OCR Text |
Show Mass Production Comes to Aircraft Industry The above drawing of Vultee Aircraft's mechanized final assembly assem-bly line shows the revolutionary production developments at the California plant in the last few months. It is trie graphic story of how modern airplanes are made compared to the methods of but a year or two ago, and shows the first mechanized assembly line in the aircraft industry. Instead of the old system of adding one part at a time to a framework and gradually building build-ing up a complete plane, Vultee breaks the ship down into five major units fuselage, tail section, engine assembly, center wing section sec-tion and outer wings. Each is completely put together in subassembly sub-assembly departments. Convey-r Convey-r lines reach out finger-like to bring all five together at the nerve center of production shown above where they are joined to make the plane ready for flight. At the right of the picture, tail sections are assembled, complete with monocoque, stabilizers, rudders, rud-ders, elevators and control cables, and move around on tracks to the center. Meanwhile, at the left, skeleton fuselages travel through assembly stages on a long U-shaped U-shaped conveyor rail, winding up close to their starting point, complete com-plete with instruments, controls, canopies, wiring, etc. A short rail section then moves them across to the finishing line where they join the completed tail sections. The center wing section comes in at the right center of the picture pic-ture from the fabricating ?".d as sembly departments. Meanwhile, at the upper left of the picture, on a balcony, another assembly line is joining motor with engine mount and attaching controls, pip-, ing and other "plumbing." A, chain-driven overhead conveyor carries the complete engine assemblies as-semblies high overhead to the-center the-center of the picture where they; drop from a hoist to the planes; below. Farther down, outer wings' come through the paint shop to be attached to the ships. Beyond' that point controls are adjusted,; final inspection made, and Vultee i planes roll out of the shop and "into the blue." i This new mechanized conveyor line has increased Vultee produc-j tion fourfold in the last few month" |