lower legs suddenly becoming strangely warm. What isn't mentioned is that before the band aid was discovered thanks to Ms Shilling and her ... (it was often called 'er c**) a Spitfire would have to invert before diving to turn a neg. into a posi. So, when your enemy pushes forwards on the stick whilst frantically wriggling left and right, you would have to spin 180 on your longitudinal axis to follow. I'm sure many of the enemy would then fake to get you to spin and whilst you are fiddling around, slow down and get in behind you. I can imagine: ME109 finds Spitfire on his tail. He has two great options - better rate of climb and a pressurized fuel system which doesn't cut out in neg. g. The Spitfire has a better turning circle, so don't go there. I suspect that they would go for the fake dive - the Spit will have to invert to follow. Now, I don't know how long the early Spits can manage a dive before having to decide to invert or pull out, so that is a factor here. When the 109 sees the Spit inverting in the rear view, pull back fairly hard, slow down a bit, probably with a left to right jiggle with the rudder to "skid" rather than messing with revs and propellor pitch (takes to long to play with the controls). If done right the Spit will pass underneath your 109 and most importantly, be blind because he's inverted. Now you are behind him and you have a cannon plus a handful of pea shooters to deploy. If the Spit is canny, he should see the fake dip and probably try to turn horizontally and turn the scrap into a turning game. The Spit should win that because it has a better turning circle, in general. Have an off day at the office in one of these things and you end up dead. I can barely conceive of what it must have been like to operate like that, operation after operation, day after day, week on week, months turn to years. There is no let up.
- smcl 5y ago
  It actually is mentioned in the article: “When an enemy fighter dived from behind, fired and carried on diving past, one could not immediately dive in pursuit without the engine temporarily cutting and causing one to be left far behind. This could be avoided by rolling upside down, pulling back on the stick into a dive (positive g) then rolling level in the dive. […] Similarly, on sighting a target below, one suffered momentarily if one pushed the nose down to attack, a grave disadvantage.” I am curious about the scenario you raised as to how an ME109 pilot would behave. Did they know about this flaw in the Spitfire?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ddxxdd 5y ago
The basic summary: G-forces on an British fighter planes' fuel caused the engine to cut out during a tactically important nosedive. This problem was fixed by a fuel constrictor, designed by a "diamond-in-the-rough" female engineer and motorcycle racing world champion. She undoubtedly saved lives, but she didn't singlehandedly solve society's misogynistic views.
- fapjacks 5y ago
  And 50 years from now when I'm gone and the kids around here have grandkids, people will cherry pick shitty quotes from shitty people in 2021 about race or gender or whatever else suits their political aims and lots of people that remember 2021 will cowardly say "it was a different time" and yet there will be these problems of sexism and racism and whatever other isms. As if we didn't care about these problems in the 90s, or the 60s, or before. In fact, the Romans wrote about these very same problems. So then I think we are framing the problem in the wrong way.
vmception 5y ago
tl;dr she had a special fighter jet or component it was known as her orifice, “just locker room talk”
gundmc 5y ago
For anyone else who was curious what the fix was, but not curious enough to read the whole long-form piece: > Shilling worked out the precise volume and pressure of fuel being pumped into the chamber by the Merlin engine and designed a brass restrictor with a hole precisely the diameter needed to allow maximum flow of fuel, and therefore maximum power, without flooding the engine. Crucially, Shilling’s solution could be fitted without the removal of the carburettor, so the fix could be made in situ at operational airfields. Though it didn’t eliminate engine cut-outs altogether, it did minimize it to an acceptable degree.
- jessriedel 5y ago
  This consistently antagonistic relationship between writer and reader, where the former is stringing along the latter as much as possible, is such a weird aspect of this time period.
  - tezzer 5y ago
    Harper's and the Atlantic have been doing long-form journalism since the 1850s. I think the form clashes with modern attention spans and ability to focus, but I still enjoy it. Since it persists, I don't think I'm alone. Recipe web sites, however... padding, padding and more. Though Dickens was paid by the word, too, and it shows.
    - spoonjim 5y ago
