FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1941
1941 - 1024.PDF
3*8 MAY IST, 1941. LORD BEAVERBROOK TELLS HIS PEERS Aircraft Position Outlined to the House of Lords from the American Press "Secrets" wrHERE do 1 get my information?—Out of theAmerican newspapers!" Thus Lord Beaver-brook, Minister of Aircraft Production, when he quoted dimensional and performance figures for Britain's newest bombers during a speech in the House of Lords, given in reply to queries raised by Lord Sempill on Ameri- can aircraft deliveries. ' We have launched three bombers, the Stirling, the Halifax and the Manchester," he said. "These aircraft I can describe to you." And then, with the above-quoted comment as to his source of information, Lord Beaver- brook continued, " the Stirling has a wing-span of i27|ft., a range ot 3,000 miles and a speed of 330 m.p.h. It has four engines, is faster than the Flying Fortress, the American airciaft, and faster than the Consolidated B-24, sometimes called the Liberator. The Manchester has a span of 90ft., a, maximum speed of 325 m.p.h., and two engines. The American newspapers do not tell us what these engines are, but 1 will tell you ; they are Vultures. The American newspapers do not give us any particulars of the Halifax. They make up for that neglect, however, by telling us about the Tornado, a single-seater fighter with a speed ot 425 m.p.h. and one engine of 2,000 h.p." (It is fairly obvious, of course, that the Minister of Aircraft Production was speaking with his tongue in his cheek in apparently giving away this "secret" informa- tion.) Reassuring Reply The rest ot Lord Beaverbrook's speech, however, was a reassuring reply to any who had entertained doubts on the actual progress made towards air parity with the enemy, and in reply to Lord Sempill's request for infor- mation as to certain troubles experienced over here with American radial air-cooled engines, the Minister said that these little difficulties had been overcome. "The American radial air-cooled engines," Lord Sempill had said, " have a tremendous background of experience behind them, in commercial aviation in particu- lar. It is not at all surprising that some troubles have been struck with military usage as we understand it over here, when engines are called upon to operate at a greater power ol output than they would normally do in commercial usage. The troubles are not serious and do not affect the basic soundness of the design, but they must be dealt with practically and far more rapidly than has been the case Replying to this point in the course of his speech, Lord Beaverbrook assured the House that the difficulties with the aii-cooled engine had been overcome. "We now find that the American engines are quite as good as any other engines in the world and are most useful and most valu- able," he said. An output last month, equal to two and a half times that of March, 1940, and a reserve of machines in excess of 100 per cent, were two of the most striking and encourag- ing facts about British aircraft production which he dis- closed to a gratified House The month, said the Minister of Aircraft Production, created a new production record, eclipsing even the February figure, which had also been a record. A 100 per cent, reserve ol five operational types of aircraft were in storage all over the country, and if one also included another light type of bomber, the reserve figure was more than 100 per cent. It was not intended to be satisfied with this reserve, however, and the objective of the M.A.P was a reserve of as much as 30c per cent, of the latest types oi war- planes. Immense American and Canadian deliveries of aircraft", aircraft parts and of engines had already been received, and a very large number were now in use, nearly 1,000 having been handed over to the R.A.F. These included Canadian-built Hurricanes which Lord Beaverbrook des- cribed as '' fine machines, ready to fly and fight.'' Intimating that convoy losses, though to be deplored, were being more than offset by the rapidity with which the flow from America was increasing, Lord Beaverbrook said that during the past few days 95 aircraft, 355 tons of aircraft parts, and 326 engines had been received by s«v - Fighters Will Fly Atlantic The air-ferry system over the Atlantic was to be con- tinued, he added, and, very soon, fighters as well as bombers would be flown over. Only one aircraft had been lost on the ferry service which had been operated through- out the winter, and one machine had made the flight from a Canadian airfield to an R.A.F. station in England in less than nine hours. He "had a thrill" when he stood on an aerodrome with the American Ambassador and watched the first Liberator arrive. This and other type's of American aircraft were doing valuable service, he said, . and there was no case of serious delay in deliveries from America. In fact, not only were most of the American firms well up to time but some were even ahead of it with their deliveries. He admitted, however, that there had been, and still was, delay in getting equipment— guns, radio apparatus, navigational devices, and so on— but this could be cured by more drive and energy. Re- pair, maintenance and salvage, however, had "added con- siderably to our air strength." Referring to the close co-operation between British and American air experts, Lord Beaverbrook said that opera- tional types of British aircraft were being sent out to America and the transatlantic telephone was in daily use by the technicians. He took great pride in our technicians, who were the finest in the world, and who could be trusted to '' make the plans and arrange the projects for the future which will give us the improvement in aircraft design that we require." Five New Engines Five new types of engine had been brought into use/i cluding the Napier Sabre and the Rolls-Royce Vultur and other new engines were now being worked upon which would be '' quite surprising'' in the power they developed from limited size and low weight. "These new products," said Lord Beaverbrook, "are all the work of my predecessors with the exception of the Sabre. The Sabre was put into production in my time, and it was put into production without waiting for any tests, without being quite sure how it would turn out and what the results would be. But, fortunately, I am in a position to tell you that the Sabre is a great engine, per- haps one of the greatest engines that has been produced." [Lord Beaverbrook's modesty is becoming, but we are under the impression that development work on the Sabre was going on several years before he went to Millbank.— ED.] Among other things, the Minister mentioned the dispersal system applied to aircraft factories which had been a great success -in defeating enemy action, and he stressed that our own production must always be of first impor- tance. He also mentioned that the Anson, Battle and Botha had recently been withdrawn from operational duty and transferred to the Training Command.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
