Telstar Logistics

The Intimate Industrial Illustrations of Frank Soltesz

Through the good offices of our distinguished associate Leif Peng, we recently discovered the remarkable illustrated oeuvre of Mr. Frank Soltesz. 

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Soltesz was commissioned by a company called Armstrong's Industrial Insulations to create a series of cutaway drawings about modern business. These were then published as advertisements in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post.

Unfortunately, our attempts to learn more about Frank Soltesz proved mostly futile, apart from the obvious fact that he was a midcentury commercial illustrator and the trivial fact that he remained a member of the American Watercolor Society as late as 1981. Yet the lack of biographical detail does nothing to diminish the power of Soltesz's work. On his own blog, Leif Peng provides a perfect summary of Soltesz's genius:

The tiny people in Frank Soltesz's factories and industrial plants seem, of necessity, like ants in a colony or worker bees in a hive -- their clothing largely indistinguishable from each other and their activities mostly unified in the task of completing some mundane process.

But when Soltesz painted cutaways of buildings like hotels and hospitals, he invested each tiny person with an individual identity. Through the unique characteristics and actities of these miniature people, Frank Soltesz truly became a storyteller.

To that we would merely add another observation; namely, that for the Armstrong's Industrial Insulations company, the intimacy of Soltesz's illustrations also served a practical purpose.

In effect, these cutaways, and the explanatory text that accompanied them, were the midcentury magazine equivalent of what a 21st century pitchman (sorry, pitchperson) might call "interactive advertising." Soltesz's lavish visual detail provides functional explanations of banal modern miracles -- conveniences such as theater air conditioning or frozen orange juice or department stores -- exposing the magic through which they become reality. The images entice the reader, deeper and deeper into the inner workings, until before you know it, you've plunged into the caption text, where you are helpfully informed that in a commercial bakery, the refrigerated storerooms feature walls "made of Armstrong's Corkboard or Foamglas to keep heat out, and the pipes that bring the cold in are sheathed with Armstrong's Cork Covering."  Who knew?

As a happy coda, Armstrong's Industrial Insulations, which was based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, today lives on as part of Specialty Products & Insulation Co., which remains headquartered in Lancaster. Hats off to Leif Peng for allowing the work of Frank Soltesz to live on as well.

LINK: Cutaway illustrations of Frank Soltesz (Flickr photoset by Leif Peng)

UPDATE (16 September, 2008): Frank Soltesz's son has published a biographical essay about his father, which can be read at franksoltesz.com.

How a Fleet of Vintage Streetcars Became Stranded in the Snows of Lake Tahoe

(UPDATED May 17, 2007)

If you happen to be driving east along Highway 50 in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, keep an eye out as you approach the town of South Lake Tahoe.  Look carefully to your left a few yards before the entrance to the local airport and you may catch a glimpse of an improbable sight: a faded fleet of decomissioned San Francisco streetcars resting in the high alpine snowdrifts almost 200 miles from the city where they once carried passengers.

How did these streetcars end up so far from home?  The story turns out to be an only-in-California mixture of romantic fantasy and radical idealism, and it begins during the early 1980s, when Muni, San Francisco's public transit agency, decided to retire the last of it's streamlined "Presidents' Conference Committee" streetcars. 

The Wikipedia summarizes the origins of the distinctive PCC:

The unusual name comes from the fact that the car was designed by a committee, formed in 1929, representing various electric street railways. The Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee, or ERPCC, was tasked with producing a new type of streetcar that would help fend off competition from automobiles. The committee produced a high-performance design that was commonly used in the following decades. The cars were popular because of their distinctive streamlined design and smooth acceleration.

PCC streetcars were manufactured from 1936 to 1952, and ultimately almost 5000 were built.  San Francisco operated a fleet purchased during the 1940s, but four decades later, the cars were worn and tired, and they looked ridiculous when painted in Muni's Disco-era "rainbow" livery. By 1982, Muni had acquired a modern fleet of "Light Rail Vehicles" from Boeing, the last of San Francisco's PCCs was finally removed from service, and a few of the old streetcars were sold off to the highest bidder.

The highest bidder turned out to be a man named Gunnar Henrioulle.

Virgin America, Cleared for Takeoff?

Virgin America Airways, a new discount airline that will be based at San Francisco International Airport, has received preliminary approval from the US Department of Transportation to begin operations. FINALLY!