      This article is different from a great long Harper’s or Atlantic piece. I’m not good enough of a writer to know what needs to be fixed with this one but definitely something is “off” about its pacing.
    - brazzy 5y ago
      The problem is not long-form journalism. The problem is shitty long-form journalism that randomly jumps between the events actually being described and the biography of the people involved.
IgorPartola 5y ago
I have read the story if Miss Shilling a couple of times now. What I cannot place in historical context is whether the name “Miss Shilling’s orifice” is supposed to be a dirty joke or not. I am certain that the innovation was taken very seriously, but was the name given to it because she was a woman/was there innuendo in it or was the language sufficiently different then that this was a purely technical term?
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  The double entendre was probably not accidental. Another comment here indicates it was called the same thing with even stronger language on a regular basis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27215505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27215505 There is also this line in the article: The question remains as to what Shilling herself thought of the dubious term “Miss Shilling’s orifice.”
- TheManInThePub 5y ago
  > whether the name “Miss Shilling’s orifice” is supposed to be a dirty joke or not. You are clearly not British, otherwise you would recognise the rule that no entendre must be left un-doubled. Amusingly, double entendres, common in Britain, would probably cause those in the West Coast US to panic for fear of being perceived sexist. In Britain (home of the panto [1]), we just smile childishly...... and maybe add a 'fnarr fnarr' for good measure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Performance_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Performance_conventi...
girvo 5y ago
“At that moment (I must have been down to about a hundred yards), I hit his slipstream and my engine cut —stone dead.” Dogfights are presumably made all the more memorable with the added frisson of engine trouble. Heck, that would put some hairs on your chest… the solution is ingenious too. What a neat article.
lobe 5y ago
This is a very interesting story that is (at least claimed to be) part of my family history. My family stems from a group of travelling motorbike stunt riders back to the 20's. They did the wall of death and later the globe of death, and had to solve this problem in their bikes. The family story is that we helped win the battle of Britain, as Miss Shilling read the about the idea in a motorcycle magazine that covered my families show. There is a lot of evidence on what Miss Shilling did, and that my family did the same modification to their bikes prior, but the lack of a link between the two leaves this as a half truth / half myth story
- sloucher 5y ago
  I'm sure there are challenges in a wall of death / globe of death situation, but I'd think that negative-g would not be one of them? Quite the reverse, I'd have thought...
  - hinoki 5y ago
    The “orifice” was not for making fuel flow at negative gs, but for limiting the fuel after (once normal forces returned? The article is not clear) so there wasn’t too much fuel causing a rich-cut. So possibly motorcycles could have the rich cut from bottoming out in the sphere of death?
zapdrive 5y ago
> How a female engineer defied all norms to save England in the Second World War. Yes, let's pin the victory on one woman. Fuck the millions of brave front line soldiers, who sacrificed their lives, who paid the ultimate price to ensure this victory. Yay feminism!
- dang 5y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - fapjacks 5y ago
    There has really been a dramatic shift on HN in the last couple of years.
    - dang 5y ago
      I'm not so sure. There were lots of bad posts in the past, as well. A lot of these perceptions boil down to sample bias (e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), plus nostalgia bias (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20nostalgia%20bias&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Then there is the question of macro trends in society at large, which no site can expect to be immune from (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20immune%20macro%20trends&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). What does it all add up to? I don't know. It's a complex situation with more than enough datapoints to accommodate whatever pattern people want to project into it (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20rohrschach&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
DoreenMichele 5y ago
