National Defense: Allison Bugs

Last week Aircraft Maker Lawrence (Airacobra) Bell showed newsmen his recently expanded factory in Buffalo. His guests inspected hundreds of gleaming, new machine tools, saw that Larry Bell had perhaps the finest aircraft plant in the U. S. They looked over a production line of some 30 Airacobras —all-metal, low-winged, single-engined pursuit planes designed to fly upwards of 400 m.p.h., climb phenomenally fast to intercept enemy bombers. And the visitors got a lesson in the status of U. S. defense.

One Airacobra was in service. Two were nearly finished. Three a day should be trundling off the production line for the U. S. Army and Navy within three months, five a day by next spring (plus additional planes for Great Britain). But Larry Bell last week had on hand only one of the 37-mm. cannon which fire through the Airacobra’s nose. He had only one propeller designed for the cannon (which projects through a hole in the propeller hub). Worst of all he had only three liquid-cooled, in-line Allison engines.

Three U. S. fighting planes are built around the Allison engine: Bell’s Airacobra; Curtiss-Wright’s snappy P-4O (also made in Buffalo) ; Lockheed’s twin-engined P-38. Curtiss-Wright last week had its P-4O production up to seven a day, for the moment had enough Allisons, but only because Bell and Lockheed did not yet need them in quantity. Both soon will; there will not be enough for all three for months. One or more will have to finish fuselages and wings, store them and wait for engines.

General Motors Corp.’s Allison-making subsidiary in Indianapolis has had many a headache, many a delay. This was to be expected: all new engines have “bugs,” and the liquid-cooled Allison was a daring departure from the radial, air-cooled engines which had become standard in the U. S. In August, Allison expected to turn out 130 engines, actually produced 80, most of which went to Curtiss-Wright. These still had bugs, were limited to 950 instead of their rated 1,050 h.p. Last week the Army heard good Allison news for a change: that the last bugs had been eliminated, that Allison from now on would turn up full horsepower. Allison’s production schedule called for 165-170 engines this month, 190 in November, 240 in December, 310 in January, 400 a month by early next year. Bell, Curtiss-Wright, Lockheed hoped and waited to be shown.