Field capacity to repair, overhall, reconstuct, and build airplanes in W.W.I.I. [Archive]

Keith Willshaw

October 14th 03, 11:43 PM

"John Freck" > wrote in message
om...
> A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
> W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
> combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
> parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
> parts?
>

No

> I have seen several domumentaries were there are mentions of small
> industrial furnaces being deployed to the Pacific and new part
> milling, the robust repair and recylcing of Hurricanes, and in one
> documentary on the B-26 of whole plane final assemeble do right on
> base from parts from a vareity of sources.
>

You have asked several questions, to answer them individually

1) Were small industrial furnaces deployed to the Pacific ?

That depends on what you define as a small industrial furnace.
Blacksmiths forges certainly were, aluminium smelters
certainly were not.

2) Were new parts sometimes milled in the field ?

Sure but only at great need, normally you pick the
spares up from the stores maintained on base and
which are purchased from the aircraft manufacturer

3) Were Hurricanes repaired and even recycled ?

Certainly, an entire organisation was created for just
this purpose with minor battle damage being handled
by the squadrons themselves, more substantial repairs
being handled by specialist units which were part of the
Civilian Repair Organisation and were located away from
the airfields.

4 ) > In addition, I have heard that on US aircraft carriers any metal
> aircraft part can be made on board using furnances and milling tools
> right on board: Is this so today?

No, think about for a moment , can you make an engine control
micro processor with a furnace and milling machine ?

5) Was this so in W.W.I.I. ?

No, you cant make a Merlin Engine or an H2S radar set that
way either.

>

6) How many airmen did the Allied airforces have ground working in
England?

Hundreds of thousands

7) How sophisticated and massive was aircraft maintence?

It was comparable to the motor industry

8) Could they assemble a warplane?

No, in the same way your local Ford dealer cant assemble a
new Mondeo

9) Could they make a new engine using badly
damaged engines as the raw material?

They could scavenge parts from a dead one to keep
a live engine going but this would be done only in
extreme circumstances, engine failure on take off
usually kills the pilot and crew

>
> Also, the internet didn't have a great deal on on-base or near-base
> cottage warplane stuff, but it gets mentions in documeteries.
>

Lets kill this once and for all.

I live in East Anglia, there are literally dozens of old USAAF and
RAF base within 25 miles of my house. NOT ONE had or had
such a facility. Just doing routine maintenenance and battle damage
repair had the ground crews working 12-16 hours a day as it was.

Get Real

Keith

John Freck

October 15th 03, 02:40 AM

"Keith Willshaw" > wrote in message >...

Prehaps where you are, Britain, the aviation industry isn't as large
as it is here in the USA.
I live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Today, there is no doubt that
aircraft engine part manufacture exists.
These companies are not huge, and I bet there are small companies able
to make jet engine parts all over the USA. Jet engine part makers are
in my local phone book; I have seen the buildings that house these
next to Miami International Airport and they are not huge. Not really
huge like Boeing's final assemble plant in Seatle,
Just the sort of operation, I claim, existed on USAAF bases in the
1940s does exist near large interantional airports in the USA today.

http://yp.yahoo.com/py/ypResults.py?stx=Jet+engine+&stp=a&tab=B2C&city=Pompano+Beach&state=FL&zip=33064&country=us&msa=2680&slt=26.278500&sln=-80.115800&cs=5

> "John Freck" > wrote in message
> om...

> > A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
> > W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
> > combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
> > parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
> > parts?

> No

You are wrong, and you basically admit it futherdown. I provided a
Yellow Book listing for today's situation for South Florida. How
about admitting that the avaition industry does this today? Huh?

> > I have seen several domumentaries were there are mentions of small
> > industrial furnaces being deployed to the Pacific and new part
> > milling, the robust repair and recylcing of Hurricanes, and in one
> > documentary on the B-26 of whole plane final assemeble do right on
> > base from parts from a vareity of sources.

> You have asked several questions, to answer them individually

> 1) Were small industrial furnaces deployed to the Pacific ?

> That depends on what you define as a small industrial furnace.
> Blacksmiths forges certainly were, aluminium smelters
> certainly were not.

As far as I know an alumium smelter isn't needed to process alumium
metal in already process metal form, such as a used cola can, or
aircrafts' structural memebers. It can be hard for a small slumium
recycler to make new structrual members.

> 2) Were new parts sometimes milled in the field ?

> Sure but only at great need, normally you pick the
> spares up from the stores maintained on base and
> which are purchased from the aircraft manufacturer

Today, there are tens of thousands of commercialpassenger jets flying
the world, and it looks to me as if just the sort of operation I
described is common place. With a little yellow book researching, I
might confirm that the amount of medium sized bussiness making jet
engine, and other airplane parts, is common whereever there is an
airport with heavy mantience. Hell, maybe light too.

> 3) Were Hurricanes repaired and even recycled ?

> Certainly, an entire organisation was created for just
> this purpose with minor battle damage being handled
> by the squadrons themselves, more substantial repairs
> being handled by specialist units which were part of the
> Civilian Repair Organisation and were located away from
> the airfields.

Wouldn't it be more fuel, time, and money effiecient to have this
labor near large airbases?
Why not pack the stuff up and go to the field?

> 4 ) > In addition, I have heard that on US aircraft carriers any metal
> > aircraft part can be made on board using furnances and milling tools
> > right on board: Is this so today?

> No, think about for a moment , can you make an engine control
> micro processor with a furnace and milling machine ?

I said metal parts, and not organic parts. Organic parts would
include tires, hoses, betls, glass (ok not organic), foam, and ire
insulation, and chemicals. By no means do the big factories make
everything for an airplane from utter scratch raw materials, you know.
These feeder business in the situaitons would simply route stuff to
the airbases instead of the large factory. The aviation industry
doesn't make aviation grade alumium; it is ordered from the alumium
processing industry.

> 5) Was this so in W.W.I.I. ?

> No, you cant make a Merlin Engine or an H2S radar set that
> way either.

They do it today for commerical passenger jet engines.

> 6) How many airmen did the Allied airforces have ground working in
> England?

> Hundreds of thousands

That is no par with the numbers of factory works employed by large
plants and the first rign of supply to factory factories.

> 7) How sophisticated and massive was aircraft maintence?

> It was comparable to the motor industry

Right.

> 8) Could they assemble a warplane?

> No, in the same way your local Ford dealer cant assemble a
> new Mondeo

People today assemble more complicated planes from kits they have
purchased.
You might look up in the London phone book and see just how
sophiticated all automoblie
repair and resortation is. Just take a constellation of small to
medium auto repair bussiness, put them
close together, buy them small "pilot" scale stuff like a furnace, and
some tool and die company thrown it for good measure, and price
supports too. When you are done, you will have a auto manufacturer
with no more than a few hundred employees. There were at one time
scores upon scores of automonble makers and they all didn't make
millions of cars a year, for some it was few hundreds of cars sold per
year.

> 9) Could they make a new engine using badly
> damaged engines as the raw material?

> They could scavenge parts from a dead one to keep
> a live engine going but this would be done only in
> extreme circumstances, engine failure on take off
> usually kills the pilot and crew

> > Also, the internet didn't have a great deal on on-base or near-base
> > cottage warplane stuff, but it gets mentions in documeteries.
> >
>
> Lets kill this once and for all.
>
> I live in East Anglia, there are literally dozens of old USAAF and
> RAF base within 25 miles of my house. NOT ONE had or had
> such a facility. Just doing routine maintenenance and battle damage
> repair had the ground crews working 12-16 hours a day as it was.
>
> Get Real

Look at the current state of affairs with aviation repair. There must
over 100 companies making new parts at near airports in the USA alone.