Those chasing the fastest lap times would race near the steepest, highest edge of the bank —circumstances under which staying in contact with the ground is, according to conventional wisdom, a good idea. I love the understated humor of this article. And for different reasons, this is another wonderful bit from the piece: This left only the logistical problem of how to get the restrictors to Fighter Command airfields in good time. Shilling organized a small band of engineers to assist, though inevitably she travelled up and down the country solo, and by her preferred mode of travel: her trusty Norton motorcycle. By then she’d made the small concession, perhaps under duress, to detune the Norton somewhat to make it more suitable for public roads. “Her appearance at airfields with a bag of tools and a brisk manner became something of a legend,” I'm also really happy to see these bits: It was due to these ongoing narrow margins in battle that we can be sure Shilling’s innovation saved lives. “Beatrice Shilling helped us to win World War II —of that there is no doubt,” he told the BBC in 2017. Her war efforts weren’t limited to improvements to the Merlin engine. She also contributed to a range of engines to improve starting in freezing conditions, and operation at higher altitudes.
vmception 5y ago
tl;dr she had a special fighter jet or component it was known as her orifice In case anyone was curious about that part of the article
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
You posted this 7 months ago?
- dang 5y ago
  We invited the repost. Invited reposts are a special case of the second-chance pool. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/invited https://news.ycombinator.com/invited
  - ChrisArchitect 5y ago
    ah, I will double check /invited on my next call out ;) thx
    - dang 5y ago
      Just to be clear, reposts are explicitly ok on HN if a story hasn't had significant attention yet. We want good stories to get multiple cracks at the bat! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
hyko 5y ago
Negative gravity is a confusing term because the problem wasn’t one of gravity, or even force, but rather of acceleration and inertia. Negative gravity sounds confusing because the author is using the wrong word–what’s being described here is negative gravity equivalent (g-force). The aircraft is experiencing plenty of gravity, just in a different direction than it normally would. The problem is very much one of force. Negative gravity is related to the concept of negative mass, which is a proposed form of exotic matter.
- Fuzzwah 5y ago
  The usual term is simply "negative g", but it is implied that the g is gravity. I'm not sure of the earliest mention, but I did turn up this. A Decade of Basic and Applied Science in the Navy From 1958. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=QbDyJ8jM7_kC&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=earliest+mention+of+%22negative+g%22&source=bl&ots=ete6nrI8gK&sig=ACfU3U32Rwr_RBj7MkUAOxJuZ2oDfo27Ww&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmiq_C6dfwAhUM4XMBHbt3BsEQ6AEwEXoECBYQAg#v=onepage&q=earliest%20mention%20of%20%22negative%20g%22&f=false https://books.google.com.au/books?id=QbDyJ8jM7_kC&pg=PA101&l...
pftburger 5y ago
Sorry what? Is this articles title really a vagina joke? Can we maybe rather not?
- laci37 5y ago
  A vagina joke made in the 40s, that's part of WW2's history.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- TheManInThePub 5y ago
  As I said below.... double entendres, very common in Britain, appear to cause those in the West Coast US to panic for fear of being perceived sexist. In Britain (home of the panto [1]), we just smile childishly...... and maybe add a 'fnarr fnarr' for good measure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Performance_conventi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Performance_conventi...
  - toyg 5y ago
    Double-entendres are as English as Big Ben. Even in the most prudish of eras, it's just been a staple of their artistic production, all the way from Shakespeare's times. Occasionally I listen to '60s entertainment shows from BBC Radio and they are so full of them that the average American would probably consider it "blue" material today, let alone decades ago.
    - TheManInThePub 5y ago
      > Double-entendres are as English as Big Ben. Undoubtedly. Its probably also worth pointing out to our American audience that the beauty of double entendres is that any "blue" meaning is clearly in the mind of those hearing them, nowhere else! After all "Miss Shillings Orifice" is simply a carburettor part named after Miss Shilling. Any association with bodily orifices (and that one in particular) is in the mind of the listener who should hang their head in shame for having such a dirty mind :-) What *would* your mother think!
foobarbecue 5y ago
I want to read this but I can't make a scroll bar show up (on mobile). I stopped reading it because I can't find a way to check how long it will be.

