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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0384.PDF
FLIGHT, 6 February 1959 193 Flying Fords AN AIRFIELD'S LINK WITH U.S. INDUSTRY THE "derequisitioning" of Ford—surely one of the mostagreeable air bases—is a timely reminder of Henry Ford'sinterest in aviation. It is commonly supposed that the airfield is named after the neighbouring Sussex village of Ford.Until 1928, however, it was called Yapton Aerodrome. It was then taken over by the Ford Motor Company and renamed. Theintention was to operate a passenger service to the Continent, using Ford Trimotor aircraft. However, the company failed toobtain a certificate of airworthiness from the Air Ministry, and the project was abandoned in 1931 when the airfield became the homeof Sir Alan Cobham's famous circus. Henry Ford was one of the pioneers of aircraft manufacture.During the First World War he made a large number of Liberty engines, and in 1925 started the world's first air freight service byoperating Ford-built aeroplanes on scheduled trips between Detroit and Chicago. The prototype aircraft of this scheme, theMaiden Dearborn I, was a Stout Mail Plane powered with a single 400 h.p. Liberty and decorated with the familiar Ford script onher fuselage. So successful was the inaugural flight that an aero- plane division of the Ford Motor Company was organized forth-with, to progress the development of a big all-metal tri-motor, together with a small "flivver" for general use. During the firstyear of the aircraft division's operations, over 200,000 miles were flown and more than 1,000,000 lb of freight was carried, and nota single accident occurred. Chief technician behind the Ford Aircraft was the renownedWilliam B. Stout, whose own company—the Stout Metal Airplane Co.—included Mr. Edsel Ford among its directors. All theinterests in Bill Stout's firm were bought by Henry Ford early in August 1925, and the works at Dearborn, Michigan, were there-after operated as a division of the Ford Motor Company. The Liberty-engined Stout Mail Plane and Stout Transport Mono-plane soon gave way to the most famous Ford aeroplane of all. Known officially as the Three-Engined Monoplane, its more fami-liar appellation was Ford Trimotor. There were two chief models, respectively styled 4-AT (carrying 12 passengers and normallyhaving three 300 h.p. Wright Whirlwind or Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior engines) and the 5-AT (seating up to 15 passengersand usually powered by 425 h.p. Pratt & Whitney Wasps). By 1929 these big all-metal machines were being supplied to airlinesat the rate of four per week, but output dwindled to nothing during the great depression of the early 1930s. It was in the autumn of 1930 that Ford shipped a 4-AT anda 5-AT to Europe for general demonstration flying. Flight for November 14 of that year published a full description oftheir construction, and noted the company's intention "if experience appears to justify so doing" to manufacture the air-craft at Hooton Park, Cheshire, which was then the headquarters of the Comper Aircraft Co. Ltd. Several aircraft were assembledm Comper hangars at Hooton Park, but series production never got under way. Nevertheless, the soundness of the design isamply proven by Bill Stout's endeavours in recent years to put a modernized version back into production under the name ofBushmaster. The two "Flight" photographs on this page were taken in 1931. On fne right ore seen two of the original inhabitants of Ford Airfield Ford's greatest contribution to aviation during the inter-waryears was the perfection of a radio beam. U.S. Patent No. 1,937,876, applied for on May 2, 1928, and granted to the FordMotor Company, provided for "a radio beacon . . . especially adapted for use in connection with the piloting of airplanes orother aircraft . . . which will send out a signal in a predetermined direction so that a pilot may fly on that signal and may be keptupon his course by following the signal." A refinement of this system in the form of a station-location indicator was alsopatented. Instruction in the use of the beam was given by Ford to commercial airline and U.S. Army pilots, and the patent waspresented to industry. Since then improvements in ground-to-air communications have kept pace with other aeronautical develop-ments, but the radio range which we use today is merely a refine- ment of the system originally designed by Ford engineers. This early experience in aviation, plus his vast mass-productionresources, enabled Henry Ford to make a major contribution to aircraft production during World War 2. Months before PearlHarbour he was asked to prepare facilities for building 4,236 Pratt & Whitney R-2800 (Double Wasp) 18-cylinder radials.This order was then the largest single aero-engine contract let under the U.S. defence programme. To meet the order—whichwas later increased to 9,043—Ford had to build a new factory costing 37m dollars. By the time it was completed, eleven monthslater, the company was already producing one engine a day, and before long it reached its target of 300 per month. At that time (1941), one of the aviation bottlenecks in theexpanding defence programme was the shortage of facilities for producing magnesium alloy. At a cost of $800,000 Ford added totheir vast Rouge plant a foundry for the production of such alloys. This was by far the largest magnesium-alloy foundry in theUnited States; it supplied the total engine reouirements, 110,000 lb per month, for the Ford-built Double Wasps, andmade available the remainder of its output to other vital defence industries. Notwithstanding these great achievements, the largest of all the
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