The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 91

REAL ESTATE. F-2 NY STOCKS F-4 NY BONDS F-8 AMEX STOCKS. F-9 EDITOR: ROBERT CLERC 369-1009 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1984 OUTLOOK On Business Trends The Region The Thermal-Gard insulated replacement window, manufactured by Weather Sash of Cincinnati, is the official replacement window of the Energy Saving HouseDesign Home at the 1984 World's Fair In New Orleans. The Energy Saving House showcases the latest in energy-saving appliances, fixtures and furnishings. In all, 51 Thermal-Gard window units have been built Into the house, which will be open through Nov.

11. madMr "i ir Price Waterhouse surveyed 83 business organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area on the uses of microcomputers in business and found that 64 of all companies responding own at least one micro. On average, companies greater than $1 million In annual revenues have more than one micro; companies greater than $50 million average more than 10 micros. At least 80 of all organizations greater than $50 million have at least one micro. MODEL OF General Electric unducted fan engine, which may be the commercfal engine of the future, is being unveiled today.

REAR VIEW of the UDF engine mockup shows the two sets of variable-pitch propeller blades which give the engine its high degree of thrust- GE Showcases New Engine Design jam I nnitf iiMii'niaf It itf- in 1 Tilt-hoodfender assemblies made by Goodyear will be installed on 1984 Ford F-series trucks manufactured at Ford's Kentucky truck plant In Louisville. The one-piece unit is made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic at Goodyear's Jackson, Ohio, plant. The State BY JOHN J. BYCZKOWSKI Enquirer Reporter General Electric Co. is bringing the propeller back to the airline industry, saying its new engine design will use 30 less fuel than current passenger Jet engines with no loss of speed.

At the Farnborough (England) International Air Show today, GE is unveiling a full-scale model of its UDF (unducted fan) engine, which uses two sets of counter-rotating blades powered by a Jet engine. A GE spokesman said interest is already high. Officials from about a dozen airlines worldwide have "invited themselves" to GE's research facilities in Evendale to hear about the new engine, he said. GE doesn't see the engine coming into service before the 1990s. A powered scale model of the UDF is currently undergoing wind tunnel tests at Boeing Corp.

in Seattle. An additional model will soon begin acoustic (noise level) testing at GE in Evendale and NASA will run tests on a third model next year. Flight tests are planned for 1986. In February, GE won a $20.4 million contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to study the UDF concept. But GE hasn't discussed the engine publicly until now, saving the unveiling for Farnborough, the largest airplane Industry trade show of the year.

THE PURPOSE of the model at Farnborough Is plane as big as a Boeing 747, and about 12 feet for Boeing 140-seat 737, said Art Adamson, who heads development of the UDF for GE. The UDF may seem revolutionary, but it was the next logical step in the evolution of subsonic airplane engines. Adamson said the British studied a similar concept in the late 1940s, but found the enabling technology didn't exist. ALL AIRPLANE engines propeller or Jet turbine work on the same principle. They move air, pulling the plane by grabbing air In front of the plane and pushing it toward the back of the plane.

Propeller engines push air with huge blades; Jet engines heat it and push it out the back of the engine, creating thrust. In building Jet engines, the designers realized you didn't have to heat all the air passing through the engine. You could heat some of It, and use the energy from that to turn fans that moved more air. That's called bypass, because some air is moved through the engine while bypassing the combustion stages of the engine. BYPASS BECAME Important when it became necessary to conserve fuel.

The object was to move more air with less fuel. That meant heating less air and bypassing more. While the engines in (See ENGINE, Page F-3) AN ARTIST'S rendering of how the UDF engine would conform to existing airframe designs. not only to show off the unusual design, but also to show that it's not too unusual. GE spokesman Tom Wilson said the airline officials, when they heard the word "propellers," feared that huge 20-foot-diameter blade spans would be needed on the engines, a development that would radically alter the appearance of the airplanes.

The UDF, as the model demonstrates, will Indeed look very different. It looks like a Jet engine with two sets of curved propellers on Its trailing end. But the propeller spans will only be 16 feet for a The Inventors Council of Dayton Inc. (PO Box 77, Dayton, Ohio 45409) is sponsoring a convention seminar called "From Mind to Marketplace," Sept. 28-29, at the Marriott Hotel in Dayton.

The meeting will feature a series of workshops and lectures on innovation and the Invention process. Specific topics to be considered include financing, patents, licensing, production and marketing. Ryan Homes, the national homebuilder usually associated with large-scale developments, has offered to build homes on scattered lots throughout the Greater Cleveland area. The program Is available in Cuyahoga, Medina, Lake and Summit Counties. Ohio Savings Realty, part of the newly formed Ohio Savings Financial Services, Is conducting all real-estate brokerage transactions.

Tom Krobot, Ryan Homes vice president, said, "This unique program will open up the housing market for all of us. There is a large untapped clientele that now may be able to afford quality housing in desirable locations." The Nation vw Smoke alarms are now standard fixtures In all lavatories of Pan American World Airways' entire fleet of 119 jet transports. Concern over the possibility of fires starting in the lavatories of airborne passenger Jets heightened after the Air Canada airliner burned after a forced landing at Greater kH THE FORMER Stowe Adult Center, a Cincinnati public school before the expressway system, has been converted to 89,000 square feet of office space by W.P. Butler's Corporex Development Services Inc. Downtown, All That Glitters Is Not New Cincinnati International Airport.

Pan Am says it is the first carrier to have fleet-wide Installation of the smoke alarms. U.S. Weighs Restrictions On Copper BY RICHARD BOUDREAUX Associated Press SANTIAGO, Chile-Chile's economic dependence on the United States, tested In two political showdowns during the 1970s, has brought Chile to the brink of a new crisis. At stake this time is the half-bllllon-dollar U.S. market for Its copper.