226 points by choult 5y ago

That was a much more interesting read than I expected. Well worth the time.

Jun8 5y ago

"At 15, she decided engineering was the career for her. The problem was that it was 1924. “The average woman does not possess the same engineering instinct as the average man,” was one opinion recorded in the Daily News at around that time. It belonged to the manager of the Education Research Department at British Westinghouse. “For a woman in the 1920s a career in lion-taming would have been more realistic,” observes Shilling’s biographer, Matthew Freudenberg." Aptly put. Good thing about reading up on history is to gain an appreciation on the enormous changes in perception in the last 100 years or so, in this case about women in STEM fields. Even when her contribution was acknowledged and applied, it was coined a horribly sexist nickname.

TchoBeer 5y ago
It's crazy how quickly these things have changed. 1920 doesn't _feel_ like all that long ago, objectively speaking.
abraae 5y ago
It's surprising that human society has survived, given that half the population was artificially excluded from many intellectual pursuits - or many pursuits full stop really - and the other half perhaps underperformed as they wallowed in feeling of superiority form their position of privilege.
- corndoge 5y ago
  It's not really that surprising.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Right. (Other) Animals can be much worse in many ways and their species survive. That’s not to say we want to be like savages, but it just is not a necessary ingredient for survival.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  What a fantastic way to dismissively say "Raising children is work that is of zero benefit to the human species and a complete waste of time. Women only have any value if they are doing something other than traditional women's work."
  - stevula 5y ago
    > What a fantastic way to dismissively say "Raising children is work that is of zero benefit to the human species and a complete waste of time. I don’t know if there was an edit to the previous post, but “Excluded from many intellectual pursuits” does not mean anything like what you are saying. Isn’t it possible to lament a historic lack of choice without demeaning homemakers?
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      A. I'm reacting to It's surprising that human society has survived. B. Also the part you quoted implicitly suggests raising children takes no brains. I was one of the top three students of my graduating high school class, won a National Merit Scholarship, among other things, and was a full-time wife and mom for a lot of years. I homeschooled my twice exceptional sons because no other school was really capable of adequately serving their needs. My oldest tested at senior in college level in science at age 11 and also below grade level in writing. Addressing his needs required me to present high level materials without watering them down while accommodating his weaknesses. I take personal offense at the idea that full-time moms are not doing useful work and raising children is something any idiot can do well. The world would be a better place if we worried more about raising our children well. Studies show that investing in preschoolers saves money down the line by lowering prison costs for society. Edit in response to your edit: Isn’t it possible to lament a historic lack of choice without demeaning homemakers? Absolutely. But the comment in question doesn't manage to do so.
      - xvector 5y ago
        This really feels like an over-reaction. > I take personal offense at the idea that full-time moms are not doing useful work and raising children is something any idiot can do well. Where was this even remotely implied? OP said: > It's surprising that human society has survived, given that half the population was artificially excluded from many intellectual pursuits - or many pursuits full stop Even if you disagree with the premise - how in any way does this demean homemakers? What a bizarre reaction.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bendbro 5y ago
  It isn't surprising at all considering hundreds of surviving, geographically isolated cultures all shared this same characteristic. It seems rather natural and unsurprising when we know it was successfully used so many times.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > It's surprising that human society has survived, given that half the population was artificially excluded from many intellectual pursuits A lot more than half were (and still are), by economic circumstance.
CamperBob2 5y ago
“The average woman does not possess the same engineering instinct as the average man,” was one opinion recorded in the Daily News at around that time Good thing wars aren't won by average people, then! Great story, she reminds me a lot of Jeri Ellsworth's exploits.
exporectomy 5y ago
You're aware that Westinghouse quote is probably correct, right? Both then and now. Though it's application to an exceptional individual is silly.

