AUSTRALIAN PLANES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 August 1938, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN PLANES

LARGE-SCALE PRODUCTION. PROGRESS OF THE SCHEME. The work of assembling the first Australian-built fighting aeroplanes for the Royal Australian Air Force will be begun at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation’s factory at Fish- > ermen’s Bend, Melbourne, in about six months. Production will be on a large scale, and. as soon as it is in full operation aeroplanes will emerge from the assembly lines every few days. Parts will be ready for 40 or 50 complete aircraft at the one time. The magnitude of this task will be realised from that fact that there are about 10,000 separate parts in each body of an aeroplane, held together by half a million or so rivets, and that each engine is of 600 different units and 4500 component parts. The Wirraways, as the fighting aeroplanes will be called, will be as Australian as their name. Every part of the engines will be Australian-made. The Wirraways will be an advance on the American model N.A. 33 aeroplanes, for they will incorporate important Australian modifications to enable British armament and bombs to be used. Fewer than 20 of the present staff of 437 men at the factory had worked at aircraft construction six months ago. "Soon there will be 900 men at work on day and night shifts. Production can be extended up to 600 per cent. If necessary, a slipway for fly-ing-boats can be built on the river across the road opposite the factory.