The prospect of the United States putting restrictions on foreign copper comes as Chile is stepping up mining of its main export in a struggle to overcome a recession with 25 unemployment and keep up payments to Western bankers on Its $18 billion foreign debt. President Ronald Reagan has until Sept. 14 to decide on proposals the that U.S. International Trade Commission made last month on behalf of the depressed American mining Industry. Two panel members recommended Import quotas; two others called for higher import taxes.

ANY RESTRICTION will depress the world price for copper, already hovering at a 50-year low, and thus hurt all exporters, including Canada, Peru, Zaire and Zambia. But the proposed U.S. Import metric tons per year from any One country until 1990 would force only Chile, the leading producer and chief U.S. supplier, to (See CHILE, Page F-6) On the subject of travel, Runzheimer and Co. finds that the single highest travel expense is the airfare.

According to the "1984-85 Survey and Analysis of Business Travel Policies Costs," 44.2 cents of every travel dollar spent goes to air fares. Lodging is second at 24.5 cents. Meals and car rentals are next at 14.4 and 9.5 cents respectively. Miscellaneous items such as entertainment, taxies, shoe shines, etc. account for only 7.4 cents.

tighter office market to send them more tenants. "Most rehab jobs have come out so expensive that it's hard to rent purely on market factors," says M. Robert Garfield, executive vice president of West Shell Realtors. Tenants, Garfield notes, generally prefer new space If it's available and that's clearly the case in Cincinnati. "Rehabbing Is most feasible when you have 100 occupancy," says Garfield.

"There's such a surplus of office space that it'd be awfully hard (for a rehabber) to compete." Nevertheless, there are those willing to try. Especially around the rim of downtown Cincinnati, some older buildings are getting facelifts that an aging movie star would envy. THE TREND Is relatively small- and the total amount of space Involved would probably fit inside Just one of the mega-towers going up downtown. And since a number of economic question marks remain concering the projects, no one doubts that the successful renovator must be innovator. To Robert Chavez, whose company is Just about finished rehabbing the old French Bauer building, that means careful attention to price value.

"Given the location, we felt we had to offer extra quality for the price," he says. The building Is on Central Parkway near Plum Street. That's within walking distance of dowtown, but away from the city's core. "We're not 100 location," he says. (See REHAB, Page F-6) BY GREGG FIELDS Enquirer Reporter The new gleaming glass towers in Cincinnati's central business district may renew confidence in downtown but they're bad business for those who restore older office buildings, experts say.

The reason: Renovating older buildings is an extremely expensive process. Putting in new features like air conditioning can cost considerable cold cash. Amenities like new elevator systems can send expenses through the roof as well. Once It's all done, experts say the cost of rehabbing an old building can be comparable, on a square-foot basis, to putting up new space. THAT LEAVES the landlords with a couple of tough choices: Rent the space at a rate that isn't economical, or sit tight and wait for a Cahners Publishing Co.

raised its forecasts for commercial construction for 1984 and sees only moderate increases in construction materials costs for the rest of the year. In its August forecast, Cahners raised by 8.4 its outlook for commercial, industrial and institutional spending in 1984 to an expected level of $131.2 billion. "Much of the Improved outlook is in multi-unit residential, hotels, office buildings, retail stores and wholesale distribution space," said Jim Haughey, economics director for Cahners Building and Construction Group. The World. Louis Rukeyser Unitsd States 31 West Germany 12 France 7 7 5 Japan.

5 Canada 4 EraiH 4 Netherlands 4 All Others 21 Soorce Chilean GovPfrwnwi! Howard Polster was appointed personnel officer of the World Bank, Washington D.C. Since 1979, he has been director of human resources for Structural Dynamics Research a Milford-based consulting firm specializing in mechanical engineering, computer analysis and testing. X' I Deficit Issue Is Smokescreen McNAUGHT SYNDICATE Now that the conventions are over and it's no longer an offense to talk sense about the American economy, it's time for non-partisan outsiders to recognize that neither party has yet come clean on the most publicized economic issue of the campaign The issue, of course, is the federal deficit, which is fast turning out to be the 1984 version of the weather about which, as Mark Twain remarked, everybody talks but nobody does anything. The good news is that both parties are at least talking about it, a development that encourages optimists to believe that some kind of remedial action is inevitable In 1985. (It is generally conceded, even by the most optimistic, that it would be regarded as a congressional felony to take any initiative in 1984.) The bad news, however, is that neither side is offering a rational plan for eliminating the deficits.

WALTER MONDALE has been getting the better press so far, because of the widespread view that he is being more "realistic" in maintaining that whoever's elected will raise our taxes next year. While this may well seem the presidential campaign promise most likely to be kept, It is in fact considerably less "realistic" than many media analysts have assumed. For tax increases, particularly of the kind Mondale says he Is contemplating, are infinitely more likely to Increase the deficit than make it vanish. The fundamental error lies in the assumption that a dollar of spending and a dollar of tax cuts are equally culpable in creating the federal deficit Therefore, this superficial (and faulty) reasoning proceeds, raising taxes by $1 cuts the deficit Just as much as reducing spending by $1. THIS IS a comfortable assumption, especially for those whose hearts are not really in any (See DEFICIT, Page F-6) Dc'rs In 1CC3 In Its Sept 3 issue, Fortune magazine says that behind the noisy battle between U.S.

and Japanese companies to dominate the semiconductor business lies a quieter but equally serious contest. At stake is the $5.8 billion-a-year worldwide market for the machines that turn out the chips. U.S. manufacturers still hold the upper hand, but have been losing market rhare to Japanese challengers whose technology has proved surprisingly good, says Fortune..