To the Editor: I agree with Paul Sharke in his "Controlled Breathing" article (May 2003) that increased internal combustion engine efficiency should be possible with the additional degrees of freedom electronic valve actuation promises. However, I disagree that the primary reason for the improvement is because pumping losses are reduced by eliminating the intake airstream throttle plate.

Gasoline-powered spark ignition engines require a stoichiometrically correct fuel-air ratio at all power outputs and, therefore, cannot escape throttling of the airstream across most of their operating regimes. As I see it, the camless engine divides and relocates the function of the conventional throttle plate to each of the individual intake valves, which now become responsible for providing the appropriate levels of intake air pressure drop at all power outputs less than 100 percent.

Splitting Seams
Willard J. Sickles,
P.E.
Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

To the Editor: I told my boss that the next time I read an article about the seamless use of software between groups in the development of a new product, I would write a letter. Well, yours was the next magazine ("Shaking Hands Again," April 2003).

On a recent project involving a sheet metal cabinet, the industrial designer used a "slabular" design in which he modeled the sides, top, floor, and doors as thick slabs. It looks good on the computer screen, but has no construction details like material thickness, flanges, or holes for inserts.

As the project engineer, I need to model a cabinet that can be manufactured and assembled, and is strong and rigid enough for its intended market. My model needs material thickness, flanges, clearances, allowances for N/C punch and bending tolerances, and female thread insert holes of the correct diameter punched into the sheet metal.

While I am trying to figure out all the details, the industrial designer is way ahead of me, working on options and accessories, and tweaking the design. This is all happening on his slabular model, not the sheet metal one I am working with.
It's the nature of the process that the industrial design work happens much faster than the mechanical engineering details, but the devil is in the details and must be figured out.

All the industrial designer's changes must be verbally communicated to me, and then incorporated and checked in the sheet metal model, because there is no way to consolidate the two models even though they are both in SolidWorks! The two models are serving two masters with two different purposes. If only it was as easy as the articles say it is!

To the Editor: I enjoyed the article in the July 2003 issue, "Between the Horse and Car," by Frank Wicks, as I have been riding Harleys for 34 years and have studied the company's history. However, I take exception to some of the dates cited by Professor Wicks.

The correct date the third-generation heirs decided to divest the company to AMF (American Machine and Foundry) was 1969, not 1965 as stated in the article.

The Flathead was not introduced in 1952. Numerous flathead (or sidevalve) V-twin engine examples could be cited, as the 1929 DL or the 1930 VL, both 74-cubic-inch engines. The 45-cubic-inch flathead Model WLD was introduced in 1937.

Other than these date discrepancies, it was an excellent article.

To the Editor: I also have not returned to reading The New York Times Magazine. I've noticed that I've grown a bit sinister with age. While reading your editorial ("Keeping an Open Mind," January), the thought of being the first to cross the English Channel without an engine made me wonder. Why isn't the human body considered an engine? And an even more sinister thought: At what altitude and with what velocity of forward motion would a human body need to be dropped so an article could be written about the first human to cross the Channel without the use of wings or an engine?

My list of resolutions does not include a return to reading The New York Times Magazine. I'll stick to "Hagar The Horrible" and "Calvin & Hobbes." They are—at this time—as close to the English Channel as I want to get.

To the Editor: Your very interesting article in the November 2003 issue ("Look, Ma, No Pilot!") brought back memories of seeing Navy radio-controlled small planes operating out of an airport on Banika Island of the Russell Group in the Solomon Islands.

The planes were of the Piper or Taylorcraft small private planes. They operated with a pilot for takeoff and landing. In the air, they were being operated by a pilot in a larger plane, either a dive bomber or torpedo bomber.

I have often wondered what the plans were for these planes.

To the Editor: I would like to point out that there is a better term for robotic aircraft: "uncrewed aerial vehicle." The term "uncrewed" is far more accurate than "unmanned," as I know many women pilots who also wouldn't fit within the "manned" category. This replacement term is easily implemented, since it is also covered by the UAV acronym, so there is no reason why future ASME publications shouldn't use it.

Before you or your readers dismiss me as a politically correct flake, please note that ASME has a long way to go with respect to gender equity. The list of "ASME Fellows" at the back of the November issue is a prime example of what's wrong with gender equity and ASME: Only six of the almost 150 recipients are women.

The engineering disciplines are still primarily boys' clubs. Thinking twice about using gender-neutral terms to describe the projects we work on is a small but important step toward changing that.

Dredge
Righted
Richard T. Smith
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., Oak Brook, Ill.

To the Editor: As a member of ASME and the project manager for the construction of the dredge New York back in 1999, I was elated to see the article "Digging Deeper in New York" (November 2003).

The dredge New York at work.

I was, however, disappointed to see that you did not publish a photograph of the dredge. The photograph that is shown and captioned as the dredge New York is actually our drillboat Apache.

The Apache is a newer vessel, and was custom designed by a colleague here in the mechanical engineering department, Sudhir Shroff, for subaqueous drilling and blasting of extremely hard materials prior to excavation.

Even with maximum digging forces of up to 200 tons, the New York still needs a little help at times!

Facts on Iraq
Don Lock
Bethlehem, Pa.

To the Editor: Your June 2003 "Rebuilding Iraq" article did a disservice by speaking of "...horrifying stories of how Saddam Hussein let the water and sanitation infrastructure run down as a means of controlling the Iraqi people."

Had the magazine wished to cite an authoritative source, it could have chosen no organization more respected and directly involved than the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been warning for over a decade that economic sanctions were wreaking havoc with Iraq's water supplies. The oil-for-food program eventually produced some improvement; but the ban on chlorine, even though the Red Cross and oil-for-food administration would have strictly controlled its distribution for water treatment purposes only, left the job far from complete.

The USAID representative who spoke in your article of finding unused treatment hardware in Iraq's warehouses ought to explain how such equipment could be put to use without chemical supplies.

Rebuilding Iraq will require credibility, funds, and equipment. It seems the present administration does not intend to ever attain such status.

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