(Above: Virgin America A320s parked at Montreal Airport, photo by SoCalMetro.)

The Airbus A380 Invades America

Amid a barrage of news headlines and scrupulously-framed promotional photographs, two Airbus A380 superjumbo airliners touched down on American soil for the first time yesterday, following a test flight intended to demonstrate how the aircraft handles a full passenger load.

How was the ride?  Joe Sharky from the New York Times was aboard the A380 that carried 460 passengers on a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to New York's JFK, and he described the experience thus:

There was one immediate impression. Airbus has boasted that A380 technology makes it the quietest of the big jets (an implied comparison to noisy 747s from its rival, Boeing). Passengers and flight attendants were impressed, if not with the sound of silence, then at least with the absence of loud engine noise.

Two hours into the flight, Susanne von der Krone, a Lufthansa flight attendant who was serving lunch, lauded the peace and quiet. “The less noise, the more comfortable you feel,” she said.

The interior design of the cabin and seats, as well as the meals, were good quality, but not necessarily what passengers will find when Lufthansa actually begins commercial A380 service with a customized in-flight package in 2009.

Lunch consisted of tuna and veal hors d’oeuvres, a choice of beef fillet or anglerfish with eggplant ragout, a cheese plate and fresh berries. All cabin classes got the same food, with paper napkins.

Wine and champagne flowed freely. Well before we reached the mid-Atlantic, the aisles of the plane — wide enough for a person to squeeze past a meal cart — resembled a lively cocktail party. Passengers mingled in the aisles and wandered from deck to deck, some congregating around a bar separating coach and first-class sections on the lower deck.

Peter Greenberg, the embedded reporter from the "Today Show" found another feature to love during the flight: The TailCam. Jaunted channels Greenberg to report that "Lufthansa has its own version of JenniCam, with no Jenni, but lots of live jumbo jet ass. The tail camera shows a live continuous, wide angle shot of the plane in flight."

Although about a dozen US airports have undertaken the modifications necessary to accommodate the A380 -- improvements that mainly involve widening taxiways and installing upper-level jetways for  passengers seated on the giant plane's upper deck -- no American passenger airlines have ordered the A380. For a time, the A380 found a home within the fleets of American freight carriers FedEx and UPS, but both cancelled their orders in recent months as a result of the delays that have plagued the A380 program.  Doh!

As if to underscore that point, Boeing was not idle yesterday either.  Although the A380s got all the photo ops, Boeing used the opportunity to remind the world that work on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is proceeding on schedule, with the first 787 set for rollout on July 8, 2007, and the first delivery (to All Nippon Airways) taking place in May 2008.

PREVIOUSLY: More A380 Wake Turbulence and Superjumbo Superheadaches

(Photos: Top, A380 taxing at JFK, by Vidiot; Bottom, A380 landing at LAX by casual clicks)

Big and Bigger: Sizing Up the World's Largest Aircraft

We found this nifty graphic while wandering the aisles of the Wikipedia; it's a telling comparison of the Giantest of the Giant Aircraft from Yesterday and Tomorrow. The chart compares the (Howard) Hughes H-4 Spruce Goose flying boat vs. the Airbus A380-800 airliner vs. the Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo transport vs. Boeing's forthcoming 747-8 Intercontinental. For those playing Trivial Pursuit at home, the Spruce Goose and A380 are tallest, the An-225 is longest, and the Spruce Goose has the widest wingspan.

Wikipedia Giant Planes comparison, created by Clem Tiller: LINK

How UPS Will Save the World: Fewer Left Turns

Let's say you're a trucking company.  A real one, not a fake company, like some that some that shall go nameless. A really, really big trucking company -- one with 92,000 (real) vehicles.  A trucking company so big, with so many vehicles, that your name just happens to be UPS. Now, if you were running a company like UPS, and you decided to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, how would you do it?  Hybrid trucks? Way too expensive. Ethanol-powered trucks?  Ditto. Hydrogen-powered trucks? Dream on.

Or, you could try something simpler: Make fewer left turns.  A Financial Times article by Sarah Murray describes a route-optimization software tool that UPS uses to do just that:

Take something as simple as reducing left-hand turns. For US drivers, this means less time idling in the middle of the road waiting for oncoming traffic to pass. "Left-hand turns - that's a huge issue," says Cyndi Brandt, product managerfor the Roadnet transportation suite.

