DESPITE the furor over the $5 billion cut in the Air Force budget, planemakers are not worried--yet. Not only has there been no warning of contract cancellations among the old-line companies, but Boeing expects to hire another 1,600 workers this summer, mainly for B-52 production. North American is keeping up its fast pace on F-86 Sabre jets; Lockheed expects that "production will continue at its present high level for some time." The planemakers even hope that a revision may stabilize plane building and avert drastic cuts a few years hence.

WALL Street's description of the current stock market: the "horse market."Derivation: neither bears nor bulls seem to have the upper hand; the market "just horses around."

TITANIUM, the wonder metal that is even lighter and stronger than magnesium, is in for a huge expansion program. Planemakers are so eager for the heat-resistant metal for air frames and jet engines that Defense Secretary Wilson is expected to approve a $500 million program to boost output to 22,000 tons a year (1952 total: 992 tons). Under the plan Du Pont, and partners National Lead and Allegheny Ludlum, already in production, would raise production sharply; others, like Chicago's Crane Co., would get into the field with the help of Government loans and purchase agreements.

CI.O. and A.F.L. staffers have drawn up a no-raiding pact for their top men to sign. In the last two years, the two unions have appealed to NLRB 1,246 jurisdictional disputes, involving 366,470 workers. By the time their organizational, legal and other expenses were paid, the unions figured that every member captured in a raid cost a whopping $1,000.

STANLEY Warner Corp., the exhibition company that resulted from the anti-trust split-up of Warner Brothers, expects to buy half of Cinerama Productions, Inc. (moviemaker for Cinerama). The Cinerama company, which is short of cash and has lost some of its backers' enthusiasm since the introduction of CinemaScope (see Cinema), would sell a million shares of unissued stock. A big stumbling block, the Justice Department, having once split Warner's moviemaking and exhibiting functions, may look askance on such a deal.

WOMEN'S stocking makers are engaged in fierce competition to get sheerer and sheerer hose on the market. Manhattan's Bergdorf Goodman cut one line of 66-gauge, 12-denier nylon hose from $2.50 to $1.15 because the manufacturer had been forced out of business. With a new knitting machine to make super-sheer, 72-gauge, 10-denier hose now on the market, many hosiery makers may have to scrap their almost new 51-and 60-gauge machines.

AUTO sales for the first quarter showed Ford outgaining all competitors. Ford's share of the market rose 3.07% (to 23.22%), G.M.'s rose 1.24% (to 44.35%), while Chrysler dropped 1.22% (to 21.13%).

ELECTRIC utilities plan to spend $12 billion on expansion in the next four years, boosting generating capacity 50%.

CHANCES of extending the excess profits tax (Time, June 1) seemed dimmer. As congressional hearings started, only two of the 15 Republicans on the House Ways & Means Committee, which must report out a bill, favored President Eisenhower's proposed six-month extension. Three of the GOPsters were willing to okay a compromise extension, probably three months; the rest were flatly opposed. Democrats would give no assurance they would "bail out Ike."

GIN & tonic has become such a popular drink that U.S. sales of quinine water will probably triple this summer to 3,000,000 cases. Canada Dry's Quinac will get the biggest share of the market. But Britain's famed Schweppes tonic, now bottled in the U.S. by Pepsi-Cola, will be more competitive this year, with its price cut from about 40-c- to 16-c--18-c- a bottle.

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