John Freck

> Keith

John Freck

October 15th 03, 06:04 AM

"Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message >...
> "John Freck" > wrote in message
> om...
>
> > A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
> > W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
> > combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
> > parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
> > parts?
>
> Small repairs and installation of spare parts were of course
> possible; but if parts were needed for major repairs the
> common practice was to cannibalize existing airframes,
> not to manufacture new parts. The British had mobile salvage
> and repair teams, which would either repair aircraft they
> collected or return them to the factory for major repair.
> Late in the war, the USAF would be more inclined to send
> seriously damaged aircraft to the junkyard, the cost of shipping
> them back being prohibitive and new aircraft relatively plentiful.
> The life of a combat aircraft tended to be quite short.
>
> Of course, in theatres were new equipment was short, such
> as the CBI, maintenance personnel would often improvise,
> cannibalising as much as possible and assemble aircraft for
> various parts. A famous example was the DC-3 fitted with
> one DC-2 wing...
>
> > In addition, I have heard that on US aircraft carriers any metal
> > aircraft part can be made on board using furnances and milling tools
> > right on board: Is this so today? Was this so in W.W.I.I. ?
>
> Considering how many metal parts for aircraft are manufactured
> today, I doubt that the Navy would even contemplate it. The
> manufacture of load-bearing metal parts for aircraft is far
> from simple; seemingly minor errors in the treatment of the metal
> can have fatal consequences. (Favorite tricks of the slave-workers
> employed by the Germans late in the war; that is why their
> aircraft were so horribly unreliable.) The salty seaborne
> environment would only stimulate corrosion. And the notion
> of doing chemical milling of large wing structures on board of
> a warship seems absurd.
>
> During WWII construction techniques were simpler, but the jigs
> and tools needed for major airframe work were still too bulky for
> a carrier. Besides, during operations aircraft damaged beyond
> speedy repair, or rendered unsafe for storage, were simply
> thrown overboard -- allowing the carrier to be cluttered by
> inoperational airframes would only endanger it. Of course
> crews had to be able to patch up minor damage.
>
> > How sophisticated and massive was aircraft maintence?
> > Could they assemble a warplane?
>
> It depends. You have to keep in mind that the wartime air forces
> had grown very rapidly, especially the USAF; many new recruits
> to the job would only have received specialized training and mainly
> have been taught to 'inspect and replace if necessary.' But there
> were also experienced engineers who would be able to assemble
> new aircraft in the field, not from loose parts -- that would require
> a factory with jigs -- but from transport kits or cannibalized units,
> and there were field representatives of the manufacturers to support
> (or stop) local modification work. Items such as gun installations,
> bomb racks, access panels, were all subject to local modifications,
> which later could be adopted by the production. There were also
> many officially mandated modifications to be retro-fitted to the
> aircraft.
>
> In the USAF major work, however, was usually not done on base
> but in modification centres, which took a position in between the
> factory and the operational unit. They would receive aircraft
> from the factory (sometimes without armament and such) and
> modify them to the latest technical and combat standard, before
> sending them on. Occasionally these too would undertake fairly
> major design work, such as the 'Cheyenne' tail stinger of the
> late B-17 (named after the modification center that designed it)
> and the installation of the first nose turrets in B-24s.
>
> > Could they make a new engine using badly damaged engines
> > as the raw material?
>
> Normal procedure was return to manufacturer and install
> a replacement engine. Assembly of new engines was beyond
> what would be possible on-base, and assembling one from
> parts of damaged engines would be inviting disaster.

I think you must not be mechanically inclined. I don't know about
other industrial nations, but the USA is deep in mechanics. Mechanics
in the USA can make over $25/hr and with good amounts of over-time can
take home over $60,000. This means that they can have espeniive
hobbys. Just take a look at what you can get if you have a strong
middle class income and a willing to dispose of it. Small business
can make airplane parts, and assemble planes. I know people at work
who can assemble an engine. Being able to assemble an engine is very
basic to the 'mechanic'.

http://www.locatoronline.com/locator/lowcost/
Above are the types of machines one could find on any airfield during
WWII.

http://www.southern-tool.com/store/metal_working.html
More stuff in the range of small business.

http://www.machineryvalues.com/
More stuff for small to medium businesses that make moving metal
parts.

The feeder factories are smaller and more numerous than you imagine.
You might be a fine bookworm, but your books by book bond
not-in-touch-with-skilled-labor
facts-of-life authors have mislead you to a poor understanding of the
relationships amoung small to large business-to-business relationships
in machine manufacturing. You must be imagining one super large
business that does it all by itself and little folk are just so so so
far behind. Mechanics are more than you imagine, or can imagine.

John Freck

Keith Willshaw

October 15th 03, 08:12 AM

"John Freck" > wrote in message
om...
> "Keith Willshaw" > wrote in message
>...
>
>
> Prehaps where you are, Britain, the aviation industry isn't as large
> as it is here in the USA.

True enough

> I live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Today, there is no doubt that
> aircraft engine part manufacture exists.
> These companies are not huge, and I bet there are small companies able
> to make jet engine parts all over the USA. Jet engine part makers are
> in my local phone book; I have seen the buildings that house these
> next to Miami International Airport and they are not huge. Not really
> huge like Boeing's final assemble plant in Seatle,

So ?

> Just the sort of operation, I claim, existed on USAAF bases in the
> 1940s does exist near large interantional airports in the USA today.
>

There's a plant just down the road from me that makes
aircraft drop tanks. Thats a LONG way from building
Eurofighter in your back yard.

>
>
http://yp.yahoo.com/py/ypResults.py?stx=Jet+engine+&stp=a&tab=B2C&city=Pompano+Beach&state=FL&zip=33064&country=us&msa=2680&slt=26.278500&sln=-80.115800&cs=5
>
>
> > "John Freck" > wrote in message
> > om...
>
>
> > > A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
> > > W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
> > > combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
> > > parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
> > > parts?
>
>
> > No
>
>
>
> You are wrong, and you basically admit it futherdown. I provided a
> Yellow Book listing for today's situation for South Florida. How
> about admitting that the avaition industry does this today? Huh?
>

It doesnt, the example you gave is of a plant that makes PARTS
for an aircraft just as small factories make parts for computers
and cars

>
>
> > > I have seen several domumentaries were there are mentions of small
> > > industrial furnaces being deployed to the Pacific and new part
> > > milling, the robust repair and recylcing of Hurricanes, and in one
> > > documentary on the B-26 of whole plane final assemeble do right on
> > > base from parts from a vareity of sources.
>
>
> > You have asked several questions, to answer them individually
>
> > 1) Were small industrial furnaces deployed to the Pacific ?
>
> > That depends on what you define as a small industrial furnace.
> > Blacksmiths forges certainly were, aluminium smelters
> > certainly were not.
>
>
> As far as I know an alumium smelter isn't needed to process alumium
> metal in already process metal form, such as a used cola can, or
> aircrafts' structural memebers. It can be hard for a small slumium
> recycler to make new structrual members.
>

Such operations dont require a furnace.

>
>
> > 2) Were new parts sometimes milled in the field ?
>
>
> > Sure but only at great need, normally you pick the
> > spares up from the stores maintained on base and
> > which are purchased from the aircraft manufacturer
>
> Today, there are tens of thousands of commercialpassenger jets flying
> the world, and it looks to me as if just the sort of operation I
> described is common place. With a little yellow book researching, I
> might confirm that the amount of medium sized bussiness making jet
> engine, and other airplane parts, is common whereever there is an
> airport with heavy mantience. Hell, maybe light too.
>

Note the distributed manufacture of parts is not in question.

>
>
> > 3) Were Hurricanes repaired and even recycled ?
>
>
> > Certainly, an entire organisation was created for just
> > this purpose with minor battle damage being handled
> > by the squadrons themselves, more substantial repairs
> > being handled by specialist units which were part of the
> > Civilian Repair Organisation and were located away from
> > the airfields.
>
>
>
> Wouldn't it be more fuel, time, and money effiecient to have this
> labor near large airbases?

No

> Why not pack the stuff up and go to the field?
>

Because one field might only have 2 repairs a week to perform,
its much more efficient to ship them to a regional repair centre.

>
>
> > 4 ) > In addition, I have heard that on US aircraft carriers any metal
> > > aircraft part can be made on board using furnances and milling tools
> > > right on board: Is this so today?
>
> > No, think about for a moment , can you make an engine control
> > micro processor with a furnace and milling machine ?
>
>
>
> I said metal parts, and not organic parts.

Silicon chips arent organic

Organic parts would

> include tires, hoses, betls, glass (ok not organic), foam, and ire
> insulation, and chemicals. By no means do the big factories make
> everything for an airplane from utter scratch raw materials, you know.
> These feeder business in the situaitons would simply route stuff to
> the airbases instead of the large factory. The aviation industry
> doesn't make aviation grade alumium; it is ordered from the alumium
> processing industry.
>

They do however have complex asssembly jigs and expensive
machine tools to shape that aluminum

>
>
> > 5) Was this so in W.W.I.I. ?
>
> > No, you cant make a Merlin Engine or an H2S radar set that
> > way either.
>
>
> They do it today for commerical passenger jet engines.
>

No they dont. Jet engines are built by a handful of specialist
companies who may buy parts from smaller outfits

>
>
> > 6) How many airmen did the Allied airforces have ground working in
> > England?
>
> > Hundreds of thousands
>
>
> That is no par with the numbers of factory works employed by large
> plants and the first rign of supply to factory factories.
>
>

This makes no sense

>
> > 7) How sophisticated and massive was aircraft maintence?
>
> > It was comparable to the motor industry
>
>
> Right.
>
>
> > 8) Could they assemble a warplane?
>
> > No, in the same way your local Ford dealer cant assemble a
> > new Mondeo
>
>
> People today assemble more complicated planes from kits they have
> purchased.

The kits are of course made in a factory

> You might look up in the London phone book and see just how
> sophiticated all automoblie
> repair and resortation is. Just take a constellation of small to
> medium auto repair bussiness, put them
> close together, buy them small "pilot" scale stuff like a furnace, and
> some tool and die company thrown it for good measure, and price
> supports too.

