BUILDING AMERICA'S AIR ARMY 



By Lieut. Col. Hiram Bingham, Signal Corps, U. S. A. 



Ciltkf of the Air Personnel Division ix the Office of the Chief Signal 



( )FFiCER of 'i'ii k Army 



AFTER a trip halfway around the 

 world, there arrived recently in a 

 L Southern port of the United States 

 a large steamer loaded with castor-oil 

 beans. During its voyage many thou- 

 sands of acres of ground were being- 

 made ready to receive the cargo the mo- 

 ment it was discharged, and factories 

 even now are being prepared to turn the 

 forthcoming crop into lubricants. 



Here is a little side glimpse into the 

 new industrial problems created in the 

 manufacture of America's wings. Amer- 

 ica, though in a sense the home of lubri- 

 cating oils because of her enormous fac- 

 tory svstem, had not in her whole long 



list one which could stand up under the 

 power of the Liberty Motor. All of them 

 scotched and burned in tins new-found 

 strength. 



The lubricant from the castor-oil bean, 

 however, proved a single exception. Un- 

 fortunately the growing of these beans 

 had been discontinued, owing to the in- 

 flux of cheaper beans from India. The 

 importation of these had been stopped 

 recently by an embargo put into effect 

 by the British Government. The only 

 solution to the problem was to reestablish 

 the castor-oil bean-raising industry in 

 America. By a special arrangement with 

 Great Britain a cargo of beans held at 

 Bombay was released and rushed to this 



LIGHTNESS WITH STRENGTH 



If 60 people can sit on the unsupported end of one pair of wings of an airplane, as shown 

 here, we need have no fear that these wings will "crumple up" in the air 



48 



