AVIATION: BATTLE HYMN AT REPUBLIC

Republic Aviation Corp. last week announced that its July and August sales (i.e., plane deliveries) totaled about $2,500,000, biggest two months ever. To the Army Air Forces and Republic stockholders alike this was good news. It meant that the most spectacular U.S. pursuit-plane maker had ended a decade of corporate sideslips, spins and stalls.

Founder Alexander P. de Seversky, Russian-born flyer-designer, was tossed out by his stockholders in 1940. Cautious, businesslike W. Wallace Kellett, autogyro developer, replaced him, while war orders boomed sales tenfold. But early this year Kellett ran into a pack of production troubles (retooling, shortages, etc.). Deliveries sank to only $2,300,000 v. $6,530,000 in the final half of 1940.

Meanwhile the Army, screaming for more ships, decided it would dig up a production man for Republic. The man: energetic Ralph Shepard Damon, 44, whose five years as American Airlines operations vice president were preceded by two decades of aircraft designing and building, mostly with Curtiss-Wright. Damon became president last May; Kellett moved up to chairman (and finance-watcher).

Production-smart Ralph Damon, working 16 to 18 hours a day, soon had the Republic plant roaring full throttle. Employment is now a record 3,500 (Jan. 1: 2,600), and 100-200 men are being added weekly. By delivering scores of fast, reliable P43 pursuits, Republic made enough money in July and August to erase a $319,000 first six months loss. There is even talk of a common-stock dividend, first in Republic history.

Republic makes the only U.S. pursuit ship that uses an air-cooled radial engine. A year ago the Army, all out for liquid-cooled power, gave Republic only enough attention to keep it going. Then the Navy introduced its F4U Vought-Sikorsky fighter, a 2,000-h.p. radial job that could outfly any liquid-cooled Army ship on the line. Army interest in air-cooled pursuits was reawakened.

But it took Damon’s production shake-up to reawaken interest in Republic. Its prize plane, the high-flying Thunderbolt (P-47) had already won it a plump Army order (total: $56,500,000, some of which was ticketed for P-43s). But last week not a single Thunderbolt (except the “mock-up”) had yet been delivered. Few weeks ago Major General “Hap” Arnold, Air Forces chief, dropped in at the Farmingdale, L.I. plant. He was so impressed by what he saw that the Army more than doubled Republic’s backlog (to around $140,000,000).