The Times THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1940. Production of Aircraft

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 259, 1 November 1940, Page 6

The Times THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1940. Production of Aircraft

Air-frames and aero-engines cannot be turned out in the same way as motor-curs, simply because they are not similarly standardised over a given period of time. Mass production of cars is possible because it is only a matter of feeding plastic metals to huge hydraulic presses which stamp them into the required shape in the appropriate dies. The machine-tools needed for the process arc themselves enormously costly and only an immense and uninterrupted outflow of the product would make the provision of them an economic proposition. They are worth installing if the volume of the output is of great magnitude and the type of the product is stabilised ; otherwise they would quickly involve the bankruptcy of the firm eoncernoQ.

In aircraft production there can be no such steady and unimpeded flow of output- There arc snags in the stream; they are known as modifications. There are bigger boulders, too; they are known as changes in design. They arc, combined, the nightmare of the production executive, but they are at the same time the beautiful dream, the rosy vision of higher performance, of the design staff. A nuisance to the producer, they are the essential prerequisite of that improvement in quality which means superiority in the encounter in the clouds.