Field capacity to repair, overhall, reconstuct, and build airplanes in W.W.I.I.

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Nick Pedley" wrote in message
...

"John Freck" wrote in message
om...
A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
parts?

Here's a couple of things I've picked from books and museums....

The 'Block and Cube' test at RAF Halton ....


I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
of man hours.

I'm impressed. I had trouble believing the old boy on his display stand at
an RAF Halton event last year. Just looking at the rough lumps of metal made
me wonder!

I assume any damaged remains would have been taken away for further
repair/disposal at a different location when time allowed, as suggested
by
other people here. Marshalls of Cambridge were involved in this and IIRC
there was a small airstrip somewhere in Anglia purely for a repair
factory,
allowing previously damaged aircraft to fly out.

Nick


Marshalls are based at Cambridge Airport, the runway
can handle aircraft of all sizes, the refurbish 747's and
Tri-Stars there.

Keith

Sorry, should have made myself clear. From reading books like 'Airfields of
the Eighth Army Air Force/9th AAF/Bomber Command/Fighter Command' etc, I
recall reading about a repair location which was little more than a barn
converted into a hangar with a bit of flat field, near a road. Not sure
where it was but am certain it wasn't the Marshalls operation at
Cambridge...

Nick

In message , Keith Willshaw
writes

"Nick Pedley" wrote in message
...

"John Freck" wrote in message
om...
A question has come up on anoouhter thread: Did airbases during
W.W.I.I have mini-factories near-by able to assemble airplanes from a
combination of recylced parts, mini-milled machine parts (ferrous
parts and aluminium parts, but not organic parts), and new spare
parts?

Here's a couple of things I've picked from books and museums....

The 'Block and Cube' test at RAF Halton involved each apprentice being
given
a rough lump of one metal and a thin square of another, object being to
shape each piece using workshop tools that would available at any decent
base they might go on to serve at. The shapes had to be a perfect square
cube with a block it would sit in, all done to specifications and by hand.
I was told this would enable the manufacture of most, if not all, needed
parts that were otherwise unavailable.


I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
of man hours

Me, too. For English Electric in '49. File and scraper work. And plenty
of 'Blue'.

Mike
--
M.J.Powell

"M. J. Powell" wrote:


I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
of man hours

Me, too. For English Electric in '49. File and scraper work. And plenty
of 'Blue'.

Mike

Yes, good old 'mechanic's blue', takes me back...
--

-Gord.

"M. J. Powell" wrote in message
...
In message , Keith Willshaw
writes


I did this as part of my mechanical fitters apprenticeship
for ICI in 1968. Its bloody har work and takes a LOT
of man hours

Me, too. For English Electric in '49. File and scraper work. And plenty
of 'Blue'.

Thats the drill , file it square and scrape the top flat checking
with a surface plate.

Keith

"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message ...

"John Freck" wrote in message
om...

Snip


Why did you write the above? Today, a corporation specialized to
manufacturing small propeller aircraft for the leisure and corporate
market does exist.

I fail to see the link between the construction of modern small
leisure aircraft, which does NOT involve the construction of
engines, and the assembly of WWII aircraft engines.


As far as I know, the VEro Beach, Florida Piper plant is a full
assemble plant. Please back up your statement that the Vero Beach,
Florida Piper plant doesn't "do" complete assemble. The link is
conceptual. My case was purely conceptual as first before becoming
concrete. I defended these related notions and climed nothing more
for them than notions:

All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
1st, 1940:

1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
services to fighter command.
b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.


The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane. The military
itself had military personnel and civialian military personnel
manufacturing new planes. Hundreds of second tier facilities existed
on airbases of less size, and smaller ones had third tier facilities.
In the fact of concrete evidnese that the military did do this very
similarly to my concepts based on real world understanding and bit and
peices of interviews and book mentions--you should drop out, drip in,
and tune on.

By the way a mini-mill is a metal recycling mill that uses finished
metals from junk, or large slabs or ingots of metal. The metal
milling at the plant mentioned by Tex isn't likely to be making
millions of tons of steel a year using iron ore just mined from the
earth close by. Nor did this plant likely have alumium smelters as
all alumium would be from 100% alumium content inputs be it from a
smelter in the form of ingots or from damaged parts of a plane.


I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.

I suggest you Google for shops capable of overhauling WWII
aircraft engines. You will find that these are highly specialised
in this business.


Today, I suppose, I wonder if the RAF can overhaul a Merlin today?
I wonder if the RAF will over haul a Euro-fighter? They will ship it
back
to some factory well away from any airbase, uh?

Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
large W.W.I.I. airbase.

On the contrary, they would as a rule be built on or near a large
airbase, because aircraft manufacturers needed to flight-test their
aircraft before delivery! There were a handful of exceptions; IIRC
Brewster built its aircraft in the city and some assembly was even
done on the second floor. That was, however, recognized to be
an absurd and undesirable situation.


Good. Airplanes are inherently made near airports, or airbases,
runways...


But no military airbase would be involved in the construction of
its own aircraft. They might do re-assembly of aircraft shipped
in crates, in itself quite a challenge.


Poor RAF just can muster the skilled labor, huh?
Too hard for them?


Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.

So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
frame of reference?

Recycling parts is not the same as assembling engines. Normally,
bases would not be assembling engines, not even overhauling them;
they would be shipped back to the manufacturer or to a maintenance
center.



What do you thnk a "base" is? A maintenace center is compatible with
core military missions.
All bases and forts I have every been on have had maintenance centers.
The maintenance centers
are the factories I'm talking about, the mills I'm talking about...

I see you just wanted me to use the vocabualry right!

I read the read of your crap, it was crap.

John Freck

"John Freck" wrote in message
om...
"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...

"John Freck" wrote in message
om...

Snip


Why did you write the above? Today, a corporation specialized to
manufacturing small propeller aircraft for the leisure and corporate
market does exist.

I fail to see the link between the construction of modern small
leisure aircraft, which does NOT involve the construction of
engines, and the assembly of WWII aircraft engines.


As far as I know, the VEro Beach, Florida Piper plant is a full
assemble plant. Please back up your statement that the Vero Beach,
Florida Piper plant doesn't "do" complete assemble. The link is
conceptual. My case was purely conceptual as first before becoming
concrete. I defended these related notions and climed nothing more
for them than notions:

All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
1st, 1940:

1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
services to fighter command.
b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.


The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane. The military
itself had military personnel and civialian military personnel
manufacturing new planes. Hundreds of second tier facilities existed
on airbases of less size, and smaller ones had third tier facilities.
In the fact of concrete evidnese that the military did do this very
similarly to my concepts based on real world understanding and bit and
peices of interviews and book mentions--you should drop out, drip in,
and tune on.

By the way a mini-mill is a metal recycling mill that uses finished
metals from junk, or large slabs or ingots of metal. The metal
milling at the plant mentioned by Tex isn't likely to be making
millions of tons of steel a year using iron ore just mined from the
earth close by. Nor did this plant likely have alumium smelters as
all alumium would be from 100% alumium content inputs be it from a
smelter in the form of ingots or from damaged parts of a plane.


I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.

I suggest you Google for shops capable of overhauling WWII
aircraft engines. You will find that these are highly specialised
in this business.


Today, I suppose, I wonder if the RAF can overhaul a Merlin today?
I wonder if the RAF will over haul a Euro-fighter? They will ship it
back
to some factory well away from any airbase, uh?

Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
large W.W.I.I. airbase.

On the contrary, they would as a rule be built on or near a large
airbase, because aircraft manufacturers needed to flight-test their
aircraft before delivery! There were a handful of exceptions; IIRC
Brewster built its aircraft in the city and some assembly was even
done on the second floor. That was, however, recognized to be
an absurd and undesirable situation.


Good. Airplanes are inherently made near airports, or airbases,
runways...


But no military airbase would be involved in the construction of
its own aircraft. They might do re-assembly of aircraft shipped
in crates, in itself quite a challenge.


Poor RAF just can muster the skilled labor, huh?
Too hard for them?


Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.

So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
frame of reference?

Recycling parts is not the same as assembling engines. Normally,
bases would not be assembling engines, not even overhauling them;
they would be shipped back to the manufacturer or to a maintenance
center.



What do you thnk a "base" is? A maintenace center is compatible with
core military missions.
All bases and forts I have every been on have had maintenance centers.
The maintenance centers
are the factories I'm talking about, the mills I'm talking about...

I see you just wanted me to use the vocabualry right!

I read the read of your crap, it was crap.

John Freck

"John Freck" wrote in message
om...
"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...

"John Freck" wrote in message
om...

Snip


Why did you write the above? Today, a corporation specialized to
manufacturing small propeller aircraft for the leisure and corporate
market does exist.

I fail to see the link between the construction of modern small
leisure aircraft, which does NOT involve the construction of
engines, and the assembly of WWII aircraft engines.