You just described an operation thats extremely inefficient

> When you are done, you will have a auto manufacturer
> with no more than a few hundred employees. There were at one time
> scores upon scores of automonble makers and they all didn't make
> millions of cars a year, for some it was few hundreds of cars sold per
> year.
>

Such operations exist, their cars cost hundreds of thousands
of dollars

>
>
>
> > 9) Could they make a new engine using badly
> > damaged engines as the raw material?
>
>
> > They could scavenge parts from a dead one to keep
> > a live engine going but this would be done only in
> > extreme circumstances, engine failure on take off
> > usually kills the pilot and crew
>
>
> > > Also, the internet didn't have a great deal on on-base or near-base
> > > cottage warplane stuff, but it gets mentions in documeteries.
> > >
> >
> > Lets kill this once and for all.
> >
> > I live in East Anglia, there are literally dozens of old USAAF and
> > RAF base within 25 miles of my house. NOT ONE had or had
> > such a facility. Just doing routine maintenenance and battle damage
> > repair had the ground crews working 12-16 hours a day as it was.
> >
> > Get Real
>
>
> Look at the current state of affairs with aviation repair. There must
> over 100 companies making new parts at near airports in the USA alone.
>
> John Freck
>

You seem unable to see the difference between a part and the whole

How sad

Keith

Cub Driver

October 15th 03, 08:44 PM

>> I know people at work who can assemble an engine. Being
>> able to assemble an engine is very basic to the 'mechanic'.
>
>An aircraft engine is not a car engine. Car engines are heavily
>built and with fairly robust tolerances; they are designed to

I was interested to note (in a new book, Hat in the Ring, about the
U.S. Air Service in WWI) that French planes as late as 1918 weren't
built of interchangeable parts. I assume that was true of European
assembly plants generally.

Just this morning, a poster on a Piper Cub Builders list remarked that
in the 1930s and 1940s, pilots who pranged their J-3s discovered that
replacement parts direct from the factory never seemed to fit exactly,
but had to be tweaked and hammered into place.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

John Freck

October 16th 03, 02:25 AM

"Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message >...

> "John Freck" > wrote in message
> om...

>> I know people at work who can assemble an engine. Being
>> able to assemble an engine is very basic to the 'mechanic'.

> An aircraft engine is not a car engine. Car engines are heavily
> built and with fairly robust tolerances; they are designed to
> run almost forever. WWII aircraft engines were running very
> close to material limits, and keeping them operational would
> be more akin to tuning the engine of a Formula 1 racing car
> than to car-type maintenance. They were also extremely complex
> by modern standards. These days, assembly of WWII engines is
> limited to a handful of specialised workshops.

Why did you write the above? Today, a corporation specialized to
manufacturing small propeller aircraft for the leisure and corporate
market does exist. I bet there is more than one company making
propeller aircraft.
I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.

> To give an extreme example, Rolls-Royce once traced back
> a series of Vulture engine failures, resulting in fatal crashes,
> to the fact that the connecting rod bolts were tightened unevenly
> and at a too high tension, exceeding material limits at high rpm.
> Every engine had to be removed from the aircraft and sent
> back to the factory, where new bolts were installed and tightened
> to exact the right tension (which was lower than the original
> design value).

Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
large W.W.I.I. airbase. I don't think every dinky airbase had
manufacturing of complete planes.

> Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
> from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
> foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
> by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.

So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
frame of reference?

> > More stuff for small to medium businesses that make moving metal
> > parts.

> So what? Engines would not merely need acurately turned and
> milled parts, they would have to be made of the right alloy and
> receive exactly the correct heat and surface treatment. To take
> an example of a seemingly simple but extremely demanding part,
> the sleeves of Bristol sleeve-valve engines were finished to an
> accuracy of two ten-thousandths of an inch in bore, with deviations
> of cylindrical shape not exceeding 1/1000 inch over the whole
> 14-inch length of the sleeve. The process involving milling,
> grinding, lapping, and nitritiding to harden the surface. Bristol
> actually had to design and build their own tools to succeed in this.

Why can't all of that be done near an airport/airbase? You too are
putting forward and defending the odd concept that it is conceptually
unattainable for planes to be assembled near airports. Are you really
thinking things thru?

> > The feeder factories are smaller and more numerous than you imagine.
>
> Of course the major engine manufacturers used subcontractors,
> hundreds of them, but usually under tight control. The entire
> production process was very carefully checked. An Allison
> V-1710 had about 7000 parts; but 70,000 inspections were
> done, at every stage of production and after the test run, before
> the engine was passed. These inspections accounted for 20%
> of the workforce.

Are you too putting forward the concept that the USAAF can't gather,
cultivate, and grow the sort of labor you indicate a fighter plane
makers would have?

> In fact suitable "feeder factories" were often far too few in
> number. A good example is the so-called "Vickers unit", an
> hydraulic motor used in Sperry gun turrets, manufactured to
> extremely high tolerances to get accurate turret control, and
> costing $ 1400 per unit. The Production Engineering Section
> of the USAF minuted "it has proven impossible to find a
> manufacturing source to augment the two existing sources".
> Actually the second of these could play a role only because
> the USAF had relaxed the pass criteria for these units; and
> at the end of the war attempts to design a replacement part
> that was easier to manufacture had not produced useful
> results.

http://www.naplesnews.com/03/09/florida/e5099a.htm
A manufacture of propeller dirve planes employs 720 workers
at a manufacturing plant. This plant use 99 acres.
It is adjectent to a small airport which is much small that a large
USAAF airbase of WWII.
http://www.azworldairports.com/airports/p2740vrb.htm

I don't understand the conceptual problem some have with warplanes
being assemble, or built, or recycled, or reconstruted, or what have
you
near or on a military base. Many workers at the Piper Plant of Vero
Beach
learned their skills in the US military too. I think a Piper is the
closest thing to
a WWII fighter in commercial production today.

John Freck

Michael Williamson

October 16th 03, 05:18 AM

John Freck wrote:
> "Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message >...
>
>>> I know people at work who can assemble an engine. Being
>>> able to assemble an engine is very basic to the 'mechanic'.
>>

How many of them cast their engine block? Or machine the
pistons, valves, etc.?

>>An aircraft engine is not a car engine. Car engines are heavily
>>built and with fairly robust tolerances; they are designed to
>>run almost forever. WWII aircraft engines were running very
>>close to material limits, and keeping them operational would
>>be more akin to tuning the engine of a Formula 1 racing car
>>than to car-type maintenance. They were also extremely complex
>>by modern standards. These days, assembly of WWII engines is
>>limited to a handful of specialised workshops.
>
> Why did you write the above? Today, a corporation specialized to
> manufacturing small propeller aircraft for the leisure and corporate
> market does exist. I bet there is more than one company making
> propeller aircraft.
> I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.
>

As soon as you find a "small propeller aircraft" with a
12 cylinder, 1600 cubic inch engine developing 1400 HP with
a mechanical supercharger being manufactured for the leisure
and corporate market, let me know. The largest piston engine
I found in Piper's lineup was a 6 cylinder putting out 300
Horsepower. Not quite in the same league.

>
>>So what? Engines would not merely need acurately turned and
>>milled parts, they would have to be made of the right alloy and
>>receive exactly the correct heat and surface treatment. To take
>>an example of a seemingly simple but extremely demanding part,
>>the sleeves of Bristol sleeve-valve engines were finished to an
>>accuracy of two ten-thousandths of an inch in bore, with deviations
>>of cylindrical shape not exceeding 1/1000 inch over the whole
>>14-inch length of the sleeve. The process involving milling,
>>grinding, lapping, and nitritiding to harden the surface. Bristol
>>actually had to design and build their own tools to succeed in this.
>
> Why can't all of that be done near an airport/airbase? You too are
> putting forward and defending the odd concept that it is conceptually
> unattainable for planes to be assembled near airports. Are you really
> thinking things thru?

I don't think that YOU are thinking things through. How many engine
factories do you think you're going to have building Merlins? There
were (many) dozens of airfields spread throughout England. The wasted
manpower to operate these proposed small scale factories would be
astronomical. Now add in every other major component that you want
to have produced locally. You end up using about 40 times the
manpower to build less than half the components. Wars are affairs
of logistics, and trying to build your weapons and equipment in
place is a pretty quick way to fritter away your resources.

>
> Are you too putting forward the concept that the USAAF can't gather,
> cultivate, and grow the sort of labor you indicate a fighter plane
> makers would have?

It would presumably be POSSIBLE (theoretically, anyways), but
as I noted above, the only people I'd suggest this to would
be the enemy. Aside from the low production rate, you'd need
a labor force many times the size of your actual operational
units. Imagine over a thousand highly skilled engineers,
machinists, etc., to support a fighter squadron, and able to
supply fewer replacements than the existing supply system at
maybe 10 several times the cost, which can't build up a stockpile
and have to halt production for several weeks to
upgrade when they move to a more powerful mark of the same engine.

>
> http://www.naplesnews.com/03/09/florida/e5099a.htm
> A manufacture of propeller dirve planes employs 720 workers
> at a manufacturing plant. This plant use 99 acres.
> It is adjectent to a small airport which is much small that a large
> USAAF airbase of WWII.
> http://www.azworldairports.com/airports/p2740vrb.htm
>
> I don't understand the conceptual problem some have with warplanes
> being assemble, or built, or recycled, or reconstruted, or what have
> you
> near or on a military base. Many workers at the Piper Plant of Vero
> Beach
> learned their skills in the US military too. I think a Piper is the
> closest thing to
> a WWII fighter in commercial production today.

OK, so you've got 720 people and about 100 acres to provide the
propellers for your aircraft - If you've got another aircraft on
the base with a different propeller, you're up to nearly 1500 people
and 200 acres. Now all you need is an engine, guns (don't forget the
ammunition, with its associated chemical industry), airframe,
instruments, canopy, tires, seat belt, etc., etc., ad nauseum. A
single fighter unit would have a support industry on the order of
the entire Ninth Air Force in personnel.

By the way, this small propeller shop you note- I take it that
it provides propellors for the aircraft operating out of that
nearby airport? How many factories did they build to supply the
propellors to the airports at the next city over?

