New-York tribune., 1918-06-18
A Game of Big Chances

We have an aircraft boss at last. The
manufacturers are anxiously waiting to see
whether he has the to suppress re-
fnemcnts and command production.
It's a game in which big chances must
be taken You take them whether you go
ahead or stand still. In lodging the perils
of going ahead, we have fallen into those
of waiting.
After all, in the very nature of things,
We were bound to have innumerable altera-
tions and delays and mistakes of Judgment
There were SO many that were inevitable
that by the time we got through with them
we had the habit.
We were children at the battle plane
game. We went to school to the French,
the English and the Italians. Our teach
ers agreed on nothing. The French said
go north, the English said go east and
the Italians said go west to the Signal
Corps officers asking for direction The
latter tried to travel in three directions
at once and ended up by going south. Call
south the American direction and you may
say that at last we are going in that direc-
tion. 1t is impossible for US to get over
being Americans. We must tumble at q
The most advanced European manufact-
urers know next to nothing of quantity
production according to American stand
ards. Just as we had to have an Ameri-
can or on Americanized motor before we
could build Liberty motors by the thou
sands, so we had to Americanize our air
plane models before they were adapted to
our methods of quantity manufacture
An English De Haviland and an Ameri-
can De Haviland look very much alike. but
there are thousands of little differences.
That sounds big, but there are $4,000 parts
in an airplane.
1t is typical of the difference between
American and foreign models that when
we started out to make the De Havilands
there was not a complete set of drawings
OF one In existence. They had made thou
sands of them in England without ever
making full set of blueprints Our en-
gineers had to Ali out tho breaks and holes.
The English left that to the workmen, You
can't leave it to machine. After the thou
sands Of drawings, the thousands of ma
chimes. jigs, fixtures, dies. etc.
A Chinese Puzzle
WE iouiu WneH we came to examine the
De Havland drawings" said Signal Corps
engineer, "that we had little more than
sketches. We had to make the picture our
selves and it had to be a picture that
could be reproduced by machines"
Then the De Haviland as whole had TO
be adapted to the Liberty motor. Then
came the matter of equipment. Engineers
and machines have all but gone crazv to
find places to install about thirty different
KINDS of apparatus in the pilots cockpit
Every time they thought they had solved
this Chinese puzzle new order came from
Pershing for another piece of equipment
The equipment had to be designed and
made, probably by manufacturers who
never had made anything like it before
IL mad to be made before a place could
be made for it. Every time a change was
made 1t had to go up and down the stairs
OF army rank Sometimes it got lost on
the way.
But, Allah be praised, the De Haviland's
troubles are over, for one big crop, at least
One of the most inspiring sights I have
seen is the great vanguard of 4.ooo De
Havilands marching to completion at the
Dayton Wright factory nine abreast and
800 feet deep. As they move to birth with
their defiant bulldog muzzle po,nt;no
obiiquely upwards. they seem to proclaim
the mastery of the skies