Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 18, 2020 23:28:10 GMT 12
Here is a terrific article about the RNZAF's assembly unit at RNZAF Station Harewood in September 1942
U.S. AIRCRAFT ASSEMBLED IN SOUTH ISLAND
NEW ZEALAND'S AIR STRENGTH
[Specially Written for "The Press” by "AILERON. ]
To-day pilots of the Royal New Zealand Air Force are flying aircraft built for battle —Kittyhawk fighters like those in action over Egyptian desert and New Guinea jungle, and the same kind of sturdy Lockheed Hudson bombers used by the Royal Air Force for North Sea patrols. They fly these aircraft confident tm the knowledge that each one has been assembled by skilled riggers, fitters, and armourers who leave nothing to chance, and then in the test pilot's hands has been subjected to every strain and stress it might meet in combat.
Much of this assembly and testing is done at a Royal New Zealand Air Force station somewhere m the South Island. There Kitlyhawks arrive in crates, and Hudsons are towed in without their wings, airscrews, and empennage but they are soon ready to be flown away to operational stations in other parts of New Zealand by the bomber and fighter pilots who come to collect them. Both these types ot aircraft are American-built, and different engineering standards and the conversion of tools, spanners, stocks, dies, and equipment have presented some new assembly problems. Everything is done now, however, by men of the RNZA.F, without help from overseas aspects. For this work they are organised into an assembly flight, which includes experienced engine fitters, riggers, armourers, instrument makers, electricians, and equipment specialists. All the key personnel have specialised on the assembling, checking and testing of new aircraft since the war started. A number were engaged in this type of work before the war and have reached a high degree of proficiency. Since the beginning of the war no accident associated with the initial testing of service aircraft has been recorded. This is are markable record in view of the number of service aircraft in service in New Zealand.
Complicated Job
Putting a Kittyhawk together is a far more complicated job than assembly of a Tiger Moth trainer. This trim fighter, by far the newest and fastest aircraft in New Zealand, weighs nearly four tons. Into its comparatively small fuselage and wings must be fitted a liquid-cooled engine developing tremendous horse-power, petrol tanks, machine-guns, ammunition containers, instruments, armour plate, radio gear, and a complicated assortment of petrol, oil, and hydraulic pipe lines, and electrical connexions.
This task presents no difficulties to the assembly flight, for every man has been through a special course in Wellington, and all are thoroughly experienced in assembly methods. The Allison liquid-cooled engine, which is the power plant of most American fighters, was something entirely new to the R N Z.A.F., but now the fitters know all its workings, for a special group worked on it at a United States Army Air Force base in the Pacific.
The airframe of the Kittyhawk also not new to the riggers, for some of them were sent to the United States to work on it. As a result the specialised knowledge of the key men in the assembly flight enables them to put both Kittyhawks and Hudsons together as well as the makers, although they work to American standards of engineering and use different tools and dies.
When the Kittyhawk rolls off the assembly line in the United States the fuselage is complete with the engine, which has done its running on the test bench before installation. This reduces to some extent the time of assembly. Fuselage and engine are packed in one huge crate, and the wings, undercarriage, and equipment come in others. All are carefully packed and treated to prevent damage or corrosion by the sea air on the voyage to New Zealand, and generally everything arrives in first-class condition. When they are landed the Kittyhawks come to the R.N.Z.A.F, station at a time when road traffic is slack, for each crate weighs several tons, and is carried on special trucks.
First Stages
Inside the big hangar at the station where the assembly work goes on day, and night—there is no 40-hour week in the R.N.Z.A.F.—the fuselage and engine are unpacked first and carefully examined to see that nothing has been damaged. Then the crate is converted into a cradle to hold the fuselage until wings and undercarriage have been fitted. Next operation is to check the equipment lists to see that everything has been sent by the makers. The man who does this job has to know every part by sight as well as by name, for the lists he has may occupy anything up to 20 closely typed pages. By this time the assembly proper can begin. The flight is divided into groups, so many to each aircraft, and the parts are issued to the men.
Fitters go to work on the engine, riggers deal with the airframe, armourers work on the machine-guns, and various specialists concentrate on their particular sections of the assembly. Progressive methods are used so that at one end of them, there is a Kittyhawk waiting for the test pilot, and at the other end a machine is being uncrated. Appoximately 100 men are engaged, and they can have a machine ready on the aerodrome in the minimum of time.
When the wings and undercarriage have been mounted, and the tail is fitted, the Kittyhawk becomes more like an aircraft, and can be moved about more handily. The next stage is to install the fuel pipe lines; electrical gear, and other equipment. All gauges and instruments have to have their calibration and adjustment checked, and they are not flight tested before they leave the United States.
The machine-guns, which come packed solidly in grease, have to be cleaned before the firing gear can be checked. In action the pilot merely presses a button, but there is complicated mechanism to be installed before this simple operation can be carried out. There are several guns on the Kittyhawk—the exact number is secret—and all must be synchronised so that they fire together in one deadly burst. They are harmonised to converge at a point so many yards distant in front of the aircraft.
