Evening star., 1938-09-27
AVIATION FIRMS
MAY FACE SHIFT
0verhauIing Of Equipment
Expected if European
War Breaks Out.
BY J. G. DONLEY.
Special Dispatch to The Star.


breaks out in Europe on the scale of
"a years ago, one of the first American
industries likely to get an overhauling
and general replanning of produc-
tive facilities is the manufacturing
end of the aviation industry.
1t may be that America will 60 in
for the so-called shadow plan" adopt
ed by Great Britain last year. In the
British mobilization for defense, the
shadow plan served to superimpose
the aircraft industry upon the automo-
tive industry. All motor plants were
lined up for the manufacture of air
plane parts and engines: so that, in
the event Of an emergency, they might
take their place as a secondary line
of production.
In the United States, some automo-
tive plants are already turning out
airplane engines, but, so far as is
known, only one produces motor
specialized for heavy plane use The
others are mainly converted products
and do not differ greatly from the
power plants used in the various auto
mobiles. The manufacture Of airplane
parts and instruments is rather widely
distributed, of course, but, in the main,
production of planes in this country
Is a building" rather than an "as.
sembling' job.
Reich Plan Is Reality.
One OF the important reasons why
Germany Is believed to lead the world
In air strength is that Germany's
shadow plan has been a reality for
many months. The various parts for
German military planes and bombers
are made in widely scattered plants
throughout the country, every possible
producer having been pressed into
service without much regard for the
availability of the products formerly
made. As a result OF such co-ordina-
ton OF productive facilities, Germany
has put plane production on straight
line basis.
Turning out planes is a matter of
gathering the parts from various max
ers at an assembly plant, with the ap-
plication of assembly-line methods in
the final work Of putting a ship to-
gether. Germany wanted a bombing
fleet and she wanted in in a hurry.
and for that reason she concentrated
on the Junkers "JU-52s"-an obso-
lete type Of transport plane. These
potenSial bombers come off the pro-
duction line with no seats installed,
ready for bomb racks, and one plant
has long been rolling them out at the
rate OF three day. Up to last year,
our best rate of production on COM
parable planes was IS year. Allow
ing for $50 working days in the year,
Germany's output, at one plant, fig
ures out at IA times our comparable
production.
Loss Rate Is High.
Apparently, the German idea is
that transport planes of an obsolete
type are good enough for bombers
II you have thousands Of them, The
loss rate is rather high in active
bombing fleets at best, and, the more
you have, the less your total fleet feels
such losses. And modern bombs don't
care what kind of planes drop them.
Our production of planes has been
stepped up sharply in the past year,
but 1t Is not yet anywhere near what it
should be on preparedness basis. The
industry made farsighted step last
year when it established the Aero In
dustries Technical Institute, located
near Los Angeles, around which city
an important proportion of the Ma
tion's airplane production facilities are
clustered. The institute is designed
to train men in actual factory tech
nique rapidly enough to permit their
earliest possible entry into the in
dustry.
The airplane industry had the best
year since the World War. in 1897,
with total deliveries of 3,l87 planes
and 6,014 airplane engines. accord
ing to the Aeronautical Chamber of
Commerce. The increase in produc-
tion last year was most pronounced in
light, two-place machines, of which
1912 were delivered, as against 1913 in
1886 Deliveries of multiengined
transport planes rose to 1873, against
"a in 1896. Military airplanes of all
descriptions recorded a delivery total
of 949, as compared with 1,024 in 1886.
Copyright, 1881