As far as I know, the VEro Beach, Florida Piper plant is a full
assemble plant. Please back up your statement that the Vero Beach,
Florida Piper plant doesn't "do" complete assemble. The link is
conceptual. My case was purely conceptual as first before becoming
concrete. I defended these related notions and climed nothing more
for them than notions:


So you are agreeing with Emmanuel, the Vero beach plant
assembles light aircraft but doesnt build its own engines

All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
1st, 1940:

1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
services to fighter command.

Fighter command wasnt short of fuel or skilled
labour. The only thing it was short of was trained
fighter pilots and experience has shown that trying
to put bomber or transport pilots into fighters is
disastrous. The skill sets are too different.

b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.


One more.

You cant make Spitfire wings , a complex monocoque structure
in a factory that builds wings for Wellington bombers that have
a geodesic aluminium structure covered in fabric,

You cant use the air cooled radial engines the bomber uses
in a Spitfire or Hurricane

Such a switch wouldnt produce new fighter airframes
until 1943 at the earliest


The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane.

Tex said nothing of the sort, He referred to the Burtonwood
REPAIR depot. Like the Catle Bromwich site it was ordered
by the British in 1938 but wasnt fully operational until 1941.

It was handed over to the USAAF in 1942 and while it repaired and
refurbished
aircraft and rebuilt aircraft engines and assembled aircraft
shipped as kits from the USA it didnt build a single new aircraft
from scratch

Similarly the RAF used civil aviation repair facilities during the
BOB, I've already mentioned Marshall's of Cambridge

The military
itself had military personnel and civialian military personnel
manufacturing new planes. Hundreds of second tier facilities existed
on airbases of less size, and smaller ones had third tier facilities.
In the fact of concrete evidnese that the military did do this very
similarly to my concepts based on real world understanding and bit and
peices of interviews and book mentions--you should drop out, drip in,
and tune on.


In other words if the facts dont support you fantasy just ignore them.

By the way a mini-mill is a metal recycling mill that uses finished
metals from junk, or large slabs or ingots of metal. The metal
milling at the plant mentioned by Tex isn't likely to be making
millions of tons of steel a year using iron ore just mined from the
earth close by. Nor did this plant likely have alumium smelters as
all alumium would be from 100% alumium content inputs be it from a
smelter in the form of ingots or from damaged parts of a plane.


No the Aluminium it used would be mainly in the form
of sheet material bought from an Aluminium smelter.

The manufacture of aircraft grade aluminium isnt something
you can do in a mini-mill as you'd realise if you new anything
about engineering or metallurgy.


I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.

I suggest you Google for shops capable of overhauling WWII
aircraft engines. You will find that these are highly specialised
in this business.


Today, I suppose, I wonder if the RAF can overhaul a Merlin today?

No they get Rolls Royce to do that

I wonder if the RAF will over haul a Euro-fighter? They will ship it
back
to some factory well away from any airbase, uh?


No they'll do routine repairs on the base but the aircraft
are built by British Aerospace.

Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
large W.W.I.I. airbase.

On the contrary, they would as a rule be built on or near a large
airbase, because aircraft manufacturers needed to flight-test their
aircraft before delivery! There were a handful of exceptions; IIRC
Brewster built its aircraft in the city and some assembly was even
done on the second floor. That was, however, recognized to be
an absurd and undesirable situation.


Good. Airplanes are inherently made near airports, or airbases,
runways...


Of course all major aircraft manufacturers have their own runways


But no military airbase would be involved in the construction of
its own aircraft. They might do re-assembly of aircraft shipped
in crates, in itself quite a challenge.


Poor RAF just can muster the skilled labor, huh?
Too hard for them?


No they are just too busy keeping the aircraft flying


Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.

So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
frame of reference?

Recycling parts is not the same as assembling engines. Normally,
bases would not be assembling engines, not even overhauling them;
they would be shipped back to the manufacturer or to a maintenance
center.



What do you thnk a "base" is? A maintenace center is compatible with
core military missions.
All bases and forts I have every been on have had maintenance centers.
The maintenance centers
are the factories I'm talking about, the mills I'm talking about...


They didnt build new aircraft, just repaired existing ones

I see you just wanted me to use the vocabualry right!

I read the read of your crap, it was crap.


Grow up will you.

Keith

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message ...



Look at the post of mine just before Tex's post.
Why don't you post anuthr right behind it?



"John Freck" wrote in message
om...


"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...

