Goodyear Stretches Out

Home last week from a 20,000-mile jaunt through the U.S., South America and England, bland, bulky Paul Weeks Litchfield, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s big-framed president, was chock full of war and postwar plans. Said he :

>By October, the U.S. will be producing enough synthetic rubber (about 600,000 tons a year) to match the prewar U.S. consumption of natural rubber. But pleas ure drivers will probably get no new tires before spring 1944. Even then, synthetic rubber will take only about 85% as much road wear as natural rubber.

>"Goodyear has more employes working on aircraft production today [blimps, Sikorsky fighters, sub-assemblies for other planes] than on rubber production." (Goodyear sales for the first six months of this year were more than double 1942; net income was up 78%.)

>Goodyear, now one of the top dozen U.S. aircraft manufacturers, intends to go right on making planes after the war. What kind they will be Goodyear has still to announce.

Besides aircraft, Goodyear is now making gas masks, rubber boats, life rafts, barrage balloons. Besides peace planes, Goodyear's postwar plans include: housing insulation, plastics, Airfoam (sponge rubber cushion), a radio static eliminator.

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