A CRADLE OF EAGLES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16166, 21 March 1918, Page 5

A CRADLE OF EAGLES.

WHERE AEROPLANES ARE MADE. THINKING IN MILLIONS. (IT.oil OCT. OWN* CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, January 11. Let us suppose that these widespread roofs arc .somewhere in the Midlands. It does not matter much where, for there arc similar and greater establishments at half a dozen places in England, and not one of them is Troy Town. Before the war you had to get your own conveyance to come so far out of town. To-day there aro ten special trains carrying 1000 people cach running morning and evening; a garage of 4/ motor 'buses; land a subsidy on a dozen or two moro. Many thousand people have concentrated their work on these few acres, and the new social conditions of to-day demand that every one of them must bo better housed, better fed, and more comfortable in life than they- were before 1914. It is only so that intelligent people can bo kept fresh and interested in tho overpowering monotony of modern specialised industry.

SETTLING THE LAJBOUR. This is not altogether a creation of the war,; that is to say, long before the war the nucleus of tho factory was here, making motors under some disadvantages. To-day, having expanded 700 per cent., it has outgrown its disabilities of site, and has standardised intensely, not merely the processes of manufacture, but the policy of welfaro for the workers. Tremendous questions of worker migration are involved in these new lap tones. When these works got the command to expand, its organiser of victory evolved a scliemc of labour recruiting and grading, which reached from 1 enzancc to tho Shctlands, and drew so successfully that the Ministry of Munitions itself called a halt. It is one thing to get labour—quite another to keep it. And, having seen so many munition factories before, 1 found myself here fascinated by the complexity of the social experiment. 'The labour has to be encouraged to livo within reach, but it was obviously out of tho question to make a, permanent settlement of so many thousand people when the end of the ar is bound to induce a great re-scttie-mcnt A few thousands actually live on the spot, but the great majority come in by bus and train. That accounts for the different coloured caps that the "iris wear red, or blue, or kliaki—to i indicate the particular hostel to which they belong, and so facilitate t.io rapid lloading, morning and evening, or tho I great fleet of motor buses. A mile or ; two in living radius does not matter a j great deal in these motor days. _ Indeed, it is an advantage from a hygienic point of view. . The feeding of munition workers 'ranks almost with that of soldiers; and these people have a vast- food store and dining-room from which they serve 15,000 lunches per day—more than the greatest London caterers, under one roof. The same personal care for tho workers permeates the whole establishment. It is the strangest possible experience to see in all these great works of to-day arrows pointing to the "WelI faro Department," and to learn that • these employers are glad to keep at their own expense welfaro staffs, who ' aro to all intents and purposes devil's advocates against ' themselves, convey- ; ing grievances and complaints and gct- • ting them put right. More than ono employer with whom I discussed the matter said they were glad to have the welfare and trades union officials, who greatly facilitated the necessary minor negotiations with the workers. Another important feature of social welfare is the library and institute, where regular courses of lectures in aviation and engineering are given, and the workers can go through preliminaryeducation for promotion.

A MAZE OF SPECIALTIES. These works make no pretence to be the, greatest, even in this particular region of the Midlands; but they arc a most, impressive microcosm of a manysided modern industry. There is none of the old-fashioned Victorian system of watertight compartments and small dark rooms giving refuge and seclusion to groups of workers. The sliop3 are on the modern style—wide-flung, single floors, with a flood of light coming through the roofs, and class partitions giving a quarter-mile view of humming, thronged interiors. I I ruled out the forcings and motor lorries and sundries because I had come for the specific objcct of seeing aeroplanes made. But it was refreshing to stumble across red-hot shells rolling to their next process, and to see in such airy and bright surroundings the hell's work of forging, which I had seen before in the hellish surroundings of the Tyne and Clyde, where the shops are, more on the old close-walled style. As ] if to emphasise the humanising of the thing, one finds the great cranes which hoist the blazing forgings out of the furnaces, all worked by women, with as much nonchalance and p.ise as if they were signalling the score at a ping-pong party. We know quito well that tradi-; tion would have barred them from this work more inexorably than the walls themselves had the war not overthrown. tradition from its pedestal. i

