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Post by madmax on Jul 30, 2017 13:52:28 GMT 12
I would like to add comments about the 3 images supplied by Paul Sheehan and posted by Dave Homewood on 10 July.
Image 1 depicts the Government hangar, referred to at that time as the CAA hangar about to be moved. It was raised and several trucks positioned under it which were then driven very,very slowly the half kilometer or so to the present site. It I recall correctly the trucks were (wire) roped together in order that they travelled in unison otherwise the structure would have been torn apart.This hangar was originally built to house PAF Blackburn Baffins
As a young lad I watched these proceeding each day after school. The Council hangar was the first to be shifted after which it became the de Havilland hangar.
Image 2 would probably have been taken in early 1939 prior to the de Havilland facility being built. On the extreme right can be seen the NZ Exhibition building.
Inage 3 would have been taken a year or two earlier prior to construction of the Government hangar. On the extreme right, in the centre of the picture can be seen a cluster of buildings, the second structure from the left is the Air Work facility. In the righthand foreground of this image is a grassed area which was where the first Avro 504s of NZ Aero Transport Co and Canterbury Aviation Co operated in 1921. They operated from the area in the immediate foreground between the fence that juts out on the right and the darkened area to the left. The original hangar was built here.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 19, 2017 19:31:49 GMT 12
Evening Post" Photo. Women and girls do their part at the De Havilland Aircraft Company's factory at Rongotai. These girls are fabric workers, busy with overhaul and repair when this photograph was taken; others do the intricate work of building wing trusses. (Evening Post, 05 June 1940) National Library
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 28, 2017 21:19:56 GMT 12
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 7, 2019 13:11:39 GMT 12
An article from the Evening Post, dated 21 August 1941, about this factory:
TRAINER AIRCRAFT
BUILT IN NEW ZEALAND
D.H. FACTORY ACHIEVEMENT
INDUSTRY THAT GREW
Decided upon by the parent British company early in 1939, when war threatened but peace was not beyond hope, as one of the chain of Empire civil aircraft factories, the De Havilland Company's factory at Rongotai has grown far beyond the original proposals and has become a foundation part of the development of the R.N.Z.A.F., for in it have been built the greater number of trainer craft in which Air Force flying begins. The total of planes flown away from Rongotai to the various Air Force stations is now very large, and more are on the way.
From the six men who began the factory's work towards the end of 1939, and who just before Christmas of that year rolled out the first six planes, the factory staff has grown now to 225 men and women, and whereas initial operations were straight assembly out of the cases, bolts, nuts, and some rivets, a repaint, and away -- the factory has more and more worked toward full manufacture of airframes from bulk material; of the last 86 planes the wings, fuselage, and tail assembly are a good 90 per cent New Zealand-made.
Engines, instruments, landing wheels, tyres, and a few special parts are imported from Britain finished for assembly, but otherwise timber (mainly Canadian spruce), steel in rod and section, aluminium plate and sections, special ply woods and covering come in in bulk. Except for engines, the New Zealand De Havilland factory duplicates the manufacturing processes of the parent company, for instruments, specialised parts, and equipment are almost universally built by specialising firms; in fact, the New Zealand factory goes one step further, by building its light craft air-screws on the spot; in Britain they are made outside the De Havilland factory.
WOMEN TAKING A BIG PART. The wings of the Tiger Moth, adopted as the standard initial trainer in Elementary Flying Training Schools throughout the Empire Air Forces, are of wood and fabric, built of a multitude of bits and pieces, exactly cut, exactly finished, and exactly placed, to obtain extraordinary strength for weight, and covered with linen aeroplane cloth. The machining of timber is done by men, but detail wing building is largely done by women and girls. There are 30 in the factory now,, and more will be engaged wherever they can replace men called up for service.
Jigs are the foundation of aeroplane production—jigs for the score of sections that are built into the wing, jigs for holding fuselage tubing in position for welding, jigs for small parts, and more for bringing detail sections together for assembly stage by stage. All these scores of jigs were built on the spot from master drawings during the gradual transition from the 1939 assembly stage to full airframe manufacture, under the instruction and supervision of the six key men who founded the factory.
FIRST NEW ZEALAND GIRL WELDER. Girls also do most of the fabric work, but the manufacture of metal parts, main assembly of the built sections, and engine, instrument, and electrical installation are so far done by men. In Britain and in other overseas factories women have shown full competency in aircraft work, and at Rongotai one girl, Miss Margaret Dickinson, has set off in work new to women in New Zealand. She is the first to pass the stiff tests set for the aircraft welder and works alongside men welders in building tubular steel fuselage frames, angle pieces, and attachment sections which' give strength at vital points, stitching the metal with an, oxy-acetylene needle at 6000 degrees Fahrenheit.