gerdesj 5y ago

“At that moment (I must have been down to about a hundred yards), I hit his slipstream and my engine cut —stone dead.” He didn't need to describe his lower legs suddenly becoming strangely warm. What isn't mentioned is that before the band aid was discovered thanks to Ms Shilling and her ... (it was often called 'er c**) a Spitfire would have to invert before diving to turn a neg. into a posi. So, when your enemy pushes forwards on the stick whilst frantically wriggling left and right, you would have to spin 180 on your longitudinal axis to follow. I'm sure many of the enemy would then fake to get you to spin and whilst you are fiddling around, slow down and get in behind you. I can imagine: ME109 finds Spitfire on his tail. He has two great options - better rate of climb and a pressurized fuel system which doesn't cut out in neg. g. The Spitfire has a better turning circle, so don't go there. I suspect that they would go for the fake dive - the Spit will have to invert to follow. Now, I don't know how long the early Spits can manage a dive before having to decide to invert or pull out, so that is a factor here. When the 109 sees the Spit inverting in the rear view, pull back fairly hard, slow down a bit, probably with a left to right jiggle with the rudder to "skid" rather than messing with revs and propellor pitch (takes to long to play with the controls). If done right the Spit will pass underneath your 109 and most importantly, be blind because he's inverted. Now you are behind him and you have a cannon plus a handful of pea shooters to deploy. If the Spit is canny, he should see the fake dip and probably try to turn horizontally and turn the scrap into a turning game. The Spit should win that because it has a better turning circle, in general. Have an off day at the office in one of these things and you end up dead. I can barely conceive of what it must have been like to operate like that, operation after operation, day after day, week on week, months turn to years. There is no let up.

smcl 5y ago
It actually is mentioned in the article: “When an enemy fighter dived from behind, fired and carried on diving past, one could not immediately dive in pursuit without the engine temporarily cutting and causing one to be left far behind. This could be avoided by rolling upside down, pulling back on the stick into a dive (positive g) then rolling level in the dive. […] Similarly, on sighting a target below, one suffered momentarily if one pushed the nose down to attack, a grave disadvantage.” I am curious about the scenario you raised as to how an ME109 pilot would behave. Did they know about this flaw in the Spitfire?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ddxxdd 5y ago

The basic summary: G-forces on an British fighter planes' fuel caused the engine to cut out during a tactically important nosedive. This problem was fixed by a fuel constrictor, designed by a "diamond-in-the-rough" female engineer and motorcycle racing world champion. She undoubtedly saved lives, but she didn't singlehandedly solve society's misogynistic views.

fapjacks 5y ago
And 50 years from now when I'm gone and the kids around here have grandkids, people will cherry pick shitty quotes from shitty people in 2021 about race or gender or whatever else suits their political aims and lots of people that remember 2021 will cowardly say "it was a different time" and yet there will be these problems of sexism and racism and whatever other isms. As if we didn't care about these problems in the 90s, or the 60s, or before. In fact, the Romans wrote about these very same problems. So then I think we are framing the problem in the wrong way.

vmception 5y ago

tl;dr she had a special fighter jet or component it was known as her orifice, “just locker room talk”

gundmc 5y ago

For anyone else who was curious what the fix was, but not curious enough to read the whole long-form piece: > Shilling worked out the precise volume and pressure of fuel being pumped into the chamber by the Merlin engine and designed a brass restrictor with a hole precisely the diameter needed to allow maximum flow of fuel, and therefore maximum power, without flooding the engine. Crucially, Shilling’s solution could be fitted without the removal of the carburettor, so the fix could be made in situ at operational airfields. Though it didn’t eliminate engine cut-outs altogether, it did minimize it to an acceptable degree.

jessriedel 5y ago
This consistently antagonistic relationship between writer and reader, where the former is stringing along the latter as much as possible, is such a weird aspect of this time period.
- tezzer 5y ago
  Harper's and the Atlantic have been doing long-form journalism since the 1850s. I think the form clashes with modern attention spans and ability to focus, but I still enjoy it. Since it persists, I don't think I'm alone. Recipe web sites, however... padding, padding and more. Though Dickens was paid by the word, too, and it shows.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    This article is different from a great long Harper’s or Atlantic piece. I’m not good enough of a writer to know what needs to be fixed with this one but definitely something is “off” about its pacing.
  - brazzy 5y ago
    The problem is not long-form journalism. The problem is shitty long-form journalism that randomly jumps between the events actually being described and the biography of the people involved.

