OUTPUT COMPARED

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 210, 2 June 1944, Page 5

OUTPUT COMPARED

Allied And Axis Planes (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 31. Since Pearl Harbour, the United States has turned out a grand total of 171,257 planes, with a total air-frame weight of 715,000 tons, according to a summary of aircraft production progress which haS been issued officially. \ The American output in the first four months of this year totalled 35,009 planes, averaging a plane every five minutes round the clock, excluding Sunday, or 340 every working day. The total American output this year Will be 100,000 planes and the total cost of the 1944_aircraft programme will 'be between £5OOO million and £6OOO million. American aircraft plants produced about 8700 planes in May, mostly combat planes for the European invasion. The Aircraft Production Board’s schedule for May was 8600 planes. The present annual production of combat planes by the Japanese is estimated to be about 13 per cent, of the United States output. The monthly output of Japan for all types is estimated at between 1000 and 1400 planes. The American output of planes is now at a rate greater than four to one in comparison with the Germans, who are estimated now to be producing only about 75 per cent, of their output in 1942 —their year of peak production—when they were producing about 27,000 planes annually. German Production Hindered. The intensive bombing of German plants has greatly hindered the German production, specially of fighter aircraft. It is estimated that more than 40 per cent, of the German fighter production has been knocked out. Germany’s current' total monthly production of all types is estimated at about 1800 planes. The combined plane output of the United States and the British Empire since the outbreak of the war in Europe totals approximately 300,000. Germany’s estimated production in the same period was about 110,000, and Japan’s perhaps 41,000. However, the Germans, who were specializing in plane production as far back at 1935, started the war with a stock of about 24,000. About 77 per cent, of the monthly output of United States aircraft now consists of combat planes. Combat and transport planes together are approximately 87 per cent, of the total.