Snip

As far as I know, the VEro Beach, Florida Piper plant is a full
assemble plant. Please back up your statement that the Vero
Beach,
Florida Piper plant doesn't "do" complete assemble. The link is
conceptual. My case was purely conceptual as first before
becoming
concrete. I defended these related notions and climed nothing
more
for them than notions:

So you are agreeing with Emmanuel, the Vero beach plant
assembles light aircraft but doesnt build its own engines



I don't know the specifics, but I know that I don't see any great
piles of unprocessed iron ore, chromium ore, alminium ore, ect. I
don't see or smell a large crude oil to crude plasitics plant there
either. I conceptually understand that this Piper plant has finished
parts sent to it by many suppliers, and they buy many ready made
off-the-shelf products too such as screws, botls, fastners, ect. This
plant probably makes nothing from utter base raw materials. As far as
I know, Piper is a maker of aircraft engines. What is done at this
plant and what is done at their other plants and the intra-corporate
trade? I don't have the facts--it is just an assemble plant on or
near an airport.


All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
1st, 1940:

1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
services to fighter command.

Fighter command wasnt short of fuel or skilled
labour. The only thing it was short of was trained
fighter pilots and experience has shown that trying
to put bomber or transport pilots into fighters is
disastrous. The skill sets are too different.

I didn't mention pilots. As far as fuel goes, I have heard interview
with folks saying other groups didn't have fuel and that is why the
didn't fighter as not to waste resources. The RAf was very resouce
aware.



b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.


One more.

You cant make Spitfire wings , a complex monocoque structure
in a factory that builds wings for Wellington bombers that have
a geodesic aluminium structure covered in fabric,

Of course, you want to discuss the difficult of Spitfire increses, and
I am discussing the ease of Hurricane increases.




You cant use the air cooled radial engines the bomber uses
in a Spitfire or Hurricane

Such a switch wouldnt produce new fighter airframes
until 1943 at the earliest


The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane.

Tex said nothing of the sort, He referred to the Burtonwood
REPAIR depot. Like the Catle Bromwich site it was ordered
by the British in 1938 but wasnt fully operational until 1941.

It was handed over to the USAAF in 1942 and while it repaired and
refurbished
aircraft and rebuilt aircraft engines and assembled aircraft
shipped as kits from the USA it didnt build a single new aircraft
from scratch

Did any plant any where build a plane from acratch?

John Freck




Similarly the RAF used civil aviation repair facilities during the
BOB, I've already mentioned Marshall's of Cambridge

The military
itself had military personnel and civialian military personnel
manufacturing new planes. Hundreds of second tier facilities existed
on airbases of less size, and smaller ones had third tier facilities.
In the fact of concrete evidnese that the military did do this very
similarly to my concepts based on real world understanding and bit and
peices of interviews and book mentions--you should drop out, drip in,
and tune on.


In other words if the facts dont support you fantasy just ignore them.

By the way a mini-mill is a metal recycling mill that uses finished
metals from junk, or large slabs or ingots of metal. The metal
milling at the plant mentioned by Tex isn't likely to be making
millions of tons of steel a year using iron ore just mined from the
earth close by. Nor did this plant likely have alumium smelters as
all alumium would be from 100% alumium content inputs be it from a
smelter in the form of ingots or from damaged parts of a plane.


No the Aluminium it used would be mainly in the form
of sheet material bought from an Aluminium smelter.

The manufacture of aircraft grade aluminium isnt something
you can do in a mini-mill as you'd realise if you new anything
about engineering or metallurgy.


I will Google for a few minutes in a new window.

I suggest you Google for shops capable of overhauling WWII
aircraft engines. You will find that these are highly specialised
in this business.


Today, I suppose, I wonder if the RAF can overhaul a Merlin today?

No they get Rolls Royce to do that

I wonder if the RAF will over haul a Euro-fighter? They will ship it
back
to some factory well away from any airbase, uh?


No they'll do routine repairs on the base but the aircraft
are built by British Aerospace.

Why did you post the above information? Are you supporting the notion
that important and large fighters could not be built on and/or near a
large W.W.I.I. airbase.

On the contrary, they would as a rule be built on or near a large
airbase, because aircraft manufacturers needed to flight-test their
aircraft before delivery! There were a handful of exceptions; IIRC
Brewster built its aircraft in the city and some assembly was even
done on the second floor. That was, however, recognized to be
an absurd and undesirable situation.


Good. Airplanes are inherently made near airports, or airbases,
runways...


Of course all major aircraft manufacturers have their own runways


But no military airbase would be involved in the construction of
its own aircraft. They might do re-assembly of aircraft shipped
in crates, in itself quite a challenge.


