"OUR BEAUFORTS WILL STOP JAPS." SAYS AUSTRALIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 32, 8 February 1943, Page 2

"OUR BEAUFORTS WILL STOP JAPS." SAYS AUSTRALIA

In just two years Australian factories manufactured—not merely assembled—their first Beaufort tor-pedo-bomber, says the Sydney Morning Herald. No tornedo-bomber has been built, from blueprint to finished article, anywhere in the world in so short a period. No bomber of any kind has been built, from drawing board to test flight, in so short a period in Britain, the United States or Canada. Led by the Minister for Aircraft Production, Senator Cameron the Minister for Air, Mr. Drakeford, and by leaders in the aircraft industry, a group of newspaper representatives explored the making of the Beaufort bomber from a Government annexe where much of the fuselage is made, through the factory where 1200 h.p. Pratt and Whitney engines are manufactured, to a final assembly plant, where, not far away, test pilots were throwing finished Beauforts around in the air as though they were single-seater fighters.

Exacting Tests They must be sound aircraft, otherwise they could not stand up to the treatment the test pilots gave them, possibly, on this occasion, going a little further than is normal in a maker's test. The test pilots looped loop's with these big twoengined aircraft, performed alarming slow rolls, and descended upon groups of politicians, aeronautical engineers and newspapermen in long dives which ended with their aircraft about 60ft above the heads of the onlookers. The number of Beauforts that has been produced in Australia carries the aircraft well out-of the experimental zone. The Australian Beaufort, which is a substantial modification of the original Bristol Beaufort, has sunk its first Japanese ships, successfully using torpedoes, bombs and depth charges. New Beaufort aircraft are now coming forward in really effective numbers. The Japanese have not yet felt the full effect of Beaufort bomber and torpedobomber production in Australia because, for every two aircraft that go into fighting squadrons, one at least must go to a training school. The Japanese do not meet an air crew which has had less than two or three months' training in the Australian bomber or torpedobomber that hits them.

Australian Engines Many of the Beauforts now in operational areas are powered with Australian-made engines. They are made in a factory now in full swing in an area which, in July, 1940, was open country. The people working in this factory are proud of this, and of the factory's present output. Only 10 per cent of them, apart from foremen and leading hands, are recognised tradesmen on production operations. In the factory itself more than 5 per cent of the employees are women. Practically every component of the engine is Australian-made except the roller bearings, and the only reason why the roller bearings are not made in Australia is that precision roller bearings, such as are needed for aircraft engines, are a selected few from the thousands produced in a big "commercial" roller bearing factory. Since Australia has insufficient demand for "commercial" roller bearings—engineers in aero engine factories have standards of precision and of tolerances that do not apply to most other engineering industries; they talk off-handedly of hundreds of thousandths of an inch—it is considered better to import bearings,

rather than to make thousands of bearings, select the hundred best, and throw the rest away. Mr. Drakeford said in a speech to executives and newspaper executives that five years ago people had debated whether Australia could manufacture a motor car engine. Now Australians were manufacturing aero engines. When the story was told, and it should be told as fully as possible, the people of Australia would marvel at what had been done.

Mr. John Storey, in charge of the Beaufort division of the Aircraft Production directorate, said the Beaufort had three functions —reconnaissance, torpedo - bombing and bombing. Versatility was its big feature. A Beaufort had flown nonstop from Townsville to Darwin and on to Adelaide in one day. In fact, there was no point in Australia which Beauforts could not reinforce in 24 hours. Of more than 10,000 people engaged in one way or another in Beaufort production, 2000 were women, and the skilled tradesmen numbered only 10 per cent of the total.

He added that radical alteration had been made to the original design of the Beaufort to adapt it to Australian conditions, or to the uses to which the R.A.A.P. needed to put it. Australian designers had solved these problems. As the months went by Australia's force of Beauforts would become stronger, and the problem of the Japanese attackers would be the greater. The men and women who are working on the aircraft are continually reminded what the machine they are making is made for. For example, a large poster on the walls of an assembly shop, above which completed Beauforts can be heard continually on test flights, shows a torpedo-bomber in flight, and bears the simple statement, "Our Beauforts will stop the Japs."