Saturday, September 01, 2018

the 1000th airplne built by the Wright Brothers in Dayton Ohio, and a tour of the facility in 1918 as they seem to have completed a bulk order ready to be crated and shipped or ready to assemble airplanes





but the image original size is quite large, and you can open it up to full original size and count rivets.


















https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f.ancestorNaIds=17331752&sort=naIdSort%20asc  which has dozens more step by step photos of them crating, making, and engineering the planes

thanks Bruce!

12 comments:

  1. Great photos! You get a much better idea of the craftsmanship that was going into the DH4s and Standard J's. The Liberty engine shop is interesting in that you see mostly women working there, I guess Rosie the Riveter got an early start.

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    1. Her mom... Rosie was WW2. This being WW1, I'll say we've got to credit her mom.
      I wonder if employees were separated by sex to prevent harassment, or insults, or was it due to something else?

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    2. I think as someone else posted here, that it might be it was work that required good hand eye coordination and attention to detail. Another reason that occurred to me is that it was cheaper, and engine assembly was a task that can be taught relatively quickly, versus the need for skilled metal and wood workers. Not a nice reason but at the time common.

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  2. Engines built by women who couldn't vote.

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    1. uh, ok. I don't know where to go with that, voting doesn't have anything to do with building planes, or engines. I haven't noticed how being able to, or not voting, has had any effect on my life. Well, people only want what they can't have, like teens and drinking beer. Women still haven't used voting to get the ERA passed, elect a female president, etc in the 99 years they've had the vote. They allegedly don't get paid the same either.
      ergo, voting has done what for women?
      hell, what's it even done for men?

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  3. Anonymous10:10 PM

    That looks like the GA plants in Poway...they own about half of Poway now...hehe

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  4. Women are often used today and were in the past to do what was considered precision work on the assumption that they were more detail oriented. I think that is why you often see rooms full of women assemblers in electronics factories. As to the veracity of that assumption I won't take sides!

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    1. I worked at Raytheon for 5 years, and there were no men in the soldering dept. All the parts were removed and replaced, not by electronics techs that had an education in electronics, and could trouble shoot the circuits and systems, but by people with the training to solder, unsolder, and clean the components. It's a lot faster to get a J Standard soldering cert than it is to learn AC, DC, Digital, and troubleshooting... not to mention test equipment like O Scopes and digital analyzers

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  5. Something else that occurred to me as I was following the link and looking at other pictures in the archives is whether these planes were flown before they were shipped. I suspect they weren't. Though they were completely assembled they're broken back down and crated. That would mean that the first time they were flight tested was somewhere in France by the guys who were taking them into combat. Been looking but I haven't been able to find any information one way or the other.

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    1. Not tested, just built and shipped. They weren't even finish built, assemblies were built and shipped, as complete as possible. This was before ISO 9000! They built a couple, tested them, got the govt contract after proving them, and then went into fast production. Seems reasonable enough given the situation.
      Hell, they were fortunate that parts interchangeability was a priority!

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    2. Thank you. From what I've read it was quite fast, with Dayton-Wright and others getting the sample DH4 and the blueprints in mid 1917. The manufacturing of the Liberty series engines is also nothing short of amazing. Though they had numerous faults the concept of a mass manufactured aircraft engine with a modular design was revolutionary. The downside to all of this was the war ended just as the U.S. was getting into full production mode. The Army Air Corps ended up with (given their post war size and flying hours) 27 years worth of Liberty 12 engines. The TBO was so poor that mechanics often didn't bother with rebuilds and just got another new engine out of the warehouse. Alison Engines got their start with rebuilding and re-designing L12's to make them more powerful and reliable.

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