The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1940-06-20
Today
AND
Tomorrow
PLANES
BY
Frank Parker StOckridge

PLANES -. new
Thirty-five years ago the very
first airplane to carry man in
flight got into the air. The Wright
Brothers kept their experiments
so secret that the public never
saw a plane in flight until 1908,
when Glenn Curtiss flew at Ham,
mondsport in a machine of his
own design. The first plane ever
saw was Curtiss' flight from Al
bany to New York in 1909. That's
how new the airplane is.
It's so new that mankind has
only just begun to realize its pos
sibilities. Military men, who are
slow to learn anything new any
way, laughed at Col. Lindbergh
when he told the world a couple
of years ago that Germany was
creating a military air fleet SUI
perior to any in the world. Now
we have learned how dreadful
ly true his warning was. Planes
give nations mastery in war.
Though Americans taught the
world how to fly, we have been
far behind other nations in the
development of fighting planes.
FORD hui1de1-
When the President told Con-
gress that we ought to be pre-
pared to build $4,000 fighting
planes a year many people it
couldn't be done. A few days
later Henry Ford said he'd
undertake to build thousand
planes a day, given six months
time to tool up. Some people
laughed at that, but I don't laugh
at anything Henry Ford says. I've
seen him in action.
In the World War I saw the
Ford plant turning out 110-foot
"sub-chasers," the Eagle Boats, at
the rate of one a day. saw him
building Liberty motors for air
planes faster than any other mo-
tor builders, and heard some of
them criticize him for using bet
ter materials than the specifica-
tons called for. War aviators told
me the Ford motors were the
best of all.
The problem, as Mr.. Ford
pointed out, is to simply design
and reduce the number of types
of planes required. Now the
Army has it's own ideas, the
Navy wants a different style, and
everybody is trying to pick up
the latest ideas developed in this
war. And every plane manufac-
turer is trying to sell something
original of his own design. Cen
tralized, unified control is need
ed.
AAAAAASS~A Al Va
I have seen our Army and
Navy in action and have talked
with dozens of Generals and Ad-
mirals in time of peace. have
seen enough of the results OF the
bungling by the brass hats, who
administer our military affairs
from their swivel chairs, to give
me little confidence in them ex-
cept as fighting men. When 1t
comes to producing the tools for
fighting they don't know where
to begin.
When the United States enter
ed the World War our Army had
fewer than 200 airplanes, all OBJ
solete, underengined and unarm-
ed. The Germans, British, French
and Italians had good, modern
planes and were making good use
of them. We had to send officers
to the front to find out what
kind of planes we needed before
we could start to build them.
We got going fast on the Ii
berty motors, and sent a lot OF
them to France-to use en- French
planes! Before the sArmistice we
had good many American
planes in France-still in crates.
I believe am right in saying that
not single American airplane
got into action before that war
was over. Our aviators flew
planes of British and French
manufacture which we bought.
IMPROVEMENTS many
The airplane of today is as diff
ferent from any that were used
in the World War of 1914-18 as
the VS. car is from the Model T.
It is faster, therefore necessarily
stronger, and for most purposes
is larger by far. It costs many