A division of UPS, Roadnet sells software that logistics managers at companies such as Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch use to re-engineer their fleet routing.

Roadnet uses an underlying map database that can penalise or disable left-hand turns in the route planning process. The system is well suited to the delivery business because drivers can run circular routes, ending up where they started.

Using this technique, Roadnet customers generate surprising savings on fuel and emissions. Collectively, Roadnet clients save an estimated 54.4m gallons of fuel a year and can cut about 85,000 trucks and cars out of their logistics systems.

Do the back-of-the-envelope math: 54.4 million gallons saved, at an average diesel fuel price of $2.68 a gallon, amounts to cash savings of $145.8 million.  And a happier planet. Keep that in mind next time you turn left.

(Photo above, UPS truck in the Mission District, San Francisco. By SeenyaRita)

Uncle Sam Trades Stealth Jets for Armored Trucks

Fewer high-tech aircraft; more heavy trucks that can resist the impact of roadside bombs.  That's the latest defense procurement plan coming from the White House, which has belatedly decided to invest heavily in a new class of armored vehicles that are optimized for survivability in Iraq-style combat zones.  In defense-speak, the new vehicles are called "Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected" vehicles, or MRAPs. Globalsecurity summarizes the problem that MRAPs are intended to solve:

The current ground tactical vehicle fleet does not have the survivability needed to support and sustain operations on the modern battlefield. While the US has superior intelligence collection, training, and tactical skill, the enemy continued to exploit the vulnerability of Marines in the current vehicle fleet. The most likely threat the Ground Tactical Vehicle Fleet (GTVF) will encounter under ship to objective maneuver (STOM) scenario is a combination of mines and small arms employed by unconventional forces operating in a non-contiguous battlespace. The legacy GTVF was not designed to withstand this threat. The GTVF was designed to support the Cold War linear battlefield.

The Marine Corps must develop a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) combat vehicle fleet capable of sustained operations in a chaotic, mine-infested, non-linear battlespace. Marines can no longer disregard survivability in favor of reliance on the ability to predict and neutralize threats.

In other words, the Rumsfeld Doctrine, which emphasized "lightweight" information dominance over "heavy" armored protection, was designed to fight an entirely different kind of war -- and thus failed miserably in Iraq. Now, citing a report from InsideDefense, Reuters reports:

[The White House hopes to] remove $388 million for five Lockheed C-130J transport planes; $146 million for one CV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft built by Boeing Co. and Bell Helicopter, a unit of Textron Inc.; and $389 million for Lockheed F-35s.

Instead, it would spend an additional $1.5 billion on armor kits and transport vehicles, including $500 million for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, the newest generation of tactical vehicles designed to protect troops against mines and roadside bombs.

As much as we looooove us some shiny new aircraft, it's unfortunate that this is happening only now -- four years into the Iraq campaign.  As another armchair analyst so wisely put it: Finally.

(Image above, the BAE Systems RG-33L 6x6 MRAP. The Pentagon just ordered 75 of these. Photo by BAE.)

Backstage on the Set of Battlestar Galactica

As if an airline memorabilia show wasn't enough to push the Telstar Logistics geek quotient well into the amber zone, we now bring you a behind-the-scenes report from one of our current-fave TV shows: Battlestar Galactica.

No, we didn't get to visit the set ourselves; that honor befell the author of the Garfield Ridge blog, who knew somebody who knew somebody who was able to arrange for an invitation to visit the Galactica soundstage in Vancouver.  Lucky him.

Garfield Ridge brings plenty of photos of props and sets -- although with that having been said, our own experience in similar situations has been that such spectacles are sometimes better left unseen. After all, it's never quite as magical to visit the Wizard of Oz after you've witnessed how he's really just a scrawny man pulling a bunch of levers behind the curtain.

Nevertheless, the photos are indeed good, and the insights into how the show is produced are revealing.  And then there's this little plot tidbit which comes straight from the mouth of Edward James Olmos, better known to Galactica nerds as Admiral William Adama:

When the subject finally does turn to Galactica-- precipitated by effusive praise from my brother and I for the acting and writing-- Olmos beams like a parent.  He says he fell in love with the role from the beginning.  He never thought he'd do a sci-fi show, but the writing was so good, and the plotlines so serious, that he jumped at the chance to play Bill Adama.

