The Final Assembly of Aeroplanes: An American Opinion on an Increasingly Important Stage in Production Available to Purchase

THE rapid assembly of largo quantities of aircraft on a production basis has long been the dream of all connected with the industry since the hectic days of the late war. This was true especially during the inflationary period of 1927–29, when the dream was to build and sell aeroplanes in much the same quantities that automobiles are sold today. The aeroplanes of five or six years ago were not conducive to quantity production. They were built for the performance of that time, very little consideration being given to manufacturing problems and, consequently, they were costly to tool. The design was such that at the final assembly it was necessary to concentrate a large proportion of the men into the small space of the fuselage; causing inefficiency and confusion. The modern trend is to design for high performance with the production possibility as a prime factor. In other words Engineering must be production minded.