BOMBER AN HOUR IS PRODUCTION GOAL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 119, 22 May 1942, Page 5

BOMBER AN HOUR IS PRODUCTION GOAL

HUGE FORD PLANT

First Of New 30-Ton Planes

Rolls Off Line

United Press Association.—Copyright. Rec. noon. DETROIT, May 21. nf r T A e £ r st Ford bomber has rolled vast I? assembly line in the vast Willow Run plant. The new noi ls technically described as the wei e hs 30 tons and is powered by four Pratt-Whitney 1250 horse-power motors with a cruising ge of 3000 miles and a speed of miles per hour. The bomber carries four tons of bombs. A Ford official revealed that the new factory expects to reach a rate or production of one bomber every hour, with workers doing three eighthour shifts when high-speed turnout is attained.

• example of the factory's amazmg efficiency is a huge milling machine, which is performing 11 operations simultaneously and reducing the time to construct the centrewing structure from several days to a fraction of an hour.

President Roosevelt has ordered Colonel Knox, Secretary for the Navy, to relinquish possession of three plants belonging to the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation which tne navy took over because the output was not satisfactory. The executive order said the President now finds the plants will be operated privately in a manner consistent with the war effort. Mr. Walter Tower, president of the American .ron and Steel Institute, in a speech at the annual meeting to-day, said that the industry now was consistently making over 7.000,000 tons of steel a® month* Every time the clock ticks, three tons of steel are being poured somewhere in the United States. Steel mills are now making nearly twice the tonnage of plates of all the rest of the world. The United States P , e ™,F ure a ' one next month will be 1,000,000 tons.

The Ford bomber plant at Willow Run is the largest factory of its kind in the whi 'h was built on a vast si 'e "n \%hkh there was an experimental sova bean garden in 1941. The plant, which was opened at the beginning of April began production with 7000 workers At pe 2.u P roducti 9 n 11 c an employ 110.000. The cost of the buildings and eauipTifr « as estln ] ated at 160,000,000 dollars. ?7nn nnn° rs ' including hangars, total 3.700,000 square feet. The adjacent airport is reported to be the largest in the world, covering 720 acres with seven runways over a mile long.