Mike

Cub Driver

October 16th 03, 10:49 AM

>>>> I know people at work who can assemble an engine. Being
>>>> able to assemble an engine is very basic to the 'mechanic'.
>>>
>
> How many of them cast their engine block? Or machine the
>pistons, valves, etc.?

I believe that Ken Hyde and the lads at the Wright Experience did just
that for the engine of their Wright Flyer. To be sure, that was
(literally) a once-in-a-century effort.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

John Freck

October 16th 03, 05:13 PM

Michael Williamson > wrote in message >...

Did ground crew, repair and reconstructions centers near or on
airbases, during BoB contribute mightily to the daily strenght report
for the BoB? Personally, I don't know what organizations issued new
serial numbers to new planes. However, I have read many short comments
flattering Hurricane, in particular, ground support crews and airbase
repair factilites. To 'repair', to 'overall' (do you know exactly
what an overhall is?), to 'reconstruct', to 'assemble', and to 'buid'
and 'rebuild' are all standard to mechanics' job descriptions. As as
field munufacture of parts? I listened to an interview of a veteran
who served in the SW Pacific in 1942 who said that he personally
participated in making spare engine parts. In an example he gave, he
described making a new piston for an engine that had lost a piston in
action.

> John Freck wrote:

> How many of them cast their engine block? Or machine the
> pistons, valves, etc.?

The question is what are general and specifc examples of the
sophistication of ground support crews, and other factilities near or
on large Allied airbases in England. Could a repair center cast an
engine block? Those that did; where the located near a major airbase?
Of course, new construction from a large final assemble plant needs
a runway.

<Snip>

> I don't think that YOU are thinking things through. How many engine
> factories do you think you're going to have building Merlins? There
> were (many) dozens of airfields spread throughout England. The wasted
> manpower to operate these proposed small scale factories would be
> astronomical. Now add in every other major component that you want
> to have produced locally. You end up using about 40 times the
> manpower to build less than half the components. Wars are affairs
> of logistics, and trying to build your weapons and equipment in
> place is a pretty quick way to fritter away your resources.

You don't seem to be exploring specifically what sorts of maintenace
were done to boost Hurricane strenght by ground maintenace. It reads
to me like the Hurricane production could readily be "farmed out" to a
large number of small factories. I am saying that ground support
should be able to assemble, build and rebuild engines, recycle, and
reconstruct. Those activities contributed mightly to total strenght,
maybe not new serial numbers, on a dialy basis. So to tighten my
thesis exploration:

1) During the BoB did Hurricane ground maintenace boost daily
Hurricane strenght?
If so? What methods? For example, can ground maintenace assemble an
engine
from parts delivered to a base? Can ground support assemble a plane?

2) Did any of the small factories that recieved "farmed out" contracts
also supply airbases with spare parts?
Did aribases consume spare parts? Where these factories near or on
airbases? To what extent was the civial aviation maintenance industry
tapped to boost parts production? Today, has I have shown aviation
maintenace does exist near airports and some manufacture aviation
parts.

So? Then, is the aviation near or on airports? YES. It is that
simple.
I bet most of the feeder factories were near airbases if the civialian
industry was taken over by the military, then you can bet ...

> > Are you too putting forward the concept that the USAAF can't gather,
> > cultivate, and grow the sort of labor you indicate a fighter plane
> > makers would have?
>
>
> It would presumably be POSSIBLE (theoretically, anyways), but
> as I noted above, the only people I'd suggest this to would
> be the enemy. Aside from the low production rate, you'd need
> a labor force many times the size of your actual operational
> units. Imagine over a thousand highly skilled engineers,
> machinists, etc., to support a fighter squadron, and able to
> supply fewer replacements than the existing supply system at
> maybe 10 several times the cost, which can't build up a stockpile
> and have to halt production for several weeks to
> upgrade when they move to a more powerful mark of the same engine.

Bull****. Provide evidense that today's aviation maintenace industry
isn't organized around airports and that these sorts of business don't
make parts in direct support of the companies like Boeing.
I have provided ample evidense that today the industry is organized
like I suggest the WWII military organize military aircraft production
and maintenance. You were completely ignorant of civilian aviations
maintenacne having parts manufacturing capacity, and there being a
final assemble plant right here in Florida which is of course, near a
civialian airport.

http://www.naplesnews.com/03/09/florida/e5099a.htm
> > A manufacture of propeller dirve planes employs 720 workers
> > at a manufacturing plant. This plant use 99 acres.
> > It is adjectent to a small airport which is much small that a large
> > USAAF airbase of WWII.
> > http://www.azworldairports.com/airports/p2740vrb.htm
> >
> > I don't understand the conceptual problem some have with warplanes
> > being assemble, or built, or recycled, or reconstruted, or what have
> > you
> > near or on a military base. Many workers at the Piper Plant of Vero
> > Beach
> > learned their skills in the US military too. I think a Piper is the
> > closest thing to
> > a WWII fighter in commercial production today.
>
>
> OK, so you've got 720 people and about 100 acres to provide the
> propellers for your aircraft - If you've got another aircraft on
> the base with a different propeller, you're up to nearly 1500 people
> and 200 acres. Now all you need is an engine, guns (don't forget the
> ammunition, with its associated chemical industry), airframe,
> instruments, canopy, tires, seat belt, etc., etc., ad nauseum. A
> single fighter unit would have a support industry on the order of
> the entire Ninth Air Force in personnel.

Now you are miscasting me, deliberaly. An airbase with robust ground
maintenace, and a robust civilain avaition maintenance industry
near-by converted to military work can make parts, recieve parts,
recycle parts, and assemble airplanes. No, No, no... Not all parts
must be made from utter scratch raw material. The big main factories
of Boeing don't do that either and I know and pointed that out. As a
matter of fact, the situation u in Vero Beach with Piper is just what
I am claiming existed in WWII.

I am merely claiming that similar things done today were also done
yesteryear.

> By the way, this small propeller shop you note- I take it that
> it provides propellors for the aircraft operating out of that
> nearby airport? How many factories did they build to supply the
> propellors to the airports at the next city over?

The propeller shop is Piper's final assemble factory.
This factory supplies parts to the whole world.
They have feeder business all over the world, I would imagine.

John Freck

> Mike

Tex Houston

October 16th 03, 07:18 PM

I'm kind of starting this thread over.

The USAAF established maintenance depots called the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Base
Air Depots at Burtonwood, Warton and Langford Lodge. For typical activities
see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/localhistory/journey/american_connection/burtonwood/intro/facts.shtml

and the related links found on those pages.

These were the sites for heavy maintenance for aircraft and ground support
equipment.

In addition there were Strategic Air Depots designed to do the same tasks on
a smaller scale (Burtonwood was the largest air base in Europe). These were
located at Honington, Little Staughton, Watton and Wattisham (1st SAD, 2nd
SAD, 3rd SAD, 4th SAD with a 5th SAD later located in France. These were
the

These depots serviced both US and UK aircraft.

A little selective Googling on these names will give you additional history.

Source: USAAF HANDBOOK 1939-1945 by Martin W Bowman and Google.

As you will see, these organizations were highly developed and the
'blacksmith shop' approach envisioned earlier in the thread was not a
necessary thing although local innovation may have resulted in numerous 'war
stories'.

Tex Houston

Keith Willshaw

October 16th 03, 09:32 PM

"Tex Houston" > wrote in message
...
> I'm kind of starting this thread over.
>
> The USAAF established maintenance depots called the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Base
> Air Depots at Burtonwood, Warton and Langford Lodge. For typical
activities
> see:
>
>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/localhistory/journey/american_connection/burtonwood/intro/facts.shtml
>
> and the related links found on those pages.
>
> These were the sites for heavy maintenance for aircraft and ground support
> equipment.
>
> In addition there were Strategic Air Depots designed to do the same tasks
on
> a smaller scale (Burtonwood was the largest air base in Europe). These
were
> located at Honington, Little Staughton, Watton and Wattisham (1st SAD, 2nd
> SAD, 3rd SAD, 4th SAD with a 5th SAD later located in France. These were
> the
>
> These depots serviced both US and UK aircraft.
>
> A little selective Googling on these names will give you additional
history.
>
> Source: USAAF HANDBOOK 1939-1945 by Martin W Bowman and Google.
>
> As you will see, these organizations were highly developed and the
> 'blacksmith shop' approach envisioned earlier in the thread was not a
> necessary thing although local innovation may have resulted in numerous
'war
> stories'.
>

Thanks Tex

I've already pointed to Mr Freck that the RAF established a specialist
repair organisation for aircraft damaged beyond the ability of the
squadron's to repair them in 1940.

Marshalls at Cambridge repaired or rebuilt over 5000 aircraft
during the war and still are a major repairer doing work for
both the civil and military sector.

They were test flying one of the RAF's new C-130's today in fact.

