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

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?

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.

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. ?

How many airmen did the Allied airforces have ground working in
England? How sophisticated and massive was aircraft maintence? Could
they assemble a warplane? Could they make a new engine using badly
damaged engines as the raw material?

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



John Freck

"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

"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?...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

"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

"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?...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

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

"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

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

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

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