Manufacturing Aeroplanes in WWI - Awesome Film

[Dave Homewood]

Check out this documentary from 1918 on the manufacture of aeroplanes for the war effort in WWI. It follows the process right from the beginning with the felling and milling of spruce trees, through the whole manufacture of the aeroplanes. Amazing detail, and really interesting to see the techniques used, such as the rigging of the wings!

[Dave Homewood]

I had no idea that the USA was producing Handley Page and Caproni bombers. I know the main focus was on Curtiss Jenny aircraft but I have no idea what the other two seat, single engined aircraft type was at the end.

It's amazing seeing the propellers being built, in fact all the different manufacturing processes seen are incredible to watch. It's so cool that someone had the sense to film the whole process in detail like this. Neat to see the Curtiss flying boats getting their hulls skinned too.

That place had such a huge workforce, with so many ladies involved, and they all seem like highly skilled craftsmen and women. They seem to carry out their work with such precision and I note no-one seems to talk to each other, they all just get on as they have full confidence in what they're doing.

[Brett]

What a great video!

Not a single hard hat or fluorescent vest in sight. I wonder if the team at TVAL wear ties and waistcoats when they are working in the factory?

The Standard Aircraft Company produced 107 Handley Page 0/400s under license. The two-seater is one of their own products, the Standard JR-1B.

I think only two or three Caproni CA.5s were built in the US.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Brett. The dress sense definitely stuck out to me too.

I was also taken by the fact the roundels were applied as pressure transfers in sections - I had no idea they had them back in 1918.

I loved the machines that used a pattern as the guide and carved out several propellers identically at once, real innovation that I'd never have imagined in that time.

Did the US keep the 0/400's in service postwar? Or were they shipped to France for the war effort? I know the interwar US Air Service was minuscule, almost as small as New Zealand's, so I guess they didn't keep them flying.

For a second I was thinking "Why are they building Capronis?" Then I remembered the Italians were on our side in that one.

[Bruce]

Of course they wore hats, ties and waistcoats.. you cant expect your staff to work half naked!

[Brett]

According to “Handley Page Aircraft since 1907” by C. H. Barnes US manufacturing was based on producing a kit of parts.

Of the order for 500, only 100 parts sets (85% complete) were built before the contract was cancelled after the Armistice. 70 sets were dispatched, but only 10 arrived in England and were assembled. These were returned to the US. In addition, a few complete aircraft were assembled in the US.

The aircraft in the US were either held in store or used for service trials. This seems to have comprised various bombing trials, testing out new bombs and techniques, etc.

They don’t seem to have reached squadron service with the USAS.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Brett. So 60 sets of HP 0/400 parts were lost in transit? Maybe they're still siting in a warehouse somewhere. Wouldn't that be an amazing find.

[oj]

Probably torpedoed and on the shelf in Davy Jones' Locker .....

[Peter Lewis]

The really chilling aspect to that film is knowing, as you watch all those people working away, that almost all of them would have lost those jobs only months later when the demand for aircraft went from insatiable to infinitesimal in November 1918.

[Dave Homewood]

Yes I thought that too Peter.and all those highly skilled, respected and much needed ladies in that workforce in particular would have been dumped back into the kitchens and parlours where they were considered to belong in those days.