He wrapped up by saying the show was heading into a dark place, even going so far as to call series creator Ron Moore "a real sicko" for what he was doing.

LINK: Two Days of Coolness: My Visit to the Set of Battlestar Galactica (Garfield Ridge blog post)

(Photos: Galactica Command Information Center, top; Garfield Ridge in the CIC, below. All photos by Garfield Ridge)

Coming Events: The Soft Underbelly of the Bay Area Airline Collectibles Subculture

Remember the days when air travel was exciting and glamorous?  Or perhaps you think the whole comic book conference scene has become too mainstream and overrun with poseurs. Or maybe you happen to be: a) in the San Francisco area this weekend, and b) an airline history geek, or c) curious about the fact that there actually is such a thing as an airline collectibles subculture.

If any of the above apply, then you won't want to miss the 6th Semi-Annual SFO Airline Memorabilia Show, which will take place on Saturday, March 10, 2007 at the Best Western Grosvenor Airport Inn near San Francisco International Airport. Admission is $5, and doors open at 9:30.

As show director Mike Chew said in a recent email:

Tableholders are coming from as far away as Honolulu and the east coast !  We'll have a room full of dealers with even more interesting items to add to your collections !  Thanks to all of your support, our local show has continued to attract more dealers and attendees than each of the previous shows !  Our SFO show is the third largest in the country.

Telstar Logistics has attended this show several times in the past, and while it's compact in size, the selection is ample.  Vendors tend to specialize in: aircraft display models (as seen above), seatback safety instruction cards, cabin glassware and flatware, first- and business-class amenity kits, paper ephemera, airline playing cards, vintage giveaway flight bags, vintage airline advertisements, air sickness bags, and cabin uniforms. But if you happen to see any baggage-handler jackets, stand clear or be prepared to duel -- those will be OURS.

HINT: Arrive early for the best selection, and we'll see you there.

SFO Airline Memorabilia Show (Official Website): LINK

Directions to the Best Western Grosvenor Airport Inn: LINK

Photos of previous Airline Collectible Shows: LINK

Can't make it to San Francisco?  Airline collectibles shows also take place in Kansas City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver.

Can't make it to any show? Browse eBay's Airline Collectibles auctions from the safety and comfort of your own home: LINK

(Photos above, the March 2006 airline collectibles show, by Telstar Logistics)

Captain America is Dead; Metaphor Alert Status Downgraded to Condition Orange

Our staff in the Telstar Logistics Situation Room just passed along confirmed reports that Captain America is dead.  The apparent victim of a terrorist sniper attack, Captain America, 66, had been living in Palm Springs, where he was often seen golfing with Wonder Woman. The New York Daily News carries the scoop about his unfortunate demise:

Captain America is dead. The Marvel Entertainment superhero, created in 1941 as a patriotic adversary for the Nazis, is killed off in Captain America #25, which hits the stands today.

As Captain America emerges from a courthouse building, he is struck by a sniper's bullet in the shoulder and then hit again in the stomach, blood seeping out of his star-spangled costume.

His death is sure to ignite controversy in the comic book world - still reeling from Superman's death in 1993 and resurrection the following year - and even political pundits, who may see Captain America's demise as an allegory for the United States.

"It's a hell of a time for him to go. We really need him now," said co-creator Joe Simon, 93, after being informed of his brainchild's death.

Simon and artist Jack Kirby came up with the character in 1941 as an adversary for Adolf Hitler, who was more evil than any villain the pair could dream up. Since then, the patriotic hero has appeared in an estimated 210 million copies sold in 75 countries.

Upon hearing the news, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates immediately ordered that the National Metaphor Alert System be downgraded to Condition Orange, a state of narrative readiness reserved for events that may be "ominously foreshadowing but nondeterministic."

The family of Captain America asks that donations in his memory be sent to the United Nations Center for International Dialog and Kumbaya, at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Captain America's biography (MarvelDictionary entry): LINK

Special Zeitgeist Bonus: Captain America/Team America video mashup. NSFW!  NSFW!

Snowcatting Through a Winter Wilderness

During a 10 day period that ended during the middle of last week, the upper elevations of the Sierra Nevada mountains near Lake Tahoe, California received nearly 8 feet of fresh snow. 