Systematic Check
All this time as the Kittyhawk grow under the skilled hands of the assembly groups there is a careful and systematic check on every part put into the aircraft. Each part has an assembly form to itself, and this is signed by the man responsible and the non-commissioned officer in charge of the group. There's a triple check by the senior n.c.o in charge of the flight.
With the self-sealing petrol tanks, and armour plate fitted, and the three bladed airscrew in position, the Kittyhawk is ready for ground testing. The engine is primed, the petrol tanks are filled with high octane fuel, and at the same time the fuel gauges are calibrated. Then the airscrew turns over in New Zealand air for the first time. The blade pitch angles of the airscrew are checked while the engine is in motion, and then the engine is run steadily until everything has been adjusted in conformity with the manufacturers’ specifications.
Finally before the Kittyhawk is handed over to the test and dispatch section, n.c.o. of each group makes a thorough inspection of all the assembly sheets. The flight commander . checks over everything again, and the job is done except for the minor adjusments that may be necessary after the test flights.
The assembly of the Hudsons follows much the same lines, although they are towed in without their wings, airscrews, and empennage which are crated separately. The main difference is that the Hudson has two engines, and also that there is a considerable amount of specialised equipment to be installed. Instead of unpacking the Hudson the assembly flight has to spend some time in uncovering it, for it always comes as deck cargo because of its size, and the manufacturers take no chances of corrosion or damage by water or sea air. Every opening is taped or covered with paper, and then sealed by spraying with a wax substance.
Varied Equipment
Some of the equipment that has to be installed in the Hudson has no counterpart in the Kittyhawk. There is the massive Boulton Paul gun turret which weighs 6cwt, and what the Royal Force knows as “George", the marvellous Sperry automatic pilot which takes complete charge of aircraft, correcting the slightest change in course or altitude without the pilot's aid. Other special equipment includes oxygen installation, more machine-guns, the inter-communication system, navigational equipment, and installation, and a rubber dinghy for the crew which is inflated automatically on release. Also to be fitted are the auxiliary long-range fuel tanks and electrical bomb release gear
Two types of engines are fitted in the Hudsons, Wright Cyclones and Pratt and Whitney twin row Wasps, each of which develops over 1000 horse-power per engine. They were new to the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the makers at first sent their own experts to New Zealand for instructional purposes. The Lockheed Corporation has helped the assembly flight over the preliminary hurdles, and the makers of the Sperry automatic pilot sent experts to explain its workings.
The recent announcement by the Chief of the Air Staff (Air Commodore R. V. Goddard) that the number of New Zealand operational squadrons has increased sevenfold since Japan entered the war, indicates the importance and the amount of work the assembly flight.
PRESS, 12 SEPTEMBER 1942
U.S. AIRCRAFT ASSEMBLED IN SOUTH ISLAND
NEW ZEALAND'S AIR STRENGTH
[Specially Written for "The Press” by "AILERON. ]
To-day pilots of the Royal New Zealand Air Force are flying aircraft built for battle —Kittyhawk fighters like those in action over Egyptian desert and New Guinea jungle, and the same kind of sturdy Lockheed Hudson bombers used by the Royal Air Force for North Sea patrols. They fly these aircraft confident tm the knowledge that each one has been assembled by skilled riggers, fitters, and armourers who leave nothing to chance, and then in the test pilot's hands has been subjected to every strain and stress it might meet in combat.
Much of this assembly and testing is done at a Royal New Zealand Air Force station somewhere m the South Island. There Kitlyhawks arrive in crates, and Hudsons are towed in without their wings, airscrews, and empennage but they are soon ready to be flown away to operational stations in other parts of New Zealand by the bomber and fighter pilots who come to collect them. Both these types ot aircraft are American-built, and different engineering standards and the conversion of tools, spanners, stocks, dies, and equipment have presented some new assembly problems. Everything is done now, however, by men of the RNZA.F, without help from overseas aspects. For this work they are organised into an assembly flight, which includes experienced engine fitters, riggers, armourers, instrument makers, electricians, and equipment specialists. All the key personnel have specialised on the assembling, checking and testing of new aircraft since the war started. A number were engaged in this type of work before the war and have reached a high degree of proficiency. Since the beginning of the war no accident associated with the initial testing of service aircraft has been recorded. This is are markable record in view of the number of service aircraft in service in New Zealand.
Complicated Job
Putting a Kittyhawk together is a far more complicated job than assembly of a Tiger Moth trainer. This trim fighter, by far the newest and fastest aircraft in New Zealand, weighs nearly four tons. Into its comparatively small fuselage and wings must be fitted a liquid-cooled engine developing tremendous horse-power, petrol tanks, machine-guns, ammunition containers, instruments, armour plate, radio gear, and a complicated assortment of petrol, oil, and hydraulic pipe lines, and electrical connexions.
This task presents no difficulties to the assembly flight, for every man has been through a special course in Wellington, and all are thoroughly experienced in assembly methods. The Allison liquid-cooled engine, which is the power plant of most American fighters, was something entirely new to the R N Z.A.F., but now the fitters know all its workings, for a special group worked on it at a United States Army Air Force base in the Pacific.