Poor RAF just can muster the skilled labor, huh?
Too hard for them?


No they are just too busy keeping the aircraft flying


Your question specifically referred to assembling a new engine
from parts of *damaged* engines. This would be an extremely
foolhardy procedure, as absence of superficial damage would
by no means guarantuee that parts were still up to design strength.

So there was no recycling? Are you arguing purely from a conceptual
frame of reference?

Recycling parts is not the same as assembling engines. Normally,
bases would not be assembling engines, not even overhauling them;
they would be shipped back to the manufacturer or to a maintenance
center.



What do you thnk a "base" is? A maintenace center is compatible with
core military missions.
All bases and forts I have every been on have had maintenance centers.
The maintenance centers
are the factories I'm talking about, the mills I'm talking about...


They didnt build new aircraft, just repaired existing ones

I see you just wanted me to use the vocabualry right!

I read the read of your crap, it was crap.


Grow up will you.

Keith

FWIW I just recently viewed a Hurricane and a Zeke 32 being
constructed from "scratch" plus a pile of badly corroded pieces to
copy. There wasn't anything I saw there that required much more that
could be made in a decently equipped 'job shop'. The two shops didn't
have any unique tools either. Just lathes, milling machines, shear,
brake, drill press, hand tools, a thousand Clecos and lots of
material. The Hurricane surprised me in that the formers for the
fuselage were partially constructed of plywood. The aft half looked
rather like a 1:1 scale model aircraft. No, I won't tell you where
they are - they don't have time to spare for a flood of visitors.

"John Freck" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...




I don't know the specifics, but I know that I don't see any great
piles of unprocessed iron ore, chromium ore, alminium ore, ect. I
don't see or smell a large crude oil to crude plasitics plant there
either. I conceptually understand that this Piper plant has finished
parts sent to it by many suppliers, and they buy many ready made
off-the-shelf products too such as screws, botls, fastners, ect. This
plant probably makes nothing from utter base raw materials. As far as
I know, Piper is a maker of aircraft engines. What is done at this
plant and what is done at their other plants and the intra-corporate
trade? I don't have the facts--it is just an assemble plant on or
near an airport.


Piper dont build engines, they do however make aircraft


All related to options that an imgained SimWWII might allow from July
1st, 1940:

1) RAF fighter strenght can be increased.
a. Bomber command can provide fuel, skilled labor, and other goods and
services to fighter command.

Fighter command wasnt short of fuel or skilled
labour. The only thing it was short of was trained
fighter pilots and experience has shown that trying
to put bomber or transport pilots into fighters is
disastrous. The skill sets are too different.

I didn't mention pilots. As far as fuel goes, I have heard interview
with folks saying other groups didn't have fuel and that is why the
didn't fighter as not to waste resources. The RAf was very resouce
aware.


There was no shortage of fuel, producing airframes when you
dont have pilots to fly them isnt terribly helpful as both the
Germans and Japanese found.



b. Bomber production can be decreased quickly by allowing
manufacturing plants of bombers to loan to fighter manufacturing
plants skilled labor, materials, and other goods and services.


One more.

You cant make Spitfire wings , a complex monocoque structure
in a factory that builds wings for Wellington bombers that have
a geodesic aluminium structure covered in fabric,

Of course, you want to discuss the difficult of Spitfire increses, and
I am discussing the ease of Hurricane increases.


Neither was easy, neither could use the engines or structure
of a Wellington bomber




You cant use the air cooled radial engines the bomber uses
in a Spitfire or Hurricane

Such a switch wouldnt produce new fighter airframes
until 1943 at the earliest


The first point a. seems to be the most controversial by just a bit.
I claimed from conceptual awareness backed by some brief statements in
interviews I have heard here and there on the USA's History Channel,
and a bit from reading--that fighter ground support can be strenghted
as to allow on *major bases* air plane manufacturing. The example
provided by Tex was the largest of 20 or so top tier maintance
facilities that manufactured a variety of new plane.

Tex said nothing of the sort, He referred to the Burtonwood
REPAIR depot. Like the Catle Bromwich site it was ordered
by the British in 1938 but wasnt fully operational until 1941.

It was handed over to the USAAF in 1942 and while it repaired and
refurbished
aircraft and rebuilt aircraft engines and assembled aircraft
shipped as kits from the USA it didnt build a single new aircraft
from scratch

Did any plant any where build a plane from acratch?

John Freck


Not after about 1910 at a guess, modern aircraft production
requires MANY plants often owned by different companies
working in partnership.

Keith