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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 0552.PDF
i86 MARCH 6TH, 1941. local units. This, we suggest, is just as undesirable for the university cadet as for his humbler brother. It may be contended that most university cadets will be destined for commissioned rank when they pass on to the K.A.F. itself, and that only a comparatively small proportion of those in school and local squadrons will gain commissions, but by this time they will have finished with the A.T.C. A famous judge once remarked that not only must justice be done but it must manifestly be seen to be done, and although we repeat that we have no shadow of doubt of the equality of opportunity which the A.T.C. will provide, we feel that a distinction in uniform in favour of the 'varsity youth will, to say the least, make this democratic impartiality less obvious. America RealisesT HE President " the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce, C01. Jouett, said in Washington in January in regard to the use of the American automobile factories for aircraft manufacture: "Negotiations between the aeroplane and automobile companies are not yet completed, but enough progress has been made to know that this intelligent co-operation of the two industries will bear fruit. The motor car people have visited our plants for days at a time. Most of them admit that construction of aircraft is entirely a new and different art and one with which they are completely unfamiliar. We have every reason to believe that less than ten per cent, of the machine tools in the auto plants are usable in aeroplane manufacture. We understand that every one of those machine tools taken out of auto production would render others idle. . . . A committee of engineers from one of the most reput- able automobile organisations in the world came to one of our larger aircraft engine factories. They inspected all the 800 component parts that went into the engine involved. After careful study their first conclusion was that their automotive equipment was suitable to the efficient production of only three out of those 800 parts. Further study led them to believe that to produce even those three components it first would be necessary to re-train their entire automotive shop personnel and make such extensive changes in their machine tools as to destroy any possible economy or speed or efficiency in production." . "* This realisation of the difficulties, but not the impos- sibility, of using the automobile factories augurs well for the future in U.S.A. It shows they are not entering upon their production job with their eyes shut, and it is in accord with the experience in this country. For . the '' shadow'' factories here found that, although motor cars and aircraft are both automotive products, they are automotive products with a difference and cannot be turned out at the same rate. Another cause for con- gratulation is that there has been no talk in America of sacrificing quality for quantity ; they also have learnti' the lesson of 1940, that only the best equipment brings supremacy. Not Even DetroitS PEAKING of the proposal put up by an American labour organisation to produce 500 aircraft per day with the unused production facilities of the motor car industry, the so-called Reuther Plan, Col. Jouett said: "Laudable as this plan appears to be, there are certain phases of it that seem impracticable. ... 1 seriously doubt the possibility of getting together the- number of men in one locality required to produce 5,000 airplanes at the rate of 500 per day. That would require the services of between one and a half million and two million shop employees in the final manufactur- ing and assembling process alone. It would mean as many more employed in providing raw materials and preliminary processing—in other words, from two and a quarter to three million men as compared to about 300,000 employed in the aircraft industry at present. " To go back to the general population problem, three million workers means a population of nine million, in- cluding their families ; add to that the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker to serve nine million persons and figure out how you can put a community like that in and around the Detroit area or in any other manufacturing centre in the United States." MEMBERS OF THE DEER FAMILY : Three Bell Caribous (P400 Airacobras in th^U) up." The Caribou is a single-seater fighter armed with one 20 mm. shell-gun and a batti I.IOO h.p. liquid-cooled Allison engine is mounted behind the pil ' echelon toTlh* 4eft, stepped of six machine guns. The \
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