IgorPartola 5y ago

I have read the story if Miss Shilling a couple of times now. What I cannot place in historical context is whether the name “Miss Shilling’s orifice” is supposed to be a dirty joke or not. I am certain that the innovation was taken very seriously, but was the name given to it because she was a woman/was there innuendo in it or was the language sufficiently different then that this was a purely technical term?

DoreenMichele 5y ago
The double entendre was probably not accidental. Another comment here indicates it was called the same thing with even stronger language on a regular basis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27215505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27215505 There is also this line in the article: The question remains as to what Shilling herself thought of the dubious term “Miss Shilling’s orifice.”
TheManInThePub 5y ago
> whether the name “Miss Shilling’s orifice” is supposed to be a dirty joke or not. You are clearly not British, otherwise you would recognise the rule that no entendre must be left un-doubled. Amusingly, double entendres, common in Britain, would probably cause those in the West Coast US to panic for fear of being perceived sexist. In Britain (home of the panto [1]), we just smile childishly...... and maybe add a 'fnarr fnarr' for good measure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Performance_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Performance_conventi...

girvo 5y ago

“At that moment (I must have been down to about a hundred yards), I hit his slipstream and my engine cut —stone dead.” Dogfights are presumably made all the more memorable with the added frisson of engine trouble. Heck, that would put some hairs on your chest… the solution is ingenious too. What a neat article.

lobe 5y ago

This is a very interesting story that is (at least claimed to be) part of my family history. My family stems from a group of travelling motorbike stunt riders back to the 20's. They did the wall of death and later the globe of death, and had to solve this problem in their bikes. The family story is that we helped win the battle of Britain, as Miss Shilling read the about the idea in a motorcycle magazine that covered my families show. There is a lot of evidence on what Miss Shilling did, and that my family did the same modification to their bikes prior, but the lack of a link between the two leaves this as a half truth / half myth story

sloucher 5y ago
I'm sure there are challenges in a wall of death / globe of death situation, but I'd think that negative-g would not be one of them? Quite the reverse, I'd have thought...
- hinoki 5y ago
  The “orifice” was not for making fuel flow at negative gs, but for limiting the fuel after (once normal forces returned? The article is not clear) so there wasn’t too much fuel causing a rich-cut. So possibly motorcycles could have the rich cut from bottoming out in the sphere of death?

zapdrive 5y ago

> How a female engineer defied all norms to save England in the Second World War. Yes, let's pin the victory on one woman. Fuck the millions of brave front line soldiers, who sacrificed their lives, who paid the ultimate price to ensure this victory. Yay feminism!

dang 5y ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fapjacks 5y ago
  There has really been a dramatic shift on HN in the last couple of years.
  - dang 5y ago
    I'm not so sure. There were lots of bad posts in the past, as well. A lot of these perceptions boil down to sample bias (e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), plus nostalgia bias (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20nostalgia%20bias&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Then there is the question of macro trends in society at large, which no site can expect to be immune from (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20immune%20macro%20trends&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). What does it all add up to? I don't know. It's a complex situation with more than enough datapoints to accommodate whatever pattern people want to project into it (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20rohrschach&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

