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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 0232.PDF
FLIGHT JANUARY 2QTH, 1942 fi % PAUITYA • %^ A corner of the wing and tail unit department. Vast Stores of Many Maintenance Units Repair of Engines Ptays its Part T HE air fleets of Great Britain are no longer out numbered. That is the heartening news divulged by the Prime Minister. To keep this great and growing armada in the front line is piled up an accumulation of stores, vast beyond any thing the layman has yet realised. At one of the many maintenance units, dispersed throughout the country, and at a factory where aircraft engines are reconditioned, British Paramount News was recently permitted to make a film, some shots from which are reproduced here. Everything from a split pin to a complete aircraft engine, all in immense quantity, is stored at these maintenance units ready for immediate delivery to any air station in Britain or abroad. Bomb racks, one of the numerous components of modern aircraft, seem to occupy acres of floor space. The longer the spectator remains in this maintenance unit the stronger his impression, not only of well-nigh unimaginable quan tity but of quality. Bomber turrets, often damaged by flak, can be instantly replaced from store. Regardless of Cost The American design Browning machine-gun, with which our fighter planes won the Battle of Britain, flows from factory to store, from store to R.A.F. station, in pace with war demand. However much that demand may eventually increase, the stores will be adequate. Each of these Browning guns costs close on £100. Represented in this store is an amount of money that would have given a peacetime tax-payer heart failure. Then there are tyres by the thousand—varying in size, as a small trainer differs from a four-engined bomber. The smallest ones are bought for a mere pound or two, the cost mounting to £25 for the cover used by the giant Stirlings. Pilots' Irving-type parachutes cost about £60—an expenditure which often brings the highest possible return in precious lives saved. Now to the engine section. Here there is row upon row of British and American power units—Rolls-Royce, Bristol, Napier and Armstrong Whitworth, Allison, Pratt and Whitney, and Wright, not forgetting the equally famous De Havilland Gipsy that powers the little primary trainers. Engines of single-seater fighters cost about £3,000 (Continued overleaf* (Left strip) Shots from the stores. 1 and 2, British and American engines ; 3, Stowing a spare wing ; 4, Rows and rows of machine-guns ; 5, Brownings packed in cases ready for despatch ; 6, Gun turrets ; 7, Bomb racks and flare containers ; 8, Tyres for every type ; 9, Para chutes by the hundred, they are packed by experts as required. (Right strip) New engines for old. 10, Dis mantling a damaged Merlin ; 11, Cleaning by high- pressure paraffin and air jet ; 12, Welding a crankcase crack ; 13, Grinding an air-cooled cylinder ; 14, Inspect ing a cylinder liner ; 15, Women also play their part, these are inspecting reconditioned engine components ; 16, A repaired engine is reassembled ; 17, Control room in the test house ; 18, A batch of repaired engines ready for delivery. i \\* i«w|w fy KK "p. III. |il i #- *! 1 M. U?\ * 'Wtm "• io.*^^ S^l^iii^^ff
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