Good News

The U.S. Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics last week released some good news about aircraft production and deliveries:

P: Last July 1, the Navy had 2,172 good, bad and indifferent airplanes. May 1, the Navy had 3,476 planes.

P: About 600 of the new planes were combat types. The rest were essential trainers.

Even more encouraging than the total increase was the rate of deliveries. In the first four months of 1940, the Navy got 79 new planes. In the last four months, it received 464. Deliveries during the first four months of this year: 996.*

P: Most surprising, most heartening fact of all was the number bought with money appropriated for the current fiscal year and delivered so far in that year: 735.

This total represented a great achievement by the aircraft industry and by Rear Admiral John Henry ("Jack") Towers, Chief the Bureau of Aeronautics. In the previous fiscal year, the Navy received only 225 airplanes.

Also announced last week were arrangements to step up the production of big bombers for the U.S. and Great Britain. A contract with Ford Motor Co. to make four-motored Consolidated bombers was in negotiation. Lockheed, Boeing, Douglas will also expand their capacity. Getting machine tools, materials, labor for this belated bomber program is bound to be difficult. At best, the expected rate of bomber production (500 a month) can hardly be attained before mid-1942. But the need for quantity production of high-load, long-range bombers had at last been recognized, and something was being done to get the planes.

* Because of crashes and worn-out planes, the net increase was less than the total deliveries.

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