Milford chronicle., 1941-02-14
FORD BUILDS miracle"
PLANE ENGINE
b ABE oRKENBERG


his sleeve that would permit him to
have the last satisfactory laugh al
the legion of scoffers who'd been
making merry at the expense OF his
extrayagant statement these many
months?
Well, the old man of River Rouge
produced the ace-a nice, fat piece
of trump in the shape of a new
miracle airplane engine which is
expected to top the. best the world
has to offer today. And that goes for
the Nazis' famous Junkers 211B and
the Benz motors, the great Rolls
Royce Merlin which powers the
Hurricanes and Spitfires and our
own Pratt and Whitney Wasp and
Wright Cyclone power plants.
Not only will this new baby be-
come the John Henry Of the aeronau-
tical engineering world, but 1t is
especially designed and simpifed
to permit mass production. And
mass production in the American in
dustrial scheme of things means pro-
duction that might be virtually un-
limited except for demands made by
our fighting forces.
Motor Similar TO The German
Goering's regimented manpower
and resources at peak now are sup
posed to be turning out 5000 planes
a month for Germany. If Ford's
plans are consummated, Uncle Sam
will be supplied with the worlds
most efficient fighting planes at
rate that will make the clustering
Nazis seem like pikers by contrast.
First of all, what's this miracle
motor like? Ford engineers reveal
they've stolen a page from German
designers, pinched a wee bit from
the best of the English and Ameri-
can designs, and also improved on
their own methods.
The motor is similar to the Ger
man engine. 1t is Wiz liquid cool
ed, fuel injector type engine. At
cruising speed the motor delivers
1900 rpm. with an amazing out
put Of 1900 horsepower.
The comparable Rolls Royce Mer-
lin is a 1 200 horsepower engine. The
Ford engine develops more horse
mower in proportion to weight than
he's been achieved by any other
one pound per h.p., as compared
with an average of one and a quar-
ter pounds per h.p. by the others.
The fuel injection system adopted
BY the River Rouge engineers is
copied from one used by the Ger
mans. It eliminates the necessity for
a carburetor.
"A new type exhaust supercharger,
developed by Ford and integrated
with the engine to permit streamlin-
ing superior to any now in service,
is expected to boost engine perfor-
nance at high attitudes at least IL
per cent. In effect this would per-
init our fighter planes to run rings
around any other pursuit ships or
bombers in ralehed atmosphere, In
fact, the higher the altitude an en-.
envy. plane sought the greater would
be his disadvantage,
All performance figures have been
established from a two cylinder
model which has been on testing
blocks for months. Bearing loads,
compression loads, accessory drives,
valve durability, horsepower output,
ofIing system and endurance have
been checked and rechecked count
less times. Army observers who
have seen these figures and the per-
torrance of the test model whistle in
amazement.
We were witness at what may
prove to be an historic occasion when
c. E. Sorenson, production manager
for Henry Ford, released plans for
construction of the first Of these IL
cylinder miracle motors. 1t will be
completed and ready for flight test in
June.
Although experts in the aircraft
industry are incredulous, Ford and
his staff of research men have no
doubt Of the result. In fact, but
unoficially, they've drawn plans for
mass production.
what is the secret of all this?
It rests in the genius Of Henry
Ford who violates all the rules and
smashes precedents who, in this in
stance, insists on bringing auto
mobile thinking" to bear on the prob
lem Of building plane engines. But
let Mr.. Ford speak for himself:
Lets steer clear of airplane en-
gines specifically, and talk about
the broader problems, such as bot
tlenecks in defense industries.
think they can be relieved by some
of the methods we have developed.
This is not intended as criticism Of
present methods of manufacturing |
planes and motors. for most of the |
companies heretofore haven't had |
sufficient production to warrant the
development of mass production.
'sHowever, we're facing the same
problem at this plant, and here's pre-
cfsely how we expect to meet it. AS
a case in point let's take the ques-
tion of steel, the material used in
greatest quantity in plane motors,
tanks, trucks, tractors, guns, etc.
"Now I'll show you precisely how
we save time, material, equipment
and labor. See this gear? (Mr. Ford
pointed to a rear axle gear for a
truck A few years ago we made
that part by a roundabaut method
still widely used. The metal block
came as a forging and rs per cent
of the steel was wasted and trimmed
off by a slow and costly process be-
fore the rough gear was forged. We
now make this part by a new meth
cd of centrifugal casting-which
some experts say isn't practical
and we get superior product in half
the time at half the cost.
when we developed a similar
method of camshaft manufacture in
1885 we were able to transfer so per
cent of the tools and equipment for
merly used on this work to other