Keith

M. J. Powell

October 16th 03, 10:36 PM

In message >, Keith Willshaw
> writes
>
>"Tex Houston" > wrote in message
...
>> I'm kind of starting this thread over.
>>
>> The USAAF established maintenance depots called the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Base
>> Air Depots at Burtonwood, Warton and Langford Lodge. For typical
>activities
>> see:
>>
>>
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/localhistory/journey/american_connection/
>burtonwood/intro/facts.shtml
>>
>> and the related links found on those pages.
>>
>> These were the sites for heavy maintenance for aircraft and ground support
>> equipment.
>>
>> In addition there were Strategic Air Depots designed to do the same tasks
>on
>> a smaller scale (Burtonwood was the largest air base in Europe). These
>were
>> located at Honington, Little Staughton, Watton and Wattisham (1st SAD, 2nd
>> SAD, 3rd SAD, 4th SAD with a 5th SAD later located in France. These were
>> the
>>
>> These depots serviced both US and UK aircraft.
>>
>> A little selective Googling on these names will give you additional
>history.
>>
>> Source: USAAF HANDBOOK 1939-1945 by Martin W Bowman and Google.
>>
>> As you will see, these organizations were highly developed and the
>> 'blacksmith shop' approach envisioned earlier in the thread was not a
>> necessary thing although local innovation may have resulted in numerous
>'war
>> stories'.
>>
>
>Thanks Tex
>
>I've already pointed to Mr Freck that the RAF established a specialist
>repair organisation for aircraft damaged beyond the ability of the
>squadron's to repair them in 1940.
>
>Marshalls at Cambridge repaired or rebuilt over 5000 aircraft
>during the war and still are a major repairer doing work for
>both the civil and military sector.

I wonder if that's the same Marshalls who made my Flight Sergeant groan
and hold his head in his hands when he found out that a new A/C had come
from Marshalls?

Mike
--
M.J.Powell

Nick Pedley

October 16th 03, 11:33 PM

Keith Willshaw

October 16th 03, 11:52 PM

"M. J. Powell" > wrote in message
...
> In message >, Keith Willshaw
> > writes
> >
> >
> >Marshalls at Cambridge repaired or rebuilt over 5000 aircraft
> >during the war and still are a major repairer doing work for
> >both the civil and military sector.
>
> I wonder if that's the same Marshalls who made my Flight Sergeant groan
> and hold his head in his hands when he found out that a new A/C had come
> from Marshalls?
>
>

Very likely given the way their motor division services my car :)

Keith

PS I'm kidding guys be nice to my Vectra on its next service OK ?

Keith Willshaw

October 16th 03, 11:55 PM

"Nick Pedley" > wrote in message
...
>
> "John Freck" > wrote in message
> om...
> > A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
> > W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
> > combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
> > parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
> > parts?
> >
> Here's a couple of things I've picked from books and museums....
>
> The 'Block and Cube' test at RAF Halton involved each apprentice being
given
> a rough lump of one metal and a thin square of another, object being to
> shape each piece using workshop tools that would available at any decent
> base they might go on to serve at. The shapes had to be a perfect square
> cube with a block it would sit in, all done to specifications and by hand.
> I was told this would enable the manufacture of most, if not all, needed
> parts that were otherwise unavailable.
>

I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
of man hours

> During the Battle of Britain it was not unknown for damaged aircraft to be
> cannibalised to provide spare parts for lesser damaged aircraft. This
would
> involve any part that would allow another machine to fly within safety
> limits. 'Skies of Fire' by Alfred Price has a chapter about 266 Squadron
who
> flew Spitfires. The Engineering Officer broke his 'pet rule' about not
> cannibalising aircraft to the extent he took a starboard wing from one
> aircraft (the only undamaged part overall) to get another in the air.
> I assume any damaged remains would have been taken away for further
> repair/disposal at a different location when time allowed, as suggested by
> other people here. Marshalls of Cambridge were involved in this and IIRC
> there was a small airstrip somewhere in Anglia purely for a repair
factory,
> allowing previously damaged aircraft to fly out.
>
> Nick
>
>

Marshalls are based at Cambridge Airport, the runway
can handle aircraft of all sizes, the refurbish 747's and
Tri-Stars there.

Keith

James Hart

October 17th 03, 12:19 AM

Keith Willshaw wrote:

>> I wonder if that's the same Marshalls who made my Flight Sergeant
>> groan and hold his head in his hands when he found out that a new
>> A/C had come from Marshalls?
>>
>>
>
> Very likely given the way their motor division services my car :)
>
> Keith
>
> PS I'm kidding guys be nice to my Vectra on its next service OK ?

Dad gets a courtesy car when he takes his there for servicing, albeit a
lesser model and spec.
I wonder if the same applies for aircraft servicing, take in a C130 for a
couple of jobs and fly home in a spam can instead.

--
James...
http://www.jameshart.co.uk/

John Freck

October 17th 03, 03:48 AM

"Tex Houston" > wrote in message >...

> I'm kind of starting this thread over.

> The USAAF established maintenance depots called the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Base
> Air Depots at Burtonwood, Warton and Langford Lodge. For typical activities
> see:

What you bring is just what I'm describing but huge and not small: *I
never said the USA and UK militaries couldn't have huge repair,
construction, assemble, and parts manufacturing.*

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/localhistory/journey/american_connection/burtonwood/intro/facts.shtml

Quite interesting that the RAF and USAFF were able to muster large
scale, I had only put forward small-scale,
labor, technological, industrial, and financial gaints. This
facialities had to be near major airbases? It is itself a military
facility or a manufacturers' facility?

> and the related links found on those pages.

> These were the sites for heavy maintenance for aircraft and ground support
> equipment.

> In addition there were Strategic Air Depots designed to do the same tasks on
> a smaller scale (Burtonwood was the largest air base in Europe). These were
> located at Honington, Little Staughton, Watton and Wattisham (1st SAD, 2nd
> SAD, 3rd SAD, 4th SAD with a 5th SAD later located in France. These were
> the

Thank-you Tex. Burtonwood was the largest air base in Europe. My
only mistake, I'm gonna pay dearly for it too just see, is that I was
so timid as to put forward only "small factories" on major bases. Now
I have catagorical evidense of large-scale conprensive repair,
recycling, reconstruciton of all manner of aircraft all at once
occuring at one major air base and text stating smaller versions
existed on many bases.

My detractors will now claim a victory. ****ing fags they must be,
and on drugs too, I bet.

John Freck

> These depots serviced both US and UK aircraft.
>
> A little selective Googling on these names will give you additional history.
>
> Source: USAAF HANDBOOK 1939-1945 by Martin W Bowman and Google.
>
> As you will see, these organizations were highly developed and the
> 'blacksmith shop' approach envisioned earlier in the thread was not a
> necessary thing although local innovation may have resulted in numerous 'war
> stories'.
>
> Tex Houston

John Keeney

October 17th 03, 07:27 AM

"John Freck" > wrote in message
om...
> "Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message
>...
[snip]
> > Normal procedure was return to manufacturer and install
> > a replacement engine. Assembly of new engines was beyond
> > what would be possible on-base, and assembling one from
> > parts of damaged engines would be inviting disaster.
>
>
> I think you must not be mechanically inclined. I don't know about
> other industrial nations, but the USA is deep in mechanics. Mechanics
> in the USA can make over $25/hr and with good amounts of over-time can
> take home over $60,000. This means that they can have espeniive
> hobbys. Just take a look at what you can get if you have a strong
> middle class income and a willing to dispose of it. Small business
> can make airplane parts, and assemble planes. I know people at work
> who can assemble an engine. Being able to assemble an engine is very
> basic to the 'mechanic'.

As an American with a lathe (two actually, 1 each metal & wood),
far more "shop" tools than most and a long history of working on cars,
I agree with them, you're barking up the wrong tree.

I'm fairly sure ever major naval combatant and suspect at least some of
the big ETO Air Force bases had machine shops; these shops would
not have been in the business of trying to build planes (even assembling
planes would have been up to others). Repairing or fabricating select parts,
sure, but there's no way one's going to take on a main spar or make an
engine crank from scratch, just too difficult to get right.

Keith Willshaw

October 17th 03, 07:42 AM

"John Freck" > wrote in message
om...
> "Tex Houston" > wrote in message
>...
>
>
> > I'm kind of starting this thread over.
>
> > The USAAF established maintenance depots called the 1st, 2nd and 3rd
Base
> > Air Depots at Burtonwood, Warton and Langford Lodge. For typical
activities
> > see:
>
> What you bring is just what I'm describing but huge and not small: *I
> never said the USA and UK militaries couldn't have huge repair,
> construction, assemble, and parts manufacturing.*
>

Actually you claimed they had what you described as 'mini-mills'

>
>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/localhistory/journey/american_connection/burtonwood/intro/facts.shtml
>
> Quite interesting that the RAF and USAFF were able to muster large
> scale, I had only put forward small-scale,

Quite so and you were wrong

> labor, technological, industrial, and financial gaints. This
> facialities had to be near major airbases?