That might sound like a lot -- and indeed it is -- but when the storm ended, it took just 48 hours for rabid skiers and snowboarders to devour the new snow, leaving many of the area's ski resorts looking rather chewed-up and bumped-out. This would not do. So to find the untracked stuff, Telstar Logistics commissioned the services of Pacific Crest Snowcats to lead us deep into the Tahoe backcountry, where the snow remained more or less pristine.

We boarded the snowcat -- a 2001 Bombardier chassis outfitted with a passenger cabin built in 2006 -- at around 8:30 in the morning.  Twelve intrepid passengers embarked on the journey, along with two guides, a driver, and ample supplies of luncheon meats. The cabin of the 'cat looks vaguely like the inside of a school bus, and while the ride is bumpy and not particularly fast, it's comfortable, and the snowcat travels across the deep snows with a sure-footedness that makes the task seem simple. Almost.

We rode uphill, disembarked, and skied through massive acreage of empty Sierra wilderness, grinning like fiends the entire time. By the time we reached the bottom, the 'cat was already waiting for us; at which point we stowed our gear, reboarded, and rode up a new hill to repeat the exercise -- over and over and over again.

Driving in the snowcat with a hearty crew of winternauts felt sort of like being a member of the Robinson family on Lost in Space, exploring the surface of distant planets in their tracked Chariot vehicle -- with a few critical differences. For one, unlike the Robinsons, our snowcat was not equipped with a laser-weapon defense system. Which was fine, because unlike the Robinsons, we were not threatened by creepy space creatures. Moreover, Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere makes our  planet a vastly superior wintersports destination, unlike the mysterious planets traversed by the hapless Robinsons, where spacesuits were often required for extravehicular activity. And lastly, the Robinsons did not travel with ample supplies of cold cuts, dill pickles, and beer. But we did.

And the skiing?  It was fresh, fabulous, and very relaxing.

"Snowcat 2007" (Flickr photoset by Telstar Logistics): LINK

Press Release: The Launch of the Telstar Logistics V2.0 Rocket

SNOW RANCH, March 5/TelstarNewsWire/: Telstar Logistics Director of Space Operations Steve Jurvetson today announced the successful launch of the Telstar Logistics V2.0 rocket, a pioneering achievement in the fields of DIY rocketry and pseudocorporate branding science.

The Telstar Logistics V2.0 rocket is the heaviest rocket launched by our Space Operations Division. Designed to offset the diabolical forces of both gravity and intertia, the V2.0 uses a solid-AP Aerotech K550 motor to achieve counterintuitive vertical flight. 

Additional support is provided by a Duracell-powered onboard flight computer that ensures gentle ground-level reentry by  initiating detonation of a drogue chute ejection charge.  The reentry system is triggered at apogee by an accelerometer that compensates for the fact that barometric readings become irregular at Mach transition.  Of course.   

At peak altitude, after going really, really, fast, the Telstar Logistics V2.0 rocket climbed to 4,888 ft.

"The launch was successful with the only damage coming from a unlucky nose cone to body collision during the turbulence of parachute deployment," Jurveston said. "It was heavy enough to punch a golf-ball sized hole in the airframe from the apogee bounce.  Should be a fairly easy repair."

"This is, like, so cool," said Todd Lappin, Fleet Operations Officer (FOO) for Telstar Logistics. "By combining our in-depth research & development and system integration capabilities in the rocketry domain with leadership in vertical flight and branding fulfillment, operators can leverage the full benefits of service automation, market-tested best practices and service delivery innovation to enable the low-cost and rapid delivery of these complex services."

Additional images of the launch are available on the official Jurvetson photosite.  Launch video is also on display, in full-color RocketVision.

About Steve Jurvetson
In addition to his regular duties as Telstar Logistics Director of Space Operations, Steve Jurvetson does some work on the side for Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a Silicon Valley purveyor of fine venture capital.

About Telstar Logistics
Telstar Logistics is a leading provider of integrated services via Land, Air, Sea, and Space. For more information about Telstar Logistics, its products, and its history, visit our Investor Relations page.

PREVIOUSLY: Will Steve Jurvetson's Rocket  Go Supersonic?

 

(Photos above by jurvetson)