BUILDING OF PLANES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 March 1939, Page 7

BUILDING OF PLANES

TWO HUGE UNITS PLANNED IN AUSTRALIA

AGREEMENT WITH BRITAIN. PRODUCTION OF MILITARY AIRCRAFT. By Telegraph--Press Association -Copyright SYDNEY March 29. The Prime Minister, Mr J. A. Lyons, announced today that the Cabinet has decided to authorise the erection immediately of two huge units for the production of complete military air-craft-one in Sydney and another in Melbourne—to be controlled by a central Commonwealth management committee. Mr Lyons said that an agreement had been reached between the Commonwealth and the British Government for a joint order involving millions of pounds for the production in Australia of a number of the latest type of "Beaufort” military and general reconnaissance aircraft

The engines for the planes will be applied by Britain for the time being, but emergency arrangements for engines to bo made in Australia will in due course be made and will thus be incorporated in the general production scheme.

Railway workshops in all the eastern States of Australia will be engaged in the construction -of standardised frames and the final assembly of the aircraft will be carried out in central workshops in Sydney and Melbourne. Delivery of the first batch of airframes is scheduled for 1940. Maximum production will be achieved about the middle of 1941.