When the exchange rate dropped to the point that it was economical for WS to have Metric manufacture centrifugals in Australia, we produced SSB machines for the US and Philippines markets and a Continuous machine for the Louisiana Sugar industry. An invitation by Joe Bange to critique the first of the SSB machines at Baltimore, was a trip that I will never forget. WS had chartered a small plane to take a number of personal to Baltimore. The airport was closed due to bad weather, conveniently after we were airborne, surely an understatement. After being told several times by the female pilot to hitch up our seat belts another notch, I began to wonder whether or not we were right way up or not for most of the trip. I no longer laugh at the Pope when he kisses the ground after his flights. To this day, I still try to remember if the female pilot of that small plane was blond taking off in such violent weather conditions. Blond or not she was a very fine pilot. I have addressed a meeting of Sales, Design and Engineering people at WS in the early 90's and worked with a small design team from WS in Australia for two weeks in the late 90's in an effort to further develop the SSB machine. With due respect for the late Mr. James Fenske and the late Mr. George Conrad, the development of the VL Continuous Centrifugal has been the highlight of my life. 167 above: Old and new TITAN Batch machines, operating smoothly, side by side – withstanding the test of time.