British Aircraft Industry Still Leads

Northern Advocate, 17 March 1944, Page 3

British Aircraft Industry Still Leads

(E.0.W.) RUGBY, March 14

Britain today has as good an aircraft industry as any in the world, said the Minister for Aircraft Production (Sir Stafford Cripps) today. “It has proved this in its performance over the past year and has proved to be a really soundly-based industry which can cope with future requirements, military or civil.” Referring to changes of programme, Sir Stafford said that operational requirements came suddenly and it was necessary to take sometimes apparently wasteful measures. The bomber programme meant that th&y had to get labour from somewhere else in the industry and the programme had to be adjusted to get the increase. This led to cutting out or limiting production of certain types of aircraft resulting in the closing down of quite large units and restriction of production in others. It also meant complete reconstruction of the whole aircraft production. This was a colossal ' job and Sir Stafford said it had been done with very little upset. They had also to meet demands for very new types. In addition, they had to meet a new civil aircraft programme, but this would take second place. It was not possible to say whether we had reached peak output or not. From the point of view of operational strength, Sir Stafford thought we had not, but we had very likely reached it from a purely numerical point of view. In future production there would be more and larger aircraft and fewer smaller types. Sir Stafford mentioned that he had visited 240 map factories since he became Minister. He thought the joint production committees had proved their usefulness and some had set up sub-committees to consider post-war problems.