In WW2 ANY point in Southern England was near a major
airbase, there are 4 ex airbases within 5 miles of my house
Bassingbourn, Tempsford, Gransden Lodge and Bourn

> It is itself a military
> facility or a manufacturers' facility?
>

Sometimes but in the UK it was most often a civilian
specialist aircraft repair company like Marshall's

>
> > and the related links found on those pages.
>
> > These were the sites for heavy maintenance for aircraft and ground
support
> > equipment.
>
> > In addition there were Strategic Air Depots designed to do the same
tasks on
> > a smaller scale (Burtonwood was the largest air base in Europe). These
were
> > located at Honington, Little Staughton, Watton and Wattisham (1st SAD,
2nd
> > SAD, 3rd SAD, 4th SAD with a 5th SAD later located in France. These
were
> > the
>
> Thank-you Tex. Burtonwood was the largest air base in Europe. My
> only mistake, I'm gonna pay dearly for it too just see, is that I was
> so timid as to put forward only "small factories" on major bases. Now
> I have catagorical evidense of large-scale conprensive repair,
> recycling, reconstruciton of all manner of aircraft all at once
> occuring at one major air base and text stating smaller versions
> existed on many bases.
>

But not manufacture from scratch which was your claim

> My detractors will now claim a victory. ****ing fags they must be,
> and on drugs too, I bet.
>

How Juvenile

Keith

Nick Pedley

October 17th 03, 10:48 AM

"Keith Willshaw" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Nick Pedley" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > "John Freck" > wrote in message
> > om...
> > > A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
> > > W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
> > > combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
> > > parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
> > > parts?
> > >
> > Here's a couple of things I've picked from books and museums....
> >
> > The 'Block and Cube' test at RAF Halton ....

>
> I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
> for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
> of man hours.

I'm impressed. I had trouble believing the old boy on his display stand at
an RAF Halton event last year. Just looking at the rough lumps of metal made
me wonder!

> > I assume any damaged remains would have been taken away for further
> > repair/disposal at a different location when time allowed, as suggested
by
> > other people here. Marshalls of Cambridge were involved in this and IIRC
> > there was a small airstrip somewhere in Anglia purely for a repair
> factory,
> > allowing previously damaged aircraft to fly out.
> >
> > Nick
> >
>
> Marshalls are based at Cambridge Airport, the runway
> can handle aircraft of all sizes, the refurbish 747's and
> Tri-Stars there.
>
> Keith
>
Sorry, should have made myself clear. From reading books like 'Airfields of
the Eighth Army Air Force/9th AAF/Bomber Command/Fighter Command' etc, I
recall reading about a repair location which was little more than a barn
converted into a hangar with a bit of flat field, near a road. Not sure
where it was but am certain it wasn't the Marshalls operation at
Cambridge...

Nick

M. J. Powell

October 17th 03, 02:47 PM

In message >, Keith Willshaw
> writes
>
>"Nick Pedley" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> "John Freck" > wrote in message
>> om...
>> > A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
>> > W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
>> > combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
>> > parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
>> > parts?
>> >
>> Here's a couple of things I've picked from books and museums....
>>
>> The 'Block and Cube' test at RAF Halton involved each apprentice being
>given
>> a rough lump of one metal and a thin square of another, object being to
>> shape each piece using workshop tools that would available at any decent
>> base they might go on to serve at. The shapes had to be a perfect square
>> cube with a block it would sit in, all done to specifications and by hand.
>> I was told this would enable the manufacture of most, if not all, needed
>> parts that were otherwise unavailable.
>>
>
>I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
>for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
>of man hours

Me, too. For English Electric in '49. File and scraper work. And plenty
of 'Blue'.

Mike
--
M.J.Powell

[email protected]

October 17th 03, 03:22 PM

"M. J. Powell" > wrote:

>>
>>I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
>>for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
>>of man hours
>
>Me, too. For English Electric in '49. File and scraper work. And plenty
>of 'Blue'.
>
>Mike

Yes, good old 'mechanic's blue', takes me back...
--

-Gord.

Keith Willshaw

October 17th 03, 03:42 PM

"M. J. Powell" > wrote in message
...
> In message >, Keith Willshaw
> > writes
> >

> >I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
> >for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
> >of man hours
>
> Me, too. For English Electric in '49. File and scraper work. And plenty
> of 'Blue'.

Thats the drill , file it square and scrape the top flat checking
with a surface plate.

Keith

John Freck

October 18th 03, 04:43 AM

"Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message >...

> "John Freck" > wrote in message
> om...

<Snip>

> > Why did you write the above? Today, a corporation specialized to
> > manufacturing small propeller aircraft for the leisure and corporate
> > market does exist.

> I fail to see the link between the construction of modern small
> leisure aircraft, which does NOT involve the construction of
> engines, and the assembly of WWII aircraft engines.

As far as I know, the VEro Beach, Florida Piper plant is a full
assemble plant. Please back up your statement that the Vero Beach,
Florida Piper plant doesn't "do" complete assemble. The link is
conceptual. My case was purely conceptual as first before becoming
concrete. I defended these related notions and climed nothing more
for them than notions:

All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
1st, 1940:

1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
services to fighter command.
b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.

The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane. The military
itself had military personnel and civialian military personnel
manufacturing new planes. Hundreds of second tier facilities existed
on airbases of less size, and smaller ones had third tier facilities.
In the fact of concrete evidnese that the military did do this very
similarly to my concepts based on real world understanding and bit and
peices of interviews and book mentions--you should drop out, drip in,
and tune on.

By the way a mini-mill is a metal recycling mill that uses finished
metals from junk, or large slabs or ingots of metal. The metal
milling at the plant mentioned by Tex isn't likely to be making
millions of tons of steel a year using iron ore just mined from the
earth close by. Nor did this plant likely have alumium smelters as
all alumium would be from 100% alumium content inputs be it from a
smelter in the form of ingots or from damaged parts of a plane.

> > I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.
>
> I suggest you Google for shops capable of overhauling WWII
> aircraft engines. You will find that these are highly specialised
> in this business.

Today, I suppose, I wonder if the RAF can overhaul a Merlin today?
I wonder if the RAF will over haul a Euro-fighter? They will ship it
back
to some factory well away from any airbase, uh?

> > Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
> > that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
> > large W.W.I.I. airbase.

> On the contrary, they would as a rule be built on or near a large
> airbase, because aircraft manufacturers needed to flight-test their
> aircraft before delivery! There were a handful of exceptions; IIRC
> Brewster built its aircraft in the city and some assembly was even
> done on the second floor. That was, however, recognized to be
> an absurd and undesirable situation.

Good. Airplanes are inherently made near airports, or airbases,
runways...

> But no military airbase would be involved in the construction of
> its own aircraft. They might do re-assembly of aircraft shipped
> in crates, in itself quite a challenge.

Poor RAF just can muster the skilled labor, huh?
Too hard for them?

> > > Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
> > > from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
> > > foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
> > > by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.
> >
> > So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
> > frame of reference?

> Recycling parts is not the same as assembling engines. Normally,
> bases would not be assembling engines, not even overhauling them;
> they would be shipped back to the manufacturer or to a maintenance
> center.

What do you thnk a "base" is? A maintenace center is compatible with
core military missions.
All bases and forts I have every been on have had maintenance centers.
The maintenance centers
are the factories I'm talking about, the mills I'm talking about...

I see you just wanted me to use the vocabualry right!

I read the read of your crap, it was crap.

John Freck

Keith Willshaw

October 18th 03, 03:01 PM

"John Freck" > wrote in message
om...
> "Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message
>...
>
> > "John Freck" > wrote in message
> > om...
>
> <Snip>
>
>
> > > Why did you write the above? Today, a corporation specialized to
> > > manufacturing small propeller aircraft for the leisure and corporate
> > > market does exist.
>
> > I fail to see the link between the construction of modern small
> > leisure aircraft, which does NOT involve the construction of
> > engines, and the assembly of WWII aircraft engines.
>
>
> As far as I know, the VEro Beach, Florida Piper plant is a full
> assemble plant. Please back up your statement that the Vero Beach,
> Florida Piper plant doesn't "do" complete assemble. The link is
> conceptual. My case was purely conceptual as first before becoming
> concrete. I defended these related notions and climed nothing more
> for them than notions:
>
> All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
> 1st, 1940:
>
> 1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
> a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
> services to fighter command.
> b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
> manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
> plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.
>
>
> The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
> I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
> interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
> and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
> as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
> provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
> facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane. The military
> itself had military personnel and civialian military personnel
> manufacturing new planes. Hundreds of second tier facilities existed
> on airbases of less size, and smaller ones had third tier facilities.
> In the fact of concrete evidnese that the military did do this very
> similarly to my concepts based on real world understanding and bit and
> peices of interviews and book mentions--you should drop out, drip in,
> and tune on.
>
> By the way a mini-mill is a metal recycling mill that uses finished
> metals from junk, or large slabs or ingots of metal. The metal
> milling at the plant mentioned by Tex isn't likely to be making
> millions of tons of steel a year using iron ore just mined from the
> earth close by. Nor did this plant likely have alumium smelters as
> all alumium would be from 100% alumium content inputs be it from a
> smelter in the form of ingots or from damaged parts of a plane.
>
>
> > > I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.
> >
> > I suggest you Google for shops capable of overhauling WWII
> > aircraft engines. You will find that these are highly specialised
> > in this business.
>
>
> Today, I suppose, I wonder if the RAF can overhaul a Merlin today?
> I wonder if the RAF will over haul a Euro-fighter? They will ship it
> back
> to some factory well away from any airbase, uh?
>
> > > Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
> > > that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
> > > large W.W.I.I. airbase.
>
> > On the contrary, they would as a rule be built on or near a large
> > airbase, because aircraft manufacturers needed to flight-test their
> > aircraft before delivery! There were a handful of exceptions; IIRC
> > Brewster built its aircraft in the city and some assembly was even
> > done on the second floor. That was, however, recognized to be
> > an absurd and undesirable situation.
>
>
> Good. Airplanes are inherently made near airports, or airbases,
> runways...
>
>
> > But no military airbase would be involved in the construction of
> > its own aircraft. They might do re-assembly of aircraft shipped
> > in crates, in itself quite a challenge.
>
>
> Poor RAF just can muster the skilled labor, huh?
> Too hard for them?
>
>
> > > > Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
> > > > from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
> > > > foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
> > > > by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.
> > >
> > > So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
> > > frame of reference?
>
> > Recycling parts is not the same as assembling engines. Normally,
> > bases would not be assembling engines, not even overhauling them;
> > they would be shipped back to the manufacturer or to a maintenance
> > center.
>
>
>
> What do you thnk a "base" is? A maintenace center is compatible with
> core military missions.
> All bases and forts I have every been on have had maintenance centers.
> The maintenance centers
> are the factories I'm talking about, the mills I'm talking about...
>
> I see you just wanted me to use the vocabualry right!
>
> I read the read of your crap, it was crap.
>
> John Freck