RETOURNONSI But to return to our mutton. The construction of a modern aeroplane is a triumph of specialisation and standardised detail. Apart from tho frame on which the engine is seated, an aeroplane is constructed of a cobweb mass of thin feather-weight laths of spruce, fashioned into a myriad of latticed ribs and edges. Any one of the laths can be bent double by a child or snapped as easily as a match. But, as the Belgian motto says, "Lo Union fait la Force." These thousands of small fragments each bear their infinitesimal share of the burden, so that if a rib, or something more than a rib, is broken, the fabric suffers no shock, and scarcely perceptible weakening. There are no roof poles or ridges upon which individually the safety of the machine depends . Every little six-inch lath, weighing as much as a lend. pencil, is a specialised job, but in multiple is one of those "jigs" or patterns by which tho absolute accuracy of all the woodwork is preserved. The smaller pieces are turned out in thousands, the larger in hundreds, all mechanically accurate so that a certain part would fit into its place in any one of tho three thousand to four thousand planes which come from these works in a year. The piecing together of the fan-shaped rudder and planes and of the pear-shaped ribs cannot miscarry, for the same female hands are working deftly on the same minute division of labour week in and week out. There are no "shakes" in spruce. There scarcely could be any which would matter in such tiny wafers as they use. A single small rib about a foot long and four inches wide may contain twenty or more pieces of wood, each one of which has been inspected for cracks. No nails are driven. They are pushed into the wood so as not to jar. Lest there might be workers careless enough to slum their joinery, healthy admonitions whisper down from the Welsh latticed rafters, as this: "A concealed mistake may loso a brave man his life." Each of these small specialised jobs passes on with its responsibility clearly marked on its face. Tho date and the name of the worker are rubber-stamped on the fragment, and it goes forward to the next stage of assembly. As a matter of fact, there are very few "throw outs" for the "jig" checks its own work as it goes along. Every single operation, even to the boring of screw holes, is done by the "jig," so that any whole part from a wrecked machine could be transferred to another without weakening by boring new holes.

The heavier end of the work is the sawing mill, where the spruce logs— from Norway, Russia, Canada, and the Home Country—aro broken down through all stages from the rough to the finished lath. The heaviest pieces of timber which go into the aeroplane are those forming tho frame on which the engine sits. They aro light enough, but weight is still saved by "recessing" the sides, i.e.. boring out hollows with spindl# drills. FOR FLIGHT. From stage to stage the ships pass through the assembly room unuL tho coiuxneto plane sections and rudders and edge planes emerge upon the "doping'* process. Here the canvas is sown on, and at the next stage tiie parts, with the blue, whito, and red discs and tail inarKs of the British lighting plane, pass on to the final floor. Sitting in Jong rows, facing tho doors, like gulls eager for flight, they have their engines installed, and ; pass out to tho flying ground. They aro single 6eaters, and the little tubby hole in which the airman sits, close to his engine and gearing, js a marvel of intricacy and clock laces. Before him are dials telling the state of tho oil supply, the height, tho revolutions, the air "speed, the temperature, and finally a compass. .between his legs are his starting handles; his rest on the steering levers. At his left hand is tho machine gun, firing out forward and through the propeller, the shot synchronising witn tno engine to avoid hitting tno biades. And above his head is the Lewis gun. It is impossible to peer into this well of wonders without a feeling of emotion and admiration for the gallant young spirits who go up to tho clouds to do battle for us. When they drum up off the turf they are so palpably "ail in," so absolutely dependent on their own wits and courage, so open to tho quick death of the machine gun bullet if once they fell into its arc.

FACTORS OF SPECIALISATION. It is irresistibly borne in upon us that this sort of industry, though, it produces the highest possible output per worker in the shortest possible time, presents great obstacles to change. It is eminently necessary that one factory should produce only ] ono type of machine, and should remain on that work as iong as possible. If a change is ordered all the patterns must be scrapped, and new "jigs" made, and this is such a troublesome job that possibly six months would bo lost by the entire factory in changing to a new type or output. , "There is nothing whatever that a girl cannot do in aeroplane work," tho "Aerowood" manager said to rie. "They can build a plane from beginning to end, and are " much better for the fine work than the men. ' We never put them into the mill —where the_ sawmg and 'recessing' is done—simply because it would tend to spoil the fineness of their touch." Nor is there any need to. This is an engineer's war, not a wood-worker's, and ther© has always up now been an ample supply of skilled men. These people have not had to keep a single eligible in Aerowood. Coach-builders are not a particular success. Like the older workers, they have too many ideas of their own. * Tho carpenter who has been in the habit of putting things together is par excellence the aerowood worker.

ROMANCE MOVES ON. In comparison with aeroplanes other weapons of to-dav fail in significance and fascination. They are losing their romance and passing into the back 'pagos of history, just as the epoch, events of a year or two ago have passed. At certain metal works t in the same region, 1 saw on the o&co wall a tablet "In memory of those who served their country, happily without loss of life, in South Africa, the Bermudas, aua Homo.'' What would they think if tliey could soo this war and its manifold revelations? Probably these metal works were glad enough to let some of their men go to the war. To-day the war is being fought in the forges and in tliet air. These works have expanded • to double their pro-war size, and many times their output. They are producing brass and brass extrusions to the full limit of their capacity for getting hold of raw material. They are turning out small arm cartridges day and night—Lebel for France, Mark VII. for Great Britain, and Regulation type for Roumania. For ail these special plant was laid down. T saw the whole day's output, and covcted with a child's eyes the glittering barrels of gold and silver beans and cones and tiny bottles that are the bullets- and v caps and cartridges cases of modern war.