The airframe of the Kittyhawk also not new to the riggers, for some of them were sent to the United States to work on it. As a result the specialised knowledge of the key men in the assembly flight enables them to put both Kittyhawks and Hudsons together as well as the makers, although they work to American standards of engineering and use different tools and dies.
When the Kittyhawk rolls off the assembly line in the United States the fuselage is complete with the engine, which has done its running on the test bench before installation. This reduces to some extent the time of assembly. Fuselage and engine are packed in one huge crate, and the wings, undercarriage, and equipment come in others. All are carefully packed and treated to prevent damage or corrosion by the sea air on the voyage to New Zealand, and generally everything arrives in first-class condition. When they are landed the Kittyhawks come to the R.N.Z.A.F, station at a time when road traffic is slack, for each crate weighs several tons, and is carried on special trucks.
First Stages
Inside the big hangar at the station where the assembly work goes on day, and night—there is no 40-hour week in the R.N.Z.A.F.—the fuselage and engine are unpacked first and carefully examined to see that nothing has been damaged. Then the crate is converted into a cradle to hold the fuselage until wings and undercarriage have been fitted. Next operation is to check the equipment lists to see that everything has been sent by the makers. The man who does this job has to know every part by sight as well as by name, for the lists he has may occupy anything up to 20 closely typed pages. By this time the assembly proper can begin. The flight is divided into groups, so many to each aircraft, and the parts are issued to the men.
Fitters go to work on the engine, riggers deal with the airframe, armourers work on the machine-guns, and various specialists concentrate on their particular sections of the assembly. Progressive methods are used so that at one end of them, there is a Kittyhawk waiting for the test pilot, and at the other end a machine is being uncrated. Appoximately 100 men are engaged, and they can have a machine ready on the aerodrome in the minimum of time.
When the wings and undercarriage have been mounted, and the tail is fitted, the Kittyhawk becomes more like an aircraft, and can be moved about more handily. The next stage is to install the fuel pipe lines; electrical gear, and other equipment. All gauges and instruments have to have their calibration and adjustment checked, and they are not flight tested before they leave the United States.
The machine-guns, which come packed solidly in grease, have to be cleaned before the firing gear can be checked. In action the pilot merely presses a button, but there is complicated mechanism to be installed before this simple operation can be carried out. There are several guns on the Kittyhawk—the exact number is secret—and all must be synchronised so that they fire together in one deadly burst. They are harmonised to converge at a point so many yards distant in front of the aircraft.
Systematic Check
All this time as the Kittyhawk grow under the skilled hands of the assembly groups there is a careful and systematic check on every part put into the aircraft. Each part has an assembly form to itself, and this is signed by the man responsible and the non-commissioned officer in charge of the group. There's a triple check by the senior n.c.o in charge of the flight.
With the self-sealing petrol tanks, and armour plate fitted, and the three bladed airscrew in position, the Kittyhawk is ready for ground testing. The engine is primed, the petrol tanks are filled with high octane fuel, and at the same time the fuel gauges are calibrated. Then the airscrew turns over in New Zealand air for the first time. The blade pitch angles of the airscrew are checked while the engine is in motion, and then the engine is run steadily until everything has been adjusted in conformity with the manufacturers’ specifications.
Finally before the Kittyhawk is handed over to the test and dispatch section, n.c.o. of each group makes a thorough inspection of all the assembly sheets. The flight commander . checks over everything again, and the job is done except for the minor adjusments that may be necessary after the test flights.
The assembly of the Hudsons follows much the same lines, although they are towed in without their wings, airscrews, and empennage which are crated separately. The main difference is that the Hudson has two engines, and also that there is a considerable amount of specialised equipment to be installed. Instead of unpacking the Hudson the assembly flight has to spend some time in uncovering it, for it always comes as deck cargo because of its size, and the manufacturers take no chances of corrosion or damage by water or sea air. Every opening is taped or covered with paper, and then sealed by spraying with a wax substance.
Varied Equipment
Some of the equipment that has to be installed in the Hudson has no counterpart in the Kittyhawk. There is the massive Boulton Paul gun turret which weighs 6cwt, and what the Royal Force knows as “George", the marvellous Sperry automatic pilot which takes complete charge of aircraft, correcting the slightest change in course or altitude without the pilot's aid. Other special equipment includes oxygen installation, more machine-guns, the inter-communication system, navigational equipment, and installation, and a rubber dinghy for the crew which is inflated automatically on release. Also to be fitted are the auxiliary long-range fuel tanks and electrical bomb release gear
Two types of engines are fitted in the Hudsons, Wright Cyclones and Pratt and Whitney twin row Wasps, each of which develops over 1000 horse-power per engine. They were new to the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the makers at first sent their own experts to New Zealand for instructional purposes. The Lockheed Corporation has helped the assembly flight over the preliminary hurdles, and the makers of the Sperry automatic pilot sent experts to explain its workings.
The recent announcement by the Chief of the Air Staff (Air Commodore R. V. Goddard) that the number of New Zealand operational squadrons has increased sevenfold since Japan entered the war, indicates the importance and the amount of work the assembly flight.
PRESS, 12 SEPTEMBER 1942
