The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-07-24

other crackpo and anyhow the jump from building ships to building airplanes is nt greater than the jump from build ing dams to building ships. After all the three devices of dam, ship and flying boat have one great factor ir common-it takes water to run 'em and Kaiser has built both ships and dams faster than anyone in either business before.
 This idea of a shipyard building flying boats isn't as silly as 1t sounds, either. Before the war, the German shipyard that built the luxury liners Europa and Bremen did some experimenting with air. craft, and came out with four Diesel powered 19-ton experimental trans oceanic craft that landed in mid- ocean, taxied up to 8 floating mat lowed by the Schwabenland, were hoisted aboard for refueling and then catapulted back into the air.
 But Washington aviation experts can pick more flaws in the Kaiser flying boat proposals than there are flaws in a Nazi's moral char acter, and they're doing 1t.
 MATTER
 OF MATERIAL
 One Liberty ship can haul 10000 tons of cargo. Even if Kaiser can build 200-ton flying boat-three times bigger than the 70-ton Martin Mars" which is the biggest flying boat ever built and which can haul only IA tons of cargo-it would take 700 of these Mars boats or over 200 of the Kaiser-on-paper 200-ton boats to haul as much cargo as one lousy Liberty ship. And we're build ing 2300 Liberty ships.
 Most pertinent objection to the Kaiser proposal is that there isn't enough material available to build the planes already designed, test ed and on order as fast as they could be built in existing aircraft factories. The sad fact Is that the aircraft plants already built have been forced to shut down from time to time for lack of materials. Mostly fabricated parts like engines and propellers, or semi manufactured parts like castings and shapes.
 Glenn l.. Martin has started pub- licly that his Baltimore plant could build eight times as many aircraft as its is now building If 1t could just get the materials. Boeing Aircraft Company is on record that it's west coast plants could build twice as many planes as they are now building if they could just get materials. Very pertinently, therefore, it can be asked where the materials are t o come from to build planes in nine shipyards to be converted into aircraft factories, as Kaiser pro- poses.
 OTHER
 BOTTLENECKS
 Behind the materials shortages there are other bottlenecks which aircraft manufacturers say would impede the Kaiser efforts. Machine tools for instance. Planes can now be assembled in a matter of hours, by assembly line methods. But tool ing up to do this job takes a year, and even Kaiser could not beat his estimated 10 months in get ting ready to make his first plane.
 Kaiser has stated that the planes on his drawing board are beyond anything Jules Verne could have imagined and experienced air- craft designers admit they must be- Increase in the size of air. planes has been gradual. The Army's B-19 experimental ship - biggest land plane ever built = was six years in the making. The B-19 has gross loaded weight of 82 tons and a wing span of 2i2 feet. It can carry useful load of 20 tons. Its power plant is four 2,000-horsepower engines, developing a total of 5000 horse- power, or about one horsepower for every 20 pounds of gross load.
 At the ratio, 1t would take 20,- 900 horsepower 10 lift a plane of 200 gross tons into the air. In other words 1t would take eight 2,500- horsepower engines, probably ar ranged as four tractor engines and four pushers. Six motored planes have been built in Europe, though the largest number of engines used in the United States today is four.
 The jump from the 70-ton Mars and the 82-ton B-1o, which have wingspreads of over 200 feet, to aircraft of 200 tons - let alone the 500-ton planes that Kaiser also mentioned - is a development so great that most aircraft designers can't figure 1t in one step. Henry J. Kaiser has made his reputation by doing things that couldn't be done.
 The verdict today is that he'll have to perform a miracle to build his 200-ton airplane, but unless you want to get caught out on the end of a limb, don't say that he won't do it.