DoreenMichele 5y ago

Those chasing the fastest lap times would race near the steepest, highest edge of the bank —circumstances under which staying in contact with the ground is, according to conventional wisdom, a good idea. I love the understated humor of this article. And for different reasons, this is another wonderful bit from the piece: This left only the logistical problem of how to get the restrictors to Fighter Command airfields in good time. Shilling organized a small band of engineers to assist, though inevitably she travelled up and down the country solo, and by her preferred mode of travel: her trusty Norton motorcycle. By then she’d made the small concession, perhaps under duress, to detune the Norton somewhat to make it more suitable for public roads. “Her appearance at airfields with a bag of tools and a brisk manner became something of a legend,” I'm also really happy to see these bits: It was due to these ongoing narrow margins in battle that we can be sure Shilling’s innovation saved lives. “Beatrice Shilling helped us to win World War II —of that there is no doubt,” he told the BBC in 2017. Her war efforts weren’t limited to improvements to the Merlin engine. She also contributed to a range of engines to improve starting in freezing conditions, and operation at higher altitudes.

vmception 5y ago

tl;dr she had a special fighter jet or component it was known as her orifice In case anyone was curious about that part of the article

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

You posted this 7 months ago?

dang 5y ago
We invited the repost. Invited reposts are a special case of the second-chance pool. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/invited https://news.ycombinator.com/invited
- ChrisArchitect 5y ago
  ah, I will double check /invited on my next call out ;) thx
  - dang 5y ago
    Just to be clear, reposts are explicitly ok on HN if a story hasn't had significant attention yet. We want good stories to get multiple cracks at the bat! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

hyko 5y ago

Negative gravity is a confusing term because the problem wasn’t one of gravity, or even force, but rather of acceleration and inertia. Negative gravity sounds confusing because the author is using the wrong word–what’s being described here is negative gravity equivalent (g-force). The aircraft is experiencing plenty of gravity, just in a different direction than it normally would. The problem is very much one of force. Negative gravity is related to the concept of negative mass, which is a proposed form of exotic matter.

Fuzzwah 5y ago
The usual term is simply "negative g", but it is implied that the g is gravity. I'm not sure of the earliest mention, but I did turn up this. A Decade of Basic and Applied Science in the Navy From 1958. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=QbDyJ8jM7_kC&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=earliest+mention+of+%22negative+g%22&source=bl&ots=ete6nrI8gK&sig=ACfU3U32Rwr_RBj7MkUAOxJuZ2oDfo27Ww&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmiq_C6dfwAhUM4XMBHbt3BsEQ6AEwEXoECBYQAg#v=onepage&q=earliest%20mention%20of%20%22negative%20g%22&f=false https://books.google.com.au/books?id=QbDyJ8jM7_kC&pg=PA101&l...

pftburger 5y ago

Sorry what? Is this articles title really a vagina joke? Can we maybe rather not?

laci37 5y ago
A vagina joke made in the 40s, that's part of WW2's history.
deleted 5y ago
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TheManInThePub 5y ago
As I said below.... double entendres, very common in Britain, appear to cause those in the West Coast US to panic for fear of being perceived sexist. In Britain (home of the panto [1]), we just smile childishly...... and maybe add a 'fnarr fnarr' for good measure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Performance_conventi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Performance_conventi...
- toyg 5y ago
  Double-entendres are as English as Big Ben. Even in the most prudish of eras, it's just been a staple of their artistic production, all the way from Shakespeare's times. Occasionally I listen to '60s entertainment shows from BBC Radio and they are so full of them that the average American would probably consider it "blue" material today, let alone decades ago.
  - TheManInThePub 5y ago
    > Double-entendres are as English as Big Ben. Undoubtedly. Its probably also worth pointing out to our American audience that the beauty of double entendres is that any "blue" meaning is clearly in the mind of those hearing them, nowhere else! After all "Miss Shillings Orifice" is simply a carburettor part named after Miss Shilling. Any association with bodily orifices (and that one in particular) is in the mind of the listener who should hang their head in shame for having such a dirty mind :-) What *would* your mother think!

foobarbecue 5y ago

I want to read this but I can't make a scroll bar show up (on mobile). I stopped reading it because I can't find a way to check how long it will be.