AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 November 1943, Page 4

AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY

GREAT DEVELOPMENT IN AUSTRALIA QUESTION OF POST-WAR PROTECTION. DISCUSSED IN SYDNEY. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 11. A warning that the Australian aircraft industry, developed amazingly during the war, is in danger of being crippled in the post-war years if it is not imaginatively handled is given by a special correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald.” The writer says that plans to produce new types of combat aircraft as well as transport planes were disapproved by official American interests in close touch with the Federal Cabinet. They claimed that these aircraft could be supplied from America and Britain and that local production would, therefore, be a waste of manufacturing resources and manpower. “FEARS INTENSIFIED.” Expressing fears for the “very existence” of Australia’s aircraft industry, the correspondent says that such fears are intensified by the recent Cabinet announcement that an unspecified number of aircraft workers are to be transferred to work of higher priority. The writer says that Australian airmen in the South-West Pacific are not yet flying four-engined bombers or long-distance fighters, such as American Liberators and Lightnings and that transport planes for this theatre are still required in larger numbers. He adds: “Even if the oversea output should become so favourable by 1945 that Britain and America find themselves in a position to supply us with adequate numbers of aircraft of the types needed here, it is debatable whether, from a national point of view, we should view with equanimity a situation which would inevitably lead to a decline of the Australian aircraft industry. MILITARILY INDEFENSIBLE. “For Australia to revert to her helpless pre-war position of being entirely dependent for her defence upon the willingness and ability of other countries to send her fighters and bombers is militarily indefensible. “Neither is it any argument to say that we cannot compete against American mass production methods or that Australia can purchase her aviation requirements after the war more cheaply than she can make them herself. “The volume of the American output is hundreds of times greater than Australia’s, yet our little industry has been founded on such economical lines that we are manufacturing first rank operational aircraft as cheaply as the same types can be imported from America. “After the war we could without difficulty make all the land transport planes required for operating our own internal airlines at no greater cost than if we bought them from America.” RANGE OF MANUFACTURES. Outlining steps taken to make the Australian aircraft industry self-con-tained, the correspondent says that since 1940 Australia has manufactured not only airframes and engines, but also accessories, such as electric starters, generators, magnetos, retractable landing gear, variable pitch propellers, aircraft instruments, bombsights, air cannon and gun turrets.

For the future self-sufficiency of the thriving Australian aircraft industry, he adds, it will be necessary to expand resources for the production of bigger and better engines. Three kinds of power units are already manufactured in Australia, with the result that most of the aeroplanes now in Australian skies are powered by Australianbuilt engines.

The correspondent urges bold and speedy action to ensure Australian production, both of combat aircraft for the'Royal Australian Air Force and of civilian aircraft for Australia’s internal airlines after the war.