The Boom Is On

On the broad flying field alongside the Niagara Falls plant of Bell Aircraft Corp., a queer-looking new thing appeared last week. It was Bell's first postwar helicopter, designed for commercial flying. While President Lawrence D. Bell proudly watched, the helicopter rose straight up, swished around the field with a hollow, rattling roar, came down to an eggshell landing.

Larry Bell's new streamlined helicopter will carry five people. But on all other details he was mum. Although the Civil Aeronautics Board has yet to approve it, Bell is confidently tooling up for volume production. By the first of the year, he hopes to start production of his first 500 helicopters.

Once this would have sounded like big talk. But last week the bustling light planemakers were full of much bigger talk. They had the fattest backlog of civilian orders in their lives. The military cutbacks, which were a curse to most of the industry Goliaths, were a blessing to its Davids. Eagerly they had cleared their plants of war work. Now reconverted, they were taking off on the biggest boom ever.

The first civilian planes, like the first autos, were slicked-up 1942 models, with more powerful motors, slightly greater speeds--90 to 140 miles an hour. The planemakers had tagged their product with 1942 prices. They were still high, $2,000 and up. But for the first time many a company has enough orders on hand to tool up for mass production, hopes soon to shave costs and prices.

The Twosome. In the race to reconvert, short, balding Nash Russ, president of Taylorcraft Aviation Corp., had delivered his first civilian plane just two weeks after V-J day. Taylorcraft's Alliance, Ohio plant is now turning out 15 a day of its single model, the Twosome ($2,295), hopes to boost production to 50 a day by year's end. By then, Mr. Russ also hopes to be in production of a new model, a four-place, 127-m.p.h. plane. Price: $3,950.

The Cub. Famed Piper Aircraft Corp. was neck & neck with Taylorcraft. Shrewd, quick-moving President William Thomas Piper, whose planes hedge-hopped up & down the front lines during the war, is making 300 planes a month in his Lock Haven, Pa. plant, hopes to edge his output up to 600 planes a month by January. While most of his competitors concentrated on one plane, he had shrewdly put two models into production, the Piper Cub Special ($2,010) and the three-place Piper Cub Super Cruiser ($2,905).

In his pocket he had some 5,300 orders (with cash deposits), probably the fattest backlog of anyone in the light-plane industry. And there were plenty more in the offing, thanks to a smart deal to sell his planes in department stores (John Wanamaker's Manhattan and Philadelphia stores and Mandel Bros, in Chicago already have contracts to sell Piper planes). Next year, he hopes to step way out in front of the industry with his single-place, 90-m.p.h. Skycycle, which will sell for under $1,000.

The Champion. In its Middletown, Ohio plant, Aeronca Aircraft Corp. has already reached its prewar production rate of a two-place, high-winged monoplane, the Champion. Price: $2,095. Aeronca expects to roll out 550 planes by the end of this year, hopes to have production up to 500 ships a month by next April.

The Swift. The Swift, one of the first all-metal light planes to be made on an assembly line, rolled out of the Globe Aircraft Corp.'s plant in Fort Worth fort night ago. A sleek, shiny, two-place monoplane, the Swift is a cut above most small planes in speed (140 m.p.h.), as well as price ($3,495 up to $3,995). But Globe is not worried about its high-priced product. It announced that it already has a backlog of $11,000,000 in firm orders. Estimated production next year: 4,000 planes.

The Ercoupe. Easiest to fly of all light planes is Engineering & Research Corp.'s spraddle-legged, twin-tailed Ercoupe (Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace soloed after 7 hrs. 10 min. of instruction in an Ercoupe). With all of its controls operated from a steering wheel, Ercoupe's makers brag that "anyone who can drive a car can learn to fly an Ercoupe." Most notable safety feature: the plane is spinproof. Ercoupes, which were just getting into production when the war choked it off, are now being made at the rate of 25 a month, will soon be up to 200 a month. Price: $3,000.

Nothing New Needed. The dream planes were still in the distant, dreamy future. Example : Consolidated Vultee still tinkered with a "controllable wing" plane which looked like a combination plane and auto. But the light plane it got into production was a new version of the prewar, four-place Stinson Voyager. Nor was anyone else yet ready to turn out anything radically different. The happy fact was that none was needed, at present.

In the next year, light planemakers expect to sell upwards of 25,000 planes, more than five times as many as in their best (1939) prewar year. Nor were they worried about surplus Army planes. Most of the flyable small planes have already been snapped up, with no lessening of demand. At week's end, the industry got one more boost. The Lea bill, which would provide federal funds to help build more than 3,000 airports (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), was passed by the House.

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