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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 1907.PDF
SEPTEMBER IOTH, 1942 F LI ^<y/v*- 0 289 PLYWOOI>/AND PLASTIC CONSTRUCTIONQDU F Details of the Vidal Proc^k Explained By HARRY WILKIN^ERRY SCARCITY of metals foi tha^const|*uction of military and naval equipmenyby tly United States for prosecu tion of the war has/brought fa"rourable consideration bv Army and Navy authprit^sof me practicability of using plywood and plastic irf tiJi construction of aircraft and small boats. One of sfj^ral recentl ' developed processes in this field is that of Eugene L. Vidal, to whom, jointly with Lawrence J. Marhoeffer, United States Patent No. 1^.5.76,004 covering it was issued last March, 'r Mr. Vidal, though but forty-seven years of age, has had a long and varied career in aviation, having been trans ferred in' 1918 to the Army Air Corps after graduating' from West Point Military Academy. He completed his Air Corps training and won his wings in two years, then returned to West Point as an instructor. In 1926 he. resigned from the Air Corps to become assistant general manager of Transcontinental Air Transport, and even then was dreaming of making small aircraft of veneer and plastic. Later he and four others, including Amelia Ear- hart, organised the Ludington Airline, which operated an hourly passenger service between New York and Washing ton without benefit of a mail subsidy contract, and subse quently, with his associates, formed the Northeast AiP" lines, of which he holds considerable stock and is still a director. The 700-Dollar Dream Fig. 2. Coating a strip of veneer with plastic by machine. thermo-setting Among the first actions taken by President Roosevelt following his first-term election was to abolish the office of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Air in 1933 and create a Bureau for Air Commerce, appointing Mr. Vidal to the office of Director, of Civil Aeronautics. The director, during his four years' incumbency, energetically advocated a number of novel ideas and became most widely known— and unfavourably in the aircraft industry—-for his en deavours to encourage the designing and manufacture of- * $700 aircraft. He has been haunted by that vision evei—— since, and from early in 1937 has directed his efforts con tinuously to the development of his wood and plastic con struction process, first personally investigating all plywood 'bonding operations in the country. The principal part of the process, for which priority of conception is claimed, is described in the patent as "a single-operation method of moulding, by means of heat and fluid pressure, plastic-treated veneers which have been wrapped about a form, into a completely reinforced or non-reinforced shaped structure." In simpler language, the inventor calls it '' cooking wood and plastic into anv- kind of shape." Research and development work in the application of the Fig. 1. Placing stringers and formers in the slots of ths Fig. 3. mould before the skin is wrapped on. Wrapping the veneer sheets, coated v/ith plastics, diagonally over the solid mould.
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