Popular Science Monthly 



more like the fashioning of some exquisite 

 musical instrument. Stradivari us never 

 selected the wood for his violins more care- 

 fully than the men who shape the spars for 

 a wing pick their pieces of spruce. Human 

 life depends on the proper choice of wood. 

 No one in an airplane factory "takes a 

 chance" — least of all in building a wing. 

 It takes at 

 least a thou- 

 sand feet of 

 this carefully 

 s e 1 ected 

 spruce to 

 build a single 

 airplane. We 

 must find 

 enough for 

 thousands 

 and thou- 

 sands of ma- 

 chines. To 

 meet the de- 

 mands of 

 present Eng- 

 lish con- 

 struction 

 alone, more 

 spruce is 

 wanted than 

 the entire 



The surveys of the country's manufac- 

 turing facilities made by the National 

 Advisory Board and the Aircraft Produc- 

 tion Board will enable us to avoid most of 

 the mistakes made by England during the 

 early months of the war. Automobile 

 makers and munitions manufacturers must 

 be taught how to produce good trustworthy 



engines and 



irown and Dawson 



The fabric of an airplane wing must be as tight as a drum- 

 head. It is therefore stretched to its limit of endurance 

 and coated with a preparation termed "dope," a nitrocellu- 

 lose compound which is thus far the best coating discovered 



cylinders ; 

 f u rniture 

 makers and 

 coach build- 

 ers must 

 learn how to 

 make wings 

 to which hu- 

 man lives 

 may be 

 trusted ; sew- 

 ing machine 

 and type- 

 writer com- 

 panies must 

 also coop- 

 erate if we 

 are to turn 

 out 3,500 

 machines a 

 month. Eng- 

 land has 



present annual output of the United States. 



Perhaps the most serious problem with 

 which we are confronted in building whole 

 flocks of battle eagles within the time de- 

 manded by our allies is the necessity of air- 

 drying the spruce. The wood cannot be 

 used as it comes from the forest and the 

 mill. It must be seasoned, preferably air- 

 seasoned, a process that requires about nine 

 months. The Bureau of Standards is at 

 work on the problem of devising a means of 

 so treating the wood that it can be used in 

 building wings soon after it is cut ; but even 

 such research takes time. Some efforts 

 have been made to use steel. Perhaps our 

 salvation may lie in that procedure. Air- 

 plane builders, for the most part, prefer 

 spruce to steel; it is lighter and stronger 

 per pound. 



The difficulties of building 23,000 air- 

 planes in a year or less, difficulties inherent 

 in the very nature of the flying machine as 

 well as in the scarcity of material are not dis- 

 heartening. Automobile production meth- 

 ods must be adopted ; which means minute 

 subdivision of manual and machine work, 

 and above all standardization. Factories 

 must concentrate on one or two types. 



taught us the way. At present no fewer 

 than one thousand British factories are en- 

 gaged in making parts for flying machines. 



The Aircraft Production Board has done 

 invaluable work in standardizing the air- 

 plane. The wonderful Liberty engine has 

 been created — the composite invention of 

 the foremost authorities on metals, radiators, 

 cooling, carburetion, and ignition. The 

 Board will determine the sizes of nuts and 

 pins and wires. They vary now. It should 

 be possible to build an airplane on the 

 battlefield from the parts of several old ma- 

 chines. How can that be done if a bed will 

 receive only a certain size and type of 

 engine, if nuts will not screw on the bolts at 

 hand, if, in a word, parts cannot be inter- 

 changed ? 



There are far too many types of airplanes 

 now. France entered the war with no less 

 than thirty. Of course she could not fore- 

 see in 1914 that half a dozen would suffice, 

 simply because the half dozen that have 

 been developed are utterly different from 

 the thirty that marked the pinnacle of 

 achievement in 1914. Standardization 

 sometimes means stagnation ; but military 

 exigencies will prevent that at this time. 



