PRODUCTION OF STARFIGHTER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29896, 9 August 1962, Page 2

PRODUCTION OF STARFIGHTER

Significant Role Of Women

Women workers are performing increasingly significant roles in the design, development and production of the F-104 Super Starfighter. At the Lockheed-Califor-nia Company’s Burbank and Palmdale, California, plants, where the 1500-m.p.h. multimission fighter is built for countries in the Mutual Assistance Programme and other allied nations, 18 per cent, of the 2500 employees in the F-104 manufacturing departments are women. Their assembly-line duties range from riveting fuselage sections to checking systems and components. Active in all areas of the firm’s activities, women are among the engineers, draftsmen, electrical bench assemblers and structures mechanics—in addition to typists, clerks and secretaries.

The F-104—possessing the most advanced electronics systems of any modern fighter—requires fine “needlework” aptitude for its wiring installation. Women excel in this highly demanding specialty, reflecting the manual dexterity associated with a housewife’s knitting or sewing. Throughout the entire Lockheed-California Company, approximately 4250 of the 25.000 employees are women.

Burmese Nurses. Daw (Miss) Khin Atwe, a Burmese nurse who recently stayed at the Christchurch Hospital while working for the Department of Health, is at present attending the New Zealand Post Graduate School of Nursing in Wellington. She will return to Burma as a registered nurse. Miss Maiyi, a Burmese who recently spent three months working for the Nurse Maude District Nursing Association on an observation tour, has returned to Mandalay as a registered midwife.