AVIATION: Safety Through Air Mail?

After studying the problem for a year, President Truman’s seven-man Air Coordinating Committee, which is headed by Assistant Secretary of State Garrison Norton and Civil Aeronautics Board Chairman James M. Landis, last week published a 17-page report on U.S. aviation policy. The gist of it was that something would have to be done, and in a hurry, if U.S. air power is not to slip into impotence. The reason: the U.S. air industry, which has fallen rapidly to peacetime rags from wartime riches, is just about on the rocks.

Sidelines. The industry’s plight was no secret. Instead of the 30 million pounds of airframe (about 3,000 planes) estimated in 1945 as the minimum necessary to keep aircraft factories alive, U.S. planemakers are operating at an annual rate of only 20 million pounds. The armed services, which had hoped for between 2,500 and 3,500 new planes a year, have been cut by Congress to about 1,400—barely enough to keep six plants going.

Commercial orders are nowhere near large enough to bridge the gap. Since January, planemakers have turned out only 145 multi-engined transports for the airlines and the saturation point is already at hand. To keep their heads above water, manufacturers have switched to new sidelines. Douglas is now making aluminum dinghies as well as bomber frames. Bell has gone into metal furniture and gasoline engines; Curtiss-Wright turns out textile spindles and film projectors. Even those companies still making money are having trouble keeping skilled labor crews and engineering staffs together, are trimming their sails for the day when present backlogs run out.

Double-Barreled Approach. The job of drawing up a solution and selling it to Congress next January would fall to the new, top Air Policy Commission.*Already in the blueprint stage is a program sketched in by the services, the State Department, the Civil Aeronautics Board and ACC subcommittees. Its goal: a new production minimum, which would probably run to 40 million pounds of airframe a year. Its double-barreled approach: 1) to move all first-class mail and parcel post by air; 2) to help airlines buy the new planes necessary to carry the load with federal loans and subsidies.

Planners figured that the scheme would more than double present commercial production, would also mean development of new planes capable of handling heavy bulk loads. The services would benefit directly by tagging all federal-subsidized planes as part of the military reserve.

Airmen knew they were in for protests from railroaders and shipping men. They could not even estimate the costs of their plan. But the airmen had one big argument: unless something is done now to check the downswing in U.S. air power, the eventual cost might never be calculable in dollars.

-Members: Manhattan Lawyer Thomas K. Finletter (chairman), Harvard Professor George P. Baker, Denver Post Publisher Palmer Hoyt, Henry Ford II, Arthur D. Whiteside, president of Dun & Bradstreet.