AVIATION: Curtiss-Wright’s Comeback

When Roy T. Hurley took over as president of Curtiss-Wright Corp. in 1949, he made only one promise: “I’ll put a price tag on every operation in our shop.” Curtiss-Wright needed such tags. The company, once the biggest in the aircraft industry, had been forced to shut down 16 of its 19 engine, propeller and airframe plants. Last week Hurley demonstrated what he meant by price tags; in Curtiss-Wright’s Wood-Ridge, N.J. engine plant, he showed off a faster and cheaper way of making engines by means of a new “automated” assembly line, the most advanced in the aircraft industry.

Instead of building engines the old expensive way by sending men off to stockrooms for each part, Wright now puts everything on conveyor belts to move engine parts to the workers, as in the auto industry. The line, said Hurley, who learned his business as a top Ford production executive in Detroit, takes up 42% less space than the old way, cranks out engines twice as fast at two-thirds the cost.

$1 Billion Feast. At present, Hurley uses the new line only for the 3,500-h.p. Wright Turbo-Compound piston engine, which powers the Fairchild Packet, Lockheed Super Constellation and Douglas DC-7. But Hurley wants to use it for all Curtiss-Wright’s new and secret family of jets and turboprops. There are two new Air Force turboprops, the T47 and T-49, under tight security wraps: both are reported to turn out more than 12,000 h.p. Curtiss-Wright is also testing a jet engine of great power called the J-67, which develops well over 15,000 Ibs. of thrust.

Though Curtiss-Wright has a backlog of almost $1 billion in orders, President Hurley is taking no chances in the feast-or-famine airplane business. A full 30% of his backlog is civilian business, and he is not concentrating on engines alone. Curtiss-Wright is making electronic equipment, textile spindles, windshield wipers, precision clutches, and diesel engine governors. A plastics division makes household gadgets, nylon-molded gears, wheels, and bushings for automobiles. Says Hurley: “Eventually, I would like to match our military business with civilian business, dollar for dollar.”

The Big Leagues. The dollars have been pouring in during the past three years. In 1949, Curtiss-Wright did $128 million worth of business; this year the figure will soar well over $400 million, and profits have more than tripled to $9,000,000. Roy Hurley has another way of figuring his company’s economic health. With the new assembly line and better tools, each of the 20,000 workers at Curtiss-Wright’s Wood-Ridge plant will turn out $14,000 worth of engines a year. Says Hurley, “That’s just about what the auto companies like General Motors get from their men. It means we’re in the big leagues.”