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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0434.PDF
down by the engineers in charge in London for eighteenmonths, whereas now it has been found necessary to call a conference of manufacturers as late as a fortnight since,at the Air Board Offices in London, to urge that they should go back and work night and day, irregardless of cost. As an illustration of what is meant by co-operation, theAir Board have now entrusted the component parts of this machine to about seventy firms, not counting the enginemakers, who will in various parts of the country manufacture component parts for its complete assembly miles away.This I respectfully submit is financially an unsound pro- position. We ourselves are engaged upon tubular con-struction work for this machine, upon which, should anything be found wrong, it has to come all the way back to Birming-ham, with the consequential rail and transportation delays. Another case I can cite is pressings for engine tappetswere ordered in Birmingham by a Coventry house, despatched to Coventry, where they had simply to be polished and•gauged. From there they were re-despatched to the engine makers in another town, while the steel itself came fromSheffield. Had it been arranged for Birmingham manu- facturers to make the whole complete component parts only,and they were assembled in some shops as -laid out in the first portion of this paper, the delay would be one of hoursonly. I may say that this scheme has been laid before the AirBoard, who think it good in every particular. My own idea is that the military necessity is such that25,000 aeroplanes should be commenced upon at once. I suggest it would be far better to spend an extra millionsterling on aircraft, even though it is all wasted ultimately, than to be behind with our military strategy No one houseor factory in this country is capable of tackling one-half of 25,000 machines; it therefore becomes increasinglynecessary for a co-operative scheme of some description to be brought into being, and at once. We have in theMidlands every facility for the production of aircraft in enormous quantities. •n As a further example of what can be done by co-operation,I would cite the cycle trade, which has built one of the finest . ,.. m & :;;£-.:i\ 1.'..-:. ;se "i. ,./: .:.. •••;--•;The R.F.C. in Italy. IN his despatch dated March 9th on the operationsof the forces under his command in Italy, General Sir Herbert Plumer, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., says:— " Since the beginning of February the weather has become bad, a considerable amount of snow has fallen, and visibility has been poor, which has interfered considerably with air and artillery •work. " The work of the R.F.C. under Brig.-General Webb-Bowenduring the period under review has been quite brilliant. From the moment of arrival they made their presence felt, APRIL 18, 1918. engineering feats the world has ever known, in the ordinary pedal cycle. Hardly any one house to-day builds a complete bicycle themselves throughout. Brakes are specialised in; lugs and fittings are specialised in ; tube drawing is specialised in ; tube bending and manipulation is specialised in ; axles cups, bearings, etc., are specialised in ; rims are specialised in ; tyres are specialised in ; the whole are brought into the assembling shop, where they are made into a homogeneous bicycle, and taking the basis cost of a pedal cycle at £5, by the above method pounds each are saved on production. Such a degree of perfection had it reached prior to the war, that a complete bicycle, minus tyres, guaranteed for ever, could be purchased at 52s. 6d. under this system. To carry the matter further, I would cite as an instance the Ford motor car, which in its early days was simply assembled at the Ford shops, of parts obtained from various manufacturers in the U.S.A. It was just an assembled job of parts made in various factories, which first gave the Ford the low price which enabled him to place an article on the market 2100 lower than his nearest competitor. The same truth will come to light in aeroplane assembly. In that busi- ness they did not call the scheme " co-operative " but " special- isation," and I submit that if the one term is unpalatable, the other should be used. The following rough list of producers of component parts are what are required, and I submit that the machinery for the whole of this can be found in Birmingham already installed, with a management active enough and in being to turn out the parts at a few weeks' notice, without unduly interfering with the ordinary output of munitions in general :—Aluminium castings, aircraft fittings, lugs, weldless tubes, nuts and bolts, wood workers, press workers, brassfounders, wire manufac- turers, tinsmiths, sheet metal workers, wheel builders, assem- blers. And in this last particular I would mention that the cycle, motor-cycle and car fitters of Coventry have been found to turn out admirably in the swift assembly of aeroplanes, readily tumbling into the work. America already has the above scheme in being ; we must move quickly if a fine industry is to be founded in its entirety for the Midlands. ; and very soon overcame the difficulties of the mountains. They have taken part in all operations, and rendered much assistance to the Italians in the air. They have carried out a large number of successful raids on enemy aerodromes, railway junctions, &c, and have during the period destroyed sixty-four hostile machines, a large proportion of which were German, and nine balloons, our lossess to the enemy during the period being twelve machines and three balloons, a record which speaks for itself. ... " The close co-operation between the Artillery, Intelligence, and R.F.C. under conditions strange to previous experience was entirely satisfactory." ,-- H W. mm x m A German Seaplane about to take the Water Note the peculiar strutting of the floats and the cowling of the verti- cal water - cooled engine. m 432
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