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Aviation History
1925
1925 - 0056.PDF
JANUARY 29, 1925 GREAT BRITAIN'S LARGEST AIRCRAFT FACTORY Impressions of a Visit to the Fairey Works " LET'S see, there isn't a war on at present, is there ? " Some such thought comes to mind on entering the works of the Fairey Aviation Co., Ltd., at Hayes, Middlesex, for one sees machines in large numbers and in various stages of com- pletion, from the skeleton fuselage of a " Flycatcher " to the finished machine being packed for transport, and round about the erecting shop the different components, be they wood or metal, are being produced at a rate which seems strangely unusual for a peace-time factory. Then one remembers that this is the largest aircraft factory in Great Britain at the present time, at any rate in the matter of output and number of employes, if not in superficial area. The growth of the Fairey Aviation Company since its formation in 1915 has not been meteoric, as were those of several firms during the War, but it has been steady and sound, this fact in itself is not sufficient to account for the success of the firm, and one must look deeper in order to get at the " secret." Recently we had the good fortune to spend a day at the Fairey works at Hayes, and, moreover, we had the best possible guide in that Mr. Fairey himself, in spite of the pressure on his time, took us around and showed us everything from the highly systematised filing and card-indexing of aircraft drawings and parts to the'finished machines ready for dispatch, and from the very interesting experimental work of various sorts to the production of Fairev-Reed all-metal airscrews. After the visit one can begin to understand, in some measure at any rate, how and why the Fairey firm has attained its present prominent position. Although it is not possible to describe all we saw, much of the work being of a confidential nature, we hope to give, in the following notes, a / 5 7 -'- AT THE FAIREY WORKS ; Above, a portion of the drawing office. The door on the left leads to the technical department where stress calculations, etc., are carried out. Below, the vault in which are stored all the master tracings. This vault is locked by the chief draughtsman every night, and is practically fireproof, so that there is small risk of the valuable tracings being destroyed. and where large War-time firms sprang up like mushrooms, almost overnight, the Fairey Aviation Company has been content to develop slowly and gradually, but surely. The result has, not unnaturally, been that when the cessation of hostilities brought about the closing of so many factories, the Fairey works continued to produce, and today, after six vears of peace, they have attained a premier position. The question that naturally comes to mind is : How has this position been reached ? First and foremost, the Fairey Aviation Company is at a great advantage in having a tech- nical board.of directors, Mr. C. R. Fairey himself combining the duties of technical director and managing director, and his co-directors being men with technical as well as com- mercial experience. That under the conditions good aircraft should be produced is, of course, not to be wondered at, but sufficient indication of the methods of work to enable our readers to form an idea of some of the latest developments. In the first place, the Fairey Aviation Company has realised that to ensure satisfaction all around it is necessary that the closest possible co-operation between the manufacturing and user's side should exist. The user, in this case, is, of course, mainly the services, and as soon as a particular type of Fairey machine is placed on the production list a very complete illustrated schedule is issued. This takes the form of a loose- leaf book giving illustrations, in the form of perspective sketches, of every component of the machine. Each com- ponent is numbered, and when replacements are required it is only necessary to quote the number of the particular part. There is thus no ambiguity, and mistakes are practically impossible. In the case of squadrons or air stations the stores
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