VERSATILE UNIT

AIRMEN AS ENGINEERS

G.E.S. TACKLES ANYTHING

A busy and hardworking ■ branch of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, the General Engineering Section is a versatile organisation. The last few years have seen it undertake some trying tasks—tasks which before the war would have been declared impossible for New Zealand equipment and craftsmen. Now the section may well claim that it has yet to find a task beyond its capabilities. This little-known unit at an R.N.Z.A.F. station in the North Island has not as yet been called on to manufacture either needles or anchors, but it could without a doubt handle either assignment if necessary. It does, for instance, manufacture delicate tools for Sperry instruments calling for accuracy up to a quarter of a thousandth of an inch, and it does also, by way of contrast, sharpen the cutters for the sausage machine in Air Force butcher shops.

Nothing comes amiss to the (general Engineering Section—or G.E.S. as it is better known to its staff. Recently a shipment of medium bombers were found to require a modification to the landing gear, after delivery had been taken by the R.N.Z.A.F. Until the modification was installed all these aircraft had to be grounded. There was no time to arrange for the workers to do the job. The aircraft were required urgently. That was where G.E.S. came into the picture. The defect was examined, a new part designed, and manufacture began. TWELVE PROCESSES. The job required 12 different processes and involved machining a ten-, pound block of steel into the finished article, which weighed only three pounds. Working on a mass-produc-tion principle, with each man completing only a small section of the work, G.E.S. toiled night and day for three weeks, working three shifts throughout the full 24 hours. At the end of the three weeks each aircraft of the shipment was airworthy. The section, which today is still working a night , shift, is divided roughly into three departments—the machine shop, the^grinding shop, and the metal shop. These three shops can, if necessary, manufacture" or repair almost anything mechanical required by the. R.N.Z.A.F. During a recent visit, ■> radio parts, sandblasting guns, a special type of screwdriver, castors, castor bolts, aero engine filters, ■ and hooks for engine slings were among a few of the articles being manufactured in the machine shop, which is fitted out with the most modern machining equipment. HIGH DEGREE OF ACCURACY. In the grinding shop airscrew domes were being ground out and crankshafts of Allison engines were being reground on a huge precision machine which operates to such a degree of accuracy that it is left running during spells, so that measurements will not vary because of the bearings cooling off.

Sheet metal and "stressed, skin" work was being carried out in the metal shop, as well as wire splicing, the manufacture of wing jigs for Harvard aircraft, and the fitting of perspex panels for windshields, turrets, and windows. Taking pride of place in this department was a profile oxygen cutting, machine, constructed on the spot by the section, which automatically cuts round any template desired. Heat treatment in salt baths for the case hardening and tempering of alloys was also provided for, while other locally-made apparatus included a huge drop-hammer for intricate work which could be stamped out from dies made on the spot. That this busy organisation has yet to find an impossible job tells something of the story of the G.E.S.—a story that is often overlooked beside those more romantic chapters of the R.N.Z.A.F. which tell of operational flying.