Keith Willshaw

October 18th 03, 03:32 PM

"John Freck" > wrote in message
om...
> "Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message
>...
>
> > "John Freck" > wrote in message
> > om...
>
> <Snip>
>
>
> > > Why did you write the above? Today, a corporation specialized to
> > > manufacturing small propeller aircraft for the leisure and corporate
> > > market does exist.
>
> > I fail to see the link between the construction of modern small
> > leisure aircraft, which does NOT involve the construction of
> > engines, and the assembly of WWII aircraft engines.
>
>
> As far as I know, the VEro Beach, Florida Piper plant is a full
> assemble plant. Please back up your statement that the Vero Beach,
> Florida Piper plant doesn't "do" complete assemble. The link is
> conceptual. My case was purely conceptual as first before becoming
> concrete. I defended these related notions and climed nothing more
> for them than notions:
>

So you are agreeing with Emmanuel, the Vero beach plant
assembles light aircraft but doesnt build its own engines

> All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
> 1st, 1940:
>
> 1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
> a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
> services to fighter command.

Fighter command wasnt short of fuel or skilled
labour. The only thing it was short of was trained
fighter pilots and experience has shown that trying
to put bomber or transport pilots into fighters is
disastrous. The skill sets are too different.

> b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
> manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
> plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.
>

One more.

You cant make Spitfire wings , a complex monocoque structure
in a factory that builds wings for Wellington bombers that have
a geodesic aluminium structure covered in fabric,

You cant use the air cooled radial engines the bomber uses
in a Spitfire or Hurricane

Such a switch wouldnt produce new fighter airframes
until 1943 at the earliest

>
> The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
> I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
> interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
> and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
> as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
> provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
> facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane.

Tex said nothing of the sort, He referred to the Burtonwood
REPAIR depot. Like the Catle Bromwich site it was ordered
by the British in 1938 but wasnt fully operational until 1941.

It was handed over to the USAAF in 1942 and while it repaired and
refurbished
aircraft and rebuilt aircraft engines and assembled aircraft
shipped as kits from the USA it didnt build a single new aircraft
from scratch

Similarly the RAF used civil aviation repair facilities during the
BOB, I've already mentioned Marshall's of Cambridge

< The military
> itself had military personnel and civialian military personnel
> manufacturing new planes. Hundreds of second tier facilities existed
> on airbases of less size, and smaller ones had third tier facilities.
> In the fact of concrete evidnese that the military did do this very
> similarly to my concepts based on real world understanding and bit and
> peices of interviews and book mentions--you should drop out, drip in,
> and tune on.
>

In other words if the facts dont support you fantasy just ignore them.

> By the way a mini-mill is a metal recycling mill that uses finished
> metals from junk, or large slabs or ingots of metal. The metal
> milling at the plant mentioned by Tex isn't likely to be making
> millions of tons of steel a year using iron ore just mined from the
> earth close by. Nor did this plant likely have alumium smelters as
> all alumium would be from 100% alumium content inputs be it from a
> smelter in the form of ingots or from damaged parts of a plane.
>

No the Aluminium it used would be mainly in the form
of sheet material bought from an Aluminium smelter.

The manufacture of aircraft grade aluminium isnt something
you can do in a mini-mill as you'd realise if you new anything
about engineering or metallurgy.

>
> > > I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.
> >
> > I suggest you Google for shops capable of overhauling WWII
> > aircraft engines. You will find that these are highly specialised
> > in this business.
>
>
> Today, I suppose, I wonder if the RAF can overhaul a Merlin today?

No they get Rolls Royce to do that

> I wonder if the RAF will over haul a Euro-fighter? They will ship it
> back
> to some factory well away from any airbase, uh?
>

No they'll do routine repairs on the base but the aircraft
are built by British Aerospace.

> > > Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
> > > that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
> > > large W.W.I.I. airbase.
>
> > On the contrary, they would as a rule be built on or near a large
> > airbase, because aircraft manufacturers needed to flight-test their
> > aircraft before delivery! There were a handful of exceptions; IIRC
> > Brewster built its aircraft in the city and some assembly was even
> > done on the second floor. That was, however, recognized to be
> > an absurd and undesirable situation.
>
>
> Good. Airplanes are inherently made near airports, or airbases,
> runways...
>

Of course all major aircraft manufacturers have their own runways

>
> > But no military airbase would be involved in the construction of
> > its own aircraft. They might do re-assembly of aircraft shipped
> > in crates, in itself quite a challenge.
>
>
> Poor RAF just can muster the skilled labor, huh?
> Too hard for them?
>

No they are just too busy keeping the aircraft flying

>
> > > > Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
> > > > from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
> > > > foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
> > > > by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.
> > >
> > > So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
> > > frame of reference?
>
> > Recycling parts is not the same as assembling engines. Normally,
> > bases would not be assembling engines, not even overhauling them;
> > they would be shipped back to the manufacturer or to a maintenance
> > center.
>
>
>
> What do you thnk a "base" is? A maintenace center is compatible with
> core military missions.
> All bases and forts I have every been on have had maintenance centers.
> The maintenance centers
> are the factories I'm talking about, the mills I'm talking about...
>

They didnt build new aircraft, just repaired existing ones

> I see you just wanted me to use the vocabualry right!
>
> I read the read of your crap, it was crap.
>

Grow up will you.

Keith

John Freck

October 18th 03, 05:53 PM

"Keith Willshaw" > wrote in message >...

Look at the post of mine just before Tex's post.
Why don't you post anuthr right behind it?

> "John Freck" > wrote in message
> om...

> > "Emmanuel Gustin" > wrote in message
> >...

<Snip>

>> As far as I know, the VEro Beach, Florida Piper plant is a full
>> assemble plant. Please back up your statement that the Vero
Beach,
>> Florida Piper plant doesn't "do" complete assemble. The link is
>> conceptual. My case was purely conceptual as first before
becoming
>> concrete. I defended these related notions and climed nothing
more
>> for them than notions:

> So you are agreeing with Emmanuel, the Vero beach plant
> assembles light aircraft but doesnt build its own engines

I don't know the specifics, but I know that I don't see any great
piles of unprocessed iron ore, chromium ore, alminium ore, ect. I
don't see or smell a large crude oil to crude plasitics plant there
either. I conceptually understand that this Piper plant has finished
parts sent to it by many suppliers, and they buy many ready made
off-the-shelf products too such as screws, botls, fastners, ect. This
plant probably makes nothing from utter base raw materials. As far as
I know, Piper is a maker of aircraft engines. What is done at this
plant and what is done at their other plants and the intra-corporate
trade? I don't have the facts--it is just an assemble plant on or
near an airport.

> > All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
> > 1st, 1940:
> >
> > 1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
> > a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
> > services to fighter command.

> Fighter command wasnt short of fuel or skilled
> labour. The only thing it was short of was trained
> fighter pilots and experience has shown that trying
> to put bomber or transport pilots into fighters is
> disastrous. The skill sets are too different.

I didn't mention pilots. As far as fuel goes, I have heard interview
with folks saying other groups didn't have fuel and that is why the
didn't fighter as not to waste resources. The RAf was very resouce
aware.

> > b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
> > manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
> > plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.
> >
>
> One more.
>
> You cant make Spitfire wings , a complex monocoque structure
> in a factory that builds wings for Wellington bombers that have
> a geodesic aluminium structure covered in fabric,

Of course, you want to discuss the difficult of Spitfire increses, and
I am discussing the ease of Hurricane increases.

> You cant use the air cooled radial engines the bomber uses
> in a Spitfire or Hurricane
>
> Such a switch wouldnt produce new fighter airframes
> until 1943 at the earliest
>
> >
> > The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
> > I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
> > interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
> > and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
> > as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
> > provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
> > facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane.
>
> Tex said nothing of the sort, He referred to the Burtonwood
> REPAIR depot. Like the Catle Bromwich site it was ordered
> by the British in 1938 but wasnt fully operational until 1941.
>
> It was handed over to the USAAF in 1942 and while it repaired and
> refurbished
> aircraft and rebuilt aircraft engines and assembled aircraft
> shipped as kits from the USA it didnt build a single new aircraft
> from scratch

Did any plant any where build a plane from acratch?

