Evening star., 1950-07-23
American Eagle Ready to Grow New Set of Wings
Aircraft Industry
Facing Hurdles in
Expanding Output
By W. H. Shippen

By W. H. Shippen
The aircraft manufacturing in
dustry, whose ups and downs are
colossal, is getting set for another
race to catch up with a national
emergency.
This time the goal appears to
be shaping up more in terms of
capacity for rapid expansion than
in numbers of military planes
rolling off the line at any given
date.
While the planes, especially
close-support types. are urgently
needed in Korea, the ready ex-
FEASIBILITY of the whole industry
might control the balance of
power in a world pushed to the
verge of war by Communist
aggression.
A substantial amount of the
$40 billion urged by President
Truman for increasing the mill
tary budget undoubtedly will be
added to the $2,298, 800, 900 al
ready recommended for procure
ment of military aircraft in the
current fiscal year.
Production Base Low
If the previously estimated sum
is doubled, as seems likely. the
industry should be able to double
its capacity in the next II months,
or even triple the capacity in event
the present emphasis on fighters
and light-to-medium bombers is
continued.
The controlling factor in any
expansion, from gradual to all
out, is the current production
base, according to the Aircraft
Industries Association. This, un-
fortunately, is low-now about
215 planes a month ranging from
trainers to six-engined B-36
bombers, some of which are being
fitted with twin-jet pods under the
wing tips.
Congress has been a Jump or
two ahead of the administration
in it's efforts to bolster the manu-
facturers and build up the fight
ing strength of the air arm.
The program was set back last
year when President Truman and
his advisers froze some 1851
million appropriated by Congress
for aircraft procurement. The
money held in reserve is to apply
on procurement for fiscal 81
instead of so.
This economy step was taken
despite the fact that the Finletter
Commission appointed by the
President had warned previously
that the expansibility base of the
industry had fallen dangerously
low and should be built up even if
world conditions improved. This
finding was seconded by the
Congressional Air Policy Board.
The current stepup in produc-
ton is no all-out order like that
issued by the late President Roose-
velt in May, 1910, for $4,000 planes
a year to meet the threat of Hit
ler'S invasion of Europe. Although
the urgency was greater then, the
two situations are similar enough
to form a basis for comparison.
BY May, 1850. only eight months
after the Nazis overran Poland,
our monthly aircraft production
base had risen to $50 as compared
with lit in September, 1889. The
squirt was due largely to urgent
orders from England and France,
but it gave our production race
against time a running start.
Yet it took us "a months from
May. 1910, to reach the $4,000 an
nual production rate, although
Spurred on by Pearl Harbor and
costly reverSes in the Pacific.
The ALA estimates it would now
take "a months to reach the 50,-
600 figure on an all-out basis, due
to the fact that modern planes
are twice as heavy and complex,
on the average, as those of World
War II. About four times as
many man-hours would go into
their completion.
Tools, Materials Vital
It is true that such fleet would
have a vastly greater striking
power, but so, in all probability,
would the enemy's.
Such an output within 81
months is based on the assump-
ton there will be no enemy inter-
ference, and that up-to-the-
minute mobilization plans will
provide adequate materials, skilled
labor and the like.
Taken into account also is an
adequate supply of manufacturing
plants built during the last war,
a reserve pool of general purpose