Speeding Up

OPM last week announced progress in U.S. defense: military aircraft production for the first six months of 1941 had increased 42% over the production of the preceding six months.

Like most figures, this one was too simple. Since a great slice of new military aircraft building at the end of 1940 was trainers--badly needed by the Air Forces but useless for combat--the figures behind this figure were more significant.

In the first half of 1941 U.S. aircraft factories had got going with a bang on fighting planes. Output of two-engined bombers was up 92%; single-engined dive-bombers and torpedo carriers, 146%; pursuit, observation and other combat aircraft, 142%. Only in the production of four-engined bombers was there little or no gain in the first half of 1941, but there was reason to expect that there would be plenty in the second half, with Consolidated (B-24s) and Boeing (B-17s) getting into high-speed production.

The increase in U.S. aircraft production in six months: 1,036 military planes in January, 1,456 in June.

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