AIR-SCREW -MANUFACTURE. Away from the main factory is a new development, air-screw manufacture, commenced about the beginning of this year. Until then all air screws were imported; now they are being built at the rate of two a day, with a first order of 150 light screws and a large number of heavies for service types for the Air Force. Queensland maple and mahogany are used, for as for wing construction, no New Zealand timber is suitable in weight, tough texture, and clearness of grain in the board widths and lengths required.
Six sections go to the standard laminated light propeller. These are roughed out by band saw, press-glued, and given 28 days to toughen before being hand-worked to the fine tolerances permitted by the master gauges. Balance is checked repeatedly as the shaping proceeds, and checked again and again as the metal protection of the leading edge is applied, with doped fabric over that. So true is the balance that when the knife edge rolling test is made with the finished air screw a puff of the spray gun gives the last touch.
The largest propeller made in this section is for the Hawker Hind; it measures 10ft 9in from tip to tip. The Tiger Moth screw is comparatively a lightweight, and is 6ft 9in long, but the bantam is a long way down, 10 inches long and weighing a few ounces; these miniatures are used to drive aircraft radio generators.
Overhaul and repair of propellers from the various Air Force bases is a steady part of the work of this section; about 150 have been reconditioned and have gone back to service. Wooden air screws for service planes are also being manufactured in considerable numbers at a Petone factory.
BEGINNING ON TWIN-ENGINED PLANES. Further removed again is a third development of the aircraft industry, overflowed from the main factory. Here light planes are overhauled and repaired, but more interesting in its significance of future expansion is the maintenance, overhaul, and repair, and the beginning of part manufacture, of the twin-engined Airspeed Oxford, the parent and overseas factories of which were taken over by the De Havilland Company last year. This is the forerunner of the next stage of development, the actual manufacture in New Zealand of larger and more advanced types.
Light aircraft manufacture, too, began in a small way less than two years ago. and in that short time a skilled staff has been trained, production organisation has been built, and a great many trainer planes have been built and have flown off to one or other of the R.N.Z.A.F. flying schools.
War orders naturally speeded the growth of the aircraft industry in New Zealand, but with the far greater use of air transport which will inevitably follow when peace returns there is all the probability of still wider expansion, not of shrinkage, in post-war years. It is highly improbable that the year will come when every motorist will carry his A licence and when one back garden in every five will have its hangar, but the certainty is that five will use air transport as the natural way of getting there where one flies today; and Wellington will be caught out very badly if the present easy satisfaction with Rongotai's inadequate landing field and facilities persists.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 7, 2019 13:18:01 GMT 12
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Post by davidd on Aug 8, 2019 11:59:43 GMT 12
Fascinating stuff Dave, but note that the scheme for DH's to build Airspeed Oxfords in NZ did not get very far, probably because of logistic difficulties, and fact that it was still far easier to ship new Oxfords from UK to NZ than to set up a production line here, when many parts of the aircraft would still require to be manufactured in the UK. DH's had an Oxford set aside at Rongotai in 1941 with the intention being to give it a major overhauls (intended to be the first of many), but this never got underway for some reason, so this aircraft was returned to RNZAF and was eventually overhauled by them. However DH's did start to manufacture Oxford components such as tailplanes and elevators, and, as alluded to in the section on aircraft propellers, Oxford props were also manufactured at Rongotai by DHs. Smaller engine parts were also manufactured by NZ industry, including piston rings, plastic components, and the rubber inflators for mainwheel brakes, termed as "capsules", by Skellerup in Christchurch I think (drawing on their experience of making children's balloons prewar, although early "capsules" made by them were considered to be sub-standard!) David D
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 8, 2019 12:22:26 GMT 12
Yes interesting stuff indeed David. I knew that Oxford manufacture had not eventuated on the full scale, but I thought they had taken over the overhauling of Oxfords so that is interesting to find out it never eventuated either. I see to recall reading some Oxfords were getting overhauled at No. 3 Repair Depot in Tuam Street, Christchurch (towed there I am sure). Or was it just Oxford engines getting the overhaul there? Or is my memory totally wrong there?
I thought it was interesting that some of the props were being built by a private firm in Petone. Any idea who that was?
Did de Havillands ever build the Vincent and Vildebeest props? I guess they won't have done Baffin props a they were out of service by late 1941.
Skellerup is probably one of the last of the sub-contractors that are still actually extant now.
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