MANUFACTURE OF AIRCRAFT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1939, Page 6

MANUFACTURE OF AIRCRAFT.

JS New Zealand to undertake the manufacture of aircraft? This is a question of considerable interest and importance presumably to be discussed at the Pacific defence conference in Wellington, the ground having been prepared by the investigations of a British Air Mission. In view of the scale on which the manufacture of aircraft has been developed and is being extended in Australia it may almost be taken for granted that a corresponding, though perhaps more limited, development will be undertaken in the near future in New Zealand. Australia is doing so much, with British help and. co-operation, that this Dominion would find itself in a somewhat ignominious position if it continued to depend wholly on imported aircraft. Australia is engaged already in Ihe manufacture of singleengined aeroplanes of which the first, the Wirraway No. 1, underwent successful tests a week or two ago. The machine is a wholly Australian product, frame and engine being manufactured in a factory the site of which was bare sand two years ago. The Wirraway planes, of which 100 are to be delivered to the Common wealth Government within twelve months, are claimed to be suitable for scouting, fighting and light bombing and to be capable of a better standard of performance than any machine at present in service in the Royal Australian Air Force. From this good beginning, Australia is proceeding to the production of double-engined aircraft, the Commonwealth and British Governments sharing equally the cost of an order running into some millions of pounds for planes of that type. The scheme provides for two central erection shops—one in Sydney and one in Melbourne —which will be fed from four main assembly units. These, in their turn, will be fed with parts and components manufactured, under sub-contract, in existing private factories. A proportion of the engines required for the larger planes are to be imported from Britain, but provision is being made for the manufacture of engines as well as frames in Australia. A load is thus given which New Zealand should be able to follow in some reasonable measure. The construction of both the frames and engines of at least light aeroplanes may be within the compass of New Zealand industry and Ihe establishment of this manufacture, apart from its immediate .importance from a defence standpoint and in other respects, might be expected to react beneficially upon general engineering and industrial progress in the Dominion.