A Curve Flattens

From factory, yard and alley shop the streams of U.S. production joined to make a great flood. But not all the tributary streams were bank-full. One vital stream1-- aircraft production--even showed signs of leveling off. It was far from the high-water mark promised when production goals were set months ago.

In February's short working month the U.S. produced 5,500 military aircraft. The proportion of combat craft among them had grown to 65% from the 50% of last summer. The proportion of four-motored bombers in the total had undoubtedly grown, too.

Yet the overall production curve had not shown signs of ripping upward toward the 10,000-plus a month needed for this year to meet the President's 1943 goal of 125,000 combat aircraft. In 1942 the goal had been 60,000. Actually 48,000 were produced. That was still a lot of aircraft for a production machine starting almost from scratch.

The 5,500 produced in February is fat production, too--more than the whole output of the Axis nations. But it marks less than a 100% increase over the production of January 1942 (3,000). It is only 500 more than U.S. factories delivered in January, 1943, only eleven more than the deliveries of December 1942. Somehow, in the rush for the production of other essentials (like escort vessels), and probably also as a result of the confusion in WPB, U.S. aircraft production had bogged down.

To pull it out, send it soaring again, WPB this week gave more power to the director of its Aircraft Control Resources Office. T. P. (for Theodore Paul) Wright, crack aeronautical engineer and production man, got full authority over manpower, materials and machine tools for plane production. To the armed services, irked by civilian control over war building, no civilian could have been more acceptable. Ted Wright, onetime director of engineering and vice president of Curtiss-Wright, is an old hand at dealing with them, should be able to sweat more aircraft through WPB's red tape if any man can.

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