John Freck

> Similarly the RAF used civil aviation repair facilities during the
> BOB, I've already mentioned Marshall's of Cambridge
>
> < The military
> > itself had military personnel and civialian military personnel
> > manufacturing new planes. Hundreds of second tier facilities existed
> > on airbases of less size, and smaller ones had third tier facilities.
> > In the fact of concrete evidnese that the military did do this very
> > similarly to my concepts based on real world understanding and bit and
> > peices of interviews and book mentions--you should drop out, drip in,
> > and tune on.
> >
>
> In other words if the facts dont support you fantasy just ignore them.
>
> > By the way a mini-mill is a metal recycling mill that uses finished
> > metals from junk, or large slabs or ingots of metal. The metal
> > milling at the plant mentioned by Tex isn't likely to be making
> > millions of tons of steel a year using iron ore just mined from the
> > earth close by. Nor did this plant likely have alumium smelters as
> > all alumium would be from 100% alumium content inputs be it from a
> > smelter in the form of ingots or from damaged parts of a plane.
> >
>
> No the Aluminium it used would be mainly in the form
> of sheet material bought from an Aluminium smelter.
>
> The manufacture of aircraft grade aluminium isnt something
> you can do in a mini-mill as you'd realise if you new anything
> about engineering or metallurgy.
>
> >
> > > > I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.
> > >
> > > I suggest you Google for shops capable of overhauling WWII
> > > aircraft engines. You will find that these are highly specialised
> > > in this business.
> >
> >
> > Today, I suppose, I wonder if the RAF can overhaul a Merlin today?
>
> No they get Rolls Royce to do that
>
> > I wonder if the RAF will over haul a Euro-fighter? They will ship it
> > back
> > to some factory well away from any airbase, uh?
> >
>
> No they'll do routine repairs on the base but the aircraft
> are built by British Aerospace.
>
> > > > Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
> > > > that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
> > > > large W.W.I.I. airbase.
>
> > > On the contrary, they would as a rule be built on or near a large
> > > airbase, because aircraft manufacturers needed to flight-test their
> > > aircraft before delivery! There were a handful of exceptions; IIRC
> > > Brewster built its aircraft in the city and some assembly was even
> > > done on the second floor. That was, however, recognized to be
> > > an absurd and undesirable situation.
> >
> >
> > Good. Airplanes are inherently made near airports, or airbases,
> > runways...
> >
>
> Of course all major aircraft manufacturers have their own runways
>
> >
> > > But no military airbase would be involved in the construction of
> > > its own aircraft. They might do re-assembly of aircraft shipped
> > > in crates, in itself quite a challenge.
> >
> >
> > Poor RAF just can muster the skilled labor, huh?
> > Too hard for them?
> >
>
> No they are just too busy keeping the aircraft flying
>
> >
> > > > > Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
> > > > > from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
> > > > > foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
> > > > > by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.
> > > >
> > > > So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
> > > > frame of reference?
>
> > > Recycling parts is not the same as assembling engines. Normally,
> > > bases would not be assembling engines, not even overhauling them;
> > > they would be shipped back to the manufacturer or to a maintenance
> > > center.
> >
> >
> >
> > What do you thnk a "base" is? A maintenace center is compatible with
> > core military missions.
> > All bases and forts I have every been on have had maintenance centers.
> > The maintenance centers
> > are the factories I'm talking about, the mills I'm talking about...
> >
>
> They didnt build new aircraft, just repaired existing ones
>
> > I see you just wanted me to use the vocabualry right!
> >
> > I read the read of your crap, it was crap.
> >
>
> Grow up will you.
>
> Keith

WaltBJ

October 18th 03, 07:04 PM

FWIW I just recently viewed a Hurricane and a Zeke 32 being
constructed from "scratch" plus a pile of badly corroded pieces to
copy. There wasn't anything I saw there that required much more that
could be made in a decently equipped 'job shop'. The two shops didn't
have any unique tools either. Just lathes, milling machines, shear,
brake, drill press, hand tools, a thousand Clecos and lots of
material. The Hurricane surprised me in that the formers for the
fuselage were partially constructed of plywood. The aft half looked
rather like a 1:1 scale model aircraft. No, I won't tell you where
they are - they don't have time to spare for a flood of visitors.

Keith Willshaw

October 18th 03, 08:00 PM

"John Freck" > wrote in message
om...
> "Keith Willshaw" > wrote in message
>...
>

>
>
> I don't know the specifics, but I know that I don't see any great
> piles of unprocessed iron ore, chromium ore, alminium ore, ect. I
> don't see or smell a large crude oil to crude plasitics plant there
> either. I conceptually understand that this Piper plant has finished
> parts sent to it by many suppliers, and they buy many ready made
> off-the-shelf products too such as screws, botls, fastners, ect. This
> plant probably makes nothing from utter base raw materials. As far as
> I know, Piper is a maker of aircraft engines. What is done at this
> plant and what is done at their other plants and the intra-corporate
> trade? I don't have the facts--it is just an assemble plant on or
> near an airport.
>

Piper dont build engines, they do however make aircraft

>
> > > All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
> > > 1st, 1940:
> > >
> > > 1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
> > > a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
> > > services to fighter command.
>
> > Fighter command wasnt short of fuel or skilled
> > labour. The only thing it was short of was trained
> > fighter pilots and experience has shown that trying
> > to put bomber or transport pilots into fighters is
> > disastrous. The skill sets are too different.
>
> I didn't mention pilots. As far as fuel goes, I have heard interview
> with folks saying other groups didn't have fuel and that is why the
> didn't fighter as not to waste resources. The RAf was very resouce
> aware.
>

There was no shortage of fuel, producing airframes when you
dont have pilots to fly them isnt terribly helpful as both the
Germans and Japanese found.

>
>
> > > b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
> > > manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
> > > plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.
> > >
> >
> > One more.
> >
> > You cant make Spitfire wings , a complex monocoque structure
> > in a factory that builds wings for Wellington bombers that have
> > a geodesic aluminium structure covered in fabric,
>
> Of course, you want to discuss the difficult of Spitfire increses, and
> I am discussing the ease of Hurricane increases.
>

Neither was easy, neither could use the engines or structure
of a Wellington bomber

>
>
>
> > You cant use the air cooled radial engines the bomber uses
> > in a Spitfire or Hurricane
> >
> > Such a switch wouldnt produce new fighter airframes
> > until 1943 at the earliest
> >
> > >
> > > The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
> > > I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
> > > interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
> > > and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
> > > as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
> > > provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
> > > facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane.
> >
> > Tex said nothing of the sort, He referred to the Burtonwood
> > REPAIR depot. Like the Catle Bromwich site it was ordered
> > by the British in 1938 but wasnt fully operational until 1941.
> >
> > It was handed over to the USAAF in 1942 and while it repaired and
> > refurbished
> > aircraft and rebuilt aircraft engines and assembled aircraft
> > shipped as kits from the USA it didnt build a single new aircraft
> > from scratch
>
> Did any plant any where build a plane from acratch?
>
> John Freck
>

Not after about 1910 at a guess, modern aircraft production
requires MANY plants often owned by different companies
working in partnership.

Keith

Keith Willshaw

October 18th 03, 08:04 PM

"WaltBJ" > wrote in message
om...
> FWIW I just recently viewed a Hurricane and a Zeke 32 being
> constructed from "scratch" plus a pile of badly corroded pieces to
> copy. There wasn't anything I saw there that required much more that
> could be made in a decently equipped 'job shop'. The two shops didn't
> have any unique tools either. Just lathes, milling machines, shear,
> brake, drill press, hand tools, a thousand Clecos and lots of
> material. The Hurricane surprised me in that the formers for the
> fuselage were partially constructed of plywood. The aft half looked
> rather like a 1:1 scale model aircraft. No, I won't tell you where
> they are - they don't have time to spare for a flood of visitors.

So how did they make the merlin engine, browning machine guns
and flight instrumentation ?

I've seen reconstructions of these aircraft taking place at Duxford.
Yes you can make the airframe by hand, of course it takes several
years and costs a LOT of money but without an engine its just
looks pretty.

Keith

Guy Alcala

October 18th 03, 09:38 PM

WaltBJ wrote:

> FWIW I just recently viewed a Hurricane and a Zeke 32 being
> constructed from "scratch" plus a pile of badly corroded pieces to
> copy. There wasn't anything I saw there that required much more that
> could be made in a decently equipped 'job shop'. The two shops didn't
> have any unique tools either. Just lathes, milling machines, shear,
> brake, drill press, hand tools, a thousand Clecos and lots of
> material. The Hurricane surprised me in that the formers for the
> fuselage were partially constructed of plywood. The aft half looked
> rather like a 1:1 scale model aircraft. No, I won't tell you where
> they are - they don't have time to spare for a flood of visitors.

One wonders just how many skilled person-hours it will take to complete
them, and how many years total it will take to produce one of each; mass
production it isn't. The Hurricane is interesting, as it was just about
the last mass-produced western fighter to be built that didn't use
semi-monocoque construction, and also had a large percentage of fabric
covering. Structurally the Spitfire was the next generation, and it was
quite a shock at first; Jeff Quill described taxiing up to a halt at one
RAF base he was visiting with the prototype or one of the early
production a/c, and hearing this odd rapping sound as he shut down. He
couldn't figure out what it was until he got out and found a large
contingent of fitters and riggers gathered around the fuselage, rapping
it with their knuckles and making exclamations along the lines of 'cor,
it's made of tin': theyd apparently never seen an a/c with a
metal-covered fuselage, never mind one using semi-monocoque contruction.

Guy