Word: dh
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...down some ideas on the subject. He would 1) keep the present system except for x, c and q; 2) eliminate the neutral second vowels found in such words as colour, labour and honour; 3) substitute "unambiguous symbols" for the consonant combinations sh, zh, wh, th, dh, ng; also for the vowel-consonant combinations ah, aw, at, et, it, of, ut, oot, yoot...
Last week Test Pilot John Derry was flying De Havilland's experimental DH-108 at 40,000 feet over southern England. The weather was clear, the "machometer" (speed indicator in fractions of the speed of sound) showed Mach .86. Derry felt just right, so he opened the throttle and turned the nose down...
...increased, the machometer needle crept up to Mach 1, the speed of sound. Then it went on up to Mach 1.1. The controls felt heavy, but nothing really unpleasant happened. Derry checked the speed and leveled off. He had traveled faster than sound in an engine-driven plane (the DH-108 is no rocket-ship like the U.S. Bell S-1), and was none the worse. His top speed was probably just under 700 m.p.h...
...DH-108 has swept-back wings with controls on their tips (see cut). This design may account for the fact that Pilot Derry felt none of the "compressibility" effects when flying in the transsonic speed range. But the DH-108 may have other improvements that are secret. A similar plane came apart in the air and killed Geoffrey de Havilland...
...match had been swept across a hot stovelid. That same evening a plane exploded above the Thames estuary with such violence that neither pilot nor much of the wreckage was found. But R.A.F. flyers concluded that scraps of wreckage they found had once belonged to the DH-108. It was possible that Captain De Havilland had made his new record (unofficially) ; and that for one fearful moment, he had experienced more of the new problems of aeronautics than is known to any living...