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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0073.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEERAIRSHIPS *> FIRST AERONAUTICAITWEEKLY IN THE^WORLD .• FOUNDED tooo Editor C M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegrams : Trodttur, Sedist, London. Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (50 Una). . HBHTPOEDST., ..--•• COVENTRY. Telegrams : Autocar, Coventry.Telephone: Coventry 5210. GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION BT., BIRMINGHAM, 2. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 2971. 260, DEANSGATE,MANCHESTER, 3. Telegrams: Iliffe, Manchester.Telephone. Blackfriars 4412. 26B, RENFIELD ST.,GLASGOW, C.2. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTIONRATES: Home and Canada:Other Countries: Year, £1Year,£l 13 0.16 0. 6 months, 16a. 6d.6 months, 18s. Od. 3 months, 8s. Sd.3 months, 9s. Od. I No. 1516. Vol. XXXIII. JANUARY 13, 1938. Thursdays, Price 6d. 'The Outlooks The Wrong Tree xT HE early part of the New Year is always a dead season, and Fleet Street is at its wits' end to find something sensational wherewith to tickle what it fondly believes to be the jaded palates of its readers. This year someone saw in the R.A.F. expansion a subject which promised fruity bits of "scandal," and obviously the Air Ministry might very suitably be made the goat. The more sensational of the dailies at once followed the lead, and the country has, during the last few days, been treated to an avalanche of allegations, totally unsupported by evi- dence, of inefficiency and muddle at the Air Ministry. That there have been delays in production no one denies, not even the Air Ministry. You cannot suddenly expand a specialised industry from a few thousand workers to a hundred thousand and more without delays occurring. But to allege, as has been done, that the entire Air Minis- try is merely a hampering brake on production is both unfair and stupid. The blame cannot be located and traced to a single building in Kingsway ; the causes are many and varied, and are spread throughout the industry. A hold-up in the supply of any one of a hundred different parts or components may affect not one but half a dozen aircraft factories. If the daily Press wanted to impress upon its readers the fact that aircraft production is suffering from delays, it would not have been difficult to find instances which corresponded more closely to actualities. If it had pleaded, as Flight has been pleading for many months, for greater simplicity in design, for a reduction in the number of materials specifications, for standardisation in many directions in which standardisation could be insisted upon without any serious loss in efficiency, the Air Ministry and the aircraft industry alike would have welcomed the interest taken in the subject of aircraft production by the ^ ?y tackling the subject in the way it has been e pa h lft ht w ^ y g e subject in the way it has been racided the papers have left the country with an uneasyleeimg that the whole industry is in a hopeless muddle and that nothing is being done about it.mere is no cause for complacency, but the trouble cannot ue cured by a few changes at the Air Ministry Sharing the Blame-.'•;• ^s ' • ; . .AFTER a period of years during which orders were few A\ and far between, and during which, therefore, there X X was time and opportunity to aim at ultra-refinement rather than at rapid production, the industry has been called upon to go on to almost a war-time production basis. The old state of affairs left a multiplicity of materials specifications, because with small production it was ssential that everything should be as " good '' as human skill and ingenuity could make it. The technical staffs in the indus- try and in the Air Ministry had grown up in that atmo- sphere, and when the panic expansion was forced upon them they could not be expected to change their outlook overnight. Technical staffs had to be expanded, but where were the recruits to come from? There was no reserve to draw upon, and in most cases the newcomers to technical depart- ments and drawing offices came straight out of school or technical college. They had no practical technical experi- ence in other branches of engineering and, naturally, they had to be guided^ by those who had grown up in the aircraft industry when it was small, and when rate of production could well take second place. For the multiplicity of materials specifications the indus- try must share the blame with the technical departments of the Air Ministry. In pre-expansion times a designer was justified in using the most suitable materials he could obtain, and in working them in the way which gave the greatest efficiency, even if this meant a slight increase in manufacturing time. Before a designer was allowed to use a new material it had to be approved by the Ministry, and so one specification was added to another, until the list became rather formidable. While it was only necessary to stock "two of everythfhg," so to speak, that did not greatly matter; when it comes to stocking hundreds of everything the problem assumes a very different aspect. One might go on quoting similar instances, but the case of materials specifications is more or less typical of them all. The fault does not lies with anyone in particular, but is a result of conditions which have now changed very materially.
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