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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1038.PDF
33° APRII. IT, T940 The Douglas B-23 bomber. It is not considered that machines of this class will be ordered by the Allies. engined bomber), has flown ; Douglas' B-23 nas n°t- It is not believed that either will be avail- able for export im- mediately because of prior Army orders. In view of the fact that top speeds are in the neighbourhood of 275 m.p.h., these machines would, in any case, not seem the most desirable aircraft for the Western war. Vultee (division of Aviation Manufacturing Corporation) has a new fighter, the Vanguard, of which Sweden has ordered 120, with Twin Wasp engines. The Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp (18 cylinders, 1,800 horse-power take-off rating) can be mounted giving a claimed speed of more than 400 m.p.h. Lock-joint panels are used through- out, and all can be removed in two minutes. The Army Air Corps, however, does not yet appear impressed. Too Much of a Handful Lockheed's P-38 (twin Allison engines), the fighter in which Lt. Ben Kelsey crossed the Continent in January, 1939, at an average of 356 m.p.h. on 60 per cent, of throttle, has been ordered in quantity by the Army, but it is understood that the type the Army will actually get has been redesigned, being a two-seater instead of a single- seater. In spite of all the automatic gadgets, the single- seater was too much aeroplane for one man. The three-shift capacity of the American aircraft in- dustry is now about 1,250 aircraft and 1,500 engines of 1,000 horse-power or more per month, although some time must elapse before the industry attains this figure. Almost all the plants are still working on a one-shift basis, and have, in fact, never operated in any other way. Produc- tion will never catch up with capacity—it never does— but by the end of 1940 American plants should be turning out more than a thousand military aircraft a month, a quite phenomenal figure when it is remembered that there has been no Government-forced drive to push capacity upward. By the end of the year the engine plants will be turning out more than 2,000 engines a month in the thousand horse-power class. This would indicate that by December American factories will be able to deliver high- performance military machines to the Allies at the rate of about 8,000 a year, over and above American national de- fence needs, which, with replacements and. expansion, now run to between 3,000 and 4,000 a year. This also allows for a considerable American export market in countries other than France and England, which the American manu- facturers intend to retain. Needless to say, the growth of the last two years (from 30,000 to 60,000 employees ; from 6,000,000 sq. ft. of manu- facturing area for aircraft in January, 1939, to about 7,500,000 at the moment; from 1,500,000 sq. ft. of engine space in January, 1939, to virtually 2,000,000 now) has produced some profound changes in methods. North American, which builds seven substantially similar trainers and touches nothing else (outside of the.. Army 0-47 mid- wing observation plane and the N.A. 25 bomber) typifies a trend toward fewer models and straight-line production. Subcontracting for parts, never important in the indus- try before, is finally emerging as a factor of great weight, although plants not busy with their own machines are the principal contractors, and not firms outside the industry. ^ * - ^ Skilled Labour An expected bottleneck in skilled labour has so far failed to materialise because of more complete tooling up, which has enabled the use of semi-skilled workers in place of a markedly greater number of superlative craftsmen. The growth has been anything but mushroom in nature, as might have been expected. The reason is not far to seek: those who might have expected wild competitive expansion of plant to capture Allied orders have forgotten that the men who head the 45 aviation manufacturing companies in the United States are largely veterans of the industry. They remember the delirious days of 1917 and 1918 and 1929. But they remember also 1919 and 1930 when the overexpanded industry collapsed and the majority of manu- facturers went into bankruptcy. These men, as well as their companies, went broke. So they remember the lesson. There will be a sharp deflation of the industry at the end of the war, but it will not take so severe a toll as previous setbacks. There has been effort to get orders now known to be forthcoming, but, just as Allied buy- ing is cautious for other reasons, the effort is not by any means hogwild. • The Martin 167 as supplied to France. Machines of this type are already flying over the Western Front on reconnaissance missions. The engines are Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasps.
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