Wartime Build Quality?

[John Dupre]

I have a theory I want to try out on real experts. It seems to me that US and British pre war aircraft would have had very good build quality since in the depression era there were many people competing for jobs and anyone that couldn't cut it could be replaced fairly quickly. Early wartime expansion would have led to a decrease in build quality for a couple of years as every manufacturer was ramping up with lots of less experienced workers. Late war production aircraft probably had better quality since by then everyone had a couple of years of concentrated experience. Sound fair? Is there evidence to back this up in surviving aircraft of the era?

[seagull61785]

John,

I'm not qualified to comment on wartime aircraft quality but your theory certainly seems to stack up on wartime military small arms weapons. As a collector of Lee Enfield rifles (which are all dated with their year of manufacturer), I can vouch that the specimens I have of these rifles produced in the war years were of marked inferior quality to those built between the wars and post-war. This is irrespective of whether they were produced at the British Enfield factory, the Canadian plant at Long Branch, Australian Lithgow plant or the Indian facility at Ishapore.

They pretty well all shoot to an acceptable standard but the peacetime production certainly has a better finish than the examples built in the early war years.

Your theory has a degree of credence. Could well be correct.

Barry

[Stoney]

My 1943 Long branch and my ex 1944 SNJ are all still working fine. The SMLE with 2 groove barrel is very accurate.

[N3Njeff]

On my honeymoon to Vegas my new bride let me continue on from the hover dam to kingman az. We stopped and visited their historical museum after our visit to the airfield. There on display was a salvaged nose art off a B-17. I walked around the back side and looked at the wartime rivets. Many would not pass in today's standards.

[JohnB]

While not addressing build quality, everything wasn't perfect on the home front.
As mentioned, wartime expansion brought a lot of new hires into the defense industry. I've read (I believe in Peter Bowers book Boeing Aircraft since 1916) that the Seattle plant had trouble with some former "professional ladies of the night" who were hired. It seems they spent much of their time lining up moonlighting assignations instead of building B-17s. He doesn't say if the extra duty occurred on company property or after work.

It's a great topic, since you had car builders switching to aircraft and other new items, and many of the younger men in the workforce were off fighting so you had a lot of new-hires working. Again, I've read of Grumman building a aircraft (TBF or Wildcat) put together with cotter pins so the GM employees could learn about aircraft. Add to that factories where there was no history of large industrial plants, notably the Bell B-29 plant in Georgia, so a huge part of the workforce was new to the industry.

I've got to think somewhere there is a government (probably formerly classified) report addressing this topic, possibly done by a group like the well-known Truman Committee.

Also, it might be interesting if some of us in states that had large defense plants, contact state University history departments, perhaps a grad student has already done a thesis on this topic.

Last year on TCM there was a early wartime (40-42) film about some people who end up working at the Lockheed Burbank plant, while the personal stories were rather predictable (struggling would-be actress, young guy who wants to fly and his older immigrant dad) it did address some training issues and rather practical matters about a housing and transportation shortage...all with shots of the real plant and a few Hudsons. If anyone remembers the name, please share it.

Likewise, some history of industrial unrest has been pretty much swept under the carpet by folks wearing rose-colored glasses about the nation being totally united during the war years.

[hang the expense]

The early model P-40s were very nicely built and the riveting was second to none.The later models were ok but you could sure see a difference in the quality.The line moves at 12 so they had to contend with that.The highest rollout at the Curtiss plant was 40 P-40s rolled out in one 24 hour period.

[sandiego89]

There is some validity to your theory when it comes to US WWII shipbuliding, especially the Liberty ship program, where a new design, lots of new welders, and a huge push for speed led to serious quality issues. Some tradeoff between speed of construction and quality was accepted, but there were other quality issues related to the workforce, cost cutting, laziness, experience, etc. Some early ships simply broke apart due to a combination of design and build quality issues. Late program ships were quite a bit better, and some yards delivered better ships of the same design.

One paper on liberty ships. http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bn/reading_g ... ompson.pdf

[Dan Jones]

The late Gary Austin told me that the quality of the aluminum alloys was better pre-war than during the war. The metal (particularly in regards to it's susceptibility to corrosion) was vastly different between their pre-war built B-24 and the B-29 even though it was the same alloy. The build quality of my Aug 1941 built BT-13 is obviously better than some later built pieces that I have. The fit and riveting is better overall as is the priming and painting. My rear fuselage was not only USAAF blue on the outside, but also it's completely primed and painted blue on the inside.

[N3Njeff]

The late Gary Austin told me that the quality of the aluminum alloys was better pre-war than during the war. The metal (particularly in regards to it's susceptibility to corrosion) was vastly different between their pre-war built B-24 and the B-29 even though it was the same alloy. The build quality of my Aug 1941 built BT-13 is obviously better than some later built pieces that I have. The fit and riveting is better overall as is the priming and painting. My rear fuselage was not only USAAF blue on the outside, but also it's completely primed and painted blue on the inside.

Surprised on the BT...............I can only imagine the horror stories that came from Boeing in their PT, N2S line

[Dan Jones]

Surprised on the BT...............I can only imagine the horror stories that came from Boeing in their PT, N2S line

No doubt there were some, but it staggers the imagination to think of anyone being so hard up for material that they'd build "an aeroplane" out of all that second-hand, ex dirigible junk.

[JohnB]

The late Gary Austin told me that the quality of the aluminum alloys was better pre-war than during the war. The metal (particularly in regards to it's susceptibility to corrosion) was vastly different between their pre-war built B-24 and the B-29 even though it was the same alloy.

I'm not sure it mattered since no one was thinking about or expecting the aircraft to last 50+years post-war.
I was at a military vehicle show and examined what was said to be a very original kubelwagon, the flat hood VW-based "jeep".
Along the floorpan where they body tub was attached were spot welds about 6-8 inches apart. The minimum to do the job.

[N3Njeff]

http://www.mohavemuseum.org/kaaf4.html?
Was from a B-17 named "lucky partners"

[maxum96]

I forget where I read it, but I remember someone said they had to fix a lot of electrical glitches on new B-29's due to lousy soldering because they were being produced so fast.

[SaxMan]

When you consider the sheer numbers of aircraft that were produced, it is amazing that the build quality was as good as it was. In 1944 alone, America produced over 100,000 aircraft. With some exceptions (the B-29 comes to mind, in particular), World War II aircraft were fairly straightforward machines and the tolerances in their construction were considerably greater than what you would see today.

Grumman was probably most notable for having the most consistency in their designs. For example, the F6F saw very little in the way of major changes as you saw with the F4U, let alone the P-47 or P-51. This consistency probably helped improve build quality, as even newly trained workers will get the hang of something if they continued doing the same process over and over.

[marine air]

About ten years ago I got to co-pilot a PBY on a few flights. I remember talking to a WW II veteran that was absolutely shocked to see the PBY. He had been injured early in the war, discharged and worked the last couple years at the Consolidated plant at Louisville, Ky. He couldn't believe anything built by Consolidated was still flying because the workmanship at Louisville, was atrocious. He said they were building B-24s.