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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0032.PDF
IS FLIGHT DISCUSSING PRODUCTION The Southampton Conference Reviews the Subject from Contrasting Angles THE second annual conference on problems of aircraft production—organized by the Institution of Production Engineers, Southern Section—was held at the University of Southampton on December 18th and 19th, by permission of the Vice-Chancellor. It was a most heartening occasion, excellently supported by over 200 delegates repre senting all the interested firms, societies and Government departments. The Conference opened with a luncheon, at which Mr. F. C. Cooke, M.I.Erod.E., president of the Southern Section of the Institution, took the chair. Delegates were welcomed by Alderman Mrs. V. F. King, B.A., J.P., Mayor of Southampton, and were addressed by The Lord Hawke, a Lord-in-Waiting in Her Majesty's Household. Lord Hawke described himself as being an "underlord" responsible to the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, the Rt. Hon. A. T. Lennox-Boyd, M.P., who was prevented by a parliamentary debate from being present. The Minister's parliamentary secretary, Mr. J. D. Profumo, was also unable to attend the conference; he had undergone an emergency operation, but was reported to be progressing well. Whoever selected the speakers knew his job. The first paper was by Mr. D. Keith-Lucas, B.A., M.I.Mech.E., F.R.Ae.S., chief designer of Short Brothers and Harland, Ltd. His subject was "The Trend of Design," with particular reference to the structure of high-speed aircraft. A paper by Mr. G. H. Dowty, M.I.Mech.E., F.R.Ae.S., F.I.A.S., chairman and managing director of Dowty Equipment, Ltd., followed; the title of this paper was "Production Problems Arising from the Trend of Design—from the viewpoint of an equipment manufacturer." In the absence of Mr. Dowty, who was indisposed, the paper was read—at very short notice—by Sir Roy Fedden. Dealing with the same subject from the point of view of a manufacturer of high-speed airframes, Mr. S. P. Woodley, M.B.E., superintendent, Supermarine Division, Vickers Arm strongs, Ltd., presented a paper which is summarized below. The two final papers were concerned with "User Problems affecting the Industry," that by Air Marshal Sir R. O. Jones, K.B.E., C.B., A.F.C., controller of engineering and equipment, Air Ministry, offering the view of the Services, and that by Mr. B. S. Shenstone, M.A.Sc, F.R.Ae.S., A.F.I.A.S., chief engineer of B.E.A., putting the case for the airline operator. His paper is summarized opposite. The conference was summed-up by Sir Frederick Handley Page, whose remarks, together with those of the remaining lecturers, will be published in an early issue. MR. WOODLEY'S PAPER THE lecturer felt that a distinct transition stage in design had now been reached, in which "tin-bashing" and assembly work was giving way to an increased emphasis on machining. In fighters, higher speeds and greater stresses were causing the gradual disappearance of the conventional wing spar, the load now being spread over the thick skin, which might be integrally stiffened. Concurrently, the internal wing structure was becom ing so massive that most of it was likewise machined from solid, or from forgings. A similar trend was evident in fuselages; modern fighter frames were forgings, machined all over, while integrally stiffened fuselage skins were also appearing. Mr. Woodley showed a number of photographs of machined forgings, the machining being necessary to ensure compliance with rigid weight-control limits, which were too fine to permit the use of the part as-forged. It was considered that, as a result of the use of such parts, the trend towards ever-increasing com plexity in structure would be halted, or even reversed, with welcome reductions in assembly-lime and, indeed, in the man-hours required to build the whole aircraft. There should also be a reduction in tooling costs and, if the development of milling machines proceeded on "the right lines," it would be possible to machine complicated parts from simple templates or line-drawings upon metal—or even from numerical information fed into the machine. Mr. Woodley returned to this theme later, with special reference to copy-machining; he under lined the vast field of research which lay open in the field of machining according to the instructions of a magnetic tape, punched card, or a computor which determined cutter position from drawing ordinates. He described the American Variax machine which, although at present designed for control by steel templates and electronic tracers, was eventually to dispense with templates entirely, their place being taken by a magnetic tape. The logical outcome was a completely automatic factory. Production development was a subject which merited, but did not receive, considerable attention, both from the point of view of man-power and money. It should be the sole concern of a special department in the factory, free to undertake and solve problems as they arose, and able to look far ahead unworried by day-to-day difficulties. Another factor, about which Mr. Woodley made some pertinent comments, was the lack of any really large forging press in this country. Whereas the United States had laid down an extensive programme of presses equalling, or sur passing, in size those captured from Germany in 1945, we had no such programme either under way or visualized. With such presses it was possible to produce really close-limit forgings, as well as forged parts far larger than was at present possible. As for integrally stiffened skins, this country was not follow ing the American method of machining stiffeners parallel to each other, but was employing a variety of reliefs, stiffeners and rebates. What was wanted was a large machine fitted with both vertical and horizontal milling heads and capable of machining in three dimensions; Mr. Woodley knew of no single machine capable of machining skins with converging integral stiffeners, combined with a tapering basic skin and pockets or rebates relieving the less highly stressed parts. The Supermarine company had undertaken research into the use of conventional routers for skin milling, and Mr. Woodley illustrated some ingenious developments, some involving a pair of radial-arm routers mounted opposite each other across a roller conveyor platform. With these, the work was held in a vacuum chuck and the radial arm supported so that it machined in a perfectly flat plane. Copy machining could be done by adding a template, tracer, and hydraulic servo system operating the cutter via hydraulic jacks. A whole bank of such machines might be put into use at a fraction of the cost of a large skin-miller. Another Supermarine practice was the manufacture of wooden models of machined fittings, which had innumerable uses in the shops, jig and tool offices and design office. Their use aroused much favourable comment from delegates. On the extreme left is a portion of fabricated wing rib showing the numerous structural mem bers, joints and rivets, and giving an idea of the tooling required. Next to it is a portion of a